A light bulb moment!

I've decided on my next big task of orginization/spring cleaning.

I had been wondering how I could get the tons of records I have found on ancestry, onto my Rootsmagic family tree.  I didn't think it was possible.  My plan was to eventually print everything off.  But that would have been a LOT of ink, and paper!

Well with one simple question by me on Twitter...
Question? when U find records on Ancestry, do U print them all off? The background is always black so uses up lots of ink..any alternatives?

And the one simple answer from ACoffin...
@FunFamHistory Save Ancestry records as images.


I was like duh!  I didn't realize that I could do that.  I thought my only option was save on ancestry or print.  But with one quick look, I realized there was a button to click, and I can save it too my computer!

So now, I will need to do this methodically or I will get very overwhelmed.  I have a lot of records, some are for multiple people.  I will need to give this some thought before jumping in.  But knowing me, I'll end up jumping in with both feet!

Data Backup Day

Thanks once again to Geneabloggers for a great idea!  Data Backup Day!

I'm guilty of not backing things up regularily.  This will be a great habit to get into.

So  I took their advice, and put my genealogy folder that I had recently organized and put a copy onto my external harddrive.  I then took a copy of my Rootsmagic file and put it on that harddrive too.

I also recently put all of my bookmarks onto delicious, so I'm not sure if I need to back that up or not, if anyone has advice about that, let me know.

So overall I am getting things organized, and it feels great!

Spring cleaning - Organization continues!

I wrote earlier about feeling motivated to do some genealogy spring cleaning. Well I am still feeling that way with this dreary weather. Mind you, I can only do a little at a time since I do have my 9 month old daughter to take care of, but I feel like I am actually getting somewhere now with some organization.

Up until now I have had papers everywhere. I have finally followed my own advice and did a colour coded file system. It is making things so much easier!

Now I am going through what I put in those files and working on scanning what I need into my computer. I do just a few pictures a day so that it is not so overwhelming.

The next step is organizing my computer files. So I can find everything more easily. This is how I decided to organize my computer files.

• Have one file called Genealogy - placed on desktop for easy access.
• Have the 4 surnames listed in here, just like in my file cabinet. I will put other file folders with names in that line as needed.
• Within those folder I will label the pictures documents like this:

SURNAME_Firstname_name of document_Date if available
This should make things more consistent, and easier to find.

• I will also have files labeled like I will in the paper format such as, maps, history, forms etc.

After this is done, my next step will be organizing my bookmarks on my web browser. This will be a big job!


If anyone has any ideas for what they do as they search the web I would love to hear it. I tend to bookmark everything I find genealogy related, but it then becomes impossible to find what I really need.

It would be great to have one user friendly, master list, organized by category of genealogy websites that users could submit and maybe rate don't you think? Maybe one already exists? If it does please pass along the link.

Have a great day!

Start off organized!

If I could give just one piece of advice to someone just starting out is get organized early on. I was not organized, and now it is taking me a lot of time and effort to get things that way.

I was originally using only Ancestry.ca to keep my family tree. (Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this site. And I wouldn’t have half the information I have if it wasn’t for them.) But now that I want to share my family tree with others and want to print off various reports I have outgrown ancestry as my only source of record keeping. So I find myself finally buying a family tree program (Roots magic), and converting everything into the new system. A big pain let me tell you. It would have been a lot easier to have started out with this program.

As you gather more and more information, you will quickly realize that you will be accumulating a lot of pieces of paper. Even if you tend to do things on the computer, you will still have things you have printed out, or records given to you by family members.

There are lots of possible solutions. Everyone will have their own way to keep track of items but below is just one possible way, and one that I might try.

Start with 4 coloured files. For example: 1 blue, orange, green and red

Each colour will represent 1 of the four family lines starting with your grandparents. Label each of these folders with the surname.

So for me it could be..

Cahill - Red

Shanks - Green

Rowe - Orange

Neil –Blue

This first file will contain all information from your grandparents down to you.

The second file for each colour would be all of your grandparents’ parents’ information, including their siblings. You would label it with whatever reference # system you are using.

The third would be your great grandparents’ information, including their siblings.

And so on.

As you can see, these files could become quite full the further back you go. In this case you would simply subdivide them and label appropriately. But no matter how far back you go, you will be able to tell simply by colour what side of the family you are looking at. This would be particularily useful for me since I have a common surname "DEAN" in 2 different lines of my family tree.

It is recommended that within each of these folders to include a large envelope so you can place any small documents or pictures in them. This will help protect them to some degree, and also help them from getting lost.

It is suggested that these files be used for “inactive” work. So those documents that you are not currently working on. The work you are still working on may be put into binders for easier access. These too need to be organized too, but we’ll discuss ideas for that shortly.

I may try this system, but I am also interested in hearing what works or doesn’t work for other people!

Getting started

So you’ve thought that maybe looking into your family history would be an interesting hobby.

Now what?

You may be inclined to jump right into some online searches, but first you should concentrate on gathering the information that you already have in your possession. It will save you a lot of frustrations later on.

Start by writing down things you know for sure. (I will discuss in a later entry about types of forms you can use, but here is an example of one.)

Information about you. Your birth date, where you were born. Are you married? When were you married? To whom, where? This information may or not be useful in further searches, but your family tree will start with you, so thats a good place to begin.

Next you will move on to your parents. When were they born, where? When and where were they married. Where in their lives have they lived. What are the names and date of births of all of their children (your siblings).

Then, what do you know about your grandparents. List anything you can think of. Where they in the military? If they are no longer living, do you also know the date they died? Do you know where they were buried?

You might know a little something about your great grandparents. If you do, write it down.

See, already you have some information to go on. Maybe it’s not all complete, but what you have will hopefully give you a good place to move on from. The more information you can start with though, the easier it will be. So, the next step is too look at any documents you might have in your possession. Maybe you have a family bible, or old military records, or anything else that would contain any hints of your family.

Now that you have some information, you will want to talk to your family members. Go visit them, and see what they can tell you. Some people might be able to tell you stories. Maybe you will want to record your conversation so you can refer to it later, or bring along some paper to record things. Don’t trust that you’ll remember everything they tell you. I’ll talk about sources later, but also knowing who gave you the information will become very important later on, so make sure you keep track of who told you what.

Your family will be able to give you lots of information. Learn from my mistakes. Make sure you talk to your eldest relatives and write down whatever you can remember from the stories they tell you. They may provide a piece of information that may help you later on in your research. Maybe you could even get them to write down information that they recall. They can do this on their own time and then give you that information at a later date.

So have fun!

If you've already done this stage (maybe even a long time ago) what was your experience. Were family members willing to share stories with you? How did it help you out?