Organize Your Files

Organizing your Family History material can quickly become very necessary. There are many methods for organizing your files. This is the method I use. I'm sure it will evolve over time, but it works for me and you will find that that is the most important issue in your organization strategy; does it work for you. Personally I am more comfortable on the computer, so I prefer to keep most of my research material and family history findings in an electronic format. Even if the document or information I get is in paper format, I will use my scanner to scan in a copy to my computer.

There are some advantages to this approach:

1. Electronic information is very easy to duplicate. If someone wants a copy of any of my research, I can burn a cd, email the file as an attachment, or print it out.

2. When I do need to make a copy, I don't have to worry about degradation. With a regular paper copy, if I photocopy that document, the copy will never be as good as the original. That if that person wants to make a copy...it just gets worse. With an electronic file this isn't an issue.

3. When I go to a Family History Library or Center all I really need is my flash drive that has all of my most important information. I have a bag with some documents, but it is very light to carry.

4. I can easily back up all of my information and put it in a very safe place (like a safe deposit box or safe)

My way of Organizing:

· Figure out a way to organize your information, and then stick to it.

· Be consistent.

· If you aren’t sure where something should go you can put it in a ‘File Later’ folder. Periodically go through this folder and put things in their proper place.

· Make sure file names are consistent and descriptive.

· Backup your files!

· For very important files you can print off a copy and store the paper copy in a safe place.

· Backup your files!

· This is only one way of doing it. The only right way is the way that works for you.

· In the research folder, keep a record of what you’ve researched; a research log.

Additional Help:

There are several articles on this topic at http://www.cyndislist.com/organize.htm

My favorites were:

• IN A PILE OR A FILE by Rita F. Bartholomew
• HOW DO I KEEP ALL THIS STUFF STRAIGHT?
  by George Morgan

Also good:

• http://genealogy.about.com/od/organization/
• http://genealogy.allinfoabout.com/features/organize_a.html

Correspondence in Family History

Letter writing is becoming a lost art. First the telephone was to blame, now email has almost completely consumed what was once letter writing. But unless you have unlimited resources of time and money, you will need to write letters in order to further your family history research. Most of your information will come from government agencies, historical societies and long lost relatives, and a written letter is not only usually required, but written well can sometimes open some of the doors you hadn’t even known existed.

Many people are intimidated to send of requests for information. “Where do I send it?” “What do I say?” “What information should I include?” etc. are some of the questions people have and we are going to answer those. There are many resources available to you to help you in your correspondence. From pre-written form letters, to lists of addresses and contacts; knowing what is available to help you will take away that intimidation.

First, I must give credit to a few sources for some wonderful information on correspondence writing in Family History. The full articles can be found at:
Genealogy Correspondence: The Writing Rite Done Right, by George Morgan (http://www.ancestry.com/columns/george/09-11-98.htm)
Correspondence and Queries by Desmond Walls Allen and Carolyn Earle Billingsley (http://www.arkansasresearch.com/g-corr.html)

These sites have more links and additional information:
http://www.hvcn.org/info/gswc/links/toolletter.htm
http://www.cyndislist.com/correspd.htm
http://usgenweb.org/
http://worldgenweb.org/

Templates and Form letters:
http://www.familytreemagazine.com/forms/download.html#
http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/00000023.htmlhttp://www.genealogienetz.de/misc/letters/

Tips for Success

1. Do as much research as you can first.

• Make sure you have the right location, and as much information as possible. Remember that county boundaries have changed throughout history and make sure you are sending your request to the right location.
• Make sure the agency you are making the request to has access to the information you need. Many institutions will let you know what records they have and for what periods of time. This information can be found online and in guides available in the Family History Library.

2. What to send

• When possible, call or email ahead and ask what is required. Some institutions have specific forms or requirements before they can release any information to you.
• Some institutions will send you a form or direct you to a website to download a form.
• With new HIPPA regulations, some requirements have changed in the last few years.
• Money. Call or find out any fees or donations required to process your request.

3. Who to write to?

• Historical societies
• Churches
• Cemeteries
• Government agencies
• Relatives

4. Where to send it?

• The Genealogy Handbook and The Genealogy Source Book are two books available in most libraries that provide addresses and contact information for most institutions around the
• US. There are other resource guides out there as well. Check at the library.
• The research guides put out by the church provide information for international institutions.
• www.google.com: search for the name in your favorite search engine.

5. Email or mail or fax?

• Depends on who it is going to.
• A letter will always get more attention than an email.
• Email is great to find out what information is required and if a group has the type of information you are looking for.

