Can’t Be Stressed Enough . . .
I used to work in a computer store as a tech. We always stressed the importance of doing regular backups. This is something that I adamantly preach, but unfortunately failed to practice. About a month ago, my hard drive crashed. Most of the data on there will be missed, of course. The most heartbreaking, however, was the loss of nearly five hundred pictures (mostly of my eighteen-month-old daughter) and Family Tree Maker files. I was almost sick with the thought of how many memories I had lost and the time it would take to re-type everything. I now back up all data at least once a week, more often if I make a lot of changes. Please, back up your data NOW.
 
Kevin D. Babiuk

Photos Online
The town I grew up in, Westboro, Massachusetts, has an incredible website. The historical society has made available very old pictures of the town on post cards. I have pictures of the town center with horse hitching posts in clear sight. Also, there are some of the earliest autos. Westboro is the 100th town incorporated and a history of the town is available going back to the time of Indian raids. It has both stories and pictures about well known persons such as Eli Whitney (inventor of cotton gin) and a picture off his gravesite. I used to walk through that cemetery every day on my way to school. The site is full of all kinds of information. There are stories and information about Revolutionary War heroes as well as Civil War gravesites. In addition, they describe what the area was like before any one settled there–examples what the swamps were like.

Anne LaPointe Anderson

Reviewing Your Genealogy Report
Once in a while I will go to one of my ancestors’ page and with that
person selected I click on “View,” “Reports,” and “Genealogy Report” in my Family Tree Maker database just to see how it reads. I have found that as I am reading through it, I find omissions or items out of sequence, such as sequence of marriages of a person might be out of order, then I jot them down and go back and fill in the corrections which will put that event or item in correctly. It also helps me find items that I can pursue which I may have overlooked before.
 
Note: You will not be able to correct the item on the report page,
you must return to the actual entry page of the person you need to
correct.
 
Karen Shear
Holmesville, Ohio, USA

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