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When I was a kid, my parents were caretakers on a ranch and every April, the owners (practically family) would come for a week and we’d do “Spring Cleaning.”  Vinegar and water in buckets, lots of rags, and everything got a once-over.  I loved it because not only did I get my own bucket, but Auntie Vera (one of the owners) would make me butter and salami sandwiches and give me a cup of coffee in a teacup with a thimble of coffee and a whole lot of milk and sugar.

I never worked that spring cleaning into my own adulting routine, so everything is a bit dusty and some things don’t really have a place (yet?).  I may have things in my closet that no longer fit or duplicates of others, but it is what it is.

As I thought about spring cleaning (and then decided that I no longer desire a bucket of my own and my body can’t handle that much fat and sugar), I thought that maybe genealogy could be a good thing to spring clean.  Afterall, I cleaned up my toolbox (see Monday’s post) and that felt pretty good.

I have genealogy everywhere.  I have 16 3-ring binders downstairs with labels for each of my 2nd great grandparents’ surnames.  I created these binders in the 1990s and have not updated them since creation.  Most of the info there is printouts from the internet.  I need to review the binders and get it all digitized and organized.

I have photos all over my computer.  All over.  There are photos from every which way and none are organized.  I need to organize my digital photos.

Speaking of photos, I have a giant box of them from my grampa, and 4 scrapbooks.  They need to be digitized and organized.

And let’s not forget to prune the tree.  OMG the tree.  I have my Family Tree Maker database that is relatively (pun-intended) clean but not documented.  Then I have one on Ancestry.com that is… not good.  There are wrong turns all over with grafting into other peoples trees that shouldn’t be there.  I need to clean up and document my FTM database.  I did try this before by starting a RootsMagic database and no one was allowed to be put in there with a fact that wasn’t verified.  I couldn’t find my own birth certificate… so… well, it’s empty.

I asked AI how to start all this and it said:

Before you can clean anything up, you have to actually look at what you’ve got. Pull it all together — the desktop folder, the binder with the cracked spine, the shoebox under the guest bed. Don’t start organizing yet. Just look. Most of us wildly underestimate how much stuff has piled up, and it helps to see it all at once before you decide where to start.

You’ll probably find a mix of: documents (birth certificates, census images, military records), photographs (some labeled, many not), correspondence (old letters, printed emails, Christmas cards with little handwritten notes in the margin), research notes (this is usually the chaotic part — notebooks, sticky notes, the backs of envelopes), and digital files in varying states of chaos.

Once it’s all in front of you, take a breath. Pick one category. Start there. Don’t try to do everything in a weekend.

I know that AI is brilliant, but I don’t think I can honestly pull everything I have into one place.  I have stuff in every nook and cranny that exists in my home and in my computer and in my brain.  I’d need to just move it all into a new house.

I think I will start with the binders and see where that takes me.

Where do you need to spring clean your genealogy?

Helpful Links
Events: https://www.californiaancestors.org/events-and-education/
Special Interest Groups: https://www.californiaancestors.org/special-interest-groups-for-members/
Calendar view: https://www.californiaancestors.org/cgs_calendar/
Tips & Talk: Oakland FamilySearch Center Family History Classes: https://www.familysearch.org/en/centers/oakland_california/classes

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Questions? Email [email protected]

Many years ago, I had a bajillion bookmarks saved in my browser.  I got a new computer and lost all my bookmarks.  I started over, but was smart and saved them in an online bookmark tool.  That tool changed to a paid model that was also spam and changed all my bookmarks to point to paid sites where they would get a cut.  I started over, but this time kept them in a Word doc of my own saved on my computer and accessible via DropBox.

It still lives there, but before joining this CGS blog, I wasn’t doing much genealogy searching and so it was dusty and with broken threads all over it.  I used Claude (AI) to shore it up and remove the dust and fix the broken threads.

It’s not a pretty document, but it’s my personal genealogy toolbox.  I’m happy to share my toolbox, but I do encourage you to make your own of your favorites that you need to go back to.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9rjula4miz3f5obj2xep5/MMToolbox.pdf?rlkey=h5wba8r2clyoxmn4jd5m8050c&st=ii58adpo&dl=0

Helpful Links
Events: https://www.californiaancestors.org/events-and-education/
Special Interest Groups: https://www.californiaancestors.org/special-interest-groups-for-members/
Calendar view: https://www.californiaancestors.org/cgs_calendar/
Tips & Talk: Oakland FamilySearch Center Family History Classes: https://www.familysearch.org/en/centers/oakland_california/classes

To register for an event or for more information, click the link for any event. All times are Pacific Time.
Questions? Email [email protected]

I was notified of a book that sounds like it’s right up our alley!  The Presidio of San Francisco, from Outpost of Empire to Magnificent Park, by John P Langellier.

Since ancient times societies have employed outposts to secure new frontiers. The Presidio of San Francisco, founded in 1776, offers a classic case study of this phenomenon.  Under the flags of Spain, Mexico, and the United States, this bastion by the bay stood guard over a major port that evolved into the storied city by the Golden Gate. 

 During the early phases of the presidio’s precarious existence, the Spanish erected a less-than-imposing fort and a pair of tiny artillery emplacements armed with antiquated cannons. In the early 1820s, the Mexican government inherited the burden of the bay’s defense and the upper reaches of Alta California. Their efforts proved inadequate to stave off the onslaught of the United States as it marched westward in quest of manifest destiny. By the 1840s the US Army constructed major defense bulwarks on both sides of the “harbor of harbors.” Early earthen and brick bastions gave way to steel and concrete, and eventually missiles bearing nuclear warheads studded the landscape.   

These previously formidable sentinels now stand silent and empty. Former military reservations no longer poise ready for war. Nearly two and a half centuries after the first band of King Carlos III’s lancers planted the Spanish banner on windswept dunes, this once remote military outpost now serves a new purpose as a magnificent national park. Swords have been beaten into proverbial plowshares, but at a cost of sweat and blood by generations of troops, their families, and others, beginning with the peninsula’s original inhabitants to later stalwart soldiers from three nations. Some of them achieved fame, but most led ordinary lives. Both this unique place and the many people who made their homes here form an integral part of our nation’s fascinating, complex past.

About the Author

JOHN P. LANGELLIER received both a BA and MA from the University of San Diego in history/historical archeology with an emphasis on the Spanish borderlands and American West. He subsequently obtained his PhD from Kansas State University with an emphasis on military history. Thereafter, his public history career of over four decades included postings as a historian, museum and archives director, and instructor. Langellier is the author of more than twenty books, including Scouting with the Buffalo Soldiers: Lieutenant Powhatan Clarke, Frederic Remington, and the Tenth U.S. Cavalry in the Southwest (UNT Press); Fighting for Uncle Sam: Buffalo Soldiers in the Frontier Army; Bluecoats: The U.S. Army in the West, 1848–1897; Longknives: The U.S. Cavalry and Other Mounted Forces, 1848–1942; and Custer: The Man, the Myth, the Movies.

This book is ready for pre-order here: https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781574419986/bastion-by-the-bay/

Helpful Links
Events: https://www.californiaancestors.org/events-and-education/
Special Interest Groups: https://www.californiaancestors.org/special-interest-groups-for-members/
Calendar view: https://www.californiaancestors.org/cgs_calendar/
Tips & Talk: Oakland FamilySearch Center Family History Classes: https://www.familysearch.org/en/centers/oakland_california/classes