Organizing Your Research - Part 3

My blogs are becoming more popular and I've been asked to give another talk - this time on the subject I'm writing about right now - Organizing your research.  Obviously, I don't want this blog to keep mimicking my talks or vice versa so I'll try and work out a way to keep the content fresh on all sides.  Besides the writing I'm doing here and the talks I've been presenting on Facebook for Ancestorville Genealogy, I'm also re-starting the Casto Connections newsletters and writing articles for that.  All this writing has to be fit into my schedule after I come home from work or on the weekends, along with paying attention to my family (if they insist!).  But I hope my readers have been enjoying my blogs and will continue to check in as I add more and more content!  After the talk tomorrow I will load the link here for anyone who is interested.

Now, I’ve talked a lot about binders and given you ideas about how to use them. But what if you don’t have a lot of shelf space or don’t think that would work for you? Well, you can use file folders and cabinets. At one point when I was feeling very overwhelmed with my papers so I started out very simply. I got a small plastic filing crate and some green hanging folders. I put it on my desk and grabbed a stack of papers and just started sorting them, putting each letter or document into a folder and writing a little tag for it as I went along. I quickly began to see what sorting method was working for me and was able to get several stacks filed in one afternoon. When my crate was full, I moved the contents (actually had my kids move the contents) to the filing cabinet and repeated the process with the next stack.

Here is another tip that I have thought of but never been able to put into practice because for many years I lived many states away from close family. It’s more fun to do any chore with help. Do you have family members or cousins you haven’t see in a while who could spend a couple hours helping sort and organize without stopping to ooh and aah over every paper they pick up? Get them to help you organize those records and photos and then when you’re done for the day, ooh and aah over something while enjoying a cup of tea. Plus, you’d be amazed at what stories they may know that you’ve never heard!

My next post will include tips on organizing your computer files...