My genealogy filing system - Part 3 - The decision

The decision is in. I am going to change my filing system.

I hope that this will prove to be a good decision, and not one that just comes from wanting something to do while I wait (im)patiently for some documents I've ordered! I think that it will be good. I have thought it through. As I mentioned in my earlier post, now is a good time to do it because I need to do some routine maintenance anyway.

My new system will work something like this...

Filing system

• Documents will be filed according to family groups, sorted on the male surnames. This will hopefully minimise the need for duplication of documents.
• I will file a person's records from birth up to (but not including) when they married/partnered, with their parent's family group. I will have some decisions to make about where to file information on people who eg lived a long and busy life but never partnered up with anyone. A person's records will include both documents I've found and my notes on searches undertaken, analysis and conclusions etc.
• I will have a separate folder(s) for information on places, maybe occupations, or other information that could relate to many families.
• I may also set up a separate folder for a few surnames where I have a lot of information on families that may not be related, or only distantly related.
• I will also keep a folder for organisational information. eg expense tracking, database subscriptions, filing system details... !

Physical setup

• Original copies - I will leave where they are in archival storage containers. No point moving these around if I don't have to, and I don't have so many original copies of documents that I wouldn't be able to find things.
• Working copies - I will continue to use lever arch folders, but upgrade to more rigid ones. My pretty metallic purple ones looked lovely on the shelf at first, but quickly sagged under the weight of their contents.
• Copies to be kept in copy safe sheet protectors.
• I have found some extra wide tabbed dividers. Each surname will have one. Family groups will be marked out within the surname by an initial coloured sheet protector with summary information - as described below.

Colour coding
Family groups will be colour coded as follows.

• No blood connection to me - blue
• Blood connection (either partner) - green
• Ancestor (either partner) - red

The first page for each family will be a sheet protector with a coloured strip down the side, with a printout of summary information on the family from my database. That printout will not be family group sheets. Instead, I am going to create a simple chart for each family. My genealogy software (Genbox) allows me to pick and choose what types of events to show on the chart, and to colour code names. It can include source citations on the chart output. So, I will be able to see all the same information as included on a family group sheet but in a format that I find easier to take in. I can put up an example of the output, if anyone is interested.

In addition, yellow in the surname folders will be for information that relates to all of that surname - such as information on the surname's origin, unproved connections, or whatever else I haven't thought of.

Hard drive organisation

Will mirror the system above of surnames and sub folders. Files will be named according to the following convention:

DATE EVENTTYPE DOCTYPE Detail Description SOURCEID FAMILYID

Where:

• Date = year followed by month and day, if appropriate. eg today would be 20100518. The folder will then sort by date.
• Event type = type of event the document primarily relates to. I will borrow GEDCOM tags for this where possible. eg BIRT, MARR, DEAT.
• Document type = eg letter, image, transcript, register entry, newspaper clipping.... I will have to devise my own list of abbreviations to keep these a bit shorter. If anyone can direct me to such a list that would be appreciated.
• Detail = citation details if relevant depending on the source. Could be an archive file number, page reference...
• Description = a few words, if the file name isn't getting too long.
• SourceID = S followed by the source number allocated by my software. So at least I can search for that if my system doesn't work as planned!! If there are documents that I haven't entered into the database, for whatever reason, I will see that from the file name and will be able to search for that type of file.
• FamilyID = F followed by the ID number for the family allocated by my software. As a proxy for a name reference supposing that I often won't have enough space for that in details.

This seems to work quite well with the few test documents I've tried out. Mostly the file names are around 50 characters in length. Again, there are dozens of exceptions that I can think of but I will just have to work my way through those as I get to them.

Wow, I feel more organised already, and I've barely begun to set everything up!

My genealogy filing system - Part 2 - But maybe I should try it your way

Why change?
As I described in my last post, my filing system is based on record types and it has served me well. Give me the source citation for any document I hold, and I can put my hands on it in 30 seconds, easily. So why consider changing to some variation of a surname based system?

