Kinfolk research is a messy journey, twisting and turning your way through the maze of ancestors, accumulating a new piece of paper, photo or document to take care of along the way.
Family History research can get out of hand quickly if you don’t have an organisation plan. All that accumulated research copies of newspaper clippings, photos, Birth Certificates, census printouts, etc.
Being able to find what you want when you need it helps limit wasted time or duplicated research. Nobody has time to search for the same thing over and over. We want to move on to the next exciting turn in the maze and discover more about our Kinfolk.
The research you do is important and time-consuming enough, so you want to keep it organised! (NO TIME FOR WASTED RESEARCH DUPLICATIONS). I understand for those of us that don’t have the organisation gene already a part of our makeup, that the temptation to flit about each ancestor and leave research in a big paper pile or saved in an unorganised fashion on our hard drives, As that is where I find myself at times.
So I’m speaking firsthand about how important it is to find your organisation style early in your research journey, and stick to it… The best advice to stay on track is to clear the accumulated clutter that just isn’t necessary going forward.
DON’T organise or file outdated, wrong, or duplicate information. Clear that stuff out so your research is neat and easy to review when needed.
You will find as you research more and more, you will not only accumulate your kinfolk’s Documents, but you will also want to get to know them more by researching the towns they lived in and where they may have worked, or the schools your kinfolk may have attended and any other miscellaneous information that will need to be organised too, you might keep folders for towns or countries, with maps, historical background, and local research notes.
Whatever way you decide to organise this information, be consistent don’t change your storage style for each different ancestor, as you will eventually get lost and confused about where and how you have filed your research.
9 tips to get you started organising what you have already.
- Gather all your family history-related items from your stashes around the house. Photos, certificates, printed material notes, etc., and put them all in one place to start with.
- Sort out photos into groups per ancestor.
- Now start sorting out your collected paperwork and memorabilia into individual ancestors.
- Scan everything and label it correctly. (ideally by surname and sub-folders under that person’s name or chronologically, etc.)
- File all original documents per ancestor and throw away the rest.
- Use a bench-top hang file system to start with until you know which method you prefer to organise and save your valuable research.
- Whether you use binders, folders, digital, or a notebook, alphabetize the files by surname. This helps to find what you need quicker.
- Make organising your research a routine.
- Have a designated workspace for your Family History Research.
This is just a basic starting point. Refining your style of organisation as you go forward with your research is a must. You will need to break it down even further as you accumulate more and more information and paperwork. I have an additional blog post on types of organisation and ways to achieve them. Just follow this link. (add Link)- Organisation Types.
When you determine what organisation structure and file-naming system, you want to follow, write it down and stick to it. Don’t swap to different systems for different things. You will get lost and unorganised just as quickly as having no system at all.
Use tech tools, apps, and spreadsheets to keep you organised as you go. Don’t leave your organisation for another day. Organise as you go so the accumulation of research doesn’t become overwhelming.
Always keep the area you do your research free of clutter, this helps with staying on track with filing away your research when you finish, doing small chunks of organisation as you go is better than leaving it to pile up and it seems to be too hard a task, so you don’t file it, making the job even more overwhelming and impossible to move forward.
I hope this helps you make that decision to organise your Family History Research sooner rather than later.
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Happy Researching Fellow Kinfolk Historians.