Filing Various Documents

[Jeff89]

Re: Filing Various Documents

Like you, I don't enter a generic source like Birth Certificate or Census. That tells me nothing of value unless I have the actual document or specific Certificate etc. When I started out with Windows software - dark ages, I know - I did put things like census , or certificate etc down as a source, but quickly realised this was useless. Now I always make my sources as specific as I can. If that means having quite a few , thats fine with me. I enter as many sources as possible on the basis that every fact I enter about my family needs to be justified and trackable, so that someone coming after me and picking over my data will know exactly how I came to record what I did and how I was able to prove the links from generation to generation. Sources should be your record of Proof of how you have researched your family history. And mulitimedia things amplify your knowledge about t a person and family and make the database so much more useful to third parties.

I've discovered something that may be basic to others on this forum. But just in case it isn't ... I have about 100 U.S. Census sources. I originally entered them as [year U.S. Census of township, county, state]. After creating duplicate sources because I couldn't find the first instance, I discovered that if, instead of using the format that I had been using, I used, instead, [year - state - county - township] that Reunion would sort by year, state, county and township. Make sure that the formatting is identical for all of your census (or other) sources, including the spaces between the dashes. Otherwise, Reunion will treat the noncompliant source name as a different entity.

I hope this helps and I hope it doesn't reveal my utter ignorance of how Reunion works!!

[John M. Leggett]

Re: Filing Various Documents

I've discovered something that may be basic to others on this forum. But just in case it isn't ... I have about 100 U.S. Census sources. I originally entered them as [year U.S. Census of township, county, state]. After creating duplicate sources because I couldn't find the first instance, I discovered that if, instead of using the format that I had been using, I used, instead, [year - state - county - township] that Reunion would sort by year, state, county and township. Make sure that the formatting is identical for all of your census (or other) sources, including the spaces between the dashes. Otherwise, Reunion will treat the noncompliant source name as a different entity.

I hope this helps and I hope it doesn't reveal my utter ignorance of how Reunion works!!

Important point, Jeff, that may be of great help to some. The sorting is not merely a Reunion feature but part of the OS. It was pointed out to me some years ago that all files that have a date in the filename can be similarly sorted if in this format: "20131211 Filename" meaning "December 11, 2013" followed by the filename.

[sdengle]

Re: Filing Various Documents

Along the same line, this is what I have been doing for several years for census images which I have downloaded from HeritageQuest (accessed through my local library website). As a source, I only use the year and add the filename in the Detail.

Year followed by two letter postal code for state; county; city (or township) as HeritageQuest indexed it; film number as given by HQ; page of census; and head of household's name as indexed;age; state where born. If the name is spelled "wrong" I add the correct spelling after a space at the end.

Example of one of my ancestors: 1900OR,Multnomah,9-WdPortland T623-1350 p214B PARROTT,AnneE54IL

Susan

[Jeff89]

Re: Filing Various Documents

Along the same line, this is what I have been doing for several years for census images which I have downloaded from HeritageQuest (accessed through my local library website). As a source, I only use the year and add the filename in the Detail.
Susan

In another thread, Michael suggested attaching image files to the source under the multimedia tab on the source. I guess that would be in addition to your filing system, because if you ever changed the location of the file, I imagine that the source record wouldn't be able to find the file. Unless I'm ignorant, like I am on so many things about Reunion! Sigh ...

Jeff

[ttl]

Re: Filing Various Documents

In another thread, Michael suggested attaching image files to the source under the multimedia tab on the source. I guess that would be in addition to your filing system, because if you ever changed the location of the file, I imagine that the source record wouldn't be able to find the file. Unless I'm ignorant, like I am on so many things about Reunion! Sigh ...

The short answer is that Reunion 10 can follow the file around if you move it. The long answer is that many Reunion users (including me) will try to keep copies of multimedia in a (set of) designated folder(s) so it's all easily found, referenced, and maintained.

[Jeff89]

Re: Filing Various Documents

The short answer is that Reunion 10 can follow the file around if you move it. The long answer is that many Reunion users (including me) will try to keep copies of multimedia in a (set of) designated folder(s) so it's all easily found, referenced, and maintained.

Yes, I discovered that by moving and renaming one image after I posted this query. That's all I have in my family file right now. But I'm getting ready to do some serious image downloading, so I created an "Image" folder in Reunion and then a series of folders nested under that, like Census, People, Death Certificates, Gravestones and so forth. I think this will work, unless you have a better suggestion.

