FamilySearch, my first week

 In late January 2021 a family member (GS), requested I populate a familysearch.org with the family tree connecting the NJ Paffendorfs with the CA Greenwoods. My initial response was to mention I had other priorities, and to point her at a long ago effort sharing ancestry charts & index in 1999. However I created an account and checked if some folks had already been entered. I did not take notes, but some at the great grandparent level were. I could look at the person records and send thank you messages to those whose work I appreciated. The hook was these little blue index cards indicating records that might apply. Census records would allow me to pull in spouses and children with a couple clicks each. It was addictive. One person leading to the next. This is great. Official records was something I had barely started before my computer ate my efforts. 

Statistics:

• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/sources/sourceBox 104
• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/following/ 42
• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/contributions/stats 240
• https://www.familysearch.org/en recommended task list (including records) view more?
• memories?

They led to further pondering.

Sources: 

Earlier I had taken pictures of some headstones and put them in findagrave (maybe 2 dozen). I was pointed other findagrave entries as well (Maerose, Fred, Dolly). Added Tishe and linked to Pete (thanks Janet for the picture). Not sure how long it will take for this to be available to familysearch. Linking of family members may be done on findagrave as well.  Common findagrave practice seems to be putting the obit texts under bio. It would be nice to have a list of findagrave people with numbers - preferably sorted alphabetically by last, first. For myself I had saved some to findagrave virtual cemeteries by branches, but it is another thing to keep up to date.

I created and linked 5 pages of 20+ ancestry charts from www.paffendorf.sj.ca.us/Family . I used these mostly to solve ambiguity questions. I did not do any cross checking of details. I suspect there is a more correct way of cataloging data.

I tried  to pull in an obituary from outside for PG. (now it is in findagrave too. I should link it in that way instead.) Once again the tool was straight forward, but how to best use it is not.

What are the rest? census, birth, baptism, marriage, divorce, obits... Things I should add to my records.

I am not enthused at putting my records here and giving all rights to LDS. I do like being able to link bits of a document image to a person record.

Following:

• Did I star all the people I edited?
• Do I want the ancestry trees above that others worked on?
• The app on my phone notified me when JG added a memory. nice.

contributions: 240/8days=30

This is a huge list. Will I actually make a copy of my descendant charts and high light the people I edited? 

task lists:

So many blue index cards left

 

Other topics for  future discussion:

• My general path to 1999 and now (gpa, dad)
• familysearch - pros, cons, and questions - DONE called it observations
• other tools- related and not
• documents - fs sources, fs memories, fs stories, fs projects, fs batches, fs indexing, transcriptions,
• digitizing papers
• digitizing photos

To do:

• print sources for my records 
• verify against my ancestor and dependant trees?
• go thru dad's resources
• see if I can pull anything off computer backup
• pictures
• search and link on find a grave
• install and populate s/w  - so many choices.
• digitizing photos, documents, art
• familysearch tasks

• connect the Jersey Paffendorfs with the NY Paffendorfs
• THere was a hickup in the Paffendorfs going back
• familyTreeDNA
• Translate JeffG german/latin