A friend who is a professional genealogist made these suggestions to me for keeping things organized that may not be connected. They're called enclosure files and you develop them according to your needs. It becomes relatively easy to find things, and your own family copies can be included, or not, as you wish. Get a box of file folders. Folders should be labeled according to the type of document you're keeping inside: Census records, marriage records, wills, etc. You can, depending on how many copies you're getting, break that down further into more specific categories: Census records, PA 1870, PA 1880, NE 1885. Each file folder has a sheet that summarizes why you made the copy that you put in. A piece of notebook paper will do fine. Each copy gets a number chronologically as it gets put in, and that number corresponds to the number on the summary sheet. Example: copy #3 in the NE 1885 folder has Sides, John (It also has other folks on it, but "John" is the reason I copied it.) copy #4 has Sides, Alexander, copy #5 Ebersole, Benjamin. If you're looking for a particular person, you can glance at the summary sheet and quickly see if you have them on the list. You can also scan each sheet to see if someone you hadn't been looking for previously got copied when you copied John or Alexander or Anna, but since this new one isn't who you were originally looking for, their name doesn't appear on the summary sheet. This can be adapted to families if you prefer. John Sides: copies inside could include: #1 1870 PA census, #2 marriage certificate, #3 1880 NE census, #4 1885 NE census. (I DON'T put duplicate copies in each folder, which is why I separate documents into types...rather than putting all documents into a family folder. I also collect data on people I don't know a relationship to on my families, since most of my families don't have extrememly common names [although I do have a Miller line in PA]. John's marriage certificate could conceivably appear in three folders: his as head of household, his as a child, his wife Mary Gish's as a child) On my working group sheets, I make my notations for reference that John was x# of years old in 1885, NE 1885 census, Zero twp, Adams Co, line#__, page___. See census folder NE 1885, enclosure #3. That way, I can quickly refer to the correct file folder if needed in a hurry. (I do not put the enclosure # on final finished group sheets, just the reference data for documentation.) It's taking effort to regroup my years' worth of stacks of copies into this useable form, but I'm finding it worthwhile. No more pawing through piles--well of the ones I've gotten organized that is. I wish I had known about this system when I started. And yes, I computerize known relatives, but then do a printout for a worksheet, I can add more data as I find it. Karen