My system works well when I want to look at a birth certificate and I know the year of birth, or my database is open to quickly check. It doesn't work so well when I can't remember the year of birth. Not that looking up the details on my database is difficult, but it's an extra step to take.

More annoying are the times when I want to compare multiple documents, or even look at all documents, for an individual. While I can find each document easily, it takes a little longer to pull out a collection of documents and then of course I have to file them all in the right places afterwards.

In short, I rather like the idea of grabbing one (or a few, depending on the system I settle on) files and being able to see all the documents relating to whoever I'm focusing on at the time.

The other factor influencing me is discussions on some of the blogs and web sites I have seen recently. Early on in my genealogy life I tried a surname based system, with families filed according to ahnen number. I think it was the system suggested by whatever how-to book I was reading at the time. It didn't work for me. I didn't 'get' filing by surname. While there is no particular 'Aha!' moment I can identify, the combined effect of the descriptions of systems I've read has been the same. I am starting to see ways that maybe, just maybe, it could work for me.

Pages that have sparked ideas for me include (in no particular order):

• Bobby Family Tree
• Lisa Louise Cooke 'Family History' podcast
• Elyse Doerflinger on YouTube
• Dear Myrtle - "Finally Get Organized: Jan 2009 checklist"
• Find Your Folks - "Color genealogy filing system"
• Legacy News - "Organization"

And of course, assorted links in Cyndi's List.



Changing your filing system is a big commitment. I'll let you know if I make the jump!

My genealogy filing system - Part 1 - I did it my way

Is it just me?!
Am I the only one who organises their genealogy files by the type of record? From browsing numerous blog posts and "how-to" sites, it seems like everyone else has their information filed in some variation of a surname system.

The reason that I'm thinking about this now is that it's time for some routine maintenance of my system. I need to catch up on filing I should have done, make sure I have both hard and electronic copies of everything, and do some general fine tuning to accommodate the variety of record types that I'm now seeing. Newspaper clippings, for example, really need to move to a dedicated folder after all the digging about I've been doing on Trove! Plus, I want to literally straighten up my folders, either by using shelf dividers or by replacing them with folders that aren't quite so floppy.

Given that I need to work on my filing system anyway... if I was going to make a change, now would be the time to do it. But before I discuss any possible changes, let me describe my current system more fully.

My genealogy shelf

Within the folders -

• The majority of items in my birth, death and marriage folders are certified copes of certificates from Victoria, Australia. I arrange them by year and registration number. I also note the name of the person or couple. I need to decide what to do with registrations in other jurisdictions, and the baptism entries that have snuck in. I'm thinking a subdivision in the folder for each jurisdiction, and a separate folder for baptisms.
• Burial information is grouped by cemetery, then by name(s). 
• Immigration records are organised by date and ship, plus name(s). 
• Census records are by year, then place, then name of head of household.
• The large unlabelled folder contains a copy of a long family history manuscript (by another author, many years ago) for one of my branches. 
• The Indexes folder contains print outs of microfiche index pages (yes I've had it a while!) and more recently some database search results on particular surnames that I thought I may want to refer back to.

I also have folders for correspondence, wills/probate, inquests, and various other bits and pieces (newspaper clippings, pages from books etc) and of course proper archival photo storage for my precious original photos.

My electronic filing system matches my hard copy system, so I only need to work out where a document goes once. The folder and name for my electronic files also reflect the patterns I've described for filing hard copies. Or at least, it almost does and it will again when I've done my routine maintenance!

Advantages
The advantages I see of this system are:

• Each document needs to be filed only once, reducing filing workload and storage space.
• The hard copy and electronic filing systems are consistent. I only need to work out where to file things once.
• It is quick and easy for me to put my hands on any document.
• It is logical - someone else should be able to work out what things are and where to find them.

So with these advantages, why am I considering change?  
More on this next time...

Meanwhile, I'd be interested to hear more about other your filing system in a comment or a blog post (new or old). I know what I'm going to say in Part 2... but Part 3, where I describe my decision, is changing by the minute!