Your genealogy research often includes records of places. One of the difficulties of conducting genealogical research of a place is that place names change. Part of this is due to boundary changes. This issue affects you even if you’re only researching in the United States.
For example, Louisiana wasn’t always the state it is now. When it was the French colony of Louisiana it encompassed modern-day Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. If you had a relative in what is now called Michigan during the time of that colony, they were actually in Louisiana!
Changes to place names are no trouble for my recommended genealogy file and folder organization system for Mac.
Mac OS X has a powerful feature called Finder aliases which make it possible for files and folders to appear to have different names while only really having one. This has two major benefits.
- Minimize space required to store the files by having only one copy
- Keeping files about a place of one name in one folder while having them appear in other folders for the same place going by another name
You will use aliases often when you organize your genealogy files and folders using this system so I’m going to show you how. There are a couple ways you’ll use them and we’re going to take them one at a time to keep it simple. In this video I show you how to label folders when place-names change, saving time and drive space. The basic procedure is:
- Create the folders for the modern-day locations first (eg. country, region, county, and city)
- Create the folders for historical location next, except for the city
- Create an alias of the modern-day city folder
- If the name of the city was different in the historical location, rename the aliased city folder
- Move the aliased city folder to the appropriate place in the historical location folder structure
Let me show you how simple it is. Collect the location information for an ancestor in a similar situation and follow along, replacing your location for the example I use.
Download this video to your computer for your private use [available to members only (you choose the amount to donate)].
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- Genealogy File and Folder Organization System for Mac, Part 8
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Good suggestion for using aliases to deal with alternate place names! I think that will solve the problem. Glad that you enjoyed my website. As you can probably tell, it’s a labor of love. I tried developing a website before but it wasn’t until I started using iWeb that it came to be. As a bonus, because of my website I was able to connect with a second cousin once removed in Hungary. He was looking for info about his family and was surprised when his great-grandfather’s name, which is included on my website, came up in a Google search. Perhaps you should do a series on using iWeb to create family websites.
Vivian, like your second cousin, I’ve discovered family and information through a site like yours. That sort of find is priceless. As you know, Apple makes it simple to create and maintain a personal website. I can help our fellow MacGenealogists to experience the joy of being on either end of family discovery by teaching this. Reciprocity is a wonderful part of the practice of genealogy. Thank you for the excellent idea!
I’ve added it to my list. Please leave comments or email me if you have other ideas. I’d really appreciate it.
—Ben
This is very useful stuff, Ben. Thank you. Is there a way to see a list of all the alias files/folders from the original? I am researching families that have migrated in groups and frequently have census or land records that refer to more than 10 individuals of interest. It would be helpful to see the alias files listed rather than opening and reading the file. Rather like like viewing all the source citations for a master source…
Susan, thank you very much for your question. I have created a screencast with your answer and posted it in a new article—part 5 of this series—in order not to have the answer buried here.
—Ben
Actually Part 8
Hi, Margaret.
Oh, did I make a mistake? Please help me correct it. What leads you to conclude that this one is part 8?
—-Ben >@<
In your example, you create an alias of the folder for Bratislava (the city), rename it Pressburg and place it in the folder for Poszony (?) in the Kingdom of Hungary. I understand that any files that are in the Bratislava folder will show up in the Pressburg folder. But later you say that any files placed in the Pressburg folder can also be seen in the Bratislava folder. Did I understand you correctly? I didn’t realize aliases were a two-way street!
They are indeed. That’s one of the features that make them so much more powerful than the “shortcuts” used in Windows.
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