Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Are there loose documents on your hard drive?

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beachballI had to reinstall the operating system on my MacBook last week. (I paid someone to do it for me.) If you’re interested, you can read  some details about that in this blog post on my organizing blog. As a result, I spent some time focusing on the contents of the Documents folder of my hard drive before the big day.

I thought my genealogy documents were quite well organized on my hard drive. (I organize my documents in a Genealogy folder and Surname subfolder, by surname, then person.) Turns out, they weren’t quite as well organized as I thought. I was surprised to see that I had all sorts of loose files, some of them properly named, others with gibberish image names, floating around on my hard drive. Many were in my Downloads folder. Some were in the Genealogy folder. There are probably more elsewhere that I haven’t yet found.

It was actually quite a boon. Many of them I had not processed into my Reunion software. Some offered clues and insights. And it feels so much better to know things actually are well organized. (Or at least to have the illusion they are.)

If you download documents from Ancestry or elsewhere or if you scan documents into your computer, it might be worth 15 minutes to poke around your hard drive and see if there are any stray documents that didn’t make it into the proper folder!

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.

Resisting the urge to print

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1800sidebysideI used to print all my source documentation and then analyze the printed version and add facts to my Reunion software on my computer. In fact, as recently as 2013 I blogged about how printing gave me comfort.

But that’s changed and these days I’m not even tempted to print. In November, I posted 8 reasons not to print and I stand by it. Organizing my research is much easier now that I’m not looking at a lot of printed documents. Every now and then I pull out a paper file and look at something I printed years ago, but I bet that happens fewer than ten times a year.

Right now I’m going through all my source documentation and in the process cleaning up my electronic files. In doing so, I found the family who had been counted twice on the 1880 census. I needed to compare the two census documents side by side. That’s when I felt the urge to print. My initial thought was that it would be easier to look at the documents on paper, rather than on my computer. One of the documents had already been printed and was in my file. I came really close to printing out the other one, when I realized that looking at the paper documents would be harder for me, not easier. The type is so small on the printed document that I might have had to get out my magnifying glass and squint. That’s the opposite of easy!

I had originally found the census documents on Ancestry and saved them to my hard drive. So I just opened the documents on my computer in Preview (that’s the Mac default pdf and jpg viewer), zoomed in on the family in question and sized each of them so that they fit side by side on my screen easily–I didn’t need to see the entire document at a glance, after all. And then I was able to easily compare them, line by line. I had Reunion open as well, so it was simple for me to enter data into my ancestors’ records and source each fact properly.

What I’m learning in my research, over time, is that going paperless is just plain easier. When I transcribe my ancestors’ Civil War pension files, I use an electronic version, which allows me to zoom in when the handwriting is a little puzzling. And I’m not shuffling a lot of long pieces of paper. (Those documents came from the National Archives in paper form. I put source information on each and then scanned the whole file into one long pdf. I detail that process here.)

The keys to successfully eschewing printing, I believe, are twofold:

  1. A good file naming protocol and folder structure, so that I can easily see what I have for each ancestor. I file by surname and individual, which is working well for me.
  2. A solid backup protocol, in  case of hard drive failure. I use CrashPlan Pro to back up to the cloud and Time Machine to back my Mac onto an external hard drive that sits on my desk.

As commenter Maria Tello mentions, having a large monitor makes viewing electronic documents easier.

I was glad I resisted the urge to print that 1880 census document. It made analysis easier–and I’m sure it was easier on my eyes!

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When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.