Saturday Night Fun! Show Us Your Genealogy Space!

Randy over at Genea-Musings has been challenging Genea-Bloggers to some Saturday night fun. I have wanted to participate but have found that Saturday nights are generally inconvenient for me. I saw that Thomas over at Destination Austin Family chose to do his post today in order to get better photos for the post. What a great idea I thought! Why can't I post the following day? I think I will! So here you have my first post for Saturday Night Fun! Here is Randy's challenge for last night:

Here's the challenge for tonight:

1) Take a digital picture of your Genealogy Space - whether it is a table, desk, bookcase, whatever. Take more than one if you want.

2) Show off your Genealogy Space to all of us in a blog post showing your digital pictures. If you aren't blogging or don't want to show us your pictures, go to 3) below without passing Go or collecting another ancestor.

3) Tell us something about your Genealogy Space. How long does it take you to find something? Are you thinking of reorganizing your space?

Ok, I took some pictures, during day light before I left for a birthday party this afternoon. I noticed one picture of my printer didn't turn out as there was to much light for the shot. But, I do have plenty of other shots for you.

This is my little corner in the family room where my laptop sits and I spend most of my time on the computer. You can see the basket on the floor which houses most of the current things I am reading (magazines, books, etc.) and or projects I am working on. The purpose of having my laptop here is so I can spend more time with my husband, instead of being locked up in the other room. Ha! Does it really matter? He watches TV, I am on the computer, he falls asleep and I am up til heaven knows when, still on the computer! Now, he may wake, say good night and head to bed, but other than that I am not sure we even acknowledge the other one is there! It was just a good excuse to get my laptop! ;-)

Now, truthfully, I should be spending time in the office doing my genealogy. I have a very nice desk to work on which has pull outs to add extra table space. Here is a picture of the office, but you won't see the area where my printer is or my husband's computer, that is the picture that the camera decided you all weren't suppose to see.

You can see I have a file cabinet to the left of my desk and a printer, fax machine, phone on top of the filing cabinet. The cabinet has folders with surnames and basically holds things that need to be filed in binders, or possibly something I maybe currently working with. Now I know you must be saying, "Oh that is great, she isn't showing us the inside of the desk! What a mess it must be!" Normally you would be right! But, for once, the inside of my desk is pretty darned clean. It just so happens I must have known with my sixth sense that Randy would be doing this fun event, so I purposely cleaned it a couple weeks ago! (I wish that sixth sense would work for my genealogy!) So, to be fair, I took a photo of the inside of my desk so you can see how clean it actually is! It may never be like this again, so please enjoy! :-)

I have a book case on the opposite wall from my desk where I use to keep my binders and books. But when I cleaned I moved everything from the bookcase to the closet. My husband kept putting his stuff in the bookcase also, what a mess that became! Husbands...we can't live with them, and we can't live without them! I decided in order to keep my things how I wanted them, I would let him have the bookcase, so here is what I now have in the closet. Half of the closet has a couple shelves on the lower end where I have family binders, magazines and a couple photo albums I need to scan. The second shelf has periodicals, page protectors, paper and odds and ends. Under those shelves I have a box which contains pictures I need to go through and scan.

Next is the other side of the closet. It has one shelf which contains my reference books and binders, which hold the paperwork to the classes I have taken. I need to label the sides of the binders, although I have labeled the fronts of them already. Low and behold! I find I have space under this shelf on the floor! I am sure I can find SOMETHING to fill it up with!




Now that you have seen my office and my corner in the family room, I need to let you know that I don't confine my genealogy work to just two rooms, oh no! I also occupy the dining room table from time to time! It just so happens that I am indeed occupying it right now! Shoot, I guess that means no guests for dinner...darn! You will also see a birthday gift on the table, but it is no longer there, so no, the gift wasn't for you this time, so sorry!

This is the main scanner I use. There are pictures sitting right next to the scanner so when I get a few minutes I can scan a few photos! The picture immediately following this one of the dining room table, shows a basket on the floor, which contains pictures and things I have recently scanned and now needs filing.

Now, don't you all use more than one place in your house to do genealogy? Or am I the only one who does? Honestly, I think I do pretty well, I could be using all the other bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, or even the bathrooms! Hum, this reminds me, I am using a closet that contains a safe which holds all of my genealogy certificates, birth certificates, death certificates, etc. I feel they are safer in there in case of water or fire. I wonder if my husband realizes how much space is consumed by genealogy? Oh geez, another closet full of albums that need to be scanned...I am going to quit thinking about this now...

Ok, I do have one last photo for you. I just had to add this one. If you have read Thomas's post(his site is listed above, and nice job Thomas, I just saw what you did, looks awesome!) you would know that he doesn't like his back up hard drive to sit on the floor and get dusty and dirty. Hum, I think I need to take a lesson from him....mine is on the floor. Sigh. Ok, now, please do me a favor and don't look closer at this photo, I am sure if you do, you will see all the dust and dirt Thomas is talking about! Thanks for not looking! (Actually, I am sure there is dust in most of the pictures!)

Thank you for stopping by!

Wishing you success in all of your genealogical treasure hunts!

Cheryl