Just a few deeds and photographs from the large box of pictures and some family deeds already found as parts of projects for working at home. Now to label photos and find more deeds while staying home. Photo by Karen E. Livsey

Since so many of us are not following our normal routines, I will let you know some of my plans, which are definitely subject to change, while I get to stay home and work with few distractions.

I have been working on a project involving following deeds to a large parcel of land in north Jamestown. While finding, reading, and plotting these parcels, I have tripped over some of my own family’s deeds. The Jamestown project is pretty much at a standstill until I can go to Mayville to access some more recent deeds that are not available online.

One project that I will work on over the next few weeks will be accumulating, reading, transcribing, and plotting out deeds relating to my family in Chautauqua County. I could expand that to other New York counties and even into New England. I probably have some of these deeds from earlier research. But this will be a concentrated effort to find all and know where the land was and anything else a deed can tell me. I have already found deeds that list all of someone’s children. I had the names before but it is nice to see them all in a document.

I mentioned few distractions at this time, but that is not really true. There is that pile of old photos and the photo albums that are in sight and others upstairs just waiting. Now would be a time to sort (there are many duplicates), label, scan, and share with relatives. This is even something that parents and children could do at home now that many people are home and needing something to do. Children usually are interested in who is who in pictures and what they are doing and where and when. These are the things that need to be recorded because none of us remember everything over time. Depending on ages, children can scan if you have the equipment. My adult son is slowly scanning stacks of photos from his grandmother’s photo albums and sharing them with cousins. Some of them go on Facebook and there are some funny stories as cousins remember people, places, and family events.

I, like many who work on their family genealogy, have a few “piles” of paper or random notes in the computer that need to be sorted, analyzed, and incorporated into the genealogy with proper sources and citations. When that information has been properly added, that piece of paper or computer note can be disposed of and the disorganized clutter is diminished. For me that is a large project, so it will be done in short spurts, but once started I hope it continues.

Newspapers are another distraction. And by that I mean the old newspapers that are available online. Some are on subscription sites and some are free. Some of the early Jamestown papers are free at fultonhistory.com or fultonsearch.org. Small town newspapers often had columns written by correspondents from small villages and hamlets that reported the happenings in that locale. Often you can find who visited from out-of-town which could be just the next town over. Within newspapers there are distractions.

As you read through the page looking for the article about your intended subject, you can stray off the subject by reading another story on that page that is even more intriguing. You can search other subjects than just people by name. Search subjects or organizations to find out what was happening in the past.

These are a few projects on which I plan to work with over the next few weeks. If you want something different to fill your time at home or to give you some variety while at home consider a photo project or even read a few old newspapers. Stay well.