Part 3

This is the third and hopefully final lesson on organizing our paperwork. First, you all are clear on this, that I am talking about paper product not computer things. The things you collect as you go through the process of getting your genealogy together. The first and second lessons mainly dealt with the first of three piles of paper we have piled in the corner. I know by now you have all moved them out of the middle of the room. Tonight we are going to backtrack a bit and take a look at organizing the last of the three piles. For those of you that have rather small piles, or brand new beginners you are very lucky to start with and you can use these four rules to be going on with. For the rest of you, after this, if you try and follow these rules with your papers, you will be happy campers.

1. Control the sheet size.

2. Separate sheets by surnames

3. Separate surnames by the place of origin

4. Give every sheet a page number.

As students we learned how to prepare for a written essay in school. We were taught to use 3x5 cards, noting such things as author’s name, publisher etc. followed by a brief quote or two from the source where we found this in the library. This method works because the cards can be sorted easily and provides a bibliography when the report is complete. However, in genealogy trying to use this system runs into trouble quickly. First, there is not nearly enough room on cards top write all the notes you will want to capture. Not only that, genealogists are very fond of copying whole pages of text, not just notes here and there. To complicate this, we rarely get information from a single source, like one book. We get letters, documents from vital records offices, interview notes, phone notes, etc. etc. etc. The nature of our searches does not easily allow the use of cards. We have also been known to go to the library without a note pad and end up writing on torn sheets of paper, those little papers that you copy stack numbers on, shirt sleeves ---well you get the idea. e collect obits from newspapers and then when we get home, promptly let this note taking shift to the bottom of our case or bags and they don’t see the light of day again for sometimes, weeks or the next trip to the library. By trying to standardize our sheet size for taking notes, the best size is 81/2x11.It solves our problems. If the smaller notes you take are pasted or taped to a sheet this size, it can go, conveniently into a three ring binder or file and the lost notes are easily recovered. If you follow this little rule faithfully, you will be able to punch holes later and the sheet will have a place to live when it gets home, instead of the table top, or your briefcase. If you are truly the organized type you may want to create some sheets of this size in some sort of standard format for yourself, to take along. I, however, am far to lazy to do anything quite that efficient, so will go with the scotch tape method when I get home. Now, you can separate these sheets by the surname of the family to which the note refers. In other words, Surname books which are standard 3 hole notebooks can be set up to hold the notes and documents which relate to one surname. One book would contain all that is known about one surname and a short hint here when you go for notebooks, don’t mess with 1 inches or even 2.If possible, get 3 or 4 to start with, and you will not be replacing them as often, or adding others to your collection. At this level of collection, it isn’t necessary to separate possible or maybe connections from the known ones. As you grow, you well may want to do separate books for these, but at this point, most of us just don’t have that much material. The important thing is that the notes go in the right surname book at this point. As you gather the notes, write the name at the top of each page and devote and entire book to the notes for that surname or names connected with that name. If a new surname is encountered start a new notebook. This simple separation of notes by surnames will allow you to file any sheet of paper logically and without having to recopy your notes when you get home from research. In other words, each time you find something, it should be on an individuals surname page. A big advantage of this as well, is that if you keep good records at the library, etc. of where you are finding these surnames, you have a built in bibliography when you get home. Typically, researchers find themselves sitting in front of a microfilm reader copying down notes from original records (if we are doing it right). Even if you are careful to copy all the Johnson records from one county, what happens sometimes is that another family surname pops up something that was not expected. This happens often in the course of research. The serious mistake is to mix these surnames that you have found on the same sheets of paper. If a Brown family is on the same sheet as these Johnson’s, you will be double copying your notes to re-file, or double photocopying something. The only recourse may be to take a scissors and cut your original notes apart and paste them onto sheets for two separate surname notebooks. Therefore be careful to simply start a new sheet with each surname note. A family record, that mentions several different surnames that married into the family could all be saved as part of the main surname. The surname book contains information about the families and individuals important to the project, not necessarily just your direct relative. This is a key element to storing references in this manner. The problem of what to do with non-relatives has been solved; they are collected in the same book as the person you are tracing. Now the rules I mentioned begin to make sense. If the same size sheet of paper is used, and all surnames are on separate sheets, a system of collecting notes and documents will emerge. With these two rules alone, the note does NOT need to be stuck in a pile when you get home. Any new sheet can immediately go into a surname book as another page. Now one the documents are stored on the same sheet size, and placed in the appropriate book, the next step is to break them down, by place, or origin or the record to be saved. The logic behind this is thus...there are three vital pieces of information every genealogist needs to know to pursue evidence. They are name, date and place. With these 3 elements, a treasure chest of information will be found. The place tells you where to go to look for further information. The place of the event, such as a birth, death, marriage, residence must be known before you can retrieve a copy of that document. We live in a record keeping society. The jurisdiction (for instance the court, or government) is the place you must go to learn anything. If this is clear, then the idea of separating source material by the place is the next logical step to take. Experience researchers know that once the county of residence is established, a whole pile of information awaits in the courthouse, the local library, the funeral home, the cemetery, a local historical society. This information cannot be found without knowing first, where to look. Separating your sheets by the place is an easy thing to do because virtually every single reference item will have a place attached to it. The place it was recorded and found. So the top of the sheet should first show the surname for the record, followed by the some designation (place name) that it originated. For example, your surname book could contain separate sections of Johnsons’ They are separated by the Johnsons found in Iowa, the Johnsons found in Ohio, and the Johnsons found in Texas. This will tend to put the family records in a loose chronological order for the time periods they were in particular areas or locations. This method of collecting source material will put records for certain individuals in more than one place if he moved a lot from place to place, but don’t worry about that yet as we will get them back when we create group sheets. So first get your surnames in one book, then divide that by place names. You can break this down even further, if for instance many of the Johnsons live in the same state, but in different counties. You can use counties with in the states to separate them even further. I do like this method and recommend it highly when a person gets enough records, it creates much more order for yourself Okay, now that we have reviewed the four rules for taking new notes, lets tackle that pile I’ve had you building in the corner of your office or dining room Well, you will need this list of items –

