A personal email to me made me aware that there are a lot of newcomers on the List who are just starting out with their family history and need to get "organized." Here is a quick outline how to go about it following your personal logic. There will be a time where "the genealogy bug" will be biting you, and you will realize that you are on the path of an educational adventure. To organize your research volume: 1. Check files you may have inherited from your parents or grandparents, see if you can find documents or letters. If you cannot read the letters, have them translated, they will give you clues. If you find a document, whatever it is, THAT will be your first "lead document" and it will lead you to more information like a detective. 2. As soon as you have a locality, find the geographic location, find maps, read the history of the land and the area where these villages or towns are located. Make copies of everything pertaining to the area and file it in a 3 ring binder, it will grow. 3. Keep all obits, pictures, postcards, letters, etc. in page protectors so they don't deteriorate and are easy to file in the 3-ring binder, and don't forget to write on the back of the pictures the name of the people and the place where the picture was taken, perhaps you can calculate the year if not given. 4. File your information by family name.....your fathers and mothers and their ancestors so that you have a logical subdivision. In front of your 3 ring binder make a sheet with all surnames you have found, and update it frequently as new maiden names are revealed. A pedigree chart is of immense help here! 5. When you read church registers on microfilm and when you find a record of your ancestors you will be so excited that you will ask for a copy but forget to jot down the village name, church name, Register and Page number. THATS A BIG MISTAKE!! Be sure that you write the following information on the back of each microfilm copy : town, country, date, Register Tome, because on the register page itself you will only find the page and entry number. VERY IMPORTANT! Only with such a notation is the entry legal. 6. And finally, when you have "quite a collection" of your ancestral base documents, you can either invest in a family genealogy computer program - in that case be sure that it converts to the GED format! - or you can go back to the LDS Family Research office and purchase their Personal Ancestral File disk ($5.00) and attend one of their instruction classes how to database your information. Once you have deposited this information at the Archives at Salt Lake City, they will be there for all eternity and for all your descendants! At present they have 23 Million entries and chances are that your earlier ancestry will meet up with someone's research converging with your own family and then you can share information! It is just good manners to offer your information in exchange. Remember, they are relatives! 7. You will also need a file for website "Links"... which come up on this List quite frequently as people are sharing their finds. It saves you a lot of time when you need to work on a particular subject or area. Have a file in "my documents" on your computer to where you post these website Links immediately with a brief description of the subject. You will keep going back to those forever and again!!! 8. File all lead documents in a 3-ring binder in a fireproof receptacle for posterity. Aida

Aida Thanks for the great tips and help. I wish I had had this help 12 years ago. I bought a program and kept almost everything on computer only. When our server crashed I was lost. Everything was gone. There was one good thing that happened in this experience. Sharing my research with FTM allowed me to go to them and they emailed me an older copy of my family tree that I had shared online with there world family files. Today I am going to work on a binder of everything I have. Or at least start it. Terrie -----Original Message----- From: Aida Kraus [mailto:akibb1@verizon.net] Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 2:57 PM To: GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] how to get started A personal email to me made me aware that there are a lot of newcomers on the List who are just starting out with their family history and need to get "organized." Here is a quick outline how to go about it following your personal logic. There will be a time where "the genealogy bug" will be biting you, and you will realize that you are on the path of an educational adventure. To organize your research volume: 1. Check files you may have inherited from your parents or grandparents, see if you can find documents or letters. If you cannot read the letters, have them translated, they will give you clues. If you find a document, whatever it is, THAT will be your first "lead document" and it will lead you to more information like a detective. 2. As soon as you have a locality, find the geographic location, find maps, read the history of the land and the area where these villages or towns are located. Make copies of everything pertaining to the area and file it in a 3 ring binder, it will grow. 3. Keep all obits, pictures, postcards, letters, etc. in page protectors so they don't deteriorate and are easy to file in the 3-ring binder, and don't forget to write on the back of the pictures the name of the people and the place where the picture was taken, perhaps you can calculate the year if not given. 4. File your information by family name.....your fathers and mothers and their ancestors so that you have a logical subdivision. In front of your 3 ring binder make a sheet with all surnames you have found, and update it frequently as new maiden names are revealed. A pedigree chart is of immense help here! 5. When you read church registers on microfilm and when you find a record of your ancestors you will be so excited that you will ask for a copy but forget to jot down the village name, church name, Register and Page number. THATS A BIG MISTAKE!! Be sure that you write the following information on the back of each microfilm copy : town, country, date, Register Tome, because on the register page itself you will only find the page and entry number. VERY IMPORTANT! Only with such a notation is the entry legal. 6. And finally, when you have "quite a collection" of your ancestral base documents, you can either invest in a family genealogy computer program - in that case be sure that it converts to the GED format! - or you can go back to the LDS Family Research office and purchase their Personal Ancestral File disk ($5.00) and attend one of their instruction classes how to database your information. Once you have deposited this information at the Archives at Salt Lake City, they will be there for all eternity and for all your descendants! At present they have 23 Million entries and chances are that your earlier ancestry will meet up with someone's research converging with your own family and then you can share information! It is just good manners to offer your information in exchange. Remember, they are relatives! 7. You will also need a file for website "Links"... which come up on this List quite frequently as people are sharing their finds. It saves you a lot of time when you need to work on a particular subject or area. Have a file in "my documents" on your computer to where you post these website Links immediately with a brief description of the subject. You will keep going back to those forever and again!!! 8. File all lead documents in a 3-ring binder in a fireproof receptacle for posterity. Aida ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== Visit the German-Bohemian Heritage Society Web Page! http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/