07 November 2019

Obsessive or slob genealogist?

Are you an obsessive genealogist? Are your family history files all stored in coloured coded folders neatly arrayed in a cabinet, on a bookshelf or your computer? Have you made sure all the geographic locations in your files are in a consistent accepted format? Does every one of the facts in those files include a complete source citation? Do you assiduously back up your computer files and ensure the files remain accessible as technology changes? Have you spent hundreds of hours making things just right?

Or are you a slob genealogist? Does your filing system consist of throwing each document you have into a large box or computer file labelled "family history"? Maybe they're scattered who knows where? Do you figure citations don't matter because if you found the information without one, so can others with the benefit of the clues you leave? The fun is in the hunt so do you minimize the time spent recording source details — without them, you can experience the excitement of discovery all over again, a game of documentary hide and seek?

1 comment:

  1. A little bit of both I'm afraid. I do lean a bit toward the obsessive, I guess. The more modern people not so much but the pre 1800 stuff I'm more careful about. THAT stuff is too hard to find the first time!

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