I'm engaged! S. popped the question on Thanksgiving day and we've set the date for July 26th. The fact that I'm posting this so long after the fact just shows how important my blog is to me these days. He asked me to marry him over Xbox 360 Live. It was awesome! He asked a bunch of people from the internet forums he frequents to send messages to his Live account saying, "J., will you marry S.?" So all day I kept seeing popups while we watched TV saying he had new messages. Right before we left to go to his parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner he said he should probably check his messages to see if it was anything important. When he opened his inbox every message on the screen was a marriage proposal!
In other news, I'm still working on the scarf for my mother's Xmas present. It's coming along nicely, but when I get it to the right length I'll have to bring it to work so V. can help me weave in the loose ends. I hope to finish it this weekend, cuz I'd love to have time before Christmas to whip up a pair of fingerless mitts. I'm also working a second job, which means 12 hour days Monday through Friday. At least I have my weekends free for wedding planning! And knitting, I hope.

Well, the Weightless Scarf encountered tragedy just a week before my "deadline" (aka - my friend's birthday). So it's now going to be a Christmas present - IF I can manage it. In the meantime, I needed something a bit simpler, so I'm knitting the Midwest Moonlight scarf by Ivy Bigelow from Scarf Style. It's fabulous!! It's simple, fun, and beautiful. It's going to be my mom's Christmas present. She's allergic to both wool and acrylic, so she can never find scarves in the store. So I'm making this one out of a fabulous cotton yarn. I'm trying to keep one thing on the needles at a time, but the colder it gets outside the more I'm tempted to go ahead and cast on some fingerless mitts for myself. My hands are always cold!
In other news... I GOT MY RAVELRY INVITE!!!!!!!!!! Yay! It's so much fun. I've posted all my needles and yarn stash and books, joined three groups and found the pattern I will use when I do cast on those fingerless gloves.

On the work front, things are looking up. We're actually ahead of schedule for the first time in two months. And we're having a meeting in the near future to discuss "what we want out of our jobs" because, in the words of our boss, "we can make these jobs into whatever we want them to be." That's music to my ears!

*Sigh* I got my needles and yarn out for the weightless scarf (mentioned yesterday) and, lo and behold, it calls for circulars, not straights. So at some point this week I have to go across town to my lys and pick up some circular size 15 needles. I guess this is going to be a Christmas present instead of a birthday present. With S. out of town this week I had planned on getting the house really, really clean for once. But now it looks as though I'll be working late nearly every night this week, so I have to decide which is more important - relaxing with a good book and/or some knitting, or cleaning the house. Ugh. Well, at any rate, I can pick up the needles when I go across town to have dinner with the 'rents. That way I only have to make the drive once. Whether I actually use the needles this week is another story. I'll keep you posted.

OK, so I've changed the theme of my blog. It's now just sort of about my life in general. There will still be posts about genealogy research, but also about work, life, books and knitting. Maybe blogging will stick this time. Who knows, but it's worth a try.

I started knitting back in, hmm, I don't know - June? My coworker and friend, V., taught me how. I'm still only a novice, but so far I've done a couple of afghan squares, a scarf and a half, one fingerless glove (I wasn't totally happy with it, so I don't know if I want to make the second one or start over the first with a different pattern), and ten flowers for V.'s bridal shower. I got the pattern for these from Blue Bell Knitting Guild. Thanks! They were a big hit!


My next project is going to be a Weightless Shawl from Mason Dixon Knitting for my friend P.'s birthday. I'll post some pics once I get it started.

This weekend I took every bit of information that has already been collected on all sides of my family and compiled it into one pedigree. There's a lot of it, and it took a long time, but now that it's done it's much easier to sort through! My parents have asked me to concentrate on my maternal grandmother's family, so that's what I'm doing now. At first I was all excited because according to what my distant cousin had put together there was a husband and wife in this family line (my 4th grandparents?) who died on the same day in 1748 - both young. That could have led to a really fascinating story - a fire or a murder or something. Alas, when I found other people's records on Rootsweb it turned out that they both died "sometime after" that day in 1748. So no juicy story there. But that's okay, that leaves me with the mystery of when they did actually die. I'm also stuck on immigration records. The man I'm looking for came over from Scotland in the last half of the 18th century and settled in PA. But did he sail directly to PA? And can I narrow down the date of his sailing? And why, oh why, does he have to have one of the most generic names in the world - William Wilson?
A few things I need to do:

• get my printer working!
• find and read one really good book about doing online genealogy research (since that's all I can do right now)
• get back to work.

