So today I gave a presentation on organizing your genealogy at the Round Rock [Texas] Family History Center for their Family History Fair. We had a great time, even with our DNA sidetrack. I've given this talk multiple times and each time I do a little more revision.
I had screencaptures of my digital files and had people ask for the contents of my genealogy template folder (folder of empty folders of each record type that I use in my SURNAMES folders) and my general Genealogy folder.
Genealogy Template Folder contains:
BibleRecords
Biography
BountyLandRecords
CemeteryPhotographs
CemeteryRecords
Census-Nonpopulation_Federal
Census-Nonpopulation_State
Census-Population_Canada
Census-Population_England
Census-Population_Federal
Census-Population_Scotland
Census-Population_State
ChurchRecords
EducationRecords
FamilyRecords
FuneralRecords
Immigration
LandRecords
LettersandEmail
Maps
Military
Naturalization
Newspaper
Obituary
OnlineData
PensionFileRecords
Photographs
ProbateRecords
PublicationsorPeriodicals
Signatures
TaxRecords
VitalRecords-Birth
VitalRecords-Death
VitalRecords-Divorce
VitalRecords-Marriage
VotingRecords
These are all items that I have encountered. I do not use spaces in my filenames, I use either dashes or underscores. Spaces, to me, are a problem.
In my Genealogy folder, I have my random items that don't fit anywhere else. I have folders and files like:
BradburyHeightsElementarySchool
Buildings
CivilWar
CorkSKG [Items from the year I lived in Cork, Ireland]
CornellAlumniNews
defcarbolicacid.txt [Text file from the Columbia Encyclopedia, due to several family members, both extended and close, committing suicide by drinking carbolic acid]
Directories [City Directories]
DNA
DraftCardA.pdf
DraftCardB.pdf
DraftCardC.pdf [Series of forms downloaded from Ancestry.com of the three types of World War I draft card forms.]
Emails [Items that don't fit into a surname folder]
ExcelFilesTranscription [like the pdf forms above, used for transcribing documents, downloaded from the internet.]
FamilyCemeteryRecords
FamilyGroupSheets
FamilyHeirlooms
Familymultimedia
familypictures-unknowns
familyrecipes.doc
familystories-Gredlerside.doc [This needs to be moved to the GREDLER surname folder.]
GEDCOMS
GreatMigration [individual biographies of multiple men from the Great Migration project publication.]
Letters
maps
mapsofPA [Both of these could probably be moved to my LOCATIONS folder.]
MassachusettsVitalRecords [found on Archive.org and Google Books, pdf publications for individual Massachusetts towns.]
MayflowerRecords
PAArchives [pages downloaded from Fold3.com for individual books within this series of publications]
Postcards
Savage-GenDictionaryNE [publication in pdf format]
SKGredler-memories [that's me]
SURNAMES
I also have documents in this folder for items such as vital records that I have ordered but do not belong to my family.
We went through lots more today, but as a teaser, I will be giving a portion of this presentation in January at the Williamson County [Texas] Genealogical Society monthly meeting on 17 January 2013. Please visit!
(c) Sara Gredler, 2012.
