Genealogy is all about Organization
When my sisters, MomMay and I first started building our
digital family tree, we were so excited to be able to utilize the
software MomMay had just purchased that we did not even test the water,
we just dived right in! We entered the data we had available from the
photocopied or handwritten tree information that had been handed down
without a thought to preserving the source document reference. Oops!
After some twenty years or so of confirming (or
refuting) the data from those original sources, I faced the same issue
so many beginning family historians do – Where, oh where did I find that
information? To my credit (patting self on back) I did go back and
attempt to create source references where possible and have since
attempted to be truly diligent in keeping track of my sources.
My primary tree application now is Ancestry.com as is
true for so many of today’s genealogy buffs. The ease of locating
obscure documents, the ability to view the scanned originals from
hundreds of years past, the ready ability to document your source
provides an incredible benefit for us. So, too, does the ready access
to other researchers’ work.
One of my personal dislikes is finding my own, personal
research couched in my own words reflected in some other person’s tree
without accreditation to me. Wow. That is simply one of the basic
No-No’s in research in any theatre of activity. Please always be sure
to show your source, be it the family tree you located via a search
engine, a story told to you by a family member or other person, a
picture shared by social media, or similar finds. It only takes a
minute to highlight and copy/paste the internet source from your browser
and enter it at the foot of your notes or “Story” by typing in SOURCE:
www.whatever.com or to indicate: SOURCE: email from … or documents
provided by…
Many times, however, you may spend hours or days
seeking information and locating many bits of information that are
potentially related to your own family. For these myriad pieces of
information it is equally as critical that you copy or scan as found,
identify your source location for your own references and possible
publication purposes, and ORGANIZE the data so that you may find it
later and add to the proper profile of a relative. My own computer
files contain a general folder entitled Genealogy, within which are many
individual folders bearing the surname of the branch, such as “Joslin”
or “Carroll”. Within these folders I maintain subfolders bearing the
full name and, hopefully, indicator of life span (example: folder
JOSLIN, subfolder WILLIAM HENRY – 1837-1921; or subfolder Charlemagne –
Joslin Lineage Research.)
In some cases the surname may be one you just located
and with which you are unfamiliar. It most likely came into your realm
of knowledge through finding a marriage for one of your female
ancestors. Many folks like to just keep the bloodline profiles in their
trees. As mentioned before, I enjoy the hunt and the facts and stories
located about my ancestors help to bring that person’s lifestyle,
vocation, peculiarities, successes and heartbreaks to the forefront.
This is how I get to know those ancestors. For my own purposes, I
generally maintain a subfolder within the familiar surname folder that
identifies the original link to that new surname. (Example: JOSLIN,
subfolder Hetty and Samuel Pope Maloy.) This provides me the initial
link to the new surname folder that I will then create, for the example
here MALOY. In this new Surname folder, I can then begin to build the
files for Hetty Joslin and husband Samuel Pope Maloy’s children and
grandchildren.
The surname folders also provide a space to hold the
materials provided by other researchers that may enrich your own
knowledge. Again, my JOSLIN folder contains a subfolder for Carol
Treadway – Edith Wessler JOSLIN Research.
Similarly, it is important to organize your
photographs. I usually drop the pictures into the subfolders being
careful to identify as fully as possible Full Name, d. (date) and b.
(date), etc.. Along with these photographs are scans of original
documents to which I’ve fallen heir or those scans others have provided
to me. If provided by another researcher, be sure to give them a nod
when you use those scans. Show their name and when and how they provided
the information. That will assist you in going back to verify your own
information, it shows the proper respect to your partners in research
and it permits other researchers to independently test the data to
determine its applicability to their own family members’ profiles.