And so to work....

I know that there are a lot of steps to take before I can actually be a Professional Genealogist. I just don't know in what order I should take those steps. I need to

• Find a mentor
• Join the local Genealogical Society
  
• Take certification classes
• Get field experience
• Advertise and get clients
• Take certification exams & apply for certification
• Take accreditation exams & apply for accreditation
• Set up a sole proprietorship or LLC

Here's the thing, though - which comes first? The coursework or the field experience? The getting clients or the setting up a sole proprietorship? The field experience or the getting clients? And then there are obstacles at each step. I know the names of several PGs in my hometown (who are apparently no longer taking new clients), but I know nothing about their personalities or whether they would be good mentors, let alone willing to take on a mentee. As for the certification classes, they cost money, which I don't have a lot of extra right now. And finally, am I allowed to advertise myself as an independent researcher without registering as a sole proprietorship? Or do I have to register first? All of these obstacles can be overcome with a little bit of investigating, but until I get the time to investigate they are all floating around in my head worrying me. Thank goodness the weekend is coming up. And my boss is back in town today (briefly) so I can talk with her about coming in earlier and leaving earlier. It'll all come together with a little patience.

I should have known this. After all, my father gave me the "family history" (a 200-odd page typed and Kinko's-bound spiral affair) years ago. But I only just really sat down and looked at it last night. Turns out it's not a family history at all. It's only about my grandfather. Not that there's anything wrong with that - he had a fascinating life! But it is rather disappointing to sit down to what you think is going to be your whole family history going back several generations only to find out you're reading a biography of one family member. Apparently my uncle has lots more of these spiral-bound missives, presumably about the rest of the ancestors. But I have yet to see them.

The exciting thing is that there are still some mysteries to fill in, so I have something to work with to get experience! And according to my mother, whoever did their side of the family did a terrible job, so it needs lots of work. So that's sort of good news for me too!

And now for Wednesday's family story...

I have two older brothers who are, in fact, much older than me. Let's call them J. and G. I grew up hearing them have the same argument over and over about one particular incident from their childhoods. My dad was in the military, so the family lived on base. I believe that at the time of "the incident" they were at Fort Campbell, KY.* In their yard was a large metal transformer (electricity, not action figure). According to J. (the younger), he and G. were playing "bullfighter" and G. deliberately put the makeshift cape in front of this transformer, causing J. to slam his head painfully into the side of the thing. To this day G. swears that J. simply tripped over his own feet (imagine J.'s reaction to such an accusation!) and that he never would have played such a horrendous trick on his beloved younger brother. I think they're both lying. G. absolutely would have played such a trick. After all, he was only about 8 years old at the time, and a rowdy young boy at that. Still, I believe his side of this one. Let the record show - balance and grace do not run in my family.

*All family stories in this blog are products of my memory of other family members' memories. There is bound to be some misinformation. But the stories themselves are genuine.

Yesterday I found this wonderful site called Genealogy Blog Finder! I've added a couple of the blogs I found there to my Google Reader. Check it out!

I don't have much else to say today. My family history is buried in the bottom of my guest room closet and my boyfriend promised to dig it out for me today (it's under lots of heavy stuff). So tomorrow I'll have a nice story to share.

Yesterday I found this wonderful site called Genealogy Blog Finder! I've added a couple of the blogs I found there to my Google Reader. Check it out!

I don't have much else to say today. My family history is buried in the bottom of my guest room closet and my boyfriend promised to dig it out for me today (it's under lots of heavy stuff). So tomorrow I'll have a nice story to share.

It's Monday, which means it's time to offer up the fruits of my weekend brainstorming session. Which only sort of happened. But here goes. This blog is now officially about anything that is even remotely related to public history and public history research. I'm particularly interested in genealogy and architectural history, as well as the sort of thing they do on History Detectives - looking for the provenance of a particular object. Some of it will be about my own family history, while some of it will be about the research process, or anything else regarding public history that I happen to think interesting on a particular day. Wednesday will be family story day. I'll offer up a bit of my own family's past - the more interesting bits, I hope - to entertain and enlighten my dear readers. So that's it.

