orgnising the shoe box full of bits of family history

[pipscwic]

Hope that this is the best place to ask for hints on how to organise the heap of paper that I have collected when following my family history.
Spent the afternoon getting them into two piles,OH and mine.
Gave up a while ago trying to put everything on  anc****y trees.
Can anyone suggest an idiot proof pen and paper way I can organise them so that the next generation will have some clue regarding what I have been doing collecting birth, marriage and death certificates.
They do say that I have collection mania but I think that this collection will fox them completely if I do not do something about it.
All suggestions welcomed
Thanks

[panda40]

When I started I had a ring binder with poly pocket and put a front sheet with the persons name date of birth etc printed on it. Behind the front sheet in other pockets I put photos certificate letters etc relating to that individual. I then went back another generation. This way it is easy to add to and you are not restricted. I included a basic family tree as well. Hope it helps.
Regards panda

[HeatherLynne]

I've recently started organising all my scraps of paper for my father's family by listing them on a spreadsheet in chronological order.  The first column is the year, then date in 'January 2nd' format, (to make it easier to sort into a timeline), although thinking about it 3 columns would probably be better such as '2013' '01' '02' but it's so easy to get confused between months and dates I've opted for keeping the month as a word.

Columns after that are still evolving but the next one I have is 'event' i.e. birth, bastardy papers,  baptism, marriage, land tax records, occupation, etc etc.  Then I have 'location' and 'source'.

It's working quite well so far (fingers crossed  ), as it's helping show the movement of the family geographically with 45 entries before the census information starts in 1841 

I can enter the data as I come across it having inserted a line in roughly the right place and move things about as necessary.  I suppose I should be arranging the bits of paper in the right order at the same time but only just realised that <embarrassed smiley>   

Hope that helps a bit, worth a go and no cost if you already have excel or a similar spreadsheet available 

Heather

[Billyblue]

I find colour coding is a help.
A different colour binder for dad's mum line, dad's father line, mum's mum line, mum's father line.
(None for OH as his 'already done years ago, not interested in going further thanks'  )

When I print stuff out like correspondence /emails on any of them I try to do it on that colour paper too.
Helps with the filing when I get round it it.
Also if they are sorted into the four lines, it is less to plough through when looking for something you 'just know it's there, but where is it?'

Have also started up a spreadsheet along the lines HeatherLynne suggests.
Plus ones listing what certificates I hold on each line, and I number them as I file them so when I look at the list I have some idea of where in the file they are. Of course you could always file them alphabetically too but I started with a numbering system so I've stuck with it.

Dawn M

[Michelle79]

I think i went overborad with my organisation when I first started researching but maybe thats a good thing.  I keep both an electronic copy and a paper copy of everything and use the same filing system for both.

I have split my generations up into books, book1 is my mum and dad, book 2 is my grandparents on my mums side, book 3 and 4 is my grandparents parents and so on (I'm only doing my mums side and my aunt has already done my dads ancestry).

Each book contains a cover page for each person wirth there own unique reference number giving there basic BMD details, a photo, parents names etc i also keep notes there on what i still need to research.  I then have a second sheet for them which is a timeline of there lives, listing occupations, residences etc.  Each of the entries on the timeline has a reference number for the document that holds the information which corrisponds to one of 3 folders I have holding my BMD certificates / Census returns / Parish records and other documents.

I find that whover I look at I can instantly see what book and sheet i should look at to see there parents, and where to find there certificates.  All this is stored in another 2 ring binders at the moment, I can get about 5 books per ring binder.

All the same info i kept electronically as well, when i get a certificate or any paper document I scan it and name it with the same ref number thats on the paper copy, that way i can swap between looking at the paper trail and the documents on my laptop at any time.  it also makes it so easy to update.

As for using Ancestry, i have 2 tree's the first is massive and goes back through alot of generations, i have to admit it's not all 100% proven yet but I'll get there.  the second tree is private and only gets added to when I have definate proof of something.

I think maybe I'm really obsessed with the organising side of things  but when it comes to family research I think good organisation is key.

Good Luck with your own organising

Michelle

[Berlin-Bob]

The first column is the year, then date in 'January 2nd' format, (to make it easier to sort into a timeline), although thinking about it 3 columns would probably be better such as '2013' '01' '02' but it's so easy to get confused between months and dates I've opted for keeping the month as a word.

I use two columns
- date in any format
- sort date YEAR-MM-DD, whereby 00 for month or day means "not known"
e.g. 
sort date      date:
1900-04-00  April 1900
1899-00-00  1899
1888-03-04  4th March 1888
etc.
I can then sort the table on 'sort date'

Bob

[Jennie123]

I tend to scan photos and paper documents now as some of the older documents are much too fragile to handle. I have been experimenting with online storage to hold all of the information, so that other family members have access to the documents and photos. It works great, it means I can do simple searches for the documents to find them as well as browse online.