The Process


For the past couple of weeks I have been sorting, filing, inputting and organizing all of my papers. If there is one thing a genealogist has it is PAPERS. All of these sources and documents are taking over, so my goal has been to organize, organize, & organize. I am almost done.
A little insight into the SYSTEM
For every piece of documentation I find I need to: use it and save it (saving it includes preserving it and locating it for future reference). Every time I gather a piece of information I follow a system:
  1. Document Numbering--The information has to be accessible and easy for me to access whenever I need to see it, refer to it, or review it. After numbering the document I place it in a sheet protector for preservation. This will limited the number of times the document is physically touched, but still allows it to be copied.
  2. Index the Document--Because I have so many documents, I have created an index containing a brief description of each document and where or how I obtained the document. (This way, if someone else wants to search for the same source they may.) The index is in Word so when I want to locate an item I use the "find" tab and can quickly search the index.
  3. Electronic Documentation--Recently most of the documents I have obtained have been electronically and it makes sense to preserve them this same way. So, in addition to a hard copy, I now have an electronic copy using the same numbering system. (I am moving forward on this, so most of my older copies of documents have not been scanned--this will be a future project.)
  4. Input--The information has to make it from the source document to my genealogy computer program. For every piece of information I input into the computer I document and source each fact with a reference so that anyone can follow my path and prove my facts. {Some documents have input for several people. For example, a census record has information for multiple family members and all of that information needs to be input for each person.}
  5. Review--For each piece of information found, there are more questions asked. So, each source is carefully examined and reviewed for the next step in the research process. This allows this specific document to be used as a stepping stone for further research. These future research questions are recorded on my research logs.
  6. File--To store the numbered documents I file them in binders along with the index. (FYI have now have 5 binders with over 640 documents. See the photo above).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Walking Where They Walked: Park Hotel

Image
Park Hotel, Rock Springs, Wyoming, September 2013, RR&B 19 Elk Street, Rock Springs, Sweetwater, Wyoming The Park Hotel opened in 1914 and was the hub of Western Wyoming until the late 1950’s. It was the largest and most modern hotel in the city. Advertisements boasted of hot and cold water in each of its 38 rooms, twenty of which had private baths and toilets. The fourth floor was added in the 1920’s. The Park Hotel catered to commercial men and automobile tourists traveling the Lincoln Highway. The hotel had a boisterous barroom and a sedate restaurant with sparking white table cloths. Rock Springs Miner, 30 January 1914, page 1, Wyoming Newspaper Project online. One memory of the Park Hotel, is related by Thomas P. Cullen, “One summer afternoon while walking up Elk Street toward the C Street Crossing, my attention was drawn to the small crowd assembled near the north end of the Park Hotel. A slight man, of short stature, stood rolling up his pantlegs
Read more

What is a mortcloth?

A mortcloth, or pall, is a funeral cloth used to cover a coffin in the funeral ceremony or the deceased prior to burial.   The deceased’s family usually rented a mortcloth from the local church and after each use, the fabric was washed and readied for use again.   The word comes from the Latin word “pallium” meaning cloak. The Mortcloth case of 1792 begins:   “ For many centuries, and probably up to the 20th, the Church of Scotland was the sole supplier of mortcloths.   As the name would suggest, they were cloths used to cover the dead prior to burial, and after use, were washed ready for rehire. The Church hired these for a few pence, or in some cases loaned out these cloths, until the time of the funeral. The revenue raised by this service, typically around £40 pa, was distributed to the poor of the parish at frequent intervals.”   In the late 1780’s a local Society of Colliers decided to purchase and rent out their own mortcloths preventing the local church from making re
Read more

Bagillt, Flintshire, Wales

Image
Bagillt, Flintshire, Wales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagillt) The parish of Bagillt was gazetted on 23 May 1844, having been created from the townships of Bagillt Fawr, Bagillt Fechan, Coleshill Fawr and Coleshill Fechan, which were formerly in the parish of Holywell. It is located in the Northern part of Wales. (Genuki, http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/FLN/Bagillt/index.html)   The 1841 British Census finds Margaret(2) Roberts, aged four years living with her parents and siblings in Bagillt, Flintshire, Wales. In 1831, J. Poole penned: "Bagillt is a bustling place, and will continue so, as long as her smelting and coal works go on in their present prosperous state. Well conducted boats go from this place to Chester every day; with a favorable wind, these little barks make the 17 or 18 miles in little more than two hours."   (J. Poole, Gleanings of the histories of Holywell, Flint, St. Asaph and Rhuddlan, 1831 as qtd.  in http://www.genuki.org.uk/
Read more