Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

[Bob White]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

So - do you then enter each file folder in the Multimedia Files Preference? This could be a large number of files if I understand Ben Sayre's methodology.

I'm not familiar with Sayre's methods. No, I do not enter any folders to the Multimedia preference. About 90% or better of the documents that I accumulate will either rarely or never be looked again... so there is no point in going to the trouble to hook them into Reunion.

[sgtbob]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

I'm not familiar with Sayre's methods. No, I do not enter any folders to the Multimedia preference. About 90% or better of the documents that I accumulate will either rarely or never be looked again... so there is no point in going to the trouble to hook them into Reunion.

Bob - Interesting. I do try to use the 'connecting' features available in Reunion to show all the sources attached to a person - I get requests from folks as to where I got the data attached to someone and if I do not show that data - a census for example - I would be remiss in the authenticity of my research. Just a personal item I guess.

Bob

[ttl]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

Bob - Interesting. I do try to use the 'connecting' features available in Reunion to show all the sources attached to a person - I get requests from folks as to where I got the data attached to someone and if I do not show that data - a census for example - I would be remiss in the authenticity of my research. Just a personal item I guess.

Bob

I would say that even though my reference material is not organized meticulously, it is still cited, stored, and easily retrievable. To the extent I have document multimedia linked to Reunion sources, they could all be in a single folder or scattered randomly throughout my hard drive and be just as easily retrievable. In reality, the files are mostly in three folders--one for my mother's side, one for my father's side, and one for my wife's family. However, for as much as I go and look at them (about as much as Bob White does), putting them all in one folder would be sufficient to keep them safe and accessible. All I need is a file name to find a file, and Reunion helps me document that.

While I can see the utility and satisfaction of a folder system for some people, I sometimes worry that potential casual genealogists might be scared off from the activity because they won't be able to do things "correctly."

As a potential wish list item, it might be nice for Reunion to have an option to add the source multimedia images to a report instead of just the multimedia list. (A stack of one page documents at the end, not embedded images.)

[Bob White]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

As is my stuff.... I have a folder in the Reunion Files folder named Families. Inside that folder, it is organized by families. Currently, 24 folders are there. Within that, I follow a naming convention of LastNameFirstName_Year_ShortDescription. A couple examples:

BarnesGeorge_1900_NelsonCA.jpg tells me this is the 1900 census page for Nelson, California, that contains my grandfather George.

BarnesGeorge_1928Jan_GridleyHerald.png tells me this is a newspaper clipping from said newspaper in January 1928. (He was in a list picked to serve on Grand Jury.)

I have used this system for about 10 or 12 years now and it serves me very well.

[AE Palmer]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

I've been viewing the Ben Sayer videos and find them to be most interesting. I am curious about how the filing system dovetails with REUNION. How does one address the files in Reunion - a separate entry for Places, then one for people and then the documents that pertain to a number of folks? I'm trying to figure if I would benefit from re-visiting all my 2000 sources and 5000+ photos for the 29K people in my Reunion file. To re-arrange all those files appears to be pretty intensive. Pointers and suggestions?

I have taken a modified Ben Sayer

[sgtbob]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

Basically, I have one GENEALOGY folder in my ‘home’ folder in which I store all my genealogy files (1) Reunion ‘.familyfile10’ files; (2) PHOTOS of persons; (3) PHOTOS of Tombstones; (4) DOCUMENTS (some 2000 digitized source documents); and (5) CORRESPONDENCE with other genealogists. I do not have sub-folders beyond these files and unless I’m missing something, I do not seem to have reason for added files. PLACES are noted in the right column and can be accessed to persons in the file or arranged in alpha order and printed if desired.

I’m trying to fathom the benefits I may be missing by not having more detailed sub-folders that I see suggested here and wonder if I’m missing something I could use.

[AE Palmer]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

[QUOTE=sgtbob;42418]Basically, I have one GENEALOGY folder in my

[Bruce Christopher]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

I just though I would jump in here and describe how I organize my sources. This approach may not suit everyone but some variation of this may work for you.

