Protect genealogy research as part of your overall disaster survival plan!
It’s 2020 and Australia is on fire. People all around the world have seen the horrible footage, and heard the horrific numbers being quoted – acres burnt, people killed, properties lost and wildlife decimated. Many of those of us here in Australia have witnessed some of this first hand. A few of those will tragically have lost everything they own. And the fires still burn.
Fire, floods, hurricanes, cyclones and earthquakes seem to be ever more prevalent in recent years. We cannot afford to be blase about our preparation or believe it could never happen to us. In times of disaster such as this, it is unlikely that a successful escape will include time to pick out which irreplaceable items to save. Planning and preparation is everything. As Australians, we are urged to have our own Bushfire Survival Plan in place as we head into every summer. I would recommend everyone take the time to think about how they would deal with the kind of natural disaster most likely to impact them and do some preparation.
Protect Your Genealogy Research
If you are the guardian of your family’s history, you have a duty to protect your genealogy research. This should feature in any broader survival plan. Imagine the loss of all your years of work, how long would it take to replace? Indeed, how much is actually replaceable?
Organise
Be organised – know where everything is and keep it together in a safe place.
Prioritise
Work out what is absolutely irreplaceable, what is inconvenient to lose and what is easily replaced. You do not know how much you will be able to take with you in the case of an evacuation.
Digitise
Ensure everything is preserved digitally. This includes documents, family photos, and photos of objects such as furniture passed down through the family (in case they cannot be saved).
Back it up
Regularly back up your research and your digitised items to an external hard drive kept somewhere else and/or the ‘cloud’. Preferably both. Mark your calendar to remind you to do this at least on a monthly basis. Then if you do lose it all locally, you will never be more than a month behind when you retrieve your back up!
Protect originals
Fire- and waterproof safes, bags and pouches are available at hardware stores for your most precious items. Bags and pouches are more transportable in a hurry – perhaps use them for the highest priority items. A safe deposit box could be utilised if regular access is not required for some precious items.
Smoke alarm battery
A small and simple but often forgotten chore. You won’t need a smoke alarm for a bushfire bearing down on you, but domestic fires are a much more likely cause of research loss statistically. Remember to change your smoke alarm batteries every six months for peace of mind.
Good luck!
I hope none of you is ever in a situation where you lose all that precious research (or anything else of value) in a disaster. If something good, however small can come out of the current tragedy unfolding here in Australia, perhaps it will be a prompt for people to check if they are doing enough to protect their genealogy research.