As I get older, I begin to realize that time is against me
and although most of us don’t know how much time we have left on this earth, it
is not as long as the time I have had already. It’s the downslope of the bell
curve. It is time to assess the status of the “genealogy stuff” as my children
say.
Digital
My digital genealogy is well organized. I have four folders labeled for my
maternal and paternal sides and my husband’s maternal and paternal sides. I
like to say I’m researching my children’s ancestors. At this point, they don’t
really care and are not likely to take up the hobby.
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| My genealogy folder |
I also have folders for other smaller topics such as DNA, photo permissions, and software backup. Within the four family folders, I have organized the folders by surname, numbering them so they appear on the top of the list. Below that, I have Research folders by state because many of the localities have more than one surname who lived there. My Research-Texas probably has the most documents.
Within each Surname folder are Surname Couple folders. I
erred when I created these. I should have numbered them from the most recent
ancestor back to the most distant. If I ever find the parents of Nathaniel
Lancaster, I’m not sure how to number his folder. It is too much of a job to renumber these folders now. I have more important things to work on.
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| Surname folders |
Within each Couple Surname folder, my files are arranged chronologically because I start with the year of the event in the file name. Unless they are direct ancestors, then inside the folder are the folders for each of their children.
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| Couple & children folders |
Most everything I have has been digitized and the majority of the documents in each of these Surname folders came as a digital file from Ancestry, FamilySearch, Newspaper.com, Fold3, Chronicling America, and so on.
Paper Files
I started researching my family before the digital age, so I do have a lot of
paper. I have one drawer in the file cabinet and four file boxes. I used to
have more. My husband’s maternal family’s files have been intermingled with the
Nilsen and Lundquist files that his aunt is donating to the California State
Archives when she dies. I wrote a book about the Nilsen family in 2010. I did
my KDP (Kindship Determination Project) for my BCG (Board for the Certification
of Genealogists) portfolio on the Lundquist family. These files are better saved within that donation.
This past year I began going through these file boxes. Any paper
that I already had a copy of digitally such as census records or copies of deeds, I recycled. Any paper copy that I didn’t have digitally but was a photocopy of a record, I scanned them and then recycled the
paper. I have managed to get two large file boxes down to the one-half box. I
have more to do, but got distracted by another project. It’s time to get back
to that. The best place to work on this project is at the Family History Center and use their copy machine to scan documents into pdfs. They also recycle paper.
I will never be able to get rid of all the paper. Some papers
are original documents such as vital record certificates, report cards,
membership records, deeds, and more. These are mostly for recent ancestors. My
grandmother’s file and my parent’s file are nearly the size of a file box. My
husband’s parents had their papers put into binders, their contents in sheet
protectors. They are labeled and on our bookcase. In that condition, I think my
daughters will keep them.
Photos
I have also started organizing the photos. My plan is to keep the photos in
archival boxes organized by family, with a digital and printed index. I began the project
at the start of the pandemic but when my daughter came to visit and it was put
away. It’s still put away. Most of the photos have been digitized, so I’m safe
there.
Family Stories
The best way to preserve the work I have done is to write the family stories
and published them. This could be in local journals, state journals, or
individual books. Even publishing online may preserve their stories. I have
written two books, one on the descendants of the Gleeson family and one of
three generations of the Nilsen immigrants. If I were to write stories of the
remaining third-great grandparents of my daughters, I would have fourteen more
couples to write about. Or, I could look at it differently and write about the
ancestors of their remaining six great-grandparents.
Oh my! I better get started!
#52Ancestors-Week 43: Organized
This is my fifth year
working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe. I write each week on one
of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s
ancestors in new and exciting ways.
You are incredibly well organized and super-prepared to ensure your family's history continues well into the future!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Between your book and Denise Levenick's, I've learned some great tips.
DeleteJust wanted to say: Often our children are either too young or "busy" to have much interest in family geneaology. But like myself, who was a grandchild and did begin in my 30's to investigate (and had French language skills) my Trudeau family history in Quebec in the early 1990's--and this was before the internet became available nationwide, so it required original documents-seeking and lots of microfilm viewing and note-taking. So, my suggestion is that you let grandchildren know about your already accomplished hard work and perhaps at least one of them will pick up the trail...
ReplyDeleteI hope to do that if I am blessed with grandchildren.
DeleteLisa, I am way ahead of you on that Bell Curve, but you are way ahead of me re organizing. Good work and i really have to get busy. I have no children so have to figure out what and where to donate. I do have the info included in my Trust.
ReplyDeleteLinda Johnson
Linda, that's the biggest problem in trying to figure out where to place items. Likely I'll break it up by family.
Delete