6. Writing the letter

• Be short, concise and to the point. Don’t include trivia about your ancestors, only the basic facts.
• Be sincere in your request and polite.
• Keep your requests to a minimum. Ask no more than 2 or 3 direct questions in a single letter.
• Don’t ask for ‘everything you have’. Be specific in what you want.
• Express gratitude for any information they can provide.
• Ask for any other local institutions or people who may have information (in the event they cannot fulfill your request).
• Offer to share information you have (if the request is sent to a distant relative).
• Include a Self Addressed Stamped envelope as well as any fees the institution may require.
• If you are writing to a Historical society it is good to send a Family Group Sheet as they will often keep this on file. (when you get more information send them an updated copy)
• Some of the links I’ve provided above have templates or form letters where all you need to do is fill in the blanks with the names and facts about your relatives.
• Writing to a foreign county and don’t speak the language? No problem, some of the templates available are already written in other languages and all you have to do is fill in the blanks.

7. Make a copy of the letter

• Keep a copy of the letter on file.
• Make a habit of reviewing the letters you’ve sent and following up with any letters you haven’t heard back from.
• Add any notes to your file with information you receive; when you received it, what it was, how you obtained it, etc. Most of this information should be put into the Sources and Notes sections of PAF.

Using Notes in PAF

1. Notes can be used to document stories, descriptions, explanations ore research reminders.
2. Notes should only be used when an appropriate field cannot be found or the information isn’t such that it should be entered as a source.
3. As with all things genealogy, being consistent will make the work easier for you in the future as well as those you share you information with.
4. Notes should be used to supplement information contained in PAF. For example The birth data and location will be listed in the individual’s information and sources for that information will be listed there as well. But maybe you have conflicting sources on the exact date. This is where you can detail the differences and why you chose the one you did.
5. Notes should contain sufficient detail and common terminology to be understood by all readers. Don’t use abbreviations

Entering Notes in PAF

1. PAF contains a feature called the Note Selector. This feature helps you organize your notes and filter between the different types of notes.
2. To turn this feature on:
   a. Go to Tools and then Preferences.
   b. In the window that opens click on the General tab.
   c. On the right you will see Display Notes Selector
   d. Make sure both boxes are checked.
3. Now when you click the note icon PAF will ask you which type of note you want to add.
4. PAF comes with some of the most common tags already listed for you. If you’d like to add a new note tag, click add and enter the tag name. If you’d like it to be a public tag enter a ! as the first character, or a ~ to make it confidential. You do not need to add the colon, PAF will automatically add this.
5. The tags with an asterisk (*) are those that already contain information.
6. The Notes Selector does not work with Marriage Notes, only individuals.
   

Organizing your notes

! Print: If you want to print selected notes, type an exclamation point (!) as the first character of the note. These are also called public notes as they are ones you would always want printed in reports.

~ Confidential: If you want to keep a note confidential, type a tilde (~) as the first character. These will not be exported with other notes when you create a GEDCOM.

TAG: If you want to search for, view, or print certain types of note information, add a Tag to the front. A Tag is one word with a colon, or two words connected by a hyphen (-) or underscore (_).

Here are some of the more common Tags use by others:

• Event: Adoption, Divorce, Cremation, Naturalization, etc.
• Subjects: Biography, Citizenship, Education, Honors, Military, Occupation, etc.
• Research: Action, Comments, Conflicts, Error, Deadend, etc.
• LDS Events: Baptism, Confirmation, Deacon, Elder, Patriarchal Blessing, etc.

For more information on entering notes, you can access the Notes Lesson in PAF by going to Help > Lessons > Notes and Sources.

Searching the Web

There are many websites like FamilySearch.com and Ancestry.com that allow you to search their databases and records for your ancestors. But what happens when you’ve searched these sites and you still need more? There are billions of websites on the Internet and each day that number grows. A Search Engine is a way for you to search the entire Internet rather than just the records on a specific site. However, because the Internet contains so much information, knowing how to properly use the search engines is critical.

A Search Engine allows you to search millions of other websites from a single place. Some search engines aren’t as useful as others, and not all search engines index the same pages. The most popular search engines are:
http://www.google.com/ 49.2%
http://www.yahoo.com/ 23.8%
http://www.msn.com/ 9.6%
http://www.aol.com/ 6.3%
http://www.ask.com/ 2.6%
Others 8.5%

These are the ones I have found most useful for general searches
http://www.google.com/
http://www.alltheweb.com/
http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.wisenut.com/

Search engines do not find every single page on the web, in fact most search engines only search a small percentage, that is why it is important to use several different search engines. Each Search engine will search different areas of the web.

Advanced Searching
Google is my favorite search engine. If I go to Google and search the phrase Mayflower genealogy, Google finds about 210,000 pages where those words are found. When I enter “Mayflower genealogy” it only returns 4,230. What is the difference? The quotation marks.

“Operators” are the words used to instruct search engines how to deal with multiple terms. The most common operators are

And (+): Using the ‘and’ operator means the page must contain both words, for example Lewis and Clark would find all pages where both Lewis and Clark were found. This is especially helpful if you want to include words that would normally be excluded like how, where, I, is, etc.

Or: The web page must contain at least one of the words. So, Lewis or Clark would find all pages where there was Lewis or Clark found on the page.

