Heather There seems to be many systems people use to file with. The system that I have setup in my database, is similar to what you have described. Since all pages are part of the same document I label as marriage 001-01, marriage 001-02, marriage 001-03 etc. All documents are put into sheet protectors and then label on the outside with 'Avery labels' and put into a loose leaf binder. This way I can use each page as a separate source if need be. ----- Original Message ----- From: Heather Bilodeau To: [email protected] Sent: 6/5/2001 5:36:31 PM Subject: [Clooz] newbie question Hi listers, I just bought Clooz and have started to input my documents. I have 4 large notebooks to go through, so this is going to be a long project! :) My question is this....(bear with me, I'm sure this is a silly one) : I have several documents that I've copied from one source, some 15 pages long. Do I keep all the pages separate and label them individually, i.e. Marriage 001, 002 etc? Or should I lump the 15 pages together and put stickers on all of them as Marriage 001? Hope that made sense to someone...I could use some advice on taming this beast! Thanks, Heather ============================== Search over 1 Billion names at Ancestry.com! http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist1.asp --- David Phay --- [email protected] --- EarthLink: It's your Internet.

If the list of marriages comes from a book or other registry of this type of documents, I number it as a mBook and link each individual/couple in that one record. That way, I know it's secondary information when I print a file of documents linked to an individual I'm researching. Accordingly, I easily know that I haven't obtained primary information (a copy of the certificate, or even a marriage announcement or coverage in a newspaper about the event) and can decide if I want to further pursue primary proof about the event. If, on the other hand, I've been to a courthouse or other archive that has copies of the actual documents and obtained copies of the individual marriage license or certificate returns, etc., for this event, I individually number the document as a Mar document. As I've previously said, I'm delighted with the adaptation I've made of Sharon Debartelo (sp)Carmack's book on organizing family research documents, since it carries over so easily to numbering in Clooz. For any newbie who's interested, I follow my logic as outlined above, *but* I further refine the document numberings by starting off each document listed in Clooz (and my paper file system as well) with the first four letters of the family line I'll be filing the document; in this example of marriages, by the male name. In other words, the wife's information is filed by her family name, or maiden name, until she marries, and then it's filed under her marriage/husband's name. This is in keeping with the standardized, traditional way of compiling family group sheets and the like. To clarify: DUFF Mar 001 DUFF Mar 002, etc. for Ms. Duffy's maiden named relatives. Then, once Ms. Duffy marries, her information goes with her husband's; as follows: GIRT Mar 001 GIRT Bir 001 (for the first child I document in Clooz under her married name; be it her own child or perhaps more likely her husband's birth information when I've merged his information into this family tree. The book of marriage listings, say for early St. Louis, would be as follows: KING mBoo 001 This corresponds with the fact that my first known family line in St. Louis was the King (originally Koenig or Konig at immigration), but now may have expanded to included MOREAU, KIENLIN and MARACHEL and IVERS as well. In this way, I keep the document in one place (again, a secondary documentation) and can add new "potential" individuals as well as those whom I have better proof of relationship. To further illustrate this, in the document details for this KING mBoo 001 [King is the name, m for marriage, Boo for Book -- I use a limiter of four (4) characters for each component of this system] could include couples that I *know* are family, such as: King - Kienlin King - Ivers Kienlin - Moreau Moreau - Morachel But I could also include individuals I don't want to blindly accept into my database listing of people that are in this family line. This is another beauty of the Clooz system: I let Clooz establish an I.D. number for, say, another Moreau marriage that I locate in that same book, and I establish my own variable for the "alternate I.D."; for example, King01, or StLou05 (which I use in the city directory instance). Then, when I'm scanning through my "people" list in Clooz, I can instantly tell whether the individual listed is truly a family member or simply someone I want to keep an eye out as I do further research. Now, this isn't to say that my system is perfect. Almost every one of us, no matter how organized, oftentimes - especially when first starting this system - saying, "Hmm, what's the best way to do this, I wonder?" The best thing for anyone to do is to establish a system and STICK TO IT. You can always re-arrange your system and change your document identifiers in Clooz (tedious, I'm sure; but do-able) so the thing is to just decide what makes most sense to you and then *start.* Remember: If you ever have been in an office, sometimes you will find a filing system that makes complete sense to you ... but not to others utilizing it. And then sometimes you will find one that's totally confusing to you .. but not to others utilizing it. And no matter which way *you* find it, someone else is doing it differently. :-) Marianne