Organizing Your Data

From the first note you make, stay organized or, you will find yourself with a blizzard of notes on little pieces of paper that, after a day or so, will make no sense to you. If you jot down a date, make sure you note the person to whom you are referring, the date you made the note and where you got the information. I can't stress that enough.
A note that only says, 16 June 1873 won't do you any good if you forget that it is the birth date of a great-uncle and after a time, you will forget that fact. It took me a long time to realize that I had wasted a lot of time, making lists that I didn't document and later I had no idea where I had gotten the data from and in some case, even to whom it referred. The temptation is there to write everything down that you come across. In the excitement of finding a likely reference, it is easy to jot it down. But take the time to note exactly what you are doing. I.e. Main Street Library, 2 May 2002. Smith, John, census Washington Township, Fremont, California 1970 U.S. Government . (Includes family members.) It might be from a book --. Index to San Francisco Marriage Returns 1850-1858, Page 25 Hosford, C.A. & Glover, Ann. m. 8 June 1853 (Daily Alta Calif. Newspaper)

By all means, make a copy of a census or any document, if you can. When you make the copy include the banner from the Newspaper, the banner from the top of the census or any other pertinent information. Whatever it is- Document it

Binders:

It is helpful to make a simple label for the spine and front of your binders. It will be helpful when they are all lined up on a shelf to be able to pick out the one you need easily.

Bio Binder

: Keep a binder into which you put all biographical information about each name. It should include birth date, name of parents, city of birth, spouse, children, etc. This is the place to jot down occupation, awards, anything that will distinguish the person from others in the family with the same name. I Keep the names alphabetical and use maiden names for the women. In the long run, that proves to be a good idea. Women's names can change more than once so stay with the maiden name and you can always find her.
This is the binder that you will use most often and it is vital to distinguish each and every name in the family. I have found that giving each a number is very helpful. There are many systems used in genealogy. I use one that I made up for myself but it works better for me than any others. Bio-Number: I started with the oldest person I came across in the tree and gave him the number 1-1a. That translated into Generation 1- Number one and a --meaning direct descendant. Spouses used their number 1-1 but I added a b or c for them. So John Jones-great grandfather would be 1-1a while his wife Matilda would be 1-1b. If he married again, his second wife would be 1-1c. The next down in descendancy (or the next brother or sister located) would be 1-2a and so on. This keeps all the members of a generation in one group and makes it easy to locate someone. Note: If you decide to use genealogical formatted software, they will automatically insert a number for each name entered. You can use your own system but jot down the number that the software uses too.

After the bio lists, I put a cross index of all the names and note: Smith, Mary, see Crosby. In this case, Crosby would be the maiden name where all the extra information is kept. Smith would be the married name and is included so that you can get back to the correct woman. If you know a person's middle name, use it. You would be amazed at how many names are the same except for the middle name. Remember to give them their bio number.

At the very end of the Bio binder, I keep a family list. Surnames are arranged alphabetically and within the family, the given names are arranged alphabetically.

Smith, Anne Mannion (4-5b). From this notation, you can see that Anne was a spouse (b) and that her maiden name was Mannion.

Smith, Caroline (Carrie) (2-1a) In this example, Caroline who was known as Carrie is a direct descendant and in the second generation.

As you gather information, you might have to correct the list several times. I recently found six more children in one family that I had not known about before. But this is worth the effort. It is helpful, when doing research to have all the names within each family unit handy. You can instantly check a census or a town record if you have all the names of the family right in front of you.

Note: You should be aware that given names and nicknames could cause a lot of confusion.

Bedelia, Adelia, Delia and Lia can be the same person. Spelling can be important. Kathleen and Cathleen might be different people in the same family. Anne with an e is often a different person than Ann without the e. Mary might be May, Mae, Minnie or Mamie. One of my ancestors changed his given name completely. Antonio became Frank. He is found as Antonio on his baptismal record and Frank in all American records. It caused all kinds of confusion and lost time until we figured it out.
Document Binder: One binder should be devoted to ONLY birth, death and marriage certificates and any other official documents that you retrieve. Baptismal records, land grant records, military, immigration, or educational records etc. go into that binder --anything that is official in nature.

Correspondence Binder: One binder should be devoted to correspondence and hopefully there will be a lot of that after awhile. If you send a letter, out for information, keep a copy and put it into this binder. Periodically you will want to check and see if you received an answer. Too many times, you won't. But occasionally a gem will come to you and you will find some interesting anecdote, or a birth record or a marriage date or the name of some twigs on the tree that you had not previously known. I have found it more useful to keep the correspondence chronologically with the latest letter first in the book.

In the back of this binder keep a separate section listing addresses and phone numbers for all those with whom you have or will correspond. It's a good place to keep the list of Genealogical libraries, web sites etc with the name of a contact, if you have one, and the full address. When you get a letter containing information, be sure to amend the information in your Bio binder.

Miscellaneous Binder: After awhile, you will find that you have gathered notations, lists, web site listings, and all sorts of miscellaneous information. If the information doesn't belong in one of the three main binders, then store it separately into a miscellaneous binder. There are notations that you can't use at the moment, but you don't want to discard. This is the place for them.

Not related Binder: I keep a binder, in which I have placed all the information that I have gathered on names that sounded good, at first, but proved to have no relationship in the family. That is, they didn't appear to have any relationship at the moment. But every once in awhile, something in those lists will prove to be relevant. It doesn't happen often but it does happen. But you don't want all that needless information filling up your main books anyway. So hang on to them but keep them separate.