(Feb. 23. 2009)
So I've made the final cuts on interviews and photos. I'm still not sure if I'll include any "documentation," or any of the actual certificates I found on Ancestry.com. Since I've decided finally to shift my focus permanently on mostly my living relatives who have impacted me the most, like Busia and my mother, and only touching briefly on those before me, there isn't much room for those types of documents when I have so many pictures. And I don't want the scrapbook to look cluttered, so I've had to cut out a lot more information than I wanted to.
Which makes me nervous, still. I think I'm just naturally nervous about this project. Now that I'm cutting information out, what will this do to my grade? And I just feel silly for spending so much time on Ancestry.com looking stuff up I probably won't even use. I think that, but then I remember my original idea for the project: to learn more about my Polish, deceased ancestors. Even though they may not be in the final project as much as I'd like, I know the stories now. I know which itty-bitty villages my great-grandparents grew up in when they were living in Poland. I know what church they went to, I know my great grandfather was a tailor, and my great-grandmother married her first husband's brother. I know my grandfather's family has been in the states for hundreds of years, and if I had spent more time with that, could possibly even find his ancestors amoung the settlers.
I've learned so much about my family, that the grade I receive for my scrapbook matters minutely. And I have a great start to investigating more, espeically over the summer when I have more time and less classes to distract me.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The New Focus
(Feb. 19, 2009)
As I mentioned last week, the project has been transforming. No problem with that. Well, okay I admit I was a little worried at first, but this is all going to work out in the end. The biggest problem I've been facing so far is just that I have far too much information. I've got death certificates, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and census records up the wazoo for both parent's sides. I've got two trash bags full of pictures from my mother's mom, Busia. I've got interviews transcripted up to four pages long. Where do I go from here? How do I sift through all this ... crap?
I think it's finally time to make a decision. Since my project is multi-genreal and will be in a scrapbook, the tenative plan right now is just to create a scrapbook page for each monumental moment in my White-Polek's side of the fence. My father will be disappointed, but there just isn't as much enthusiam from his side to get included in this project, making it difficult to get information. This way though, if I center this project on my mother's side, I'll get more clarity as I sift through information and it'll be easier to tie up loose ends and answer any questions I may have. I still want to keep the genogram aspect of the project as well... I'm not sure how I'll keep all that information organized in the project though.
As I mentioned last week, the project has been transforming. No problem with that. Well, okay I admit I was a little worried at first, but this is all going to work out in the end. The biggest problem I've been facing so far is just that I have far too much information. I've got death certificates, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and census records up the wazoo for both parent's sides. I've got two trash bags full of pictures from my mother's mom, Busia. I've got interviews transcripted up to four pages long. Where do I go from here? How do I sift through all this ... crap?
I think it's finally time to make a decision. Since my project is multi-genreal and will be in a scrapbook, the tenative plan right now is just to create a scrapbook page for each monumental moment in my White-Polek's side of the fence. My father will be disappointed, but there just isn't as much enthusiam from his side to get included in this project, making it difficult to get information. This way though, if I center this project on my mother's side, I'll get more clarity as I sift through information and it'll be easier to tie up loose ends and answer any questions I may have. I still want to keep the genogram aspect of the project as well... I'm not sure how I'll keep all that information organized in the project though.
More Interviewing Notes
(Feb. 14, 2009)
Earlier this week, I interviewed my older cousin, Rachel, my Uncle Len (Busia's brother), and my grandfather. It seems like the more people I interview, the more materiel I have. This isn't a bad thing, but I guess I'm just not sure what I'm going to do with it all, or how I'd combine it all together. Sure, some of it goes with my original plan of just focusing on my deceased relatives, learning more about them. But most of the information I'm getting is more related to Busia and her life.
This isn't of course a bad thing: I shouldn't be trying to fit my ideas around what my family is actually telling me about what's important to them. However, I'm begining to think I'll have to change my focus of the end product. Before, I was planning to talk about my Polish ancestors as much as humanly possible becuase I wanted to learn more about them. We never talk about them at family gatherings, so I felt pretty oblivious. But now I realize Busia and Uncle Len don't talk about them becuase they don't know much about it. Though their parents were trying hard to keep the Polish roots strong, Busia and Uncle Len were trying to fit in with their friends.
So, long story short, this project may be transforming into something different than I idealized.
Earlier this week, I interviewed my older cousin, Rachel, my Uncle Len (Busia's brother), and my grandfather. It seems like the more people I interview, the more materiel I have. This isn't a bad thing, but I guess I'm just not sure what I'm going to do with it all, or how I'd combine it all together. Sure, some of it goes with my original plan of just focusing on my deceased relatives, learning more about them. But most of the information I'm getting is more related to Busia and her life.
This isn't of course a bad thing: I shouldn't be trying to fit my ideas around what my family is actually telling me about what's important to them. However, I'm begining to think I'll have to change my focus of the end product. Before, I was planning to talk about my Polish ancestors as much as humanly possible becuase I wanted to learn more about them. We never talk about them at family gatherings, so I felt pretty oblivious. But now I realize Busia and Uncle Len don't talk about them becuase they don't know much about it. Though their parents were trying hard to keep the Polish roots strong, Busia and Uncle Len were trying to fit in with their friends.
So, long story short, this project may be transforming into something different than I idealized.
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