TIP #43

GETTING IT ALL TOGETHER

If everyone has been following the recent tips section, hopefully everyone has spent the summer collecting all their goodies; and now it is time to do something with them.

Nobody wants to admit it; but I am fairly certain that at least 50% of you have someplace in your home that looks like what I have right here.

I look to my right and I see two open notebooks, one file folder with various pages sticking out here and there. Possibly you also have several CD's sitting around that have been recently viewed and "might" be needed again "in a minute".

I look to my left and see various pieces of paper with odd notes on them-- in themselves meaning nothing, but properly filed or entered in the database, will hopefully make a connection somewhere.

THEN, THERE IS THE FILING CABINET

There is also the door in my computer desk, that if opened, "something" will fall out... photos, 3x5 cards, paper clips, notes, scraps of paper.

Unfortunately it is time to make all of this miscellaneous stuff make sense and work for me.

That is where it comes down to "Gathering it All Together".

Hard as it is to do, the first step in this procedure is to pick one, JUST ONE surname to work on at a time.

Gather together EVERYTHING you hold on that surname--

Your pedrigee charts; your individual family sheets; your CD's containing that surnames data, the family file folder on that family, and of course your FTM opened or whereever you store your data.

Take the first or earliest person you have in that family lineage, then search through ALL of your items to see if it is possible that there might still be something there pertaining to that person that you may not have gleaned out yet..or perhaps you overlooked it the first time.

As you completely scan and take out of each note/paper, make some type of notation as to the date you did this so that later you will know that all possible data has been withdrawn.

You may well be surprised and find that you have in the past overlooked something, or perhaps there might be something that didn't connect when you first received it, but now that you have collected some other data-- this data now applies.

Remember, your massive amounts data does you little good if it is not entered in the appropriate place.