Making Progress - Making Distractions

ORGANIZATIONAL DISCIPLINE

Introduction

In this post I will discuss why I am not following the Organisational Prompts in the Get Organized challenge. 

What I am doing instead.  

The challenges this approach has had and how I have dealt with them.

FINALLY Get Organized challenge

This year I had intended to follow along with the weekly challenges set by DearMYRTLE in her FINALLY Get Organized prompts. 
Week 1 
I had previously done much of what was suggested, somewhat fortuitously, with the week coinciding with catching up at work after the Christmas and New Year breaks.

Week 2
This was where I started to see that the system being suggested was close to what I had previously tried. This way of organizing I had found to work for some of my digital files but not everything.
Organizing by family group works for items specific to that family but stumbles when previously unconnected groups collide. One example of this would be a group photograph at a wedding or a newspaper report of that same event.
I am trying to avoid duplicates of the records and have devised a modified version keeping the family group as a hub containing an index to the relevant documents and other media.

I have gradually realised that a key element in citation is being able to accurately pinpoint the provenance of the source. Whilst digital files can have this information embedded in the properties it is a greatly underused function. Most of the files just contain the filename for that computer and a date. Making use of this ability will take time so I have started with a quicker fix to ensuring the correct provenance is recorded.

The System

This is a screenshot of my system as it stands today

I discussed this system briefly in my featured earlier post.

The Media file in my Family Historian project has subfolders which I have colour coded using Folder Marker .

I have further subdivided the folder named Official Archives as shown below

I expect some of the folders will be moved, renamed or deleted as I decide the best place to use for those census images and other items I have downloaded. I need the flexibility at present that this system provides. I also want something that can be easily modified at a later date.

The process has been far from straightforward and I find myself having to go through earlier emails trying to discover who sent me pictures or documents. When I find the relevant email I have sent it to Evernote and added tags.

This has slowed down my folder organization but will pay dividends when I start to rebuild my tree as part of my Genealogy Go Over.

I did not create a research log when I started out so I am going to create one retrospectively from interviews, photographs, scans and correspondence to ensure the sources are correctly cited.
If I am unable to accurately date something I can no longer replicate, such as an interview with a deceased relative, I will date with a year range.

I am sure I will find other distractions to send me "off course" but hopefully most of them will help me attain my ultimate goal to get organised and digitised so I can find, analyse and preserve the history of our family. 

Starting Over

 

 I am going to be joining with a number of like minded genealogists with a common goal.

Our main aim is to construct a family tree that is well documented and that we can leave for others to build upon, rather than something that has to be confirmed because the information required to support the tree has not been recorded or has been poorly documented.

So we are going to set out to ensure that the information we have has been fully evaluated and recorded so that others can follow what we have done and repeat the research if necessary.

In preparing for this I need to define some ground rules. 

This is my current list.

• Organization of what I have already collected.

I have been trying to do something along this line for the last two years and have already started to reorganize how I store my digital information. I originally started this because I wanted to have my information stored on my computer in the same way I was trying to get my paper records and photographs organized. 

I have been trying to use a colour coding system similar to that described by Mary Hill, who did a Legacy Family Tree Webinar about this in April, the system Mary describes is supported by the Legacy 8 Software program.

• Collecting information so that I can easily incorporate it into my system.

I have started using Evernote to collect information and I want to put this to more effective use so that it is easier to find digital information that I have collected. I have also used One Note and I need to evaluate whether I want to use this alongside Evernote.

With more use of devices such as my phone and tablet I have also been using Cloud storage systems. Do I use just one or several providers?

• How do I record what I have found?

What software do I use to record what I have found? 

I have been a long term user of Family Historian. 

Do I stick with this or are there features of other programs that I would find useful? 

I have Family Tree Maker for syncing with my Ancestry trees and have just bought Legacy 8 to try out its citation capabilities and possibly other features.

• How do I evaluate the information I have found?

I have Evidentia to help me analyse my sources which I intend to put to good use.

