I Can't Win

Most of you know I am really into family history and genealogy. So when my grandpa died 3 years ago and my great-aunt, Eleanor, gave me a trunk full of family momentos (sp?), I was thrilled. It contained family bibles with family tree information in the front and bunches of old pictures from the late 1800's and early 1900's. There was an old black binder with a detailed, typed family history compiled by my great-great grandmother reaching back to the 1600's. And my favorite part was a diary written by my great-grandmother, dating back to 1907 when she was only 9 years old. Oh, and my other favorite part is poetry written by my great-great grandfather. Needless to say, this is a huge windfall for someone like me. The greatest part is my great-aunt said it sat in her garage for years and she had seen it all before so I could keep it. Hurrah! This is the type of thing I treasure.


However, about a year ago Eleanor contacted my mom and said that she was talking with her daughter and telling her about the trunk. Her daughter then decided that she'd like to look at the trunk too. So, Eleanor was requesting we get it back to her. Ugghhh! What a bummer. She said it was no rush, just finish going through it and get it back. Well, she has been contacting us with increased vigor and wants the stuff back soon!


My plan was to scan everything I could into my computer for safe keeping. I started early last year with the pictures and they were all "safely" scanned and stored. Then as you probably know, last fall my computer crashed. This was extremely scary to me as I have hundreds of pictures scanned on my computer, not only from this chest but from my dad's side of the family as well. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of pictures. I can't even tell you how many hours of work this was. My genealogy program was on there as well. Over 1500 names and dates and again many many hours of work. So, now my computer is fixed. Where are all these pictures and genealogy information? I have no clue. Gary says he has them "somewhere".....I guess they're on his computer. I've asked about it so many times I can't even count any more. He says they're all ok, but I've yet to see any proof :(

Anyway, back to the chest. We are planning on making the trip to Iowa next Friday to take it back to Eleanor. I have been scrambling to scan the two major books before they go back, never to be seen again. We had a few stressful hours Tuesday night trying to locate the scanning software to re-load the program so I could scan the books. We never did find it, but we figured out I could copy the pages without actually scanning them and saving them on the computer. At least I could have a paper copy in my hands, which is just as much as I already had. So, I put in a couple hours of copying book one on Tuesday night, and spent several hours copying on my day off Wednesday. When I had ten pages left to copy in book one, my scanner died. Light went out. Push the buttons and nothing. Turn it off and back on, nothing. Made sure the cord was plugged in all the way. It was.


Great.


So, here we are with decisions to make. In order for me to access any of the "old" picutures Gary has "somewhere" I need the software disc for the Paper Port program. This is the disc we can not find for anything. To buy a new one is about $100. This program was originally loaded on my computer before we moved three years ago. Who knows where it could be now? Gary thinks there is a copy of this disc at work, but doesn't know where. Either way, in order to scan the rest of book one and all of book two, I need a new scanner. I would need this before Friday when we make the trip to Iowa. Then, I need the hours to scan about 200 pages of information. Our best bet all around would be to get a new scanner that has the paper port system with it. Then I guess I can scan my last book and also recover my previously scanned pictures. I don't even know how much that would cost, but it can't be pretty considering the program itself is $100.


So, ho hum. That's what's up with me. I've got a lot to do in the next 5 days so I better get to town and then get crackin'!