The 12 labors of the genealogist – #12 – Organize your documents

If you’ve followed our previous advice, you’ve taken care to keep a “digital copy” of the information you’ve consulted when researching your genealogy. If you haven’t – yet – we invite you to re-read this publication.

Having a copy is essential to guarantee the existence of information (proof) and to refer to it in case of doubt. However, it is important to be able to retrieve the information, and this is not as simple as it may seem…

Save information in digital form

When you consult information, there are two possible scenarios:

• The information is on a “physical” document: letter, deeds, but also photos. In this case, you’ll have to digitize the document yourself.
• The information is on a digital medium: document scan, screen copy, etc. In this second case, you’ll need to save the already scanned information in a file.

Choosing the format in which to save the information is very important, as it will determine what you can do with this digitization in the longer or shorter term.

Use a format that is usable for your research.

The format of the resulting file often depends on the method you used to obtain the information.

• If you’re consulting a register, you’re dealing with a book made up of bound documents, and it’s not likely that you’ll be able to place a page on the glass of a scanner to obtain a quality image. You may be allowed to use a “manual” scanner, which is passed over the sheet. In most cases, the only solution will be to take a photo, which will give you an image that is more complicated to process afterwards (paper curvature, ink stains through transparency, parts hidden by seams…).
• If you’re looking at an isolated document, it’s likely to be a copy that you can scan.

In both cases, the result is an image that is difficult to use later, especially for handwritten documents, as current technology does not yet allow them to be retranscribed into typed text. For images that correspond to photos of document pages, we recommend retranscribing the main information they contain: date, place, event and people mentioned. You’ll then have an appended document in a format that can be used to search for names, places or dates.

Ideally, then, you should work from documents digitized by their authors (usually in PDF format). The PDF format was conceived at a time when file transfer between two people required a great deal of acrobatics to read the transmitted file, as software was not very compatible. The PDF format guarantees that a document can be displayed and printed without the need for any application to transform it.

On the other hand, tools such as Google Docs, Microsoft Word and derivatives like Open Office – even though they have made significant progress – can alter the document due to the formats used.

Use a durable format for your research.

While it’s essential to choose a usable format, it’s also important to choose the “right” format, i.e. one you’re sure you’ll be able to consult in a few years’ time.

Avoid using an application that produces files in a “proprietary” format, as there is no guarantee that this application will still be usable in a few years’ time. Choose applications that can provide you with output in one of the standard formats:

• Text without formatting: txt or PDF.
• Text with formatting: PDF.
• Image: png, svg, gif.
• Video: avi.

These may not be the most sophisticated formats, but they should be usable for many years to come.

Name and classify your documents

Now that you’ve chosen the digital format best suited to your work, don’t overlook two essential points:

• Name the document in such a way that you’ll know what it contains without having to open it.
• Classify the document in a way that makes it easy to find.

How to name documents?

You probably already have your own habits, and – on the face of it – no one practice is ideal. Here’s one that might catch your attention.

Since computers now allow you to name files with more than 8 characters, you might as well make the most of the opportunity to be clear! We advise you to indicate :

• Name in capital letters.
• First names.
• Year.
• Type of information.
• Location.

Using a separator such as the underscore “_” (key 8 on your keyboard) makes it easier to see the different pieces of information. Avoid the hyphen used for compound names.

Be sure to place the information in this order, as your computer can easily sort files alphabetically.

For example, to save a scan of the birth certificate of Jean Paul MARTIN, born February 8, 1950 in Paris, you can use this notation: “MARTIN Jean Paul _ 1950 _ Birth certificate – Paris”. That way, you’ll know exactly what you’re dealing with.

How do I file documents?

Putting all your files in the same directory is not a good solution: it’s laborious to go through a list of dozens of files, and technically your computer will take longer to display the list.

Here again, you probably already have your own habits and – on the face of it – no single practice is ideal. A good practice is to structure your filing hierarchically in the form of folders and subfolders as follows:

• A “root” folder (directory) corresponding to a genealogy: for example, “Genealogy MARTIN”.
• Optional subfolders (directories) corresponding to branches (if you work with this concept), e.g. “Branche DUPONT”. Only use branches if you’re working with them in your research.
• Sub-folders (directories) for each individual.

For this last level, name your folder as follows:

• Name in capital letters.
• First names.

If you have several individuals with the same first and last names, add the year of birth and the year of death in brackets: for example, “MARTIN Jean Paul (n1950_d2022)”. Place all digitized documents, including those of spouses, in this folder.

How do I find the documents?

The suggested filing method provides simple, natural access to the files, and their names make it easy to find out what they’re about.

You may want to use the search function in your file explorer. However, it’s not always very efficient, and doesn’t always allow you to search through file contents.

There are free (open source) tools that can index a large number of directories and find a file almost instantly by name, but also by content. We recommend the ” Everything ” utility, which does this job very well.