Saturday, March 10, 2012

Not Exactly Right?

Doesn't Line up by midgefrazel
Doesn't Line up, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

What do crafts have to do with family history? [Blog Post 2]

How many times have you re-examined your genealogy records only to find that the dates (or person) just doesn't line up correctly?

As much as it pains us, not all of genealogy is perfect. We use words like about, probably, maybe, often and circa, more than we'd like to admit. It annoys us. We talk about it with others. Sometimes, using those words makes us look unprofessional and sloppy. We get excited when we find new information and we post it to Facebook, Google+ and to blogs. We fix our family tree. We feel better. Fellow genealogists do the "happy genealogy dance" with us. This is the power of social media.

But, no matter how many mistakes we correct, misinformation is still out there.


Before starting a plastic canvas project, I have to prepare the canvas. I have templates that help me cut the pieces just right. Before we moved, I carefully cut some and stored it in my bag (shown in the last post). 

The sides of what I made, didn't line up correctly. I thought I'd made a mistake. I didn't. I was really mad.


There is a difference in the old sheets I bought before, and the new sheets I bought recently. There is a row missing. I stacked it up on the countertop and took this photo. Well, that's annoying. The holes are the right size (size 7) and the needles fit in the holes smoothy. I thought I'd bought defective canvas. But, I haven't. The two sheets I bought this week are like the ones I bought last year. 


They changed and didn't tell me. It is like my ancestors moved from one census to the next. It's like a family lost a little child to an illness and named the next child the same name. It is just like finding you are a row off.


I spent some time pulling out all the sheets of the canvas and stacking them up. I will cut one of the old sheets like I always have and then lay the pieces down and make a new template. I can't keep being annoyed. It can be fixed. I should be glad to have found a solution.



1 comment:

Family Curator said...

Flex-ability. :>)