ANITA'S TIPS AND TRICKS FOR ORGANIZING YOUR MATERIAL IDENTIFYING PAPERS 1. Get a rubber stamp with your name, address, email or telephone Rubber stamp your name on back of papers you travel to libraries with. 2. Stick a label on front of any reports, pedigrees you want to take credit for. It's also useful to have stick on labels with the above identification. PHOTOS 1. Label them right away on back and stick in archival glassine pockets. Digitize them as soon as you can, either by scanning in at home or local drug store. You want to preserve them before organizing them. 2. If there is a photographer's name and address of the very old ones, you can do a census check on the studio name which might indicate the time frame of the photo. This sometimes leads to a relative. 3. Get a bunch of matching frames and hang the originals in a dim hallway where light won't affect them. Turn on a light when you want to view. 4. Make scrapbooks with photo corners (so photo can be removed to see i.d. on back. If descendants can't identify the photos, they may get tossed out. FILE TRICKS I use a system of colored pocket folders. Red - story & background material; blue - immigration; pink - reports; green - cemetery, obits; purple - land records, etc. for each family surname if it's large, just manila folders if it's a small collection. File by family surnames with vital stats, cemeteries, immigration, etc. folders As the collection grows with researched material, break it down by individual under that family. Loose leaf folders work well to arrange family group records by generations, and censuses by given and surname. BIBLIOGRAPHY Start keeping a bibliography list right from the beginning of your reading. It will grow to immense proportions and will help you in your later writing to credit material or if you need to look at a book you don't own again. RESEARCH TRIPS 1. Go online to get hours, address, catalog nos., map in advance. 2. Bring pedigree charts. 3. Photograph your research log and take that. 4. Rubber stamp every paper you produce on back side. 5. Photograph front pages & cover of each book you use, for later source reference. Same goes for binder edges of large court and land record books. Leave flash off when you do this. CORRESPONDENCE Keep a "Follow Up" folder in sight with letters you are awaiting answers for. PASSENGER LIST PRINTOUTS Enlarge and make computer snapshots of column headings & print out in advance. It helps if your relative is listed way down the page away from the columns, thenyou don't have to scroll back and forth yet you can enlarge your relative's records. GENERAL RESEARCH TRICKS On your software sort birth records of all males eligible for draft registration records for each war, then find them all. Amazing information for place at the time and next of kin, descriptions, middle names, handwriting, etc. If you see only one child for a couple on a compiled family tree online or in books, that doesn't mean they only had one child. It just means the person doing there search was only interested in that one child who was directly related to them and never searched for the siblings or collateral families. Almost no one had just one child. Finding marriage date will help determine that, as they were usually born around the marriage and every two years after that for sometimes twenty years! REPORTS SENT OUT Keep a good list of what you send relatives, libraries, historical societies, etc. with date sent and exact name of report, chart, or narrative. This helps not to duplicate or miss someone. Keep the list for each name, it will get longer and more confusing over the years. |