How I Organize My Genealogy Research Files

As I have mentioned in the past, I've been working on my genealogy off and on for about 16 years. The past four weeks have seen a lot of progress in organization and filling in huge gaps close to my end of the tree. In between applying for jobs and running errands for my father, I've decompressed by working on organizing the mounds of data, both digital and tactile.

(On a side note, I am quite disappointed that FamilySearch has had to change the availability of census pages. I used to be able to download and save the image that showed the page with my family member on it. The ability to download and print those images is now unavailable. I can only surmise that the US Census Bureau has renegotiated the contract and FamilySearch can no longer allow us that kind of access. Such a bummer.)

The KRAUSE Conundrum, Part 2

Conundrum

I call this family group The KRAUSE Conundrum because they have been so difficult to track down. The parents of the family are my 2nd great grandparents Ferdinand and Amelia. Their children are Gustave, Max, Charles (my great grandfather), and Catherine. Peripheral family members are documented as a way to gather additional information about Gus's movements and an attempt to find out about where Ferdinand and Amelia came from.

I focus a lot of my research on Gus because he seems to be the most interesting of the group. He didn't plunk down and settle in one place and he lived life by his own rules. There is also a lot of information on him, or at least the group of men known as Gus C. KRAUSE. When I couldn't figure out why each piece of information seemed to be at odds with the rest, I went to the world stage at the time to figure out why he would purposely disseminate false information. It has been an eye opener.

The KRAUSE Conundrum, Part 1

The German Brick Wall

One of the most frustrating parts of genealogy research are what genealogists call 'brick-wall ancestors'. I've come into contact with many such ancestors, and I'd say the prevailing nationality of those ancestors is German. What is it about the way Germans from the 1850s-1950s were raised that caused them to be so tight lipped about family matters? The majority of the issues I am dealing with lately come from my biological paternal side, but I have run into a similar problem with my maternal side as well as my adoptive paternal side. It's like they were trained from birth to keep a secret to their graves. I guess it's Gibbs' Rule 4 (NCIS); Best way to keep a secret. Keep it to yourself. Second-best, tell one other person—if you must. There is no third best.

More Genealogy and a Little Loving Pep Talk

The other day, I downloaded a couple of free programs for genealogy research and tree making. Years ago, I used Family Tree Maker, but it was cumbersome and glitchy. I didn't care for the input of PAF (Personal Ancestral File, a program by LDS) from around the same time. It was also confusing with the extra information available to input that is specific to the LDS faith. Again, quite cumbersome and a large learning curve.

But I am really enjoying the incredible influx of information I've been able to gather since joining FamilySearch.org. Incredibly more helpful than even Ancestry. Don't get me wrong, I still use Ancestry in conjunction with the Family Search site. Along with their respective apps for mobile, research has become a lot easier, although discrepancies are everywhere and it does take a bit to wade through it. Thus the feeling of need for an offline program to build this and keep my information separate from the mass tree.

While I was afraid this meant repeatedly inputting the same information, and after consulting the LDS tree, that meant thousands of individuals... I was willing to wing it and try.

I downloaded 2 programs and have already uninstalled one, Gramps. Gramps looked fine enough, but it had a learning curve I wasn't prepared for. The other, RootsMagic Essentials 7, the basic features of RootsMagic 7, a paid program with way more power than what I really need.

When I opened RootsMagic it offered to download from Family Search... I was able to choose how many generations after logging in. Because of the massiveness of the tree that I have perused thus far, I chose 100 generations of ancestors. Quite an undertaking, but from what I understand, after it imports, I can stay in connection and pick up hints from both Ancestry and Family Search. Sounds like a win-win.

That all leads me to where I am right now. I've been importing for almost an hour.

Over 4,000 individuals.

It's not done.

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I had to restart the program because it froze. Screensaver was not a good idea.

Been going now for about an hour.

5,000 individuals and still going.

I did a bit of research into how to manage all this data when it comes to the physical documentation and came across some great advice.

First: Color coding. Starting with yourself as the home individual is logical. Above you is your parents, and above them, your grandparents. Already you have 7 people in the tree and only 3 generations. From there it starts to get a bit tricky. The upside for me is that with the homeschooling experiment we did the past 5 years, I had a lot of colored supplies on hand.

Many genealogists use the three primary colors plus green to denote different lines of a tree. Any information regarding a single grandparent's family would be in one color of binders, folders, hanging files, index cards, etc.

Blue- your father's father. 
Green- your father's mother.

Red- your mother's father.
Yellow- your mother's mother.

So I have some hanging file folders already (read some as "a freaking lot"). I set colored ones up for my family: Krause (Blue), Bartaway (Green), Hamman (Red), Kurtz-Nofziger (Yellow). I set up a second set for my second husband's family so I can research them for our son: Taylor (Blue), Swank (Green), Hunter (Red), Hagan (Yellow). I need to save up a little money in order to complete this with the correct colors for my husband (for his daughters and our nieces and nephew), my first husband (for our daughter Clara), and for my ex (for our daughter Samantha). It's all a massive undertaking, but I find it all fascinating! For example, I just found out that my 3 times great grandparents, Adolphus and Adalina Bartaway (Berthoulier) were married, had 6 children quite quickly, got DIVORCED within a year of the youngest's birth, and then six years later, REMARRIED. Yes, to each other. And from what I can tell, stayed together the rest of their lives. There's gotta be a story there. Did someone cheat? Was he just too attached to his work? Was she an insufferable nag? (If you ask my husband, that's probably the case because "it runs in the family". lol)

I also figured putting basic information on color coded index cards would be helpful. If I am working on a particular family group, I wouldn't want to take everything I have with me to the library's genealogy department every time I go. One might suggest 'digitize everything and don't bother with physical documentation'. For me, and my learning style, I need physical items I can touch and move around to see the relationships between concepts, people and places. I am more kinetic in my learning than any other method. But I do use visual and audio learning techniques as well. So taking color coded index cards and a small file folder with just that family group would be beneficial. All notes during that session would then be brought home. It would also keep me on track and prevent falling down rabbit holes of other family groups.

