Genealogy Go-Over Month 1, January 2016 - Done

 Work on organizing files, both digital and paper

As part of the Finally Getting Organised Challenge I have begun reorganizing both my paper and digital files.  My approach has changed from filing by document type to filing under surname by generation, and then by person. This approach has also helped to highlight what documents I might be missing.  To help keep track of everything I have started using an excel spreadsheet to record all the documents.  The excel spreadsheet was designed by one of the members of the Genealogy Do Over Facebook group, Charles Wheeler, and is based on a checklist of Australian Genealogical document sources.

Preparing to Research

I have found that trying to write up a creative non-fiction story about an ancestor it helps me to identify where I need to do more research. Using the excel spreadsheet I can identify what I might be missing and what I need to follow up on. All this helps to keep me focused.
For each element of my “story” I like to first transcribe the documents, if there are lots of documents I like to sort them into categories for that person so that extracting data will be easier. Once the I have both hard and soft copies of the documents filed and transcribed I am then ready to begin doing further research.