The 1st of every month has been nominated as Data Backup Day at Geneabloggers and rightly so. As genealogists we all need to take care of all that data we collect whether it's in genealogy databases, documents, scans or whatever because you never know when some incident puts your research back to square one.
Recently I mentioned I took a trip to Pakistan where I managed to make some progress with finding out more about my relatives. Well, I had been taking notes of details such as dates and names using a pen and paper but soon found I didn't have time to scribble it all down so I resorted to making short notes on my mobile which had a handy tool for doing exactly that. This was all going well until my mobile decided to succumb to overheating (I think!) and fall dead. I thought OK, maybe it's not so bad, maybe all I need is a new battery to get it working again. So I returned to the UK with the hope that my mobile would be fine with a new battery. Cut to a few weeks later, and I find out that even with a battery that works fine in a similar mobile, my mobile is definitely dead. Yes, I had lost the data on my phone along with non-genealogy stuff.
What I learnt:
* Technology, as amazing as it is, can fail.
* Using a pen and paper isn't so bad afterall.
* I need a new mobile (anyone want to gift me one?)
So all you genealogists out there, remember to back up your data wherever it is!
Note to self: Back up your genealogy database as you haven't done so since ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment