Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

I’m speaking at RootsTech 2017!

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rootstech2017I’m both delighted and nervous to announce that my speaker proposal to co-present at RootsTech 2017 was accepted!

I will be presenting with the amazing Brooks Duncan of DocumentSnap. Our talk is titled “Go Paperless: Streamline and Digitize Your Research.” Brooks is the guru of all things paperless–he has amazing knowledge about the process of scanning and digitizing. I’m bringing my organizing and genealogy know-how to the table.

Brooks is a terrific speaker (and knows how to create a great PowerPoint) and I’m  confident we’ll create a fun and informative presentation. I’m really looking foward to it.

RootsTech will be held February 8 to 17 in Salt Lake City. This will be my third year attending and my first presenting. Registration is now open! Until October 14, you can register for the full conference for $159, a $100 savings over the regular price. (The price goes up to $189 on October 14.)

Are you attending? Speaking? Leave a comment here or shoot me an email and let’s meet up!

How I store my genealogy information

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reuniononmac90I love organizing my family history research electronically. As I’ve mentioned here many times, I try not to print digital documents and instead store everything electronically where I can have easy access to it.

I don’t think I have been clear when I talk about storing my genealogy data electronically that I’m not talking about storing it as a family tree on Ancestry or Family Search. I’m talking about storing it on my hard drive.

To me, it would be folly to rely on an outside service to store my precious genealogy data. If the only copy of my information was at Ancestry, I would be required to renew my subscription to access my own data. Even storing all my information at a free site like Family Search feels risky to me. It’s conceivable that they could change their terms of service to something unacceptable to me. Or start charging for access. Or simply vanish. Another place that some people store their genealogy documents is Evernote. I think that can be a great way to have easy, searchable access to information. But I wouldn’t store genealogy documents on Evernote that I don’t also have on my hard drive. They could go belly up. (It happened with Springpad.)

I enter all of my data into family-tree software that resides on my laptop’s hard drive. I use Reunion 11, a Mac program. It can sync with the iPhone and iPad using the ReunionTouch app. I haven’t yet installed ReunionTouch because I take my Mac with me on research trips. I like that storing my data on my computer, rather than an online service, is that the information is accessible even when I don’t have an internet connection (if I have my computer with me).

Of course, I back up my hard drive, both on an external hard drive and with an online backup service (CrashPlan Pro). Backing up is critical.

I’m not saying that my way is the right way or the best way. But I’ll share with you my process for storing info, in case you find it helpful or interesting. So far, it’s working well for me.

When I find a sourced piece of information pertinent to my research this is what I do:

  1. Add the information to the appropriate person(s) in Reunion (or add a person if need be).
  2. Cite the source in Reunion.
  3. Download the information (or scan it if I found it in paper form).
  4. Attach an image of the source document to the source citation in Reunion.
  5. File the digital document in that ancestor’s electronic folder on my hard drive, copying it if it applies to more than one ancestor.
  6. Scour the source for further information.
  7. Make a note in Evernote if it sparks potential further research.

So far this feels good to me and I haven’t second guessed it.

How do you store your family tree information?

Walking the paperless walk

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nofilesI’ve been blogging here through the years about my growing disenchantment with paper. I’ve stopped printing out documents I find digitally and instead save them to my computer and file them by surname. (That’s what works for me…you may choose to file differently.) I’ve started scanning notes and other genealogy paper that comes across my desk and discarding much of it after scanning. I do keep original documents as well as documents I’ve sent away for. But the vast majority of my genealogy information is not in my paper files

Last week when I was at the Allen County Public Library–I promise I’ll stop talking about that trip soon–I didn’t photocopy a single thing. Instead, I used the library’s copying machines to scan the documents I wanted to take home. I brought along a flash drive for that purpose and the process was very easy. The machines even allowed me to put all the documents from one source into a single file, rather than a file for each page. It does mean I had to rename each file and drag it to the appropriate folder on my hard drive. But I didn’t have a bunch of paper to process when I got home! Nor did I have paper to lug home. Or carry to the hotel from the library. Moreover, I was able to easily zoom in text to read it more easily. Not once did I wish I had a magnifying glass.

And here’s the kicker: The library (understandably) charges for paper copies. But they don’t charge a thing to scan to a hard drive, which was literally no more challenging than making a photocopy.

I feel better and better about limiting  paper in my genealogy research. It’s kind of amazing to me that just 3.5 years ago I was still printing much of what I found.

I was really pleased that my paperless inclinations were reinforced on my library trip!

Photo by Tom Woodward via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Transpose eliminating free plans

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transposelogoI’ve written here about Transpose, the app that allows you to create and use custom forms. I use it for taking notes at genealogy conferences and for abstracting genealogy data from documents. I use it for lots and lots of non-genealogy information as well, including keeping inventories, getting feedback, and keeping track of my blood pressure and the books I read.

When I first met Transpose, it was in Beta mode and was free. Then they added a paid plan, but still had a limited free plan. As of August 15, it will be out of Beta mode and will no longer offer a free plan. Instead, there are three tiers of paid plans: Individual ($9.99 a month), Team ($14.99 a month) and Enterprise ($29.99 a month).  If you have a free Transpose account, your free account will become read-only, and you won’t be able to add additional Records or Solutions.

The company actually gave me a paid plan for a year, as a thank you for being an early booster. But if they hadn’t, I’m confident I would purchase an Individual plan because I use it so much.

It can be disappointing when formerly free apps start charging, but to me that’s preferable to their going belly up, as happened in 2014 with my dear, departed Springpad.

Unfortunately, Transpose announced on November 8, 2016 that it is shutting down on December 9, 2016.