Having genealogy files organized on your Mac hard drive can speed the accomplishment of your research goals. Keeping files organized by person and place is key. And, because you’re on the Mac, you can easily and elegantly relate files and folders in a way that models the relationships of the people and places in your family history.
The first step is easy. You pick one place under which all your genealogy files will be stored. I suggest calling it “My Family History.” You could also substitute your surname for the “My.” For example, “YourSurname Family History,” or perhaps a maiden name.
If you are working on someone else’s family history too, I recommend creating another main folder for the their family. Often this will be a spouse. So in my case, if I wanted to keep my tree separate from my wife’s, I would create another main folder called “Puglisi Family History.”
If you can create a folder named “My Family History” within your “Documents” folder please do so and skip ahead to the next screencasts on creating the folders for people and places.
If you’re still with me, watch this video and follow along. I’ll walk you through creating the main folder for storing genealogy files on your Mac.
Download this video to your computer for your private use [available to members only (you choose the amount to donate)].
Similar Posts
- Genealogy File and Folder Organization System for Mac, Part 6
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- Genealogy File and Folder Organization System for Mac, Part 3
- Genealogy File and Folder Organization System for Mac, Part 2
- Genealogy File and Folder Organization System for Mac, Part 5
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Good Morning Ben,
Thanks for the videos on creating a folder system. I've done as you suggested and have created my own folders. The big question now is what put in them? I've scanned lots of documents, photos, newsclippings, handwritten notes etc. I have some pdf docs and web photos. Do I put these kinds of things into the folders? What should I leave in iPhoto? What should I simply type into the software itself?
Greg
Hi, Greg.
I put all the files types you listed in my folder system. I use the folders as a place to store “original” versions of files. Then I import them into other applications, as appropriate, from the My Family History folders. For example, let's say I have an image I just scanned from a photograph. I'll put the image file in the person's folder under Surnames. Then I'll import that file (from the person's folder) into iPhoto and my genealogy database.
You'll see how this approach is beneficial in my screencast on preventing broken photo links in Reunion.
Ben,
I see that you are using folders for your multimedia instead of using iPhoto. Is there a reason you're not using iPhoto? I was using a system quite similar to yours, but then it became very tedious to find individuals. What do you do with collateral relatives? For example, I have many many pictures of Pierce relatives without the Pierce surname. I put them in their own folders, but I wound up with many many folders. Eventually, I put everything into iPhoto. Now I'm finding that a bit tedious as well since I need to re-link over 6,000 photos / documents in Reunion.
I have been very blessed in being given so much genealogical data — old letters, framed family charts, photo albums, tintype albums, etc. I'm just having a tough time managing all of it!
Do you have any recommendations? Should I take the photos back out of iPhoto and go back to my old system? I really like the ability in iPhoto to label individuals, the photographer, dates, etc. I also like the Keywords. Help!
I've been looking for an application that will store the source info I have on my hard drive. Something that will store just about any kind of file and permit searching in the file. Yojimbo seems to almost fit the bill. It's great for searching inside PDFs, but it only handles file types it's familiar with — .ged's aren't welcome.
Records Master handles just about any file, but can't yet search inside a file.
Any thoughts anyone?
Some questions while watching your videos:
1) Why not use “Country/County/Province/City” designations with place names?
2) Punctuaton to make a directory come to the top of a listing should not be “!” but “_” (underline) due to system conflicts and ease of view. As a matter of fact, using the “!” (aka Bang) on the command line is something that causes inexperienced users severe headaches.
3) What tool was used for the highlighted circle?
4) When cross linking, do you also link people to places?
Hi, Michael.
Thanks for the questions. I’ve provided my answers below, numbered to match your questions.
1. To keep the names short
2. The underline character would look better; thanks for that suggestion. I’m not concerned about inexperienced users on the command line because in my experience they don’t use it.
3. The callout in the video is a feature of the screen recording application, ScreenFlow.
4. Yes. This is most commonly done with census images which I put in the place folder then add an alias of each image file to the enumerated person’s folder.
5) Now the big problem…
How do you suggest we handle the problem where we have:
A) as an example, a City name “i.e. ‘Springfield’” but no province/county, or state, or country?
B) A name that we can’t decide if it is a city name or a county/province or some other localized designation? (And we can’t be sure of the country?)
My preliminary layout:
Genealogy_Files
+—–Places
| +—–Country_Unknown
| | +—–Blaenau Gwent
| +—–Country_USA
| | +—–State_California
| | | +—–County_Los Angeles
| | | +—–County_Orange
| | | +—–County_Ventura
| | +—–State_Connecticut
| | | +—–County_Unknown
| | +—–State_Florida
| | | +—–County_Broward
| | | +—–County_Dade
| | | +—–County_Pinellas
I would create an “_Unproven” folder in the Places folder and store the file there until the place is concluded. You could do this at each of the appropriate sub-folder levels if you desire, but I favor using just the one.
I’m going for simplicity here otherwise the system becomes unmanageable.
—-Ben >@<