Genealogy Chat

What is the best way to organise your family tree??? help urgently needed. helenx

In my case, I have a folder for certificates, a folder for census images, a folder containing general information, and a large cardboard box for everything else. Not very helpful, but I havent worked out a system yet. I start to get organised, then get sidetracked.

If you are researching more than one name, have a folder for each name, and keep the research results etc, all in that folder, when you have sufficient information, type up the details as you go along, date of birth & details, where they lived, marriage etc. Then when you are ready to organise and put down your family tree into a programme (try tribal pages, its a very good site (free) and very easy to follow with full instructions, put down the info you have gathered up as you go. Any mistakes or additions, can easily be altered/edited as you go along. As above, keep a sep.folder for BMD certificates, then it is easy to find what you are looking for, I find that a folder with alphabetical dividers is excellent for that use, the same idea for census forms. You could also draw up your own sheets for census information in a large notebook/ringbinder kind, enter the details as you find them, under the vrious family names, this will keep you organised. I try and stick to this, although sometimes I do end up with mountains of paperwork awaiting filing etc, as you progress you collect more & more info.!

Sorry, forgot to give you number for tribal pages, remove brackets www(.)tribalpages(.)com

I have info on the computer on a PAF (personal ancestral file) programme - downloaded free from www.familysearch.org - you can export your GR tree onto it. I also have huge ringbinders for each pair of great-grandparents and their parents/children/grandchildren. These are subdivided into surnames, and then I have an overall pedigree chart for each lot, plus family charts and then individual sheets. All my direct ancestors have numbers on all these sheets. The forms I use for this are from a Getting Started Pack which cost £10 from the National Archives, but you can easily make your own on the computer and run them off. After all the tidy forms, I have lots of untidy printouts, rough notes, ideas, badly drawn trees, timelines etc. Then I have some A4 acid-free plastic see-through wallets bought in bulk from Wh Smith which hold all the certs, photos, letters, postcards, official forms etc that I have accumulated. I also have an A5 sized hardback a-z book listing all my relatives by alphabetical surname with brief details of their births/baptisms/marriages/children etc and ref. numbers where poss. I take this WITH ME whenever i visit any archive. I have learned the frustating way that you can go to a library/localhistorycentre/records office to look for Smith and then find they have info about people born elsewhere or a national source and then struggle to remember which Jones it was that this could help you with. nell

Helen, I have just bought some brill Display folders from ASDA for £1.48 each they are brightly coloured and i have blue for the male line (my dad) and pink for the female(my mum) they hold 40 certs and i have just finished putting them in order and i am quite proud. i started with my dad, his b/c m/c d/c then went on through to g/parents and gg/parents in the same order, now i can just flick through, if i have any missing i have left a space so i can go back to it at a later date, on the front i have put their surnames in order so i know who is who ......MOE! PS i have just read this back and feel a bit like a saddo oh well!!!!

Moe in a muddle are these acid free or are they plastic thanks and you dont sound like a saddo to me just very well organised like I would like to be

Valerie, they are plastic wallets, do they have to be acid free? it doesn't mention anything on the back so they can't be...MOE!

Do you mean the documentation or the information? Get a family tree program, do not rely on GenesReunited as it is a very crude system. Record every little detail and record the source. That includes EMails, letters and snippets of information from family members. I scan things like Birth Certificates and add them to the source details, also the image of census pages where possible (i.e. ones available on Ancestry). Paper items I file away in folders and I have some A3 transparent wallent files for certificates - they were being thrown out at work! I periodically back up the file and tend to export to HTML files to pass on to relatives so they can view the information using a browser. I tend to do the same with photographs i.e. arrange so they can be viewed with a browser. It gives me an extra backup as several relatives have copies of my information. But remove information on living people if sending to anyone you can trust - usually because lack of knowledge of computers i.e. they might do something like post in a public place. Martin