Getting Organized Online

1. Getting Organized Online NGS2001 Session S-240 Beau Sharbrough

2. www.sharbrough.net Is the location for the syllabus material for this class. The author mailed his materials to Oregon instead of Washington DC as instructed. The instructions were very clear.

3. Note to self … … read the conference materials more carefully in the future.

4. Note to self … … don’t forget to turn off your cell phone.

5. Organization is quantitative. • That means that there are diminishing marginal returns. • That cost-benefit considerations are appropriate. • That the choice of how much to invest is personal.

6. Avis Bus to MCI Southwest Vanguard KC Airport (MCI) Avis B A C American

7. Don’t miss your plane By basing your choices on the actions of others

8. Don’t let someone else decide • How much time you should spend on the bus. • How much time you should spend filing. • How much time you should spend filing emails.

9. “How organized you are”isn’t a meaningful phrase. • It’s not you – it’s the processes. • It’s the effectiveness of your plans. • It’s your honesty with yourself.

10. You must choose the life you want.

11. Getting Organized Online Beau Sharbrough

12. Scope of Lecture • Not simply discussing the internet • Not simply discussing storage of documents • Organize your office based on YOUR purposes • Organize your functions based on YOUR goals

13. Where’s the Pain? Office functions In office Out of office Organization Basics Computer Organization General Drive Catalog Your GCP – Report Card Clooz Computer Records eMail Images Your notes and docs Doc Naming MS Word find Scheduling & Prioritizing Lecture outline

14. Folder Sub-folder Fragmentation / Defragmentation Catalog Group Sheets / Family Folders / Pedigree Charts Research Notes, copies and documents Logs: Research, Correspondence, Documents GLOSSARY

15. Where’s the Pain? • People change things for their own reasons. • If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. • Focus on the difference in being busy and being effective. • Do you spend time looking for documents? • Why is organization a problem for people? • How can machines help?

16. Organization means … • Choosing goals. • For each goal, identifying functions. • For each function, identifying processes. • For each process, identifying …. • Resource requirements • Input / process / output • Task frequency

17. Examples of GOALS • Write a story about the life and times of Jonathan Sharbrough. • Write a Sharbrough family history. • Achieve certification in research. • Serve a term as secretary of the family association.

18. General Outline of Outputs –UGA 1975 • Explaining research steps taken; • Listing Sources searched; • Giving citations of documents supporting your oral or written compilation; and, • Obtaining and presenting all essential information to allow others  to carry on further research, at your suggestion, without unnecessary duplication of research already performed by you or from sources known to you.

19. Other related activities: • Obtain a fundamental knowledge of: • the history, • legal statutes, • social customs,  • religion,  • geography, and • perhaps language acquisition for the area of the ancestry involved. 

20. Other related activities: This in turn will generally obtain, with the aid of select genealogical guides and books, a good working knowledge of • pertinent genealogical record sources, • their content and availability (with the concurrent understanding of their relative genealogical value), to achieve the goal of  establishing a correct pedigree.

21. Examples of FUNCTIONS • Receiving mail • Filing reference materials • Meeting preparation / planning • Record Searching • Record Analysis

22. Examples of PROCESSES For reviewing documents: • Scan it; • Transcribe it; • Extract the information from it; • Enter that into your research program; • Send mail about it to colleague; • File it.

23. For any process that you do less than once every 10 days: • Write out step by step instructions; • Start with what you need to have before you start. • Put them into a folder or notebook of procedures • Use a copy of that procedure as the checklist each time you perform that process • Check things off as you do them • File it with the document when you’re done

24. For any process that you do more often than every 10 days Just work through the stack

25. Office Functions – in office • Paper Correspondence • Vital Records review • eMail • Phone calls • Printing pedigrees • Copying documents • Viewing online sources

26. Office Functions – out of office • Library research • Courthouse research • Interviews • Gravestone photo / transcription • Society meeting

27. Organization Basics • Various notes about organization in general, and genealogy records in particular.

28. Org Basics – Archives and KM

29. Get it Together – “Major Organization”

30. Computer Organization • General • Drive Catalog • Your GCP – report card • Clooz

31. Your records

32. Computer Records • eMail • Images • Your notes and docs • Doc Naming • MS Word Find

33. Your Genealogy Computer Program (GCP) At least visit Bill Mumford’s site. It looks like the next slide.

34. Bill Mumford’s Report Card

35. Myra Gormley has a good place for beginners She quotes the inimitable Bill Dollarhide about organization, including the key points of: • Assigning a unique number to each document; • Controlling the sheet size; • Keeping an index handy.

36. Organizing that genealogy clutter – Gormley on Dollarhide

37. Mary E Hill • Organizing Your Genealogy Using Computers • FamilySearch site • The most specific suggestions for organizing your information that I have found on the Net.

38. FamilySearch – Organizing using Computers – Mary E Hill

39. Hill – organizing Images and eMail

40. Organizational Overview Your office Your paper records Your computer records

41. Decisions. • Decide whether to file by document type or by family. • Decide when you want to call it another family. • These are personal decisions, but you will want to be consistent.

42. Folders. • Contrary to popular belief, you can’t have too many folders. You can make too many of the same ones, though.

43. Most people use one of these approaches: • Make a folder for each family • Make folders for states / counties • Make folders for record repositories Your choice is personal. As long as you’re consistent.

44. Forms. • There are a number of forms that you will want to learn about right away. Here are a few – • group sheets, • census forms, • Pedigree charts • Register reports

45. Logs. • You may not choose to use them all, but you should know about: • research logs, • correspondence logs, and • other activity lists.

46. Your computer

47. Things to organize • Decisions, folder structure, forms. • Naming Conventions. • Programs to stay organized. Examples from Clooz. Clo z

48. Here’s a look at the folders on my laptop.

49. Cataloging programs • These are programs that supplement the “File Search” capabilities of your computer’s operating system. • I don’t use any. • You can find them at www.google.com by searching on “catalog program” • There was a local search engine from Alta Vista in 1997 that I couldn’t make work and that is now withdrawn.

50. Windows’ “FindFast” • It builds index files • It’s managed from the Windows Control Panel. • It’s not always installed. Have your CD’s ready. • There are indexes by keywords and categories.