After reading this I can understand it. I have many families that have many, many children so that is part of my problem. My husband has one ancestor that had 21 children. Unfortunately I do not have all the names and probably never will. I have a feeling some died at a very young age. Then you get these men that married more than one time having lots of children by each spouse. I have thought about using a three ring binder with alphabetical dividers for the surnames and going with that but would only be able to have a sheet with each individual name and references as to where to find them (for example which generation and which family since I have Alcorns marrying Alcorns etc, and brothers of a family marrying sisters of a family, and brothers marrying their deceased brother's wife). Thanks for the tip. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenny M. Calvin" <jcalvin5@cafes.net> To: <TNSMITH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 9:37 PM Subject: Re: [TNSMITH] Harwell and messed up spellings / paper organization > > I am going to have to forget >>> everything else and find a way to put all of my genealogy sheets in some >>> kind of order so I can find them. Any suggestions as to how to do this? > > I don't know if my method would work for everyone, but it works well for > me. I keep everything in Family Tree Maker as well as in notebooks. > Here's how I have my notebooks organized: > > I use photo albums from Century Plastics because they are wider than > regular notebooks (I order the albums without any photo pages). I get > straight-cut manilla file folders, cut them in half and discard the > "front" half so that I have only what is the back of a file folder, and > then three-hole punch it. Then, using 1/5 cut alphabet tabs as a guide, I > cut them at either A, B, C, D, or E level. The A level is for the oldest > known ancestor of a particular surname, B level for his children, C level > for his grandchildren, etc. Then I file the paperwork (family group > sheet, census records, marriage records, photos, etc.) in sheet protectors > behind the proper divider. I buy sheet protectors at Sam's in massive > quantities. > > Of course, families that I have spent more time on end up being divided > into several notebooks, often requiring a new notebook for each direct > ancestor -- so he would have essentially an empty "B" tab in his father's > notebook to hold his place among his siblings, and then he becomes an "A" > tab in his own notebook with all his children, grandchildren, etc. > > It took me a while to come up with this system, but it was the only way I > could get the dividers to stick out beyond the sheet protectors so I could > see them. My original method of just having a file folder for each > surname quickly became incomprehensible, especially since I am trying to > trace each ancestor's descendants down for at least 2 or 3 generations. > You get one patriarch with 11 children who each have several children and > grandchildren, and they all begin to run together! > > I hope this explanation makes sense -- I wish I could just show you! > > Jenny Calvin > > > ==== TNSMITH Mailing List ==== > Have you updated your Smith County Query lately? > http://www.tngennet.org/queries/qpost.htm > >