As a professional organizer (and podcaster who pays a lot of attention to perfectionism) I know that getting in touch with why you want to get organized is invaluable. Instead of thinking, “I should get organized,” which isn’t very motivating, you can take a moment to reflect on why getting organized is important to you. When you do that, you can more easily take action. And you can get past perfectionism and know when something is good enough.
This is true of organizing your home, and it’s also true of organizing your genealogy research. Why do you want to get organized? Here are some possible reasons:
- To fully benefit from the information contained in the documents you find
- To trust your research
- To have facts at your fingertips to share with others
- To have your research in a format that you can easily share
- To feel less overwhelmed and more in control of your research
- To pass along your legacy to your descendants
Knowing why it’s important to you to make the effort to organize your research can help you select a system that will work for you and help you let go of the notion that your system has to be perfect. Trust me, it doesn’t. It just needs to serve your “why.”
I’d love to hear about why you want to organize your research. Just leave a comment. For me, it’s all about benefiting from my work and trusting my research.
If you sign up for my free Mailing List, you’ll receive a series of emails from me that touch on these issues. If you’re not yet on the Mailing List, I encourage you to sign up!
Some people contend you don’t have to organize digital files because computers have search functions.
I created a document file system on my iMac. I subdivided it into a paternal and maternal file. I broke the paternal file into my grandparents surnames, then repeated for my maternal grandparents. I color coded these file to match my RootsMagic 8 file.
For each of my grandparent files, I created a folder for documents, ie, census, birth certificates, death, certificates, wills, etc. I file females under their birth surnames for that branch.
Once I locate a document, I download, rename, and file it in the appropriate folder. Next I enter the information & source citation in RM8, then link the document image to the record.
I feel confident that my work can be easily passed on because I took the time from the beginning to organize my documents in a file that can be transferred.
I wouldn’t have the patience to use the computer search feature to locate everything. You’re bound to unwittingly miss documents.
The effort I took to create an organizational system for my genealogy, pays dividends now and into the future. It also reinforces which branch of my family tree I’m focusing on. I love the fact that I have identical color coded my digital document files and my database.
Cheri, you and I have very similar systems (except I don’t color code) and I agree 100% that relying on a computer search would be an exercise in frustration. I also agree that the time taken to organize now pays loads of future dividends. Thanks so much for commenting!
I have been working on my families for nearly 50 years, but my files were rather unorganized as I am seriously organization challenged in everything! I’ve lost several family members these past few years and having dealt or been involved with with several of the estates, so it was obvious to me that when I died no one would be able to make sense of my genealogy files as they are right now or, for that matter, anything else in our house. Although all my girls are uninterested in actually working on it, they ALL have volunteered to “take” my genealogy. I have been so overwhelmed by this daunting task that I had no clue where to start. Your posts were fantastic in pointing the way and seriously helped me get past my nitsy perfectionism and my basic laziness of “if I can’t do it perfectly right, I’m not doing it at all”! I felt I needed to be organized so that maybe someone else would actually get bitten by the genealogy bug and so I would feel something other than frustration and helplessness and so I could actually find something I was looking for in my mess. It’s slow going, but I am seeing progress as I bring the many file drawers worth of papers into workable order. My house is also becoming organized as I go through each room eliminating the things that bring no joy. THANK YOU so much.
Diana, you are so right that what you do now with organizing your research will help future family members who catch the genealogy bug!
I am so happy that you’ve found my advice helpful and that you’ve made progress. Congratulations!!
When I’m analyzing conflicting information or just a newly-found document, I want to have all the other facts and documents about that person or family at my fingertips. Which of them were created closer to the event in question? Which were recorded by someone in a position to witness or know about the event? Having the source citations attached to the person in my Reunion database, and having the images attached to the sources, makes the analysis a more deterministic process.
Yes!! I am so always so grateful that I can easily access all the information I’ve found in the past (except for what ends up in my backlog, which I’m whittling down this month). Thank you so much for sharing your perspective, Marian!
For me it’s #s 1 and 3 in your list above. I have started a project to attach images to my tree – doing a folder at a time. It will take a while, but you have inspired me 🙂
Teresa, that’s fantastic! You can get so much done a folder at a time. Good for you!