• Where do I start my research?

Do I start by evaluating what I have? Yes

Some of the personal information I will not be able to reproduce, so I need to ensure it is fully and accurately recorded and evaluated.

I shall start as a newbie and gather together the information I have on close family members.

I need to build from a solid base ensuring that each source is a single entity and not a derivative of another source.

I will probably add to this list as the comments of others get me thinking.

As someone has already said I need to start as a beginner, but with the knowledge I have now, rather than the knowledge I had when I was starting my research.

One thing I have already done is set up a folder in my Google Drive for anything I think may help me with my decisions and implementation.

 

New Year Resolution - How I intend to complete my organization task

It is that time of the year again when at the start of a new year we all resolve to do something better, start something new or give something up.

If you have read my introduction or have been following me you know that my passion is genealogy. I am not giving this up!

When I got a new netbook I resolved not to let it and my files get disorganized or duplicated. However as time passed I needed access to items on my old laptop and the duplication or even worse triplication crept in.

I found a program called Easy duplicate finder http://www.easyduplicatefinder.com/ and gave it a try. It worked, up to a point, but some of the problem was due to saving files under slightly different names and file sizes.

How to remove the duplication and organize my files so that I could find what I wanted easily.

Most of my data is genealogy related and my genealogy program Family Historian http://www.family-historian.co.uk/ allows for everything to be stored in a Project folder. Many items were already in this folder but I was not happy with how it was organized. Most of my photographs are of living individuals but I also have some of gt gt grandparents. I have other digital images and many more left to scan. I have paper files which I also need to organize and wanted to file in a similar manner and had started to rearrange by family.

So how could I organize everything in a consistent manner.

Although some of the more recent photographs will contain members of both my husband’s and my family I decided that organizing using family groups was the best approach. Wedding photographs would be filed under the couple unless they contained an individual alone. Individuals would be filed under their family at the time the photograph was taken so that children would stay with their parents until they married.

Birth and Baptism records are with the parents family whereas marriage and death are with their family at the time of the event. This fits in well for those individuals who married several times and those who never married.

Before subdividing to the families I organize by surname which allows for documents pertaining to more than one family.

I also capitalize the Surnames in the main tree to distinguish them from the other surnames linked into the main tree by marriage.

Each of my son’s grandparents has a different colour assigned to their line. The folders are then coloured using a program called folder marker http://www.foldermarker.com/ .

This program also allowed me to change the Icons for the main folders to a tree.

Finally I discovered a program called Bulk Rename Utility http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk which I have started to use to clean up my file naming. This allow you to take several files and rename them in a single action and removes some of the tedium associated with this task.

So my resolution for this year is to complete this task.

Once I have completed this my next task is to reconcile my sources with what I have recorded in Family Historian http://www.family-historian.co.uk/ this I aim to do using Evidentia http://evidentiasoftware.com/.

The developer of Evidentia http://evidentiasoftware.com/ has a new version in beta testing which is due to be released later this year.

My aim is to get this first task completed before the new study group for Mastering Genealogical Proof http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/mastering_genealogical_proof starts as I know I will be busy with this being one of the panelists. This will have a UK slant and will I believe show how the principles of research and analysis in genealogy apply wherever your research and documents are to be found.

I also plan to use Evernote https://evernote.com/ and Onenote http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/onenote/ to help further my organization skills as I am aware that these are invaluable tools for many genealogists.

I have started using both but have not yet decided exactly how to get the best out of them.

To help me with all this I have signed up for the next Hack Genealogy Boot Camp http://hackgenealogy.com/genealogy-groove-boot-camp-25-january-2014/ and I shall continue to join Legacy Family Tree Webinars http://www.familytreewebinars.com/ and Google + Hangouts http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/ to get hints and tips from others.

Thank you for reading my blog and if you have not already seen it please have a look at this new blog http://worldwidegenealogy.blogspot.co.uk/ a collaborative blog which will have contributions from across the globe including yours truly.