Researching your family tree is a rewarding endeavor. It provides you with a glimpse into history, a feeling of roots and a better understanding of who you are. Family research also creates a lot of information that will eventually make little sense unless it is organized. Sometimes, organizing can seem like an impossible task but, once you have finished this article, you will have an idea of just how easy getting your research in order will be.
There are many commercial programs designed to organize family research. These run the gamut from simple to complex programs containing a lot of bells and whistles you may never use. Using one of these special programs can make organizing your research data easier, but buying one is by no means necessary. If you would like to try a genealogy program, look around and try out several before settling on a particular one. All programs vary to some extent and you will find yourself using certain features more often than others. You want to make sure the program you get fits with your needs.
For those who do not want to work with a genealogy program, there is the advantage of being able to set things up the way you want and you can include what you want, without having all those extra things lying around and taking up space. The first step is setting up a folder for each surname you are working on. Many people like using a spreadsheet, but I find some type of tree system works better. That way, you can either have many different surname folders, or take one surname and include those that have only marriage ties in sub-folders. Decide which works best for you.
Inside the surname folder, set up sub folders for each family unit of husband, wife and children. As the children marry, you can create new family sub folders and either move all the child’s information or just include anything that is created from that point. You can then decide what types of information you want to include for easy access. These can be photos, military records, cemetery records, etc... These sub folders can be in the individual surname folders, or have main folder made up for them. Birth, death and marriage records should go in the individual family folders.
Other folders that will help you stay organized are: census records; books searched even if they were not useful), contacts made and web sites visited. Over time, you may find your particular needs merit other subjects. My census folder contains year, county, state, page number and information obtained. Including census searches that do not elicit information is also important; knowing where you have been will save you from going back and looking again.
Making any organizing system work is a matter of consistency. Taking a few minutes to enter any new information into its proper folder as soon as you obtain it may save you an hour of searching for it in the future. Conflicts in data will also be more easily caught so they can be further verified. Consistency also applies to method used. If you start out keeping birth records with the parents of children at marriage, do this for each family. If you move some and allow others to remain, you can quickly lose track of where the needed information is.
Once you have set up all your folders and sub folders, create one more folder with the title family research, or whatever you choose to call it, and put all the rest inside. Now, all your data is not only organized, but is in one, easy to locate place. Have fun with finding additional information.