Source documents: Reunion Source records (source citations) are assigned a numerical identifier automatically by Reunion (Note that if an old Source record is deleted, its number will be reused when it becomes the lowest unused number available). In order to ensure that these numbers are consistent between the Reunion application and any reports generated (including Web Projects), uncheck the preference called

[mrstucci]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

I am so glad that this topic is being discussed. I am in the midst of a major, daunting task of reorganizing all my papers and digital files and am looking at all manners of organizing my genealogy so that my findings can be easily understood and enjoyed by my family. I like Ben Sayers method. I will probably fine tune it so it works for me. I am using Mary Hill's color scheme for my notebooks and hope to carry that through to my digital files.

Is there any way to color the names/families in Reunion to match Mary Hill's method?

My head is whirling with all sorts of ideas day and night.

[Charles Bourland]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

Another approach can be found at http://www.genealogyhowto.com/2010/0...ource-records/

I think an approach which uses color codes, different bins etc etc can waste a great deal of time on the filing/retrieving when that time is better used seeking Sources.

The Reunion approach to Sources is perfect for my approach. I merely add (1) File Number and (2) File Name as the first two fields to every Source record in Reunion and then add and describe data appropriate for that Source. Thus when you retrieve your Sources, they can be sorted by type (as a bibliography) or number (and located easily),

[Dawn Delaney]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

I organize my files in a method similar to Michael Talibard (see 08 October 2014), taking take it one step further by coding the file names with a reference to the folder. For example: B-Francois Theriault 2.jpg where B represents the Birth folder, and the 2 means there's two different files for that name (which may or may not be the same person).

There are a couple of advantages to using this naming method:
-Should the file get separated from the folder, it will be easily recognizable as to where it should belong.
-It allows mulitple use of a person's name as part of the file name making it much more recognizable than a file named "S1234.jpg".
-By using first name, last name rather than last name saves me from having to look through hundreds of Theriaults to see if I've a birth record for Francois Theriault.
Here's a screen shot:

[Charles Bourland]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

Reunion is a beautifully designed piece of software! You could improve your system in my opinion by using something Leister makes immediately obvious and most competitor do not make obvious: Person ID. It's also very useful for photos, when you may have several for some people.

[donworth]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

You just have to be VERY careful never to renumber your database! I did that once (for reasons I can't even remember now) and totally screwed up the links in my TNG web site as a result.

[DelbertCurlin]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

Basically, I have one GENEALOGY folder in my ‘home’ folder in which I store all my genealogy files (1) Reunion ‘.familyfile10’ files; (2) PHOTOS of persons; (3) PHOTOS of Tombstones; (4) DOCUMENTS (some 2000 digitized source documents); and (5) CORRESPONDENCE with other genealogists. I do not have sub-folders beyond these files and unless I’m missing something, I do not seem to have reason for added files. PLACES are noted in the right column and can be accessed to persons in the file or arranged in alpha order and printed if desired.

I’m trying to fathom the benefits I may be missing by not having more detailed sub-folders that I see suggested here and wonder if I’m missing something I could use.

Sgtbob could you tell me where to find a starting point? I have many documents., stories, census copies, marriage rcds, death certificates, and photos of people and photos of tombstones. I just don't get this "sources" and how it would be used in reunion as I don't see a field titled sources in the family view or person. I've been using reunion since back when it was card based and I guess not to smart in this work.

[Michael Talibard]

Re: Organizing your genealogical data on your Mac

Delbert - if I understand you correctly, you have been using Reunion for many years without ever entering your sources? My advice would be just to shrug your shoulders with a wry smile, because you can put that right only if you have a wonderful memory and are ready to do a great deal of extra work. A source is an answer to the question, ‘How do I know that?’ It is not a separate field but shows as a little red number attached to a field, or in the case of notes, to a part of a field. For example, if I record that Bill was born in Bartlett on 1/1/1900, then I attach a source to show where those facts came from (normally in that case a birth certificate). Ideally every piece of information in your family file would be sourced, but I guess it’s too late for that now.