Why Organizing by Person or Family Name is a Bad Idea


     The most common question I see in various genealogy groups is an iteration of:

"How should I organize my files?"

Invariably, I will see someone mention they organize either by person or by family name. These methods will either use a folder for Smith Family with all Smith family documents located inside, or they might organize by person with individual folders for John Smith, Sally Smith, Susie Smith, Juan Smith, and so on with each person’s information found inside.

My biggest issue with both systems is marriages.
  • What about when Sally Smith marries Don Hardy?
  • Is she moved from the Smith folder to the Hardy folder?
  • Where would the census for her be located?

Using a system that organizes by name, I would go to a person's folder to look for their information. But once they marry, where is the document? With the wife or husband? Now we face the question of duplicating information so we can find it for both the wife and husband. Things just get complicated this way. We do not want to take this route.

Another issue I have with these systems is the size and scalability of this format. This might work if you have just a few hundred people who share a dozen or so surnames. However, moving beyond this size, a person begins to get overwhelmed by this system.

Currently, my database holds 2,058 individuals with 462 surnames. If I were to follow the above formats, I would end up with thousands and thousands of folders to search through for the correct record I need.

Database management is tricky and there are as many schools of thought as there are people using computers. In the end, using what works for your needs is best, but also keeping in mind where the research is taking you and future needs is key for long-term success.

- Patricia
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Why I Cancelled my Ancestry.com Account for Good

     After over a decade using Ancestry.com, I finally decided to break off my relationship. There are many reasons that I finally gave up in favor of utilizing other resources, and none were really the be-all-end-all.

1. I research sporadically.
     There might be a few months time where I am not able to sit and research actively on the site. With a child, husband, pets, etc. I just do not always have the time to regularly research. Because of this, I cannot see paying a monthly subscription (as of this writing it was $40 for six months or $20 for one month) that may or may not get used. Especially when that $20 could be quarters for the laundromat.

2. Once you have paid for access to a document, you do not retain access to it once membership lapses.
     How awesome is it to have access to your great grandparent’s birth certificates or death certificates? Then once six months is up, you no longer have access to these files on their website unless your membership becomes active. This was probably the biggest issue for my situation. I have a few thousand people in my tree and with some of the individuals, I have really struggled with finding their associated records. Having them suddenly yanked from me once my paid membership is up was unexpected. It left me in no better of a position with my research than before I had paid for a membership as I did not download all the documents the first time I had access to them. I know better now!
     This being said, you can certainly download them to your own computer to have a personal copy. However, if you then try to only use your personal media rather than Ancestry’s media to circumvent this issue, it will always give you “hints” for life events for which you already have the media. See below for my hangup with their "hint" system.

3. Duplicated efforts.
     Site wide, you will run into the same person in multiple family trees. Users will often share their trees with you, allowing you to see what their research looks like. Often times, the information is not substantiated with any sort of documentation or has been copied from other trees that were in turn copied from another tree.

4. Privacy
     After finding a long-lost branch of the family on the Ancestry.com message boards, I passed on information about living individuals, with their permission, via email correspondence under the assumption that it was private and would be beneficial in getting two close relatives in touch with one another. I was shocked and saddened when this person breached my trust by posting the information to public forums, including the town I was currently living in and my child’s name and age. While using another website will not protect me from this type of issue, using a website the automatically hides living individuals does cut down on this significantly.

5. Hints
     Ancestry is known for their shaking leaf signal on individual profiles to indicate that a 'hint' has been found for you by their system. These could be anything from actual census or school records, which are incredibly helpful, to a photocopy of a receipt that another user uploaded and tagged incorrectly, which is not helpful at all. Also not helpful are the proliferation of separate trees within Ancestry. Because everyone keeps their own tree, so much inaccurate information is collected for these shared ancestors. With Ancestry pushing these often times inaccurate trees as 'hints' to others, many users think this information is verified by Ancestry -- which is not the case at all.

     As I said earlier, there are many reasons I gave up my paid subscription to Ancestry. This is not to say that I do not still use their resources. From my local library card, I am able to access Ancestry Library which does circumvent some of the above-mentioned problems.
     My biggest hang-up with Ancestry revolves around the fact that much of the material they offer via paid subscription can be found elsewhere.
     Ancestry was a great start for me, but with the increasing availability of resources, it is rapidly becoming an outdated method for conducting basic genealogical research.
     What are your thoughts on paid services? Where do they fit into your research?

- Patricia
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A Big Help

     About two years ago I was looking for information on Russell Gray and Joyce Ferguson (these are the parents of George Washington Gray, GW Gray being the father of Washington Gray), and came across their name mentioned on page 115 of Gray Genealogy: Being a Genealogical Record and History of the Descendants of John Gray, of Beverly, Mass., and also Including Sketches of Other Gray Families.

     That is a ridiculously long title, but the book has been priceless in helping me with this genealogy. I have since ordered myself a copy of the book from Amazon for around $23 or so, but a full transcription of the book is available here. It's a little overwhelming to scroll through it all, so using Ctrl+F to search is the easiest way to find what you're looking for.

     The reference that I found was this:
RusseL F. Gray, son of Daniel H. and Phebe Godfrey
Gray, b. 1824, in Berlin; removed with his father's
family to Texas; mar. Mrs. Ferguson, 1848; she died
and he mar. again; residence, Llano, Llano Co.,
Texas; children:
Delilah Gray, b. Jan., 1849.
Robert Gray, b. Feb., 1850.
Washington Gray, b. 1 85 1 .
Wilburn Gray, b. March, 1852.
Lizzie Gray, b. 1855.

     This might be a little ambiguous on it's own, however I have a copy of George Washington Gray's death certificate that lists his father as Russell Gray and his mother as Ferguson. GW Gray's birth date is also noted as 1851 on his death certificate.

     From this positive connection I've been slowly going back trying to find the paper trails for the nine generations that have been chronicled in the book. The author, a noted genealogist, makes plenty of notes about where he found his information and hopefully retracing some of his steps will not be difficult.
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Welcome

Hey everyone!

I've been doing genealogy research on the Gray family for a few years now and the biggest problem that I have ran into is not being able to easily share the information with other family members in a timely manner. It seems like once I've gotten something updated and complete, I've got new information to add or a correction to make.

This will be a place for me to share the records, pictures, and names that I have with the rest of the family and a place where known information can be sent in to be added. I have information dating from about 1670 to the current day and around 1,200 names. These will be cataloged here in time, bit by bit.

Because this is a public blog, I will be limiting the information that I include about living family members. Names of people under 18 will not be included and birth dates of the living over 18 will not be included. This is just for privacy's sake and