Just as an organized house eases stress, organized genealogy is calming. That being said, at times my home is in disarray and I can’t find anything. I was fortunate to start my genealogy as a teenager and I organized it very well pre-internet. I still use the same system for non-digital items. I have unfortunately lost some papers and they are either buried in the basement or perhaps I loaned them to Dad and they were tossed when he passed away. I find that when I start talking about an ancestor to someone and then go to look for information about them and can’t find anything, I get embarrassed and feel very amateurish!
I’m sorry to hear you lost some of your genealogy papers! (Maybe you’ll eventually have the thrill of finding them in the basement.) Organizing your genealogy resesarch is definitely doable and I hope that you can get to the point where not being able to find information to share is in the past. In the meantime, please be kind to yourself and give yourself credit for being a genealogist of decades’ standing. Thanks for commenting.
All of the above plus just the sheer volume of paper on shelves for both my and my husband’s families. I have a goal of a set of binders that match our online pedigrees plus storage boxes for the loose paper that may not directly support the life facts but have family stories, Albums, artifacts, copies of other people’s work, and area histories and information. All properly labeled and accessible and that take up the least possible amount of space. Since I now have 10,000 people in our combined trees even limiting my work to just the direct line is a lot. Your question challenges me to rethink my goal and what’s possible.
Lynne, I’m glad you found my question thought provoking! I think pondering why you want to get organized might help you set some goals that feel more attainable so you can have lots of victories along the way. Good luck with your project!
In my working life, I was a librarian. (And you know about libraries and organization!) My husband would say in spite of retirement, I still am, because I want him to think of the “refrigerator as library”. Why? So I don’t waste time finding things AND I don’t waste money buying another container of mustard when there was one behind the skim milk all along. I am also mildly ADD and learned that when my desk and office were organized I was able to focus far better. And also was way calmer. (What I did before I went to work full time is a blur, so don’t ask.) SO I think the philosophy is the same for genealogy, I can find things quicker, and not waste time searching for info I might already have. And part of being organized for is not being distracted by genealogical clutter AKA Bright Shiny Objects, while worthwhile later, just isn’t right now. (Like my old desk and office!) They have a special place in my Notebook, which takes less time to manage than physical clutter for sure.
I agree that order brings calm. And I also think that it makes genealogy less frustrating and therefore more fun!
I love the idea of thinking of the refrigerator as a library!
Sorry, it’s a long WHY, but my recent thinking:
I am looking to consolidate onto ONE PLATFORM my entire genealogy research, which is here, there, and everywhere! The twofold purpose is to provide myself with quicker access to what I have researched (both familywise and genealogy strategywise) to make my work more efficient going forward, but also to be shareable, so my family can witness my extraordinary years-long genealogy journey and discoveries, and EQUALLY important, enable them easily to continue the journey, as much remains to be researched, and I am in my eightieth year.
As a small example, in a single folder entitled (fictitiously) “George Cohen,” with as-many-as-needed subheadings, there would probably be 100 to 300 entries that I would want to house together, all of which apply in some way to George and currently are housed in multiple places, the majority (but not exclusively) familywise being Gmail emails and Dropbox documents, and strategywise mostly Gmail emails, OneDrive and Evernote. I also have an incomplete Ancestry family tree, with most family documents at this point in Dropbox. Plus, of course, there are photos and physical papers not yet digitized. George would be just one member of a very large family, each of whom would need a similar folder. Ideally, I would want it also searchable with key words!!! While I am at it, I would want to house it so my family would not have to pay to view it and add to it!
This is just a sample, showing the ranges of places items are currently stored, and which I want to display in this one folder for George that might contain 200 or so entries, categorized, subcategorized, tagged etc.
1. An article of 100 pages that I now have in Documents (Title: A thesis on the 1881 Pogroms…the year George was born, that may have been the reason George and his mother emigrated that year to the UK)
2. A YouTube webinar I now have in Evernote. (Title: A genealogist’s journey to Jedwabne…George’s’s place of birth, describing it then and now.)
