Paper files, electronic files, newspaper clippings, photographs, letters, blankets, rugs, furniture., etc., etc., etc. Every genealogist and family historian has their own way of handling all the various papers, files, and objects gathered from research or inherited from family. I’ve managed to get by with a system, if you can even all it that which was cobbled together over the years. I didn’t plan it out or really give much thought to it. But now, its time to get those files in shape and make sure that everything is properly referenced, and linked, in my genealogy program. And, the biggest challenge of this project, is determining how to name electronic files.
I’ve written before about trying to find a naming convention for electronic files that allows me to identify, from the name, the following things:
- What kind of document/object is it
- Do I have the original document/object/picture
- Where would the original or hard copy be
- What is the document date or time period
- Who or which family does the item relate to
- From the original/hard copy/physical object, what is the electronic file name
This endeavor has taken some time. Before I started reorganizing and renaming everything I wanted to be sure of my plan. Complete reorganization is not something you want to do multiple times! I’m happy to say, the wait has been worth it.
This series of posts will show you where I started, what changes I made, and where I ended up. I hope you find some useful ideas in this series.
What I started with:
My genealogy folder was located in the default documents folder created by Windows. In previous versions, this location was slightly different so when I updated the operating system, any shortcuts between folders or file links that I made were broken and required time to fix – something I want to avoid in the future.
I have been using alpha prefixes to organize the surname folders. The “A_” prefix is for my paternal lines and the “B_” Prefix is for my maternal lines. I use the “C_” and “D_” prefixes for my husbands lines. This grouping of surnames corresponds to how I’ve organized my research binders and basically follows a pedigree chart organizational model. I could do away with this grouping but I’ve found it helps me keep track of which surnames are in the same lines – a feature that has been helpful in moving back and forth between paper files and electronic files. And, I must admit, that after a certain point you have so many surnames that you’re bound to end up with one Johnson family on you mother’s side unrelated to a Johnson family on your father’s side. Surname grouping will probably stay, at least at the “A_” and “B_” prefix level.
Within each surname group folder, I separated out various types of records by type:
As you can see, the file names already indicate that they are census records so the grouping of those records in a census folder doesn’t provide any additional utility. That is one layer of complexity that can be eliminated.
While this organizational structure has served me well so far, there are some disadvantages which I would like to address. Those include inconvenient location in the documents folder and excessive sub-grouping within surname folders.
Next: Moving the directory and creating a Virtual Drive
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