Organizing Your Paper files in a Computer Day and Age

Photo by biblioteekje (creative commons licence)

That is the title of the workshop I attended Thursday morning. Part 1 and Part 2 with Mary Hill. I would work entirely digitally if it made sense but the reality is the 4 jammed packed drawers in the legal sized file cabinet as well as the 2 full bookshelves with over 20 binders and various photo albums and news paper clippings and scrapbooks. That is all paper. And desperately needing a system.

The system Mary introduced wasn't new to me - I had picked up the "Each Family is a Circle" handout long ago and wondered if some kind of colour coding system would help. But it was great to hear her explain how to set it up - go through the 4 preliminary steps and then the 13 steps to get organized. It really is a system that is just a beginning point and I know that I will have items that I will wonder how to handle. But it is exactly what I needed to start. It is a way to identify what you have, what you don't have, and as you go along, document and source everything into your computer software program so that you have the information in a useful form for continuing your research.

I'm excited to get started on this - and love that she provides a shopping list and checklists are also available to work along with. I know I will adapt some of the directions to suit how I work (I have alot of legal sized paper and my cabinets are legal sized as well so the letter sized files won't work for me) but the idea will really move me from this state of multiple systems that don't allow me to work with the materials in a cohesive way.

I also made the decision to do this in conjunction with moving my information into a different software program. PAF has been good for me but I think Legacy will give me the options, sourcing support and other features that I will find beneficial moving ahead.

Interesting to hear that both the LDS church and Legacy have adopted her colour system in their charts as an option. The church also has included her step by step information on organizing in their research help section of the Family Search.

I'll post pictures when I get this working for me!

Why I really need the class Thursday!

Task number two...



After finding the Hunter home, I wanted to update my searches for any printed family histories related to the names in my line. I found 5 possibilities to pull off the shelves and explore to determine if there was a connection.

I quickly eliminated 3 of the books. The fourth I was sure I had previously looked at and had the same information in my own records.

The last was a history of the Gray family. It was clearly a match with the Grays in my line - through my Root family line. Jasper Edward Root had married Lillie Cora Gray. These were my great grandparents. Lillie had remarried later in life with Harry Bly and had done some good work on her family line. Some of her records were passed down to my father and then to me.

But as I turned the pages, scanning the contents and noting which sections of the book I wanted to make copies of, I realized I have a Gray family history at home. Much thinner. Different looking? Or was it just the format that was throwing me off? I don't know what I have. And I should because how will I ever move forward and make progress if I just keep finding what I already have and should know.

Well, I considered not copying the pages but I figured that $4.50 was not much to ensure that I take home what I found and if duplication occurs, I'll just count it as a back up copy and lesson learned. I hope.

One thing I discovered was the possibility that the Gray line is really a line with a different surname! The last Gray listed on the line was apparently orphaned and adopted by Gray and it isn't clear whether he was a relative with the same surname or not. More to learn about this!!

The Hunter Family Home

Task number one on Wednesday - Locate the Hunter residence

I realized looking at my list for the upcoming visit to the Salt Lake Cemetary is that this final resting place means there was also a residence before ending up there. I already knew the address for Emma Prosser Toone and have found the home and taken photographs on previous trips. But I had never thought to locate the Hunter home. So that was the goal. I didn't ask any questions (I have lost my voice and charades wasn't an appealing option). I just started searching for something that might lead me in the right direction. Maybe there was some family sketch or history for this family. No luck. Maybe I could find a directory or list of early residences. Well, that possibly exists but nothing I was searching could lead me to what I wanted. I just kept looking - ended up on Ancestry.com and this is where I found a record for 1880 that listed Elizabeth Hunter (widow of Adam Hunter) and her address as 703 East 1st South. I tried to look for this on Google map - found what I thought might be the address and changed to Street View but it didn't look like the houses remained in that location.



Today - I drove over, hopeful as I got closer and saw a number of homes that appeared to be from the same period. No such luck. This is what I found!


This is where 703 East 1st (100) South would be. No Hunter home standing.

Random Searching

One drawback of having as many files and good intentions but no system of organization is that I didn't exactly know what I wanted to accomplish on Day 2 of being at the Family History Library. Okay - no system of organization isn't exactly accurate, what is really going on is multiple systems of organization with at least 1/3 of my material in a "need to file" state. But how should I file something that could go in multiple locations and with my binder/file/digital systems, I don't really know what I ought to be doing next. I have used binders successfully in the past but nothing was ready for me to grab in this way for this trip. So I found myself with a day at the library and a few ideas and hoping that I would be inspired to do what was useful.

It all ended up with some success. I'll post a few things I did separately for searching purposes, and I ended up happy but motivated to do better the next time. Time at this library is valuable and I hate to think I wasn't as productive as I could have been but it is all a part of the process for me. I'm excited about attending a class on Organizing here at the library that may solve some of my problems!