Did you notice that my column was missing from The Mirror last week? (I hope someone noticed).
Something very tragic occurred: I had a complete computer meltdown.
I took my computer to Precision Data in Thomson and heard the words that no one wants to hear: "Your hard drive can't be saved."
I lost everything.
Unfortunately, I am not as diligent as I should be when it comes to backing up my files and I spent the last week trying to get my computer back in working order.
However, the one thing I do back up on a regular basis is my genealogy files.
Had I lost those, instead of reading this column you would be reading an article about how I had jumped off the roof of The Depot.
I back up my genealogy files to a floppy disk at least once a week.
I would back everything up to a CD if I could figure out how to do it. Not only that, I have hard copies of all of my direct line family group sheets and pedigree charts in my filing cabinet.
You can't be too careful.
I only lost about one week's worth of entered data which is nothing compared to the 15 years worth of data I have in my computer file. I sat here and thought about what a nightmare it would have been to have had to have started over from scratch.
I did lose a lot of related material, however.
I lost copies of all the letters I have written.
I lost to-do lists and my resources database.
I also lost all of the cemetery surveys I have done and all of the newspaper columns I have written (though I do have hard copies of all of these).
Ah well, those are not as important as my main file.
I will be backing all of these things up from now on as well.
I encourage you to back up all of your computer files on a regular basis which will save you a lot of headaches.
I certainly don't want to read about any of you jumping off the roof of The Depot.
Family reunion: The Stewart-Reeves-Maddox Family Reunion is scheduled for June 4 at 11 a.m. at the White Oak Methodist Campground. Yours truly will be at this reunion as my husband's grandmother was a Maddox.
If you are a member of one of these three families you don't want to miss this one. We have a great time every year.
You can contact John Stewart at (706) 651-6139 or David Gibbs at (706) 556-6966 for more information.
