Recently I found myself dealing with home flooding. It has set me back a couple weeks so far.
Luckily, I was home when this occurred and was able to take emergency action. If it had happened when I was gone, it could have been much more of a disaster than it is and believe me when I say that it could be weeks before I'm back to sleeping in my bedroom and in my bed. I've lost at least a week staying home for various repair and work people, few who showed up on time or cleaned up after themselves, and am frustrated and upset.
I had recently been sorting through research and was moving some of it into new binders and documents into folders as that research had expanded. What had been a binder dedicated to one family is now several binders as I follow the children of that family.
I would work on it and then leave it on a desk or near my bed for the next opportunity to devote time to this.
In the flooding, I had at least three paper file boxes that were effected as well as bookcases that are warped. Although I may not know the full extent of damage until I'm at the point of actually putting everything back in place, it appears that I managed to save just about everything without it becoming so damp or wet that it would grow mold or need to be thrown out.
I know that some of you are thinking that long ago I should have uploaded all family photos and all my research to some electronic/Internet holding area incase such a disaster happened.
Actually, I have started doing that more than once, only to find myself unhappy with the whole process which is expensive, time consuming, and sadly requires upgrading for it to be consistently useful. It feels good sometimes to be so organized that you can imput pictures, names and dates and attach documents, until you try to access it months later and run into problems.
In other words, it is not time to give up on having paper copies of everything anyway, and you can still loose your memory devices, your hard-drive, give up a membership; even if you do have a "complete" book you should be printing copies and give them to those who they are written for so that there is always a copy somewhere.
Perhaps the worst thing about using the Internet these days via accounts that use e-mail or other password log ins, like this one, IS THAT YOUR PRIVACY IS JUST NOT SECURE. All the hacking scandals of recent years have proven that to us, and as someone who has been hacked multiple times and has lost personal and private information to hackers, I'm not ready to give up on paper. To rob me of information on paper you have to physically break into my home, knowing where I live.
