Personal Life Media

Transcript

President Harry S Truman once said,  “In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves … self discipline with all of them came first."

I would have to agree and take it even farther…the consistent factor in a great family tree, is also dependent on the victory you win over yourself.   Self discipline definitely comes first!   And I have heard from researchers over and over again that self discpline when it comes to staying organized is often their greatest challenge. 

And yet if we can conquer that desire to toss stuff in a pile so we can chase down the next record, we will actually have a much greater victory than all those extra records could give us. 

It’s sort of like the old question “If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?

In our case it’s more like  “If you save a record and later you can’t find it, do you really have it all?  Is it really a genealogical source for your research?”  I would venture to say, no it’s not. It’s pretty useless to you if you can’t locate it whenever you need it.  And in fact, it has the potential to become a HUGE time and money waster because when you do need it again, you’re going to have to retrace your tracks, find it again at the original source, and pay whatever additional costs that requires. 

So each time you’re tempted to toss that record in a pile on your desk or in some non-descript catch all folder on your computer’s hard drive because you’re in a hurry, just remember that in the long run it’s going to slow you WAY down when you want to retrieve it, and ultimately it’s going to dramatically hinder your overall research.

In these next few episodes I’m going to share the hard drive organization system I’ve created with you.  My goal with this system is that I can locate the corresponding electronic file on my computer for any fact in my database in seconds. 

Getting Started:
Open Windows Explorer.  On most computers the C drive is the main drive that you store your files on.  But if not just double click on the drive where you want to store your computer files. 

Select the C drive by clicking on it and go up to the menu and select FILE – NEW FOLDER, and I know with Vista I can just right click on the C drive and select NEW – FOLDER which will accomplish the same thing.  You’ll see that the label for the folder will be highlighted so that you can name it – so just type GENEALOGY and press ENTER and you will now have a folder on your C drive called Genealogy.  Everything’s going to go into this folder. 

Overview of Computer Folders:
Setting up folders on your computer is a lot like setting up a filing system in your office.  Think of the Genealogy Folder that we just created as a larger drawer in your desk.  In that drawer you would put folders for all the major headings of work that you do.  And each of these hanging files have a lot of folders in them with sub headings.  And within each of these file folders you could even have more folders. 

Well your computer hard drive can be organized much the same way.  And you can create all the folders you want. 

Layout Overview:
There are general Items having to do with your genealogy research such as:

• Charts and Files
• Forms
• History Topics
• Research Trip Materials
• General Timelines
• Genealogy societies or organizations
• and other sorts of things that don’t pertain very specifically to a particular family in your family tree. 

But the folders I want to focus in on are the ones that do apply to your family lines.  So we’re going to create a folder inside the Genealogy folder called SURNAMES RESEARCHING.

How to Create the SURNAMES RESEARCHING Folder:

1. Click on the GENEALOGY folder to select it
2. Go to the Menu and click on FILE
3. Select NEW
4. Select FOLDER
5. Name the folder 

In next week’s episode I’m going to focus on organizing my family tree which will take us into the heart of this system.