Genealogy Chat

Wish I hadn`t started now

Bought a load of binders, polypockets, dividers etc. Everything is packaged in shrink wrap which takes forever to get off. The polypockets slither everywhere and the side holes will not stay lined up. And to cap it all, when I finally got the polypockets into the binder, I trapped my finger in the snap ring.

Ouch! I am feeling rather smug. Someone at work had a whole garageful of unwanted really BIG A4 ring binders - the sort with 4 holes to punch instead of 2. Since the files were free, I invested in a 4-hole punch. I now have a set of 5 of them with all my relatives' rough notes and info in. The smaller ones I was keeping everything in are now going to have the neat family/individual sheets in. nell

I think I have already found a few of those little notes You are right, they made perfect sense a few years ago, especially that first name with a GRO number. Was that a birth, marriage or death and what surname is it.

Carol That's all part of the learning curve. I myself have a notebook, to avoid all those scraps of paper, but only yesterday I found a name and an address with no idea who this person is/was. A relative, or someone who is researching my family? nell

We all do it don't we? Grab an envelope or back of a school note by the phone and right down that vital information. eg Annie WAS( underlined) the daughter of George and Mary. ..... George and Mary??????who??? I now date even those scrappy notes and write for example 'phone from Carol'on the top. At least I've got some hope of making sense of it all if it takes a while to be properly logged.

Yes but then how do you sort it? What categories to divide stuff into. What about this piece of paper with a map, a photo of a church and a memorial inscription - maps? church info? cemetaries? grave details? I have got so many plastic folders, but still can never work out where to put stuff! and I dread to think how many trees I have killed off over the years! (real trees that is!) Maz. XX ps don't forget to recycle your unwanted papers - even if you have shredded them first

Recycling Maz. That's part of my trouble! I won't throw away(to be recycled) anything which has a spare side that I can write on. Hence notes on advert, envelopes, school notes and even the address sheet which comes with my grandson's posted Beano! I'm a keen recycler but it does cause me problems!

Gwyneth I think I'm quite lucky cos hubby works from home a fair bit so brings blocks of printer paper from work, so as we don't actually pay for them I am a bit printer happy! Maz. XX

Hole punch all those scrappy bits of paper, torn envelopes, notes written on the back of tickets etc and thread them onto a treasury tag, or tie them with an elastic band, or skewer them onto a paperclip NOW. At least they will all be in one place and you can sort through them without going through piles of papers. One other thing I've done is get an A5 alphabetically indexed book - just with lines, no boxes for address/phone no. etc. I have then (tedious but worth it) put in all my relatives under their surnames and listed on one page per relative their date/place of birth, marriage(s) children (mother's page only) and death/burial. I've also put in all the references for censuses plus where they were/age/occupation. This is fairly lightweight and easy to take around. So if I am in a record office researching my Matthews, and find there is some info that might be relevant to my Smoothy side, I have the names/dates/places to refer to, instead of my memory. A short pencil is better than a long memory. nell

I've had to resort to the bigger/fatter A4 folders as when I was recently out on the road so to speak they spilt open and the slippery little devils went everywhere!!!! I've now decided to put a family history sheet with all the information I have for each set of parents and put them into a separate folder and see how I get on with that. It'll save taking the big folders out and about. I was advised to use a large hard back book to note down everything I've found and where I've looked. You theoretically then don't get the slips of paper but it doing it that's the problem.!!!!!!!

I started my tree just under a month ago and have accumilated two ring binder jotters, a couple of slimy plastic wallets, alot of scraps of paper, an A4 pad and a few excel spreadsheets!! I thought the way to do it was to log my findings onto excel and go from there - this is fine but time consuming. After reading this thread it has made me realise that I am not very organised especially now that I have offered to help others out and my notes are becoming very confusing. I've picked up some different ideas now from reading this and I think a retail trip to staples may be on the cards.... (any excuse to shop!!) How does everybody else log/file thier info??

Sometimes to clear my thoughts, I have done a simple Word document for each family group, putting events in chronological order and adding info from certificates, censuses and family folklore where applicable. This not only makes it a bit more interesting than just names and dates, it also helps me to think - yes, why was her sister living with them then? and oh, I still haven't found that death cert for him. etc. Eventually I plan to do a proper little book on all 8 great-grandparents and their times, not to mention the murder...

Well I really admire you lot out there. After spending a whole night organising my files and info's putting all info from my scraps of paper into a shorthand notebook -sectioned into main famly names e.g. Smith and Jones- I thought I was well and truly organised. Obtained an extra A4 file for info re census and gravestone records and another for information. So why have I managed to accumalate another load of bits of paper with info (relevant at the time) that I now cannot remember it's relevance. I think I must be a slob. You have now made me look again at what I am doing and I really intend now to pull up my socks and get organised. Pat