Biographical Notes

[Ted Lomatski]

Hi, I have gathered bits and pieces of notes about individuals that can best be described as biographical in nature. These are mostly life events, such as graduations, accomplishments, oral histories, etc. Right now, this information is more or less a dog's breakfast of word processing files, jpgs, rtfs, txt files, newspaper clippings, etc. Everything that has to be organised and made into a cohesive story at some time.

My question is how are others coping with this?

Cheers, Ted

[B Jansen]

Re: Biographical Notes

Hi, I have gathered bits and pieces of notes about individuals that can best be described as biographical in nature. These are mostly life events, such as graduations, accomplishments, oral histories, etc. Right now, this information is more or less a dog's breakfast of word processing files, jpgs, rtfs, txt files, newspaper clippings, etc. Everything that has to be organised and made into a cohesive story at some time.

My question is how are others coping with this?

Cheers, Ted

Hi Ted,

I have made a "Narrative" note part of my default, and I'm (very slowly) trying to incorporate all of the misc. information into a coherent narrative. Otherwise, I just add events too.

[Karl Craig]

Re: Biographical Notes

Hi, I have gathered bits and pieces of notes about individuals that can best be described as biographical in nature. […] My question is how are others coping with this?

Cheers, Ted

This is a very interesting question, and must affect every serious genealogist. I have some really odd bits and pieces that need to be with the individual; for example: my ggg-g'pa's Glasgow Police service record; my wife's gg-g'pa's British Army service record; a newspaper report of my gg-g'pa's mining accident when he lost his leg; etc.

There are other more extensive narratives I have; for example: a two-page dissertation on Lithuanian naming conventions (you need to know something about it, or the names become meaningless).

I use "Misc. Notes" to record these and, of course, you can always create 'user notes'. I have specifically named user notes for all UK censuses (1841 to 1911), and one for 'migration' details (shipping manifest information, or US immigration records, etc.).

I also always create an "Event" if that can help record some information: if, say, I have a ship record of a family migration to Australia, I record all the details in the user notes, and then created an 'emigration' event for the date of departure, and an 'immigration' event for date of arrival—these will always be with the gedcom file.

Also, events can record army enlistment and discharge, known addresses at various times, etc.

[AE Palmer]

Re: Biographical Notes

Hi, I have gathered bits and pieces of notes about individuals that can best be described as biographical in nature. These are mostly life events, such as graduations, accomplishments, oral histories, etc. Right now, this information is more or less a dog's breakfast of word processing files, jpgs, rtfs, txt files, newspaper clippings, etc. Everything that has to be organised and made into a cohesive story at some time.

My question is how are others coping with this?

Cheers, Ted

If you have not already done so, start by creating a “Documents” folder. Inside of that folder, create two more folders: 1) “Surnames,” and 2) “Geography.” Inside Surnames, create a folder for each major surname you have. And for each surname, create a folder for each person. I use "SURNAME, FIRSTNAME MI (Byr-Dyr)" to identify these folders. Now, as you digitize and collect your documents, they can be organized by person. The Geography folder is organized in a similar way by location! I also id each document using the “surname, first name” approach – that way, if it is ever moved, I know where to put it. Also, if the document in question is about more than one person, you can make an alias of the file and put it that person’s folder.

Once you are inside Reunion, every time you need to source a document, it is a matter of connecting your scanned and word-processed files to the correct Reunion Source. As Bradley suggests, by using a combination of both EVENTS and NARRATIVES, it is possible to put together a surprisingly good storyline for each person. Just be sure to create your citations, as they are the glue that holds the frame together! And lastly, whenever you put a citation inside a narrative field, always use only one citation per field – even if it means using another narrative with the same header.

Also, I do most of my narrative writing in a word-processor and then transfer it to Reunion.