Having said the above, I don't connect anything but head or group shot photos in Multimedia. It is my opinion that connecting documents that one might look at once or twice in the next five or ten years is time wasted. The important thing is to be able to easily access collected documents if and when they are needed. As I have been doing genealogy for 30+ years, my collecting precedes the ability to connect documents. I have been using Ancestry for about 15 years. I have several thousand documents that are roughly ⅓ manually collected and ⅔ collected on Ancestry.
Thus, I have a two prong approach to documents. The collected documents get file names constructed as family name_firstname_date_itemtitle. Thus, a census sheet for me in the upcoming 1950 census would be named White_Robert_1950_CensusSacramentoCA. Now, for the documents collected on Ancestry, I simply use a copy of Family Tree Maker. The strategy here is that synching FTM with Ancestry puts a copy of all documents on to my local Mac.
Need a collected document? Do a Finder search; start typing w-h-i-t.... and quickly bore down to White_Robert...... Need an Ancestry collected document? Fire up FTM and go to the person then click on the Media tab. Either way, I'm at the document in less than 30 seconds. My invested labor is the naming of the collected documents. The return is huge. Now you know why I don't give a fig about connecting documents other than photos.
Note: I am steadily working my way through old paper making sure I have the information found on each document. I toss most, some after scanning, and basically only keeping paper copies if they are original legal documents, certified copies, etc.. I should be able to get rid of a file cabinet eventually.
Thus, I have a two prong approach to documents. The collected documents get file names constructed as family name_firstname_date_itemtitle. Thus, a census sheet for me in the upcoming 1950 census would be named White_Robert_1950_CensusSacramentoCA. Now, for the documents collected on Ancestry, I simply use a copy of Family Tree Maker. The strategy here is that synching FTM with Ancestry puts a copy of all documents on to my local Mac.
Need a collected document? Do a Finder search; start typing w-h-i-t.... and quickly bore down to White_Robert...... Need an Ancestry collected document? Fire up FTM and go to the person then click on the Media tab. Either way, I'm at the document in less than 30 seconds. My invested labor is the naming of the collected documents. The return is huge. Now you know why I don't give a fig about connecting documents other than photos.
Note: I am steadily working my way through old paper making sure I have the information found on each document. I toss most, some after scanning, and basically only keeping paper copies if they are original legal documents, certified copies, etc.. I should be able to get rid of a file cabinet eventually.
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