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!