The index card idea actually came to me way back in 2003-2007 when I lived with my biological father in his trailer (read: he took me in to keep me from being homeless, though he hardly knew me.) I had just found out that I was in fact NOT an only child genetically. I had an older half sister by him, and 2 younger half-brothers and 2 younger half-sisters by my mom.

I wrote their names and birth dates on index cards and taped them to a very long and blank hallway wall in the trailer. I then made a card for my father, my mother, and their parents. I soon saw my family tree growing on the wall. In some branches, I ended up back 10 generations thanks to my Great Aunt Lela's research (paternal grandmother side, therefore, Green. lol)

Before meeting my father, I thought of myself as an orphan. An unwanted and cast aside little waif. I'd left home and didn't look back. But here, on the wall, was a wealth of family connection, connection that no longer made me alone.

So just how many index cards does one need to cover direct ancestors? Oh my lord. Going back to my 17th great grandparents... 18 generations with my grandparents. It winds up being a whopping total of 1,048,572 cards. That is of course only if all branches can be traced all the way back to that generation.

With the cards I have on hand already from the dropped idea of flash cards for Bubbaloo, I counted out how many of each color I needed for each generation. My card file starts with my grandparents, 1 card of each color. I got through my 5th great grandparents and ran out of cards during the counting of my 6th great grandparents. Mind you, this is just counting out the cards I need for each generation, not the actual information written down. That's using 2- 100 packs of color coded ruled index cards, plus what remained of an open pack.

I didn't use any of the orange color and I haven't included my adoptive father's family. That's an organizational problem for another day. Perhaps I will use the orange and regular white ones for Dad's side. I don't need to worry about Mother's side since it is the same as my Mom's. The joy of having sisters as mothers. lol There IS a bright side to being my own first cousin! LOL


In the time it took me to write this, RootsMagic stalled again. I think I'm going to have to import in batches. I was trying to get ALL of it and since I don't know how many generations back it is, I just typed in 100. Perhaps a bit too ambitious. Off to try again, this time in smaller batches. Wish me luck! LOL

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Allow me one more indulgence of reading my blather...

I said I went back to my 17th great grandparents in calculating the number of index cards I will need. A family tree that goes back that far has 20 generations, myself being the first in that succession. We're not counting my children here.

1,048,572 cards. That sounds like a lot. But those cards are NOT JUST CARDS. No. They are individual PEOPLE. Think about that for a moment. One Million, Forty-Eight Thousand, Five Hundred Seventy-Two people. Add the Two from your parents...

One Million.
Forty-Eight Thousand.
Five Hundred Seventy-Four.

People.

Made you.

"Wait. What do you mean 'made me'?" you may be asking.

You are who you are because those 1,048,574 people decided it would be a good idea in the middle of the night, or the afternoon, first thing in the morning, or whenever, to get jiggy wit it. Okay. I'm crass. We all know this.

Anyway. We can have the debate of nature versus nurture if you want. But I'm living proof that your personality comes from both as well as the sum total of your experiences.

But your DNA, the stuff that decides just exactly how your body is going to fail you, the color of your hair, eyes, exact skin tone... All that comes from the past 20 generations and even further back to be honest, but for the sake of my mathematics...

One Million.
Forty-Eight Thousand.
Five Hundred Seventy-Four...

Men and women having a child. Forget adoption, step-parents, surrogacy and sperm/egg banks for a moment here. Sure. They factor into it, but your DNA is representative of 524,287 men's DNA and 524,287 female's DNA.

The conditions had to be just right all those times to become pregnant. The conditions had to be just right all those times to survive birth. All those chances for something to go wrong. But here you are. Alive. Kicking ass and taking names.

Because 1,048,574 people had sex with another person, (or equivalent action in a petri dish/test tube), to make you who you are.

Do you like yourself? Do you love yourself? Yes you do! So don't wish your life would have been any other way! 1,048,574 people in the last 400 years lived their lives in such a way that YOU EXIST.

And if you don't like yourself and don't love yourself, I want you to hear me right now. Clean out your ears and hear me out. I'm surprised you made it this far in my blather. So hear me good right now.

Remember this: I LOVE YOU.

I don't care if we aren't close, haven't been close in years, recently had a massive, blow-out falling out, have never met in person! I don't care if you are an ex that I, at one time, wished dead.

I LOVE YOU ALL!

You are important! You matter! You have value! And if you died, I would cry. And be sad. And I don't like being sad. So don't make me sad.


One Million, Forty-Eight Thousand, Five Hundred Seventy-Four people from the past 400+ years made you. You're the result of their lives. You can continue their legacy, change their impact. Make up for their stupidity, make them proud, surpass their accomplishments... All By Being You. So stick around. Don't make me sad. Love you.