What Happened to my Jump-Drive?

Hello,

This is a post to stress the importance of backing up your genealogical data. GeneaBloggers is hosting a contest on this topic, more info can be found at: Data Backup Day Contest-Win A Copy Of Handy Backup.

I’d like to tell a story about a jump drive, a very useful jump drive….

First, I’d like to say that I love the convenience of jump drives. I carry one every where I go. They are an excellent storage solution for a person who works on multiple computers and with multiple files. I used my jump drive for work, school, and genealogy. Focusing specifically on genealogical data, I would use my jump drive to host excel spreadsheets for my findings from multiple parish films. All in all, many hours of data have been added to my jump drive.

When I started my genealogical research, I never thought that I needed to back up my data. I thought that I would never lose my data……this was utterly foolish!! One day, I couldn’t find my jump drive and I looked everywhere for it. Then I looked in the dryer, guess what I found? Yes, my jumpdrive and it was extremely warm. After it cooled off, I had tried to retrieve my data and luckily I did. It made it through the washer and dryer cycles. That day forward, I always followed GeneaBloggers monthly Back Up Data Prompt.

Recently, after indexing many selected surnames from the Parchowo Parish baptisms (1809-1845), I had lost my jump drive. I looked everywhere and I mean everywhere…work, house, car, yard…..everywhere! Disappointingly, I never found the jump drive and lost a months worth of genealogical data.

I have purchased another jump drive. This one is water resistant and I have attached a key chain to it. Hopefully, this will make it a bit more obvious in my pocket. The moral of this story is to back up your data, because you will lose it otherwise…..

Best Regards,
Al