Ahnentafels as IDs, Sharon Carmack
Replies: 17
Re: Ahnentafels as IDs, Sharon Carmack
 calvinculver
(View posts)
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Posted: 22 Apr 2007 7:15PM GMT |
Classification: Query
Jillaine -
Sounds like we've worked out pretty similar systems. I organize my documents primarily by family, secondarily by document type. I don't have enough documents, in most cases, to justify a separate binder for each family name, so I generally keep several names together in one folder (in separate sections, not mingled).
To each document I assign a code consisting of the first three letters of the family name, a three-letter code for the document type, then a 3-digit document number assigned sequentially as I add documents. If the document is multi-paged, I add a fourth field indicating page number. Thus, for example:
CUL-COR-017-002
would be page 2 of a correspondence (letter, e-mail, etc.) about Culvers.
(Later, it occurred to me my 3-letter name code should be the first three consonants of a name; this would facilitate keeping variant spellings -- e.g., Colver/Culver -- together. But it's too late to change now.)
I also digitize everything. This both allows me to easily share copies of documents, and minimizes the need to handle fragile stuff (e.g., my collection of 200-year-old family letters). My digitized scans are organized into folders by family name, and sub-folders by document type. Each computer file is just given the document code as its filename.
In my folders, I manually maintain an index page for each sections with the document name and a brief description. (On computer, the index is given document number 0; e.g., CUL-DEA-000 is the index of Culver death documents.) Again, I don't generally have so many documents that a quick visual scan of the index sheet won't locate things for me.
The system works well as long as a document is specific to a family; rather less well when it either relates to multiple families or is, say, geographically based (e.g., Atwater's The History of New Haven, Connecticut). In that case, I usually just choose a family to assign it to, then include a cross-reference to it on each concerned family's index sheet (e.g., my Bartsch index might have an entry saying "See also RIC-BIR-022").
-CJE Culver
Sounds like we've worked out pretty similar systems. I organize my documents primarily by family, secondarily by document type. I don't have enough documents, in most cases, to justify a separate binder for each family name, so I generally keep several names together in one folder (in separate sections, not mingled).
To each document I assign a code consisting of the first three letters of the family name, a three-letter code for the document type, then a 3-digit document number assigned sequentially as I add documents. If the document is multi-paged, I add a fourth field indicating page number. Thus, for example:
CUL-COR-017-002
would be page 2 of a correspondence (letter, e-mail, etc.) about Culvers.
(Later, it occurred to me my 3-letter name code should be the first three consonants of a name; this would facilitate keeping variant spellings -- e.g., Colver/Culver -- together. But it's too late to change now.)
I also digitize everything. This both allows me to easily share copies of documents, and minimizes the need to handle fragile stuff (e.g., my collection of 200-year-old family letters). My digitized scans are organized into folders by family name, and sub-folders by document type. Each computer file is just given the document code as its filename.
In my folders, I manually maintain an index page for each sections with the document name and a brief description. (On computer, the index is given document number 0; e.g., CUL-DEA-000 is the index of Culver death documents.) Again, I don't generally have so many documents that a quick visual scan of the index sheet won't locate things for me.
The system works well as long as a document is specific to a family; rather less well when it either relates to multiple families or is, say, geographically based (e.g., Atwater's The History of New Haven, Connecticut). In that case, I usually just choose a family to assign it to, then include a cross-reference to it on each concerned family's index sheet (e.g., my Bartsch index might have an entry saying "See also RIC-BIR-022").
-CJE Culver