Saurette and Oligny Genealogy

It is really hard to believe that it is July already and I have done diddly-squat with genealogy. As I mentioned in my previous post, we added a puppy to our family. Molly, the now 5 month old Bernese Mountain Dog, is keeping things very busy and interesting around the house. Fortunately, I have not been receiving a lot of inquiries lately. I think people tend to do more genealogy when the weather is bad, i.e. winter. I know I haven’t been interested in doing much lately.

If anyone does need more information or help with things you find on Saurette.com, please feel free to email me. I’m still around and willing to help. It might be more sporadic than usual, but I’m always available to field research queries and the like.

My son starts Kindergarten this Fall and as Molly gets older, I should have ample time to start digging into new avenues of French-Canadian genealogy. I hope everyone is enjoying this summer weather. I know I’m not.

Steve Rock
srock@saurette.com

It has been slow for me, genealogy-wise, and I don’t see it picking up anytime soon. We are adding a new puppy to our house in a few weeks, so I’ll be on puppy patrol most of the day. It’ll be back to late night data-entry marathons! Oh yeah!

For people who actually read these posts – I have added the ability to chat in real time with me (provided it says I’m available). I use Woopra analytics to watch over my site while I’m working. It allows me to watch people go through the site and see what surnames and people are being researched. I’ve had a few people come here recently that have spent a lot of time looking at particular surnames. I’m very glad that people can get something from the work I do. If you see that I’m available, please drop me a question while you’re browsing the site. You’ll find the Woopra chat box at the bottom of just about all the pages. This might work better for some people rather than email since we can have a chat while you are on the site itself. I tested this out yesterday and had a lovely chat with myself – so I know it works.

For now, I think I’m going to browse more census images to make sure I have rounded out my direct Saurette and Oligny ancestors. Pure data entry can get tiresome, especially if I’m not even sure why I’m doing it. I haven’t been doing much research for other people lately, (good or bad thing?), but that’s mainly due to lack of inquiries. The break has been nice, but I’m always available to help out – free as always!

On a humorous note: I’ve been getting traffic from other sites where people are trying to find the Saurette clothing line for kids. Their site is saurette.net. Some clothing sites have their web address listed incorrectly as mine. I bet people are really shocked when they land here!

I finally got around to updating the database yesterday as well – mainly because of corrections. If you are related to Onil Leduc, there was a big error there, but with the help of somebody doing Leduc reserach, it was pointed out to me and fixed.

Keep on diggin’!

Steve

Funny how we all have certain assumptions when it comes to genealogy. We assume that if we’ve seen a name somewhere spelled a certain way, then that must be right. I can’t begin to remember how many times I have had to change/alter surnames in my genealogy. And some of those items I’ve had to change were done by individuals trying to do their best.

I have added some census images to Almeric Saurette and Guillaume Saurette’s pages. I also have updated the Drouin images under ‘deaths’ to reflect the latest images I have found. Seems like I always have something new to add or change of late. That’s okay, that is part of the fun. I’ve been having great correspondence lately with several people and said correspondence has taken me down paths I might not have bothered looking into. I think the excitement for me is chasing down things that have eluded others and knocking down those research walls. Keep the e-mails coming!

I continue to source information and merge duplicate people as I find them. Each time I upload my database to the site, it gets more and more accurate to reflect what I have been doing. If you have issues and/or problems with anything, just let me know so I may address them.

The Super Bowl is this weekend. I’m not really excited about either team. There’s always the commercials and the half-time show . . . . .

I’m a tech person. I love gadgets and new technology. That said, I don’t always want the newest gadgets or fad devices for a variety of reasons. I have never owned any iPod anything – until now. I received the iPod touch this year as a gift. To say that I’m hooked would be an understatement. I have spent the past 4 days using it almost all the time. How does this relate to genealogy, you ask? It doesn’t, really.

The iPod touch is not going to be used by me to do new genealogy – it would take way too much time and be very hard on the eyes. I love how web sites render completely on the screen. If it is too small, then you can make it bigger. I got to wondering, though, if there was a way to optimize my genealogy site for the iPod touch and iPhone. Well, turns out there is. I spent this AM adding the capability to all the WordPress sites that I run.

If you visit Saurette.com from the iPod touch or iPhone, it will look pretty sleek. I was very impressed with the results. There’s a drop-down bar to move from page to page. The one big caveat is this: to view the database will still require viewing the site as normal and then magnifying what you are looking at. If, however, you want to read my posts or pages about my genealogy, then those will render very nicely.

I can tell from my tracking that there have been some visits by iPhone of iPod touch. If you come back or land here with that device, let me hear about it in the comments! If you also know of any killer apps I must have, give me a shout out for that too. I’m looking forward to many happy years with this new gadget.