My thoughts are in the clouds...Cloud Storage

Typically, I use this blog to write about DNA happenings in my everyday life but ever since the San Bruno Gas Explosion, I've been haunted by it and have had a monkey on my back to write about cloud storage.

I think everyone has a mental list of what the first things they would try to save from their homes if it caught on fire. After all the family members and pets are safe, would you have time to safely grab the photo albums? If you're a genealogist like me, would you go for the hard copy binders and files? What about your books? Not only do I have several old books that I would be heartsick about if they burned, but I have several shelves of genealogy and history books that would also be gut-wrenching to lose. Most of these books would be replaceable, but some are out of print.

In the San Bruno Gas Explosion, it happened so quickly that not only did people not have time to grab items to save from their homes, they didn't have time to save themselves. The only remnants of the life they lived might be the photos and thoughts they shared on Facebook. And that is just what "cloud storage" is - storing your information on someone else's server.

On August 27, 2005, I telephoned my cousin who lives in a suburb of New Orleans. She answered the phone so I said, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING ANSWERING THE PHONE?!? YOU SHOULD BE GONE!". She laughed and replied that they had been through many hurricanes and would probably just ride this one out as usual. The next morning, her husband turned on the radio and heard that Katrina had been upgraded to a Category 5. They leaped out of bed and began a mad dash around the house, packing and boarding up the house. Their house is a two story, so my cousin dragged the Rubbermaid bins that were full of her grandmother's lifelong genealogy work into the hallway on the second floor and then closed all the doors.

They had only packed three days worth of clothing since that's what they had needed when they had to evacuate for every other hurricane. They ended up staying at her brother's home in Baton Rouge for two weeks. When the levies broke, her suburb flooded. Her neighbors' homes were flooded, but not theirs because it was on higher ground. Every tree around their house was felled by the storm, but all fell away from the house.

My cousin's family were extremely lucky that they did not suffer the loss to their home that their friends and neighbors did. They didn't escape entirely unscathed though, the storm wrecked her husband's office which was next to the Superdome.

So don't think disaster can't happen to you. I mean, who ever thinks their life will be ended or forever changed by a gas leak? And after Katrina, hurricanes are definitely taken more seriously.

So right now, while its calm and quiet where you live, start saving the items on your mental "save list" to cloud storage. Here are some of the cloud sites for my "save list":

Footnote.com - I upload scans of old documents and photos to a FREE account on Footnote. One of the benefits of this is that their database is searchable and publicly accessible. Additionally, Footnote has a partnership with Facebook for their "I Remember" pages. Basically, an "I Remember" page is a Facebook page for a deceased person. Footnote already creates these pages using the Social Security Death Index so all you really need to do is search for your loved one and fill in the page with photos, stories, etc. One of the nice features of the "I Remember" pages is that it gives you the option of posting your uploads to your own Facebook page. So while the item is stored on Footnote's servers, it is also on Facebook's in your feed. And yes, Footnote even has an "other" category where I was able to fill in my father's DNA haplogroups!

Snapfish - I've used Snapfish since 2002 for uploading family photos and photo sharing. One feature that I like even better about Snapfish now is their iPhone app where I can easily upload photos I've just taken to my Snapfish albums. If something ever happened to my iPhone (God forbid!) then my photos are already somewhere else safe. My only complaint about Snapfish is that if you don't order photos at least once a year or they think your account is dormant, they'll send you an e-mail threatening to delete your account.

Walgreens Photo - I just began using Walgreens online photo storage because not only do they give new signups 25 free prints but they also offer specials. Some recent ones that I've benefited from are a FREE 8x10 and a .99 photo collage.

Google Docs - I upload PDFs of my hard copy documents to Google Docs and then do document sharing with several designated family members. I've also uploaded old documents that I wouldn't necessarily post on Footnote but do send invites to new cousins I come into contact with.

Drop Box - I'm relatively new to Drop Box, but I did set up a FREE account and uploaded all of my DNA raw data results to it. Drop Box also has a handy iPhone app where you can upload documents and photos from your iPhone.

I would be remiss if I didn't say it, but there is some level of trust in using cloud storage in that the company you're uploading your treasures to doesn't someday disappear themselves. Surely its possible, but how big a disaster would it take to wipe Facebook out for good? (That's a rhetorical question, I don't really want to know the answer! Not ever...)