Due to unforeseen circumstances I now have a lot of free time to do research on my family tree.  So I have spent the past couple days trying to get my information organized enough so that I can see where there are holes in my research.  While I enjoy the process of organization and often get a lot of satisfaction out of the result I have found that I’m dividing my energies too much.  I have my general genealogical information from the various online courses that I have taken and I have all the more specific information from my personal family tree.

Binders are great to help gather everything and categorize it all, but then I also have my computer files which have become quite extensive.  I’ve used a combination of several different methods in order to sort through my electronic files.  I took the Genealogy Gems approach and have folders such as “Charts and Files”, “History Topics”, “Photos”, “Research Trip Materials”, “Societies”, “Surnames Researching”, and “Timelines”.  As I’ve progressed through my genealogy education and activities I’ve added some additional folders such as “Blog”, “FindaGrave”, “GoogleEarth” and “RAOGK”.  Those folders are more of a sideline from my actual research when I help others with their research or take pictures of additional headstones if I happen to visit a cemetery.

My folders look something like this:

Genealogy
  -Blog
  -Charts and Files
     -AncestryForms
     -Coorespondence
     -GED
     -GenealogyInstitute
     -JewishGenClass
     -Rootsmagic
  -FindaGrave
     -MapleGrove-Alexandria
     -NorthLawnCem-Utica
  -GoogleEarth
  -History Topics
     -RussianJewishImmigration