How do you file?

[Silvercleave]

New here to yer, can anyone help and give me tips on filing paper certs.

Am using Roots Magic so all the bodies on it have a number, so do I file numericly or another way? Then you get marriage certificates, where would you put these, under the man or the woman?

Have only just discovered this forum and the info on it is incredible

Resolution for this year is "Don't get distracted"

greetings from cornwall.................................A LONG WAY FROM SCOTLAND

Ian Macdonald

[emanday]

Hi Ian,



Greetings from Bristol, (nearly as far away from Scotland as yourself).

I think everyone finds their own way to file eventually and the methods can be very varied. Personally, for Births I file by name, i.e. Surname then first name. Deaths are pretty much the same.

Marriages I file twice! Once under the groom's name and again under the bride's name (again surname then first name). I know it's duplication, but it works for me.

Censuses are a whole different thing! I'm still struggling with that one

[Silvercleave]

Very many thanks Emanday I will now start to file all those bits and pieces alphabetically and hope someone comes up with a solution to the census problem, did think of filing them in a file for each year then alphabetically within? I wish someone had warned me that geneology takes more time than anything else and the further you dig the more you realise that why didn't we listen when we were little, so many times I can hear relatives in the background telling me this and that and it just went over my head, thinking, "I'll never be old like that"

regards

Ian

[StewL]

Hi there
My method of filing is that I put the date first then what it is then name eg:
1876 Birth Alexander Stewart
1901 Marriage Alexander Stewart and Jane Barton
1923 Death Alexander Stewart
Census I file by year and family name
I then keep them in family folders.
This method works for me

[apanderson]

My method (a wee bit like Stewie's) is by date order.

I keep everything, census, births, marriages, deaths, newpaper clippings etc. all in date order in their own 'Family' folders. That way, once you identify 'person x' on your family tree, it's just a matter of having a look at their details on the tree and (providing you've remembered to enter stuff), it's easy to find all the print-outs you have for them.

If it's a case that the families 'cross-over' making a 'new line', then the process is just the same but then you have to go and buy yet another lever-arch folder and the process starts all over again!

I'm sure you'll find a way which suits you - eventually.

Anne

[DavidMK]

Hi Ian,just to change the subject slightly, I note you are researching Cairns and Paterson. I have a relative, Margaret Cairns who married Peter Paterson in Hamilton in 1890.Do you ,or anyone else for that matter,have these folk in your tree? I also have Dick relatives from Polmont,Stirling.

David
(even further away from Scotland).