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Organizing Your Files: Difference between revisions
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There are as many ways to organize your file as there are researchers. Each person develops his own system over time. The purpose of this article is to suggest a simple system that can be adapted to a wide variety of situations as your experience grows. | There are as many ways to organize your file as there are researchers. Each person develops his own system over time. The purpose of this article is to suggest a simple system that can be adapted to a wide variety of situations as your experience grows. | ||
== | ==Value of Organizing Your Files== | ||
Being organized helps you to better collate sources, compare them, evaluate them, identify discrepancies, and make reasonable conclusions. Well-documented family group records are the best source of ideas for research objectives. Up-to-date family group records also help you judge the reliability and fit of newly discovered sources with what you already know. The main value of organized research logs is to show all the sources you have searched, and help you recall your search purposes and strategies. Good logs help you resume research after a pause, and avoid re-using sources already tried. Too many negative searches on a research log show it is time to search in a different way. Being well organized saves you time, and it contributes to better research and results. | Being organized helps you to better collate sources, compare them, evaluate them, identify discrepancies, and make reasonable conclusions. Well-documented family group records are the best source of ideas for research objectives. Up-to-date family group records also help you judge the reliability and fit of newly discovered sources with what you already know. The main value of organized research logs is to show all the sources you have searched, and help you recall your search purposes and strategies. Good logs help you resume research after a pause, and avoid re-using sources already tried. Too many negative searches on a research log show it is time to search in a different way. Being well organized saves you time, and it contributes to better research and results. | ||
== | ==Organizing Principles== | ||
*'''''[[Document AS YOU GO!|Organize and document AS YOU GO!]]''''' Before you start research have a research log and well-documented family group record in hand. After research do not lay your head on your pillow until you have finished your paper work and filing. | |||
*'''''[[Document AS YOU GO!|Organize and document AS YOU GO!]]''''' | *'''''Hierarchy of research goals.''''' Have an overall goal to share your research findings with others. There under have a goal to research a cluster of families—usually families that settled near each other. There under have a goal to thoroughly document the events in one of those families before starting research on the next family. Have a goal to '''''understand''''' that family, and why they behaved as they did. There under have an objective to document one event at a time in one person’s life in that family. If the first search fails, continue with that objective with different sources, jurisdictions, or repositories. Don’t give up until you find a source to document the selected event or exhaust all the possibilities trying. | ||
*'''''Hierarchy of research goals.''''' | *'''''[[Research_a_Family_in_Community_Context|Study families in community context]].''''' Get to know the kin and neighbors and the roles they played in your ancestor’s family.'''''''''' | ||
*'''''[[Research_a_Family_in_Community_Context|Study families in community context]].''''' | *'''''Research the easiest events first.''''' What you learn from easier documents will help you find more difficult to locate sources.'''''''''' | ||
*'''''Research the easiest events first.''''' | |||
*Do NOT reorganize the way described below until you pick up research on a family—no mass reorganization of all files at once. | *Do NOT reorganize the way described below until you pick up research on a family—no mass reorganization of all files at once. | ||
*Do not be discouraged if you filing system is not perfect. We get better with experience. | *Do not be discouraged if you filing system is not perfect. We get better with experience. | ||
==Easy System: One Family = One File Folder== | |||
== | |||
This system is based on creating one file folder for each family you research. | This system is based on creating one file folder for each family you research. | ||