3. A photo I now have in Pictures. (Title: George with his mother, probably in Liverpool, early 1880s.)
4. A document I now have in Dropbox. (Title: The 1897 passenger list showing George alone travelling to South Africa as a 16-year-old.)
5. A clipping from a magazine. (Title: An editorial about George, pictured third from the left, as the founding member of the 1900 surfing team in Muizenberg, South Africa…where he lived at the time.)
6. An email I now have in Gmail. (Title: An email from Esther Rosenthal, who remembered George through his brother…who married her grandmother.)
7. A newspaper clipping. (Title: George and Ruth Barnett marriage announcement, 1916.)
8. From Ancestry.com. (Title: DNA results suggesting this person could have been George’s first cousin’s grandson)
9. Three pages from “Jewish Ireland.” (Title: Clanbrassil Street…where George lived in 1880s Dublin)
Sorry so long, way past my bedtime, but Thank you!
Barry
I think your goal of housing everything in one place is a great one. Is there software that does that? Probably, though I’m not conversant in all genealogy software.
In my own research, my documents are stored on my hard drive in a coherent folder structure with consistent file names and each one is also accessible through its source citation in Reunion, the genealogy software I use. If I were using an email as a source, I would probably print it to a pdf and make that the the source document and process it like all other source documents. (How I do this is documented in my Orderly Roots guide, “How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow” available for purchase above.)
You have a big task in front of you, once you figure out the software you want to use. But knowing your why (making your life’s work accessible to those following you) is an important first step. And if you take it a little at a time, you’ll get there!
For what it’s worth, I’ve chosen not use subscription-based services for my family tree because I don’t want it to disappear if the subscription isn’t renewed.
Best of luck to you!
Thank you, Janine, for your thoughtful reply.
I asked Chat GPT if there is a program that would accomplish this, and the/a suggestion it gave was “Notion.” I have noted that on YouTube there are a few “Notion” tutorials, and although Notion is not a specific genealogy app, the tutorials include a couple by genealogist YouTubers. I have not yet watched any. I have, though, had an exchange of emails with Notion, and they claim that indeed all my requirements are met by the program. I did not ask them about searching with keywords, but I believe everything else I put in my message to you was covered.
While I can envisage what I want, and how I want to uniformly categorize it, I have struggled to come up with a way that is family shareable, easily understood, inexpensive or free, that will survive technology changes. I am sure your book will provide me with excellent information to incorporate or possibly even steer me in a new direction, so I will purchase it right after submitting this reply.
I agree with you in principle about copying and pasting emails, but I have over 6,000 family history emails, and the majority do actually make for interesting and entertaining reading. Then I have another 3,000+ strategy emails. Much contained in the latter may now be redundant in so much as AI likely has the ability to provide the same information. That thought upsets me, though, considering my efforts to gather it all, which include both email exchanges with layman genealogists such as me exchanging ideas and (re)sources, and emails from professional genealogists and experts such as you. Plus a ton more on my computer and in Evernote.
The ideal would be to leave a system that will give my children, grandchildren and cousins a library of family history info/stories, with a clear strategy/framework that will enable those interested additionally to continue the research and add to their branch of the family. In view of my age, albeit I still feel sharp, as I have so much uncategorized, realistically it is going to be tough to bring it to that point.
I have again checked the login info below, have been on your email list since the end of April, which I mention in case that triggers multiples of the same emails!
I look forward to reading your book to give me fresh perspectives and new inspiration.
With gratitude,
Barry
P.S. Do you know (of) my friend Lucy Hedrick? She has written books on “organization” and has just released her first novel.
Oh my gosh, you have a robust database! My gut feeling is that solid research will be more important AI (at least among serious genealogists), since AI can be inaccurate. So please don’t think that your efforts are for naught.
I don’t use Notion (for genealogy or anything) but I know people love it. I’m intrigued at the thought of using it for genealogy…would it create a family tree? To me that feels an important component of genealogy software I wouldn’t want to do without.
One last bit of advice is to not let perfectionism paralyze you. It doesn’t seem highly likely that you could find a tool that checks all your boxes. I encourage you to go with a tool that checks the most important ones.
I don’t happy to know of Lucy Hedrick. How exciting that she’s written and released a novel, though!