There is organization & then there is ORGANIZATION!

Yes, deciding to begin this mammoth project using Ben Sayer's system was the right choice. The only problem is that BEFORE you begin all previously collected records should be in an orderly fashion! BIG SHOCK!  I am not certain but I do think there is a chance that I am the Queen of the Duplicates! I thought I was doing well just collecting all the documents about each family. Not so.

The Organization of Genealogy Materials May Take Many Forms

In April of this year  I wrote about A Different Kind of Brick Wall. I wrote my first thoughts about the problem of getting organized. I thought I was just writing about getting all my materials put together by families. I really had not thought through this whole process at all. Now that I am really thinking about it it is getting worse, not better.

Let me try to describe the thinking, exploring process which, by the way, is still ongoing. I started by Googling "digitally organizing genealogy data". There really is a LOT of good material out there. But not a lot fit into my pre-thinking and, though I had specified digital, still folders and paper based were included. As a part of the process I did see many interesting ideas.

As the result of one suggestion I created folder on my Pinterest page saving some of the good ideas for organizing that can be found on that excellent resource. I spent time going through many Pinterest pages but nothing really seemed right for me. Then I visted Cyndi's List-Organizing/filing section. Several good ideas were in that set of resources but My Ancestor Family File Folders and File Naming Convention developed by Ben Sayer really made an impression on me. AHA, a way to go.

A Different Kind of Brick Wall - the hardest I have found.

When I first began my genealogy work I was looking for specific information about my dad's family, I was not very organized... actually organization was not in my thinking at all. Just started looking up names and adding them into Family Tree Maker. I found information about different members whenever/wherever I could and printed it out. Evan took notes on where I had found the information.  I had hoped that this hit and miss method would help me answer the one question I wanted to be able to answer.  The word 'citation' had not yet entered my vocabulary. In a very short time I had a lot of names on my tree, adding information I was certain was correct without looking for any records that would verify what I was so sure was correct information.