Hello, everyone, I've finally decided to bite the bullet and start to do something about the dozens of loose leaf binders and notebooks I have on different family lines--stuff that goes back 30 years or more when I used to send out family group sheets by the dozens to distant relatives. As a test, I've started scanning one binder saving each page as a jpg. Ideally, I guess, I can then create a pdf file from this using various programs and then perhaps just discard the paper originals (some of which are browning from age and/or becoming fragile, depending on the paper)--although the thought of discarding everything sort of scares me. (A pdf version I thought could then be given to various libraries or societies). However, I'm up in the air about what to do about entering this information into TMG: keep each family separate or just have one gigantic database. As these families initially (that is, late 18th-mid-19th centuries) and even to this day are from the same area before spreading out around the country (and the world), it seems logical there may be all sorts of connections between some people in the different families one single database would reveal. For example, Terry, I noticed on your website that you have eight family lines with six different links, but are they all in one huge database which are sorted out somehow or six separate projects? I know I can always generate reports (descendants of ancestor X or ancestor Y), can set up a flag indicating who is a relative of mine as I enter the information, and at some point could spin off descendants of ancestor X or ancestor Y into a separate project later if I wanted (which I why I'm sort of leaning towards one huge project), but ... I realize this is no doubt one of those "six of one, half dozen of another" kinds of questions, but just curious if there is perhaps a consensus here leaning one way or the other. And an aside (or two): in reviewing stuff 30+ years old, I am very embarrassed to see that I misspelled genealogy as "geneology" on quite a few of the initial family group sheets I first sent out (X Family Geneology). Eeek. (I was a lot younger then, just starting!!!). I also used one of those awful numbering systems (312abca) to keep track of people. I also feel a twinge of sadness in realizing that many of the people I wrote to and received answers from are now dead, and gee, all those "kids" listed on the family group sheets are now no doubt grandparents or great-grandparents. Double eek. I wonder how much research I should do to try bring it up to date if/when I enter it into TMG, checking the SSDI or Findagrave. And, jeesh, I wonder if ** I ** will live that long. Yikes. Anyway, just curious what others have done. Right now am going to concentrate on getting that first loose leaf binder scanned though. Sam

Sam, I'd use one project unless you expect to enter more than a few hundred thousand people. Even then, I'd consider how many people and sources would be entered in more than one project if you were to split them. With one project, you enter common sources once. You define custom tags once. You search for people in one project, not multiple projects. Etc. John

I have one huge project (upwards of 50K people and growing) and I use flags and accents to visually (on the screen) separate the lines and to generate reports and Second Site output. There is so much overlap with sources that it just makes sense - and of course it reveals connections between different lines as well. On 7/24/2015 6:17 PM, Blah BlahBlah via wrote: > Hello, everyone, > > However, I'm up in the air about what to do about entering this > information into TMG: keep each family separate or just have one > gigantic database. As these families initially (that is, late > 18th-mid-19th centuries) and even to this day are from the same area > before spreading out around the country (and the world), it seems > logical there may be all sorts of connections between some people in > the different families one single database would reveal. > >

On 7/24/2015 6:17 PM, Blah BlahBlah via wrote: > However, I'm up in the air about what to do about entering this > information into TMG: keep each family separate or just have one > gigantic database. As these families initially (that is, late > 18th-mid-19th centuries) and even to this day are from the same area > before spreading out around the country (and the world), it seems > logical there may be all sorts of connections between some people in > the different families one single database would reveal. > > For example, Terry, I noticed on your website that you have eight > family lines with six different links, but are they all in one huge > database which are sorted out somehow or six separate projects? Sam, I agree with John and Linda - put everything in one project absent some strong reason not to. I have 20,000 people in my project with no issue, other than with over 6000 sources the Master Source List takes a tad longer to open than I'd like. If the lines intermix, as mine do, this makes things much simpler. Even if they don't, if you do any customization of Tag Types, Source Types, etc., it's simpler to manage in one Project, and it's simpler to navigate from one person to another. Should you want to put people from the various lines in a single report or website created with Second Site they must be in the same Data Set within the same Project. On my website everyone is in a single Project. The main page gives the illusion that they are in separate sections since there are separate "family" pages, and separate indexes and charts, but they really are in a single site. That not only makes maintaining the site and the underlying TMG Project easier, but it also lets readers navigate seamlessly across family lines when they intermarried. That is, when a reader following one family comes to a person who married into another family, they can just click the link to the spouse and are now looking at the member of the other family. Creating any of the "genealogy" (as opposed to analysis) reports for a single line in a large project is simple, because the reports themselves follow ancestor or descendant lines. Terry Reigel

IMO, documents fit into one of three categories: 1. Document itself is important (e.g. official copy of birth certificate or document in ancestor's own handwriting). 2. Information on document is important (e.g. Census record). 3. Paper contains important information, but is not in the strictest sense a "document" (e.g. family group sheet completed by family member). (Note, though, that such a "non-document" can be a valid "source", e.g. "Reported by John Smith, January 1, 1980" or "FGS completed by John Smith, January 1, 1980".) To me, how one handles papers depends on how the papers categorize. I would tend toward this: 1. Keep the document and photocopy it, possibly add to Exhibits. 2. Record the information (possibly keep an image, according to one's taste and significance of data). 3. Record the information. If it were me, I'd definitely make images (scan) of all your aging/failing paper items, then free myself from the paper. One note, though: Why go through the intermediate step of scanning to jpg? I think most scanner software will allow you to make a pdf directly. My Epson software allows a "multi-page" pdf scan process, where I just keep feeding the pages until I get done, then make one pdf file. (I can pause along the way to verify if I've scanned the same page twice, etc.) Best wishes on getting rid of extraneous paper! Rick Van Dusen On 7/24/2015 3:17 PM, Blah BlahBlah via wrote: > Hello, everyone, > > I've finally decided to bite the bullet and start to do something > about the dozens of loose leaf binders and notebooks I have on > different family lines--stuff that goes back 30 years or more when I > used to send out family group sheets by the dozens to distant > relatives. > > As a test, I've started scanning one binder saving each page as a > jpg. Ideally, I guess, I can then create a pdf file from this using > various programs and then perhaps just discard the paper originals > (some of which are browning from age and/or becoming fragile, > depending on the paper)--although the thought of discarding everything > sort of scares me. (A pdf version I thought could then be given to > various libraries or societies). : : : > Sam