a pair of good scissors A bottle of glue or tape

A felt marker(any color) A three hole punch

Several cardboard boxes 3 ring binders(one + for each surname)

here shoe boxes or small Set of sheet dividers for each notebook

ones are really preferred) 8 1/2x11 paper one ream should cover

knee pads any pile of notes

a sign that warns your family fines are double in work areas the last two are completely optional. to this, and if you feel wealthy, I would add several of those plastic sheet protectors. I like those for documents of value, like death and birth certificates. It also makes it possible to keep copies of pictures untaped and unglued with your notebooks. Start slow. Pick up your first piece of paper. What surname does it relate to? Write that name on the top of the page. What place does it refer to. Kansas? Write KS after Smith. get one of your boxes (or start a new pile) and mark it Smith place the first sheet of paper in the new Smith box. now the second sheet another surname? another box. about the third sheet of paper you will probably discover that both Smith and Johnson are mentioned on that one. Here is where you use your scissors. Cut the smith part from the Johnson part and get two blank sheets of 8 by 11 paper. The rest is obvious. Glue them on seperate sheets and in the box they go. Now, if you run across a paper, like a marriage license that applies to two names you have two options. You can photocopy or scan it and print it off so each box has a copy or you can make a sheet with a note that the marriage license has been filed in the other surnames box and will be found in that binder. A two-step process for this last option, so I prefer the first, but it sometimes makes more sense to do it this way. I do not recommend cutting things like marriage licenses up As you see the sheets building up in your boxes, you can soon begin to see what is happening. Even if you are not bubbling with excitement here, trust me that if you use this method, you will soon see your piles shrink in a method that is so convenient to use that you will wonder why you didn’t think of it long ago. Now, depending on the piles of paper you have to go through, you can enlist others to help you with this. Make it a game for young children to find the names and match them to Mom’s or Dad’s name you have written on the sheets. Promise them Dairy Queen each summer for the rest of their lives. Invite your relative s and tell them in order to eat they must clear their chair of paper. ??? whatever just do it carefully and promise that they will get fed at the end of it Now, there is a new rule of thumb that is getting to be more and more important to genealogists. It is called the Preponderance of Evidence. It is possible if one can document all sources to make assertions about the relationships between people. There may not be a single document that states he was the son of... in your document files. But there may be overwhelming evidence to demonstrate that a relationship of father to son was indeed the case. The argument goes that if a court of law in the US can accept such evidence, then it can be used by genealogists as well. You will be preparing family group sheets for each of your surnames, if you haven’t already done so. This is where you compare the notes, evaluate the contradictions that always occur, and then make a decision about the dates, places, and events necessary to enter information about the family members. This process is often lengthy and worrisome, and often will lead to ideas where new research is necessary. With your now nicely sorted documentation files (or notebooks), you can look at a complete file of information about each individual and decide if you have enough proof to be comfortable that the person you are tracing is indeed the one that preceded you. It is a fact, that there are numerous instances in which professional genealogists have testified in court about genie evidence regarding an heir to property or some matter in which the evidence is in question. Genie evidence is not different than the evidence used in a criminal case, where the prosecuting attorney much produce evidence that the person committing the crime is in fact, the person o trial. However the IMPORTANT thing about this, is that everyone and anyone who reviews your evidence must come to the same conclusion. The evidence must convince anyone that the same assertion is true. Then it is indeed possible to conclude, that Henry is the son of John without one single document to prove it that actually states that fact. Another quick note on compiling evidence this way. If you use one on your sheets to record where you got your material either as a beginning sheet in your file and taken from the papers as you enter them into the notebook in proper order (or file box the storage manner is your choice, really), you will have at your fingertips a complete bibliography of your sources to share. Eventually someone, somewhere will ask you for them. Okay again, thanks to Bill Dollarhide for his generous offer of his notes on these subjects that I often use for the classes and who is the most remarkable genealogist and teacher I have ever met. They are used with his express witnessed permission. Aren’t we lucky to have him any questions that I can handle here for you guys?.