Thanks much for the reply!!

Jeff

[Susan Freas Rogers]

Re: Filing Various Documents

I'm getting ready to do some serious image downloading, so I created an "Image" folder in Reunion and then a series of folders nested under that, like Census, People, Death Certificates, Gravestones and so forth. I think this will work, unless you have a better suggestion.

Jeff, here are my folder categories for my image files. I originally had my paper filing system also set up this way, but that got very unwieldy. I am now using the "colored files" system for paper files, grouped now by surname in my four grandparent lines.

My computer image files are filed by these categories:
- Census captures
- Church & Cemetery [with subfolders as follows]
-----Births & Baptisms
-----Cemetery records [scans of office records, transcriptions, undertaker records, etc]
-----Communion & confirmation
-----Death records church
-----Gravestone photos
-----Marriage records church
- Documents & misc images [depositions, receipts, house photos, DAR pdfs, misc docs]
- Immigration & Ships
- Land & Tax Assessments
- Military
- People images [has one subfolder "headshots for Reunion," plus all other people images]
- Print media - books directories newspapers etc
- Unsourced - online trees etc [has screenshots of unsourced trees & family pages on web incl URL]
- Vital Records
- Wills Estate Legal & Death stuff [incl inventories etc]
- Online database image captures [results from legitimate sites e.g. ancestryireland.com]
- Relatives indirect misc finds

Even though the above computer filing system is wholly different from my alpha-by-surname-in-four-color-groups paper filing system, I haven't had any problems. When I'm looking for a computer file, I know what I'm looking for (Census, military, etc.) and for whom, so I just go to the category I need, and all files except Census are named as follows [Surname, First name, What The Image Is] under that category. (For people with same names, I also include "b1830" or similar to differentiate them.)

Finally, I have many images with " - inR" appended to the end of filenames to show that I have linked that image to my Reunion file. But I may not keep that up. My latest batch of photos are in their own folder called "To Link from Nov 2013 Trip" and I won't even file them under the above image categories until I'm ready to link them to Reunion at the same time.

Sorry this is so long, but hope this helps a few people, and thanks much for this thread. There is a Facebook group called The Organized Genealogist which anyone can ask to join, then visit occasionally to see what people are sharing about staying organized.

Susan
Grass Valley, Calif.

[Jeff89]

Re: Filing Various Documents

The short answer is that Reunion 10 can follow the file around if you move it. The long answer is that many Reunion users (including me) will try to keep copies of multimedia in a (set of) designated folder(s) so it's all easily found, referenced, and maintained.

Based on the excellent suggestions from everyone, that is what I've decided to do. That solution solves a number of problems - broken URLs and sites that disappear, among them. Thanks!

Jeff

[donworth]

Re: Filing Various Documents

I'm a big fan of KISS….

I've found that I prefer to see everything for a given person grouped together and chronological. It's rare that I care about seeing things grouped by type (census, etc.) So my files are by major branch of the family (Bishir, Mendenhall, Worth, etc.) and then in those folders I have all the files named like this:

BISHIRJeremiah1827DeerfieldWarrenChattelTax.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1827DeerfieldWarrenPropertyTax.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1827purchasedlandWarrenOHP1.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1827purchasedlandWarrenOHP2.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1827UnionWarrenPropertyTax.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1830CensusTippecanoeIN.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1830DeerfieldWarrenChattelTaxa.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1830DeerfieldWarrenChattelTaxb.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1830DeerfieldWarrenPropertyTax.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1830saleoflandWarrenOHP1.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1830saleoflandWarrenOHP2.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1831TaxRecordDeerfieldTwpWarrenCoOH. jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1832DeerfieldWarrenPropertyTax.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1837LandPatent.gif
BISHIRJeremiah1837LandPatent2.gif
BISHIRJeremiah1840censusIN.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1840LandPatent.gif
BISHIRJeremiah1850CensusWhiteIN.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1850LandPatent.gif
BISHIRJeremiah1854LandPatent.gif
BISHIRJeremiah1860censusWhiteINp1.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1860censusWhiteINp2.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1860CensusWhiteINPt1.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1860CensusWhiteINPt2.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1870censusIN.jpg
BISHIRJeremiah1870CensusWhiteIN.jpg

This puts most of the burden for organization on the file name and greatly simplifies filing them. It also avoids problems should they be moved to different folders.

This naming system also works very well for photographs since you can put a lot of the caption for the photo in the file name.

Don