Dear Fellow Researchers, I would like to suggest that each of you, who are new to genealogy, begin a research notebook. You will take this notebook with you to the library and to family gatherings. It gives you a hard copy of the information which you have collected, in the event of a computer crash. I use a zippered snap notebook for my immediate family. It takes two of these notebooks to contain just the immediate line. I put in sectional dividers between each individuals information, with each name on the appropriate tab. I put the entires in according to Ahnentafel order. Then I used the workbook THE UNPUZZLING YOUR PAST WORKBOOK, by Emily Anne Croom (1994), to reproduce the basic forms which I needed. Permission is given to reproduce the forms for personal use. There are other genealogical form books around, but this is what I use. Just to start, I reproduced about 50 of each of the following forms: Map, 5 -Generational Family Tree, Ahnentafel (2 pages)l Biographical Outline(2 pages), and Census Index. For those persons in the military, I did a Military Service Index Sheet. A copy card from a local Office shop gives me copies at 5 cents per page. I buy in quantities of 500 at a time and use the card when I need it. [self, husband, parents (2), grandparents (4); great grandparents (8); great great grandparents (16); siblings (2 plus spouses 2), in-laws (12) etc.] I also made copies of the individual Census forms by year and put the relevant years into each individual's section. This means I was ready to go look up Census Microfilms at a big research library. Then, I began to fill out a set of forms for myself, my husband, my parents, my siblings, my grandparents, etc. and back to John Fay Sr/1. I put in copies of vital documents such as my birth certificate, marriage license, and a list of the places where I have lived after the forms which I copied. It was a good thing I save some of my old checks for the old phone numbers and addresses. I have moved around a lot. I also put in an old copy of an employment form I kept some years ago, for a list of my early jobs. For my maternal grandparents, I xeroxed the WEDDING Memory book (guest book and marriage certificate in this gem), and a clipping for a newspaper, without date or name of paper, which gave the address and description of the wedding. I put a copy in each mentioned person's section of my notebooks. I also put a copy of the relevant pages of Orlin P. Fay's books, as I don't like to haul those two volumes around. I also included other copies of Fay research notes in the front of my notebooks, if they covered more than one person. By filling out the forms for myself and my immediate family, with the help of the directions in the above mentioned book, I was able to learn how to use forms correctly. I also learned how to read documents. I also put a reference to each source I used on the back of each sheet in my notebook. I would like to suggest that each of you stop in the mad scramble for ancestors and take a week to start your own research notebooks. One of the biggest and saddest mistakes in genealogy is to hunt for ancestors without providing a good notebook for ones descendants to use later. It would be a good thing to learn the "jargon" of genealogy as well as finding older and older ancestors in your line. Yes, your genealogical computer program will print out stuff, but do you really know what you are putting into it? I have some difficulty in decoding the messages that some of you put on the FAY-D-Digest, simply because you have not done you own research pages before jumping in with both feet or head first. I look forward to trying to help each of you, but it does take about a day to do a single entry, even if I can find the material for you on the FAY Family Data Base, which is my own program. Sincerely, Mary (FAY) Nelson 9