On 18 Feb 2006 at 11:05, Daphne Eze wrote: > > > Thanks for the great discussion. I've decided to use the user ID and > fill it following the dollarhide numbering method. The only place that > it falls down is when the numbers get too large for the user ID field. > I'll solve that by restarting the numbers and adding a capital A too the new > set of numbers. I'll also use the user ID for marriage numbers and file by > them. Dollarhide's suggestion for marriage numbers is to take the number from > both people ie person id 4 and person id 5 and combine them like this 4/5. > > If anyone has any other suggestions to add to this scheme I'll be glad > to hear them. I've been putting off starting the paper files because I > wanted a scheme that would expand and made sense to me.
It depends, of course, on what you want to do, and how many records you have. What do you mean by "made sense to me", and what exactly do you want to do? The PAF RDF method I described is very simple, and I find it works well with Legacy. It works for me because it does what I want it to do, but I'm not sure if it does what you want it to do. That is why I think you need to be clear what it is you want the system to do. I have over 12000 records, and the number keeps growing. Many of them are people with the same name, like William Smith, or Ann Jones. I want to be able to see the sources of information I have about them, which are very often in paper files. When I get new information, it may enable me to ass unlinked person in my paper files to the family tree, so I need to locate the references to those people. So the paper files are just filed in lever arch files (in America use 3-ring binders), and as each one is filed it is given a number, which I use a rubber stamp to put on the top right-hand corner of the document. It started with 00001, and file contains documents 00001-00126. They are not sorted by families or anything else except the order in which I put them in the file. Obviously not everything fits in the file - a library book, for example. In that case I file a sheet of paper, with a bibliographical reference to the book, its library catalogue number, and when and where I saw it. If I have photocopies of relevant pages, I file them with the reference as one document, or I may file them elsewhere, but cross reference the number. The serial numbers of these documents are entered in the File ID section of Legacy's sources and to-do lists. So if I have a to-do to find something, then the notes I made of what I found are given a serial number and filed. So if I look in the Legacy to-do list, I can see exactly where I put the information I found. In addition I try to index each document for the people mentioned in it. To identify the people, I use the RIN in my genealogy program, so I know which William Smith or Ann Jones is in that document. The number doesn't have to "mean" anything to me. It just has to be possible for Legacy (or other genealogy programs) to find the person it relates to. One document can refer to many families or branches of families -- a page from an old town directory for example. I have a photocopy of the page in my paper files, say Document 923. It shows that my great grandfather Bill was living at such and such a place on such and such a date. I put DOC 923 in the File ID field in the source reference in Legacy. The next person in the directory list is Bill's second cousin Ernie. I put the same number in his file Id. The third person of the surname is George, and I don't have a George in the family. So I index him (along with Bill and Ernest) in the research data filer. Bill and Ernest have RINs because they are in my family file, George doesn't. But if, a year, or five years later, I find a census record that shows that George was second cousin to both Bill and Ernest, I can find him in Document 923, add him to my lineage-linked genealogy program (like Legacy), and add his RIN to the RDF index. Manual filing systems, like the Dollarhide one, were devised in the BC (Before Computers) days when people kept ALL their records on paper, and the numbers needed to "mean something" to them in order for them to find things. But now we let computers do the work, the number doesn't need to "mean anything" to me, as long as it "means something" to the computer, and enables the computer to find the link. This system has the virtue of simplicity. If you have a bunch of papers in a box somewhere, and you keep thinking, "one day I'll sort them out". But with this system you don't have to "sort them out". You just have to punch holes in them and put them in a file, and give each document in the file a serial ni,ber as you put them in. In fact even that can be done later. The computer sorts them, the computer keeps track of them. That's what computers are for -- to save you the hassle of sorting the papers into some order that "makes sense to you" before you can file them. Let the computer do the drudge work! -- Steve Hayes E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727 Enter the drawing for a FREE Legacy Cruise to Alaska or a FREE research trip to Salt Lake's Family History Library. Open to users of Legacy 6 Deluxe. Enter online at http://legacyfamilytree.com/FreeTrip.asp Legacy User Group guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
