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).

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