Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Organizing genealogy records on my hard drive

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I have to admit I’m a little loosey goosey when it comes to organizing my hard drive. I use a Mac, which has marvelous search capabilities, so when I find a file, I typically do a quick search, rather than drilling down through file structures, like I used to do on Windows machines.

But when it comes to my genealogical research, I’ve decided it’s time to reform myself. It started when I started trying to get my head around the notion of saving images of documents (like census documents), rather than printing them and putting them in my paper file. I think for the moment, I’ll probably do both, until I can let go of the thrill I get by holding the papers in my hand. (I blogged about this recently, in a post called To Print or Not to Print?)

I also want to be able to help clients organize their genealogy, both paper and electronic, and I realized I really should practice what I preach. But when it came time to figure out a file structure I started feeling that familiar overwhelm creeping in. Then I noticed a little perfectionism too. What if I set up a less-than-optimal system?

I figure any system is better than no system. But the point became moot because this weekend I came across the marvelous website Genealogy Tools and its accompanying YouTube Channel. I watched a five-part video screencast series from Genealogy Tools guru Ben Sayer on creating a genealogy folder system for the Mac, in which he shared exactly how he does it. (He has Place folders and Surname folders.) In the video he detailed his file naming protocol, which is nice and simple. In my book, simple is good.

That liberated me! His system looks great, so I’m going to adopt it for myself. I haven’t taken the time to revamp my current file names, but today I had the chance to jump right in. I’m away from my paper files and I found an ancestor on the 1850 U.S. census. I made a folder for her and saved the census image in that folder. Time will tell whether I feel the compunction to print it out and put it in her file folder.

In the coming weeks, I intend to clean up my Genealogy folder on my hard drive and get into the practice of saving documents in an organized manner.

My electronic file system has evolved a great deal since 2013 when I wrote this post. In 2021 I published an Orderly Roots Guide called How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow that provides detailed information on how I organize my own genealogy research, which is now 100 percent digital. It is 37 pages and is available for $19.99.

Family history becomes basis for HBO comedy

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I was thrilled when I read in the January 18 edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine that Christopher Guest (director of such improvised comedic masterpieces as Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show) will be creating a similarly styled comedy for HBO called Family Tree. It’s the story of a 30-year-old unemployed man (played by Chris O’Dowd) who inherits a box of family mementos from a great aunt he never met. He decides to explore his family lineage, using the clues found in the treasures in the box, and starts meeting the odd people that are his family members.

According to the article, the series will be shot in Guest’s trademark faux documentary style. And, as in his movies, it will be improvised. While the show is unscripted (each episode has an eight-page outline), the writers created an extensive back history for each character and a family tree going back to the 1700s.

The show is set to premier in May. I gave up cable TV over a year ago, but this might be enough to bring me back so that I can subscribe to HBO!

Help for my tired eyes

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Carson illuminated magnifier and desk lamp

One of many reasons that I wish I had started getting serious about genealogy when I was  younger (the #1 being that could have quizzed my grandparents), is that my 50-year-old eyes have a hard time with small type. When I print out census and other documents, as I’m prone to do, I find it challenging to make out the type, even with my reading glasses on.

A few months back, I bought an unlighted magnifying glass, which I use a great deal.

I upped the ante earlier this month and bought myself a Illuminated Magnifier and Desk Lamp. It has a goose neck, so I can angle and lower the magnifying glass. And the best part is the light that shines down on the paper. There’s also a little 5X magnifier if you need to get extra close. It reminds me of the magnifying glass you can use on Ancestry when viewing censuses online. It runs on batteries or a power cord. I take could see taking this with me to the library, though it’s by no means tiny.

I just received it last week and I haven’t put it to a whole lot of use yet, but I’m pleased. And I imagine it will come in handy for papers not related to genealogy.

To print or not to print?

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questionmarkI admit it. I like to print out source documents I find online. When I see a census record for an ancestor, for example, I have an overwhelming desire to print it out and put it in that ancestor’s paper file. That system has worked well for me, though of course there’s potential for all those printed records to take up a lot of space.

Yesterday, I was listening to Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems podcast, specifically the Digitize, Organize, and Archive episode in which she interviews Denise May Levenick about organizing family memorabilia and genealogy records. Listening to that, I was inspired to take their advice and try to squash my compulsion to print and instead save these documents as pdfs.

I thought I’d do that today, but I’m realizing that I take some comfort in having paper records. I know my house could catch on fire and the records would vanish. But I think I have more faith in my house remaining unburned than I do in my hard drive not failing. As I’m typing this, though, I know that’s not the true reason. (I back up to an external hard drive and I have an online backup service.) I think the real reason is that my paper files are more organized than my electronic genealogy files.

Saving pdfs rather than printing would require me to clean up my electronic act. And that would be a good thing. As I see it, I’d need to come up with a good naming system and file hierarchy. I’m a Mac user and I typically rely on its excellent search functionality to help me find what I need on my hard drive. But I can imagine that pinpointing specific records in a search might be more difficult.

One advantage I can see to saving these documents on my hard drive is that sometimes I’m doing research in the absence of my paper files. I might be using my laptop upstairs, while my file cart resides downstairs. I might be at a library or a conference. I can certainly see advantages to saving, not printing.

So I’m going to continue printing, but only until I get my head around doing a better job with organizing my hard drive. (Step 1: Read Denise May Levenick’s book, How to Archive Family Keepsakes, which offers information on file naming protocols.) Once I clean up my electronic genealogy files, I think I’ll try saving, rather than printing, and see if I can feel comfortable.