Organising and preserving your research
Filing systems that scale, citing sources so you can find them again, scanning and storing photographs, archival storage for documents, and backing up so nothing is lost.
Every family historian reaches the moment when they cannot remember where a fact came from, cannot find the scan they know they made, or discover they have ordered the same certificate twice. A little system at the start prevents all of it. This guide describes one that scales from a shoebox to several thousand people, and how to keep the originals safe.
The master copy
Keep your tree in a genealogy program on your own computer (see genealogy software). Everything you conclude goes in there, with a source for each fact. Online trees are working copies for hints and contact. Export a GEDCOM every few months and keep the old ones.
Cite everything
A citation is simply enough information for you (or someone else) to find the record again: what it is, where it is, and the reference. "1861 census, RG 9/2342, folio 56, page 12, household of John Brown, Stoke, Staffordshire, via Ancestry" is a citation; "Ancestry" is not. Record it the moment you find the record. Programs have source templates; on paper, a numbered source list works. Also note what you looked for and didn't find, in a research log; negative searches are evidence too and stop you repeating them.
Files and folders
Choose one scheme and stick to it. Two that work:
- By surname, then by couple: a folder per surname line, inside it a folder per family group (e.g. "Brown, John 1832 & Mary Smith"), inside that the certificates, census images and notes for that family.
- By Ahnentafel number: a folder per ancestor numbered as in the charts guide, so the filing follows the tree automatically.
Name scanned files consistently: year, record type, name, place ("1861-census-Brown-John-Stoke.jpg"). Keep the paper the same way, in acid-free folders in a labelled box, one box per surname line.
Scanning and photographs
- Scan photographs at 600 dpi (small prints at 1200) as TIFF for the archive copy and JPEG for everyday use; documents at 300-400 dpi.
- Scan the back as well as the front: that's where the names are.
- Record who is in each photograph while someone still knows. Put the identification in the file name or the image metadata, not just in your head.
- A flatbed scanner with a lid gives the best results for prints; a phone with a scanning app is adequate for documents in an archive, where you can't use a scanner anyway.
Preserving originals
Paper, photographs and textiles want to be cool, dry, dark and stable. Avoid lofts and garages (heat and damp), sunlight, rubber bands, paperclips, sellotape and PVC sleeves (which off-gas and stick). Use acid-free, lignin-free folders and boxes, polyester (Mylar/Melinex) or polypropylene sleeves, and keep newspaper cuttings (which are acidic) away from other papers. Write on the back of a photograph only in soft pencil at the edge. Unroll and flatten documents gently; don't laminate anything.
Backing up
The rule is three copies, two media, one off-site. In practice: the files on your computer, a copy on an external drive that lives elsewhere (a relative's house), and a cloud copy. Include the genealogy program's data file, the scans and the GEDCOM exports. Test that you can restore from the backup; many people discover otherwise too late.
Writing it up
A tree is for you; a written family history is what relatives will actually read. Even short narratives per family (where they lived, what they did, what happened to them, with the sources footnoted) turn the research into something that outlives you. Print a copy; paper has a better survival record than any file format.
Plan for the research to outlive you
Say in your will or a letter who should have the research and the originals, and consider depositing a copy with the county record office, the Society of Genealogists or a family history society. Twenty years of work is worth preserving; the archives will take it if nobody in the family wants it.