I’ve been working on the records for Achada, Nordeste (Azores) from the Azorean Aquivo website the last week or so. On my PC, this is a painstakingly slow process. The pages take 10-30 seconds to load. Then, I must enlarge them so I can read the names in the corner (often abbreviated forms). Then I must scroll through to look for “filho” or “filha” to find the parents. It takes time and patience.
Recently, I got rid of Firefox, Chrome, and the default browsers on my tablet. All three were battery hogs. Opening one could use up 10% of my battery. And, they were always running in the background eating up more of my resources.
I know use a smaller limited browser called Kronia for basic stuff and Puffin for more detailed website activities. I found that the Arquivo website loads really nicely in Puffin. I was surprised by this because many databases are clunky on my tablet. Either they won’t load at all or screen are garbled.
The database is much quicker in Puffin, taking only 3-5 seconds to load a page. And, how easy it is to navigate! Since I can use my fingers to widen the page, I can see very quickly what the names are and find my place in a document for the pertinent information. If I find something that looks interesting, I hold down my finger and a menu appears. I click Share and it opens email. I can then sent the whole document to myself to review on my PC and compare to my genealogy database.
Oh, how dangerous this is! I am just like a junkie. When I go to bed, instead of listening to my favorite podcasts, I go to the website and start reading records. Because Achada is a small place, I can often get through 2-3 years of marriages in about 15 minutes. This would probably take an hour or more on my PC. This makes it easier to focus on one surname and pull all those people out. Later, I can return and look for others if need be…and it won’t take much time at all.
So, if you see that glowing light in my bedroom window at 1 in the morning, you know it’s me getting my genealogy fix.
