welcome back to the ancestral findings podcast getting your genealogy organized is one of the
best things you can do to make your research easier on you when your genealogy is properly
organized it is quick and easy to find the person you need on your family tree
or to look up a document you have scanned on your computer here are some helpful tips
when you are doing genealogy you can collect a lot of information on a lot of people very
quickly this is especially true if you are working on more than one family line at a time
yet even if you are only working on one line the number of people you are dealing with can become
difficult to manage in a short amount of time when you start documenting the lives of your ancestors
siblings nieces nephews aunts uncles cousins and even in-laws one family line can end up having
several forests full of branches you need a way to organize it all so that you can find who you need
to find quickly and with ease good genealogical organization will also assist anyone who uses
your genealogy research work in the future in making easy and accurate use of your work
without confusion or needless time spent trying to sort out who is who and who belongs to what branch
these are some genealogy organizing tips to help you keep everything neat clean and in order
for you or anyone else who is using or even just reading your genealogy work
use a good family tree software program this will be one of the best investments you will
make in your genealogy research work a good family tree software program will allow you
to put people in their proper places on your tree from the very beginning of your genealogical
journey as you add more names dates and places a good family tree software program will allow you
to find people deep in your tree and go right to them using an index usually indexed by surnames
this means that if you are going to put a new name on your family tree and can't
remember the exact way they are connected to you but you know who their parents siblings
children or other close relatives are you can look up those relatives in your index
instead of clicking through names on your tree hoping to stumble across the correct person
go right there by clicking the name and easily add your new person to your family tree also a
good family tree software program will tell you exactly how you are related to any given person
on the tree no more getting out a piece of paper to draw a chart or do mathematical
calculations in your head to figure out if someone is a first cousin three times removed
or a third cousin one time removed the software program will tell you there may even be places
to add profile pictures for your ancestors so you will have faces to greet you when you
go to the names you could build a family tree on ancestry.com but the tree isn't as user-friendly
as some of the independent software programs available in stores or online you can still
build an ancestry.com tree if you want to use it to connect with potential distant cousins online
even if you do this you should still do some online research and purchase a solid reputable
family tree software program for your desktop or laptop make family folders on your computer
there are going to be times when you will have information about an ancestor that does not fit
into your family tree software program but that you still want to save for future reference such
as for clues to building on your tree for sharing with other relatives or for writing the full story
of your family in blog or book form for others to enjoy etc while most family tree software
programs will have space for notes where you can record biographical information stories and
document transcriptions about your ancestor this space won't be suitable for every item you collect
this is where a good set of family folders can come in handy in fact they will be invaluable
to organizing your genealogy in a digital format the best way to do this is to create an overall
genealogy folder on your computer's desktop within that folder create subfolders by family
surname within the family surname folder you can create sub subfolders to put each document
type for that surname such as birth certificates death certificates marriage certificates military
records newspaper clippings or articles job records census records social security records
information from genealogy and history books and any other type of folder that is useful to you
label each individual file you put in a surname subfolder using the surname first then the date
then a short description of the document these are usually going to be scans of
physical documents that you have made and have no place to put on your family tree software program
the surname subfolders should organize themselves alphabetically within the genealogy folder without
you having to do anything this will make it much easier for you to find the information you need
on any given person on your family tree quickly and with delightful ease if you want to take it
a step further and make your genealogy folders and subfolders even more organized you can make
subfolders for individuals and put these within the appropriate surname folder
within subfolders for individuals you can put the same types of sub subfolders for documents
mentioned above except that instead of pertaining to anyone with that surname
these documents would only apply to that unique individual within the surname folder
save these documents with the same format you do other documents surname first name the date
and a short description of the document like the surname folders the individual
name folders will alphabetically organize themselves on most computer operating systems
this type of finely detailed organization will assist you in keeping perfect track of the
documents you have on each ancestor whether by surname only or by individuals within a surname
once you set up the folders it's easy to scan new documents and add them to the correct ones
it is also easy to create a new sub subfolder when you add new individuals to your tree or
come across new documents and put these in the correct place on your computer
join me the next time as we continue a close look at genealogy organizing tips part two
thanks for listening and subscribing to the ancestral findings podcast
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weekly historical postcard giveaway i hope you have a wonderful day and happy searching
you