So for today's genealogy bit.... This weekend I checked two books out from my local library. First, a basic genealogy book on how to get started with your research. The fact is, though I've done lots of archival research looking up other people's history, I've never done what I would consider actual genealogy research. So I thought I'd start with this very basic book. Second, The Great Republic by Sir Winston Churchill. My boyfriend recently expressed surprise that I would be interested in being a historian of any sort because I have no interest in history. That is not true. What I have no interest in is memorizing dates, or, history as it is taught in our public schools today. Sir Winston is thus going to help me fill in the gaps in my American history knowledge.

As I mentioned above, I've been watching a lot of PBS's History Detectives lately. I even added it to my DVR recordings, which I almost never do. I don't like to have too many television shows to watch because it keeps me from doing other things. But History Detectives is great. It's reminded me how very much I loved the archival courses I took in grad school, especially the course in recognizing forgeries! Watching the show motivates me to get back to this thing that I so wanted to do then. My problem was that I didn't want to be an archivist - I wanted to do archival research. And at the same time I thought I wanted to work with kids, so I changed my focus to Public Library Children's Services, despite the wonderful mentor I had in the Archival field. Looking back I wish I hadn't done that, but at the time it really felt like the right thing for me. So now here I am three years later trying to squeeze my way back into the archives by doing public history. I just hope I can make the time to get in there, and not just think and write about it.

This blog has only been up and running for about a month, and I'm already having to re-assess and make some changes. But I figure it's better to do that now while there is probably no one reading it anyway than to do it sometime in the future when I (hopefully) have readers. I've been looking closely at some of the blogs I read and enjoy on a daily basis and have decided that I need an overarching theme and a gimmick. For example, one blog I absolutely love, The Happiness Project, makes every Wednesday tip day. So I'm going to go off and do a little brainstorming this weekend on what my weekly "thing" could be. I also want to be completely upfront and honest here - this blog is going to be used to make money. First, I've joined Google AdSense. I haven't set it up yet, but I will this weekend. Second, I'm working toward blogging at least three times a week so that I can join Blogitive. Blogitive gives you opportunities to review other websites and products in your blog, and get paid to do so! Not all of my blog posts are going to be based on Blogitive, and I will always make clear when they are. I'm not in this to fool anyone - I'm in it to get experience blogging and make a little money while I do it. So stay tuned, by Monday this blog will have changed a bit, and I'll be ready to unveil my new "once-a-week gimmick."

It has recently come to my attention (or rather, I've been ignoring until recently) that I am very much in debt and need to do something to help myself out of it. To that end, I'm going to be doing a lot more blogging, making some changes to the blog, and joining a few "pay for content" sites like schvoong.com and helium.com. This does NOT mean that I am giving up on the genealogical research goal, just that I am putting it on the back burner and extending my time frame a bit. After all, the simple fact is, I have a great job that I love and no reason to want out of it any time soon. The professional researcher dream is destined to be a second, mid-life, career change - not an immediate future thing. The immediate future must involve doing everything in my power to make extra money that I can put directly toward my debts. The ultimate goal here is to get my credit score up (honestly, I've been afraid to check it, but I'm sure it's lower than it was two years ago when I last checked it) so that I can someday afford a bigger and better house and a life that doesn't involve living from paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes I wish I'd chosen a more lucrative career path, but then I remember two things. First, I love what I do. Second, I know that if I put my mind to, someday I'll make money doing what I love to do. That keeps me going.

Hello again! My primary job has gotten crazy over the past few weeks, leaving me little time to think about anything else. So my blog and my self-training for an information broker career have been pushed to the side. At least, physically they've been pushed to the side. I've still been thinking about the "secondary career" idea incessantly. I'm just trying to figure out how to fit it into my schedule without sacrificing quality at the primary job. That's yet to be worked out. It will involve a meeting with my boss in the hopes that she will be a little lenient with my schedule. I plan to propose that I work from 7am until 5pm, but with a two-hour lunch break in the middle of the day to allow me access to records offices and courthouses that are only open 9-5.

