How do you file your paperwork so as to find it again easily ?

Question

What advice would you give someone just starting out? How do you think files should be set up? By surname? By category, such as birth certificate or census? Do you use a filing cabinet? What kind of system do you recommend?

Comments

Hi Rosalee, I use office one note to file all my information, no paperwork whatsoever. Onenote was very helpful when I added all my family to wikitree, by adding a tab for each surname then all the sources I wanted to add there, it was easy to copy and paste from there.

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My filing system: this stack or that drawer or this box or that folder or this notebook... Organization is not one of my finer skills. And, I’m lazy. I am not to emulated.

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Who said I ever found it again?

I have duplications upon duplications because I forgot I had already researched (this name) 30 years ago and the info is in (that notebook) or (this card file).

Add to that my Mum's non-system (a plastic document folder with hundreds of loose sheets of paper that SHE may have known went here, or there, or with that certificate) and I'm not sure I'll be done transcribing and sorting it all before 2050.  I'm trying to get the transcriptions into text document form, but I've lost myself a few times due to the intermarrying.  So the "Paul" file also has Daltons, Dews, and related lines that may also have a separate document for that name.

If you can figure out a good system, be sure to share it! 

Answer 1

There are free software programmes that you might want to try. I've recently started using GRAMPS and find it very useful. It utilises notes, images, and just about everything you would have pertaining to your research. As someone who tends to leave notes here, there, and everywhere it's like having someone keeping my desk clear - but always putting stuff where I can find it.

Added; I tend to store paper in a file cabinet under the type of record with sub-folders for surnames. However, I scan everything and make a note with the scanned image as to where its physical location is. Kind of a personal fail-safe.

Answer 2

I stopped using paper files a long time ago. Mostly those were old BMD certificates and they are now filed away - after they were scanned into the PC.

I do everything online now. Or on my PC at least.

I have one folder called GENEALOGY and everything is inside more folders inside that one Genealogy folder. I usually remember where I put things, but if I dont I use the search function of my PC to find it.

My Genealogy Folder now has more than 1.5 GB worth of stuff inside it!!!

Answer 3

I do keep paper partly because I have a lot of information collected by my grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-aunt and partly because  I’ve worked with electronic filing systems for years and know that somettimes systems change and things get lost.  I have a  folder for each married couple that I’m descended from back to  great-grandparents and a couple of great-greats.  If I have documents for their siblings or cousins, that goes in with them.  I have scanned in a lot of photos and documents, but not correspondence and  their original notes.