Beginning Lesson #13 Getting Organized From: Linda cole To: DearMYRTLE I am working as hard as I can following your "get organized" guidelines. But, I need help arranging family group sheets. Should you put children's sheets right after their parents? Or, have all of one generation, then all the cousins, then all their children? It gets confusing. Also, I have set up surname notebooks like you suggested. Some family group sheets could go in two notebooks, do you repeat them? Thanks for the advice. Lindacole DearLinda, Just in time for this week's lesson! By now you budding family historians are gathering quite an assortment of documents, old photos, letters, newspaper clippings, funeral cards, military discharge papers and such. You may also have begun to get things typed into your genealogy management program. Now, Linda has pointed out some issues of organization which we all must face up to from time to time. My friend Elsie will tell you that my computer room needs a little help right now, because I have 2 more stacks about a foot deep with research notes and photocopies to file away. You might like to refer to the last year's <A HREF="aol://4344:167.myrtfina.1 412348.529459588">Finally Get Organized!</A> articles. The one Lindacole is tackling is the January checklist, a portion of which appears below. I have added new notations with a colorful background to highlight a more specific response for Linda. ............................................clip.............................. ..................... OK! This is it! Day one in your life as an *organized* person! (No giggling now!) As promised, here is the checklist of things to accomplish this month. By the end of the year, we SHOULD have just about everything of a family history nature organized. The kitchen, laundry and yard work will go to pot, but then, who's perfect? <Grin> WEEK ONE: 1. Clear off the computer desk and make piles for everything: To Be Filed Letters to Write Research to Do Pictures - for now put all the pictures in a box, we'll tackle them later. 2. Check your office supplies, and replace any missing or lost items, so you have all necessary tools. Here are some suggestions: pencils, pens, formatted disks, page protectors, insertable 3 ring binders, oversize divider tabs, toner or printer ribbons, paper for printer, business sized envelopes, 10X14 manila envelopes, disk mailers, postage stamps, etc. 3. Set-up the computer desk the way you really want it! Get that new mouse pad and matching wrist rest, a copy stand that hooks on your monitor, and the special lamp you've always wanted. Fix the chair leg or get a new ergonomically correct desk chair. We want to be as comfortable as possible at the keyboard! 4. Designate a special red clipboard as the WHEN HELP ARRIVES clipboard. Use this to scribble notes when you run into computer problems, so the next time your computer nerd friend stops by, he/she can teach you or fix the problem! - Drop me a line if you really get stuck, if I can't help, I can probably find one of the other hosts who can! WEEK TWO: If you haven't developed a filing system, consider the following: a. Create a SURNAME NOTEBOOK for each major surname. You can combine them now, and divide them out when they grow too big. I prefer notebooks rather than file folders, because the pages won't fall out. b. Put all direct line family group sheets in chronological order (youngest to oldest) in each notebook, with a divider tab clearly labeled: DIR ECT LINE. (Lindacole, this is where only your actual ancestor's family group sheets are filed in chronological order. This means the first family group sheet in the book has you as a parent on a family group sheet. Source documents like birth, marriage records follow. The 2nd family group sheet for your maiden name notebook lists you as a child, with your mom and dad as the parents. Documents follow. The 3rd family group sheet lists your father as a child, and his parents are shown. In this manner you can literally trace back through the generations DIRECTLY using the family group sheets. Documents for each generation follow the family group sheet they refer to. You will also add photos and sketches for each generation to make these notebooks more like "coffe table books." You are absolutely correct when you state that it would appear that a family group sheet can be filed in two different notebooks. Here's why: Look at your first family gorup sheet, where you are the parent along with your spouse. I asked you to file it as the first one in your maiden name notebook. However, a COPY of that same family group sheet should also be filed in your HUSBAND'S surname book, since he is the beginning of that direct lineage. The solution??? Print out TWO of every family group sheet (except where no maiden or surname is unknown.) Immediately put a checkmark on one by the husband's surname and on the other, put a checkmark by the wife's maiden name. Then if you get interrupted, you'll know where to file the family group sheet in question. c. Put all collateral lines in chronological order in the same notebook, with a divider tab clearly labeled: COLLATERAL LINES. (Lindacole, please note, this means the families of other children in the family are listed chronologically in this divider tab area. ) d. File papers on any suspected, or not-yet known relatives in the same surname notebook, with a divider tab clearly labeled: UNKNOWN RELATIONS. WEEK THREE: 1. Buy tons of TOP-LOADING SHEET PROTECTORS (box of 100, about $8 at SAM's or Office Depot.) 2. Take a deep breath. 3. Actually put all important documents (from your TO BE FILED PILE - week one) in page protectors, and file everything away in the notebooks or folders for each surname. If necessary make photocopies, if they are needed in more than one file. Note: Some people advocate a numbered document system. I prefer to put copies of the wedding certificate right after the family group sheet where the couple are listed as the father and mother in the family. That way each family history notebook makes a GREAT coffee table book. Everything is there, and I don't have to go hopping all over to get every document, picture and diary photocopy on one individual to show my grandson when he visits. Also, a document numbering system is only good to the user of MY personal collection of genealogy. And everything depends on whether or not I am there to explain where everything is kept. Most visitors are NOT genealogists and have no idea what to look for on a person. If I were to print a family group sheet with reference to document CENSUS #004, it means nothing to the cousin I will send it to. My documents must be right there with the family group sheet, so it is easy to photocopy and forward to a newly found relative. I merely take the one notebook to the copy store and simply replace it on the shelf. No more picking through the numbered filing system for all documents on a person, and then having to refile all 23 documents in their various places!