And I think I may have settled on a specialty. More or less, anyway. I want to do geneaological research. Which is slightly different from being an information broker, but not significantly. The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that instead of working for companies, a genealogist works for individuals and families. I like that idea. I'm also fascinated with public history, so this would be a great way to earn a living doing something I love.

My first step is going to be familiarizing myself with local resources. I'm going to talk to my best friend's mom who grew up in Huntsville and see if she'll let me research her family. I've been going through all the free online classes I can find, and I want to take some of the pay classes too, like the ones from the National Genealogical Society, but that'll have to wait until the budget is under control. And someday - after I've been earning a living as a genealogist long enough to make it my primary job - I want to get my PhD in Public History. Though, I reserve the right to change my mind on that last point. I want a PhD in a lot of things.

So wish me luck, dear readers (if there are any of you out there), as I try to fit training for a second career into my schedule.

Ferrazzi vs. MacKay
I've just finished reading Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone and Harvey MacKay's Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty - two remarkably similar books. The Mackay book came first (in the late nineties, sorry I don't have it with me) and the Ferrazzi was published later, in 2005. I read the Ferrazzi first and, as a result, didn't actually finish the MacKay. Both books said the exact same thing, giving the same advice on building and sustaining a network. Mostly good advice, some a little questionable. But I figure I can put into practice the stuff I like and ignore the stuff that makes me feel uncomfortable. It'll still get me further than where I am now. The major difference between the books was the authors' perspectives. Mr. MacKay is of an older generation, a right-wing Republican who believes that networking is the way to help oneself. Yet, his tone is friendly, almost grandfatherly, and his anecdotal stories are refreshing and encouraging. Mr. Ferrazzi, in contrast, is a young, left-wing, democrat who praises networking as a way to help others. But his writing is full of name-drops and has an air of condescension, as if he's saying, "hey look what I did - I made millions of dollars and wrote a book and met famous people." So while I actually got clearer, more precise information about the how-to of networking from the Ferrazzi book, I prefered Mr. MacKay's candor. (And this coming from a young, left-wing democrat, no less!)

So, obviously I don't have this blogging thing down as a regular part of my routine yet. I'll get there though. I really will because this blog now has a purpose. It is destined to be a record of my journey to becoming an independent information professional. I've been thinking about almost nothing else for the past week and a half. It started because I stumbled on Mary Ellen Bates's website where I read her essay "A Typical Day in the Life of an Info Broker." Something just clicked. Her "typical day," even with all of the negative stuff that she points out, sounded like a dream come true to me. It's all the things I love doing and only negatives that I am perfectly capable and willing to deal with. My next step was to go to the AIIP website and browse through their member directory, looking at the websites of those who might someday be my colleagues and mentors. Then I went to the library and checked out every book I'd seen mentioned in my brief online research (at least the ones that were actually in my public library). I've finished The Information Broker's Handbook by Sue Rugge, and am now reading Secrets of the Super Net Searchers by Reva Basch and Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. There are more in my stack, but I'll list them as I get to them.
Now my big question is - what niche should I go into? I love doing any kind of research, but I would love it even more if it was in a field I could get really excited about. So that's what I'll be pondering between now and my next post.

For the past few months I've been in turmoil about where I am in my life versus where I want to be ten years from now. I've finally settled my mind and am comfortable, nay, even happy, with how my life stands now. Part of my epiphany was that in order to have the time and money to study the rather useless subject in which I someday plan on earning a PhD, I must focus more immediately on raising myself up among the best in my current field (a field in which I am actually very happy, but which is simply not useless enough for that part of my brain that needs to study frivolous and arcane topics). To that end, I am leaving the ranks of those who merely observe the blogosphere to join the ranks of those who who actively participate in it. So hello to all the librarians and information gurus out there. I am officially throwing my hat in the ring! I am here, I will post, and I will comment. By way of introduction, I graduated from an accredited School of Information in 2005, worked briefly in an academic library, spent 15 months in a public library, and have now finally settled in with a well-known vendor which shall remain anonymous. I have a love/hate relationship with technology. In other words I'm fascinated by all of the exciting things I've seen in this Web 2.0 world, but the more I learn the more behind the times I feel, and I'm not particularly tech-minded, so everything comes with a steep learning curve. For now, I look forward to becoming an active member of this marvelous community we call the biblioblogosphere.