Genealogy Chat

While my tree contains all my research individuals, I have broken up my digital and paper stored records into manageable branches.

Generally these also relate to a specific geographical area and, doing it that way also means it is conenient for me to take just the relevent stuff with me when I go off to regional records offices.

For example: What has worked for me is:
Father's Father's ancestors (Bristol)
Father's Mother's ancestors (Suffolk, Kent)
Mother's Father's Father's ancestors (Sussex)
Mother's Father's Mother's ancestors (Nottingham, London)
Mother's Mother's Father's ancestors (Wiltshire)
Mother's Mother's Mother's ancestors (London)

It is a case of horses for courses but I've found that my method has an inbuilt flexibility which enables it to expand without having to reorganise it from scratch.

It already is landscape!

The other issues I'm finding is that not only have the direct relations married more than once, so have there partners. And there's more than one potential census record :S

Just getting a bit bogged down with everything and need some kind of system to start a fresh with the info I've got and then build on it at a later date

Thanks for your help though Jill

If you make it landscape rather than portrait and add columns for the censuses it would fit onto one page. (I don't include place of marriage on mine as that's all in the file, but I do have 3 marriage columns for the busy ones in the tree!!)

Jill

Thanks Jill

I'll look into that.

The info I put on the spreadsheet is:
Name, DOB, Place and date of birth and any marriage dates

I keep the excel spreadsheet as basic as poss - don't crowd it with full dates etc.

PAF is on the familysearch site (Church of Latter Day Saints). It's free to download and very easy to use.

Jill

Thanks for that Jill, I don't really know what a PAF is but I'll look into it.

I;ve already started an excel spreadsheet, but even that's looking a bit on the crowded side now!

I keep my full tree details on a PAF file (Personal Ancestry File). I add additional info to that re census details etc. I then print out the family record sheets for each of my main line which shows all their children plus all the notes.

I also keep an Excel spreadsheet with the names listed down on the left and a variety of columns across the page for B, M, D + census returns - thats just a ticklist so I can spot gaps easily and don't end up searching for something twice!

Jill

Hi Everyone

Just after a few tips on how to organise all the info I find in regards to my family tree.

I've obviously got my genes tree, as well as a back up on seperate software in case something goes wrong.

But I've started to look at doing a directory for all the info I get, mainly because there's so many people to consider. Each generation past grandparents seems to have had between 6-12 children, who in turn then went and did the same thing.

So I thought about doing word documents containing all info so marriage details, census info etc then referencing in any pictures and attachments and stuff.

I'm finding now that I can find that much information that I'm getting bogged down in it, so I'm planning on taking each generation at a time and working my way backwards.

What do you all reckon?

Thanks