Not (-): This term is useful for excluding pages were a specific term is found. For example I searched for the term Fenn and there were several pages from Canada. If I know that I’m not looking for people in British Columbia, I could enter Fenn not Canada.

“”: Using quotes around a phrase forces the search engine to only look for the entire phrase. So “Lewis and Clark” is a different search from Lewis and Clark.

~ : Google will automatically search for variants of the root of a word (genealogy or genealogical). The tilde before a word tells Google to search for synonyms of the word. Mayflower ~genealogy returned 1,190,000 results because is also found results with family, tree, history, etc.

*: Red * Blue would return results where the page contained red and blue seperated by one of more words.

site: Search only one website admission site:www.stanford.edu returns admission topics only on the Stanford.edu website.

date: Search only a range of months Olympics date: 3 returns topics that goggle has found or have been posted in the last 3 months.

safesearch: Exclude adult-content safesearch: sex education returns sex education material without returning adult sites.

link: linked pages link:www.familysearch.org returns all websites that link to the FamilySearch.org site.

related: Related pages related: familysearch.org returns all web pages that Google thinks are similar to the page you enter.

Other helpful hints:

If you are searching a common name like John Smith, try entering another uncommon name in the search that would be a close family member. If John Smith had a brother named Elias, entering the brother’s name should narrow your search.

If you don’t find anything now, try again in a few months. When I first taught this class “Mayflower Genealogy” returned 508 results. Today it returned 4230 results.
Search engines can sometimes direct you to new sources of information. Often you will find other family’s personal websites that may contain pictures or other important documentation on the people you are looking for. Sometimes you won’t find the information you are looking for on the web page itself, but you will find people’s email addresses and contact information and instead of you doing the research all by yourself, you could have several people all working together and helping each other.

Archiving Photographs

Types of media

• Photographs
• Negatives
• Slides
• Documents
• Artwork (paintings, drawings, etc.)
• Digital pictures
  

Making digital photographs

• Why digital?: Storage, preservation, transmissibility, duplication, etc.
  - One CD can hold 100-200 8x10 8x10 pictures
  - One DVD can hold 1500-2000 8x10 pictures
  
• Flatbed scanners: Some scanners allow you to scan transparencies like negatives and slides. There are many price ranges and qualities out there. ($100-$300)
  
• Digital Cameras:
  - Macro setting: used to take pictures 1-3 feet away
  - Megapixels: The number of pixel on each pictures. Just because it is a higher megapixel rating, doesn’t mean it is better quality.
  
• Print Size
  Megapixel Rating
  3 x 5 1 to 1.9
  5 x 7 2 to 2.9
  8 x 10 3 to 3.9
  11 x 14 4 to 5
  18 x 24 6 to 8
• Commercial Services
  - Kinkos
  - Walgreens
  - www.photomax.com
  

Enhancing photographs using Picasa

• Download (www.picasa.com)
• Organizing: use Picasa to help you organize your pictures by person and time period.
• Online user manual: http://picasa.google.com/help/userguide_organize.html
• Fixing photographs
  - Rotate, crop, color, effects
• Save to CD

Print

• Personal Photo Printers: ($100-300)
• Commerical services (local and online)
  1. Walmart
  2. Walgreens
  3. Smiths
  4. Allen’s Camera
• Commercial services (online) (12-15¢ per print)
  1. Kodak (http://www.kodakgallery.com/)
  2. Photomax (http://www.photomax.com/)
  3. Snapfish (http://www.snapfish.com/)

Census Records

Census Facts:

1. Censuses were collected as far back as 1790
2. Censuses are filed by geographical location
3. 1930 is the most recent available for research
4. Census records for 1920, 1910, 1900 and 1880 list more detailed information about families than earlier census records. For these years, relationships between family members are stated.
5. The census records for 1870, 1860 and 1850 list the names of everyone in the household and other valuable information, but relationships among the people in a family are not stated.
6. Census records of 1840 and before list only the name of the head of the household with tally marks by age, race and sex of the other people in the household.

Census records are prone to a variety of errors

• The census enumerator did not tell us from whom he obtained the information he recorded
• Imagine what answers your neighbors would give about your present family to a census enumerator
• The enumerator may have written it incorrectly
• The copyist may have made errors

Research helps:

1. Remember county and state boundaries changed over time and since that is how census records are filed, you must be aware of these changing political boundaries.
2. When you begin census research, look carefully at other families in the census records after you discover your family. Families with the same surname as the one you are researching will be of particular interest, but look also for similarity of unusual first names and coincidental places of birth. Families seldom moved alone from one area to another; they moved in groups related by blood, marriage, religion, ethnic origins, and social cliques.
3. The best method for using census records is to start with the most recent available to you and work backward in time, relying on clues found in the census to guide you.
4. More information: http://genealogy.about.com/library/authors/ucwitcher1a.htm
5. Even more information: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~haas/learningcenter/censusrecords.html
6. Worksheets: http://www.lib.byu.edu/fslab/bookmark/usgeneral.htm#census