Since so many family members find their eternal rest in
a common cemetery, I’ve found it most expeditious to have a single
folder for CEMETERIES, with photos that I utilize in the family tree
identified by name of cemetery and location, such as: Greenlawn Cemetery
- Bakersfield, Kern County, California and Greenlawn Cemetery or South
Side Cemetery - Drumright, Creek County, OK. The actual headstone
photographs I drop into the appropriate subfolder identified for the
family member. Here it is critical to remind you that those headstones
may not actually be accurate. The spellings of the names, dates of
birth and death, although carved in stone, may not be right. Be sure to
corroborate the data through other sources if at all possible.
That brings up another valuable source of information:
those subfolders! Don’t forget to check back from time to time to see
exactly what you’ve got stored away in those little computer files.
Your greatest source may be – YOU. I have a huge section of file
storage devoted to my genealogy research and I like to check back to see
what tidbits I’ve stored away. I may have streams of shared data that
appeared in RootsWeb, for instance, where researchers have shared their
own findings and discussed the pros and cons of accepting the data as
information. Remember, data is merely an accumulation of raw facts,
dates, names and so forth. Information is that data after it is
verified, organized and assimilated.
Finally, I like to print out certain pieces of found
research and use the printed page as a mark-up to add leaves to my
branches on my family tree. I keep hard copy folders similar to my
digital file folders with such printed copies filed by Surname and then
by Individual Given Name. This is an important step for critical pieces
of information. More than once, my computer has crashed during these
twenty or more years of digital research. All my tree data was not lost
because I had saved on disk from time to time a backup copy and was
able to restore a large portion of my original work. Thankfully, I also
had those hard copy printouts to work from. I had also printed and
begun filing a three-ring binder of my tree organized by surname, and
family groups then individual profile pages with accompanying stories,
photos, etc. From these hard copy sources I was able to bring my tree
back up to near original status. Undoubtedly, some of the information
may have been lost because I failed to backup routinely. That is an
essential element of organization – multiple copies of your hard-earned
tree information.
Genealogy has enriched my life. I know far more about
history than I ever learned in school. Having the dates of historic
events etched into my mind by virtue of having linked an ancestor to the
war, the battle, the plague or memorable act of sacrifice or success
helps me to sort of relive that portion of history. So many times I’ve
discovered parallels never suspected or imagined where different
branches of my family happened to fight side by side in historic battles
or traveled the same migratory route via separate wagon trains only to
find their descendants met and joined the paternal and maternal lines in
yet another unexpected way.
That is my next challenge: how to create a proper
timeline that tracks my ancestors’ paths and show the dates and places
where they shared that place in time. So far, I’ve experimented with
Excel but found it rather overwhelming with more than 11,700 individuals
now existing on my tree. Thus far those links are melded in my mind as
a name, an historic place or event that brings to mind a similar link
to another ancestor. In this case, I attempt to document as carefully
as possible through a written document, carefully documenting all
sources that contribute to the accuracy of my assumptions.
The research into the descendants of our bloodline
ancestors’ siblings is termed Descendant Genealogic Research. Some
perform this research in a highly organized fashion, taking one brother
or sister of their GGG-Grandfather and documenting first their marriage
or each of their multiple marriages and then adding each child born to
them with that spouse. A truly organized researcher will systemically
take each person, adding every fact to be found about them before moving
on to the next child, then grandchild and so forth. I do not have the
luxury of time to do this in every case nor is it my preferred method. I
am led more by my heart and that indescribable psychic link I believe
is formed when we reach back in time to “meet” our ancestors. I follow
my heart and that “voice” that tells me “Here is a story!” By dabbling
into sibling research other sources are made available to me. Their
offspring may have photos, stories, documents that were handed down only
to that brother or sister and remain in the hands of their descendants.
Here again, each piece of data is stored with the source carefully
documented for future reference.
It is my hope that these tips on organization can be of
assistance to you in your own research and that your research will help
you to learn more about yourself by learning about your ancestors,
building a picture in your mind of how they looked, what obstacles they
surmounted, certain aspects of their personality or attitudes that may
have been handed down through the genes to you or your children. Most
of all, I hope you are inspired to try your hand at becoming your
family’s historian. Enjoy!
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