User:Robbhaas

I was born, and have spent most of my life, in central Indiana.
I have a degree in history from Ball State University (Alma Mater of David Letterman)
I did spend four great years in southwest Florida but because of family obligations my wife and I moved back to Indiana in Sept 2001.
I have 2 children, 5 grandchildren and 1 great granddaughter (another on the way)
My wife and I now have two little dogs that allow us to live with them
I am retired and fortunate to have the time to devote to research and putting my materials in order.
I have been researching my family history for several years and have gathered a huge stash of material.
Other Avocations:
- Computers - I have been around long before the first computers with hard drives - Think Apple IIe
  - I get withdrawals when I am away from my computer too long
- Reading
  - Murder Mysteries
  - Biographies of historical figures
- History - especially the Civil War, the Presidents and the Constitution
- Feeding and watching the birds and other critters in my back yard
- Stamp Collecting
  - I collect United States used material
  - I fancy the Prexies
- Woodworking
- Astronomy (The Moon is my favorite sky object)
- Ham Radio (Licensed but no longer active)

Software Used

I originally began using Family History software back in the days of the Apple IIe before hard drives.
I used Family Origins until it was no longer available.
I then switched to Family Tree Maker.
When RootsMagic became available I wasted little time jumping on the bandwagon.
I also use some other software:
- GenSmarts
- Placefinder (From RootsMagic)
- The Journal
- Personal Historian (From RootsMagic)
- Zotero
- Jing
  - I have it installed but I have a gremlin in my system that does not allow my microphone to operate - so I have not been able to play with it properly (8 Feb 2008)

Although I have experience with creating web pages, I am new to the Wiki concept. I am finally getting the hang of it and hopefully will be able to contribute to the community in a small way.
(8 Feb 2008) I have a lot of hours under my belt working with WeRelate now and have a good feel for the concept but there is a lot to learn and I am looking forward to the experience
Each time I changed software and moved my data from one to the next my data got uglier. I have spent a lot of time cleaning up the RootsMagic data and now I am doing the same thing here at WeRelate since my data did not transfer as well as I had hoped. This is no fault of RootsMagic - as it turns out it has to do with the way I entered it into RM. After this experience with WeRelate I am now entering my data into RM much differently.

MySources contain information about my collection of family history material. The following is an attempt to explain some of my terminology.
- Acc = Accession
- RH Archives = Robbhaas Archives
- SB = Storage Box
- Therefore Acc945 – RH Archives/SB7/Folder 24 is my attempt to create a call number for finding the documents and items in my Family History Collections system.

If you come across anything that would be of use to you that I have in my collection please don’t hesitate to contact me. I can either send you a copy of the file or further explain whatever you need. I have scanned most things, but in the event I haven’t, it is no problem to do so.
If you happen to visit one of my pages and see a problem, please don’t hesitate to either make a change or contact me. I have a large tree and I am in the process of cleaning it up to hopefully make it more useful to me as well as others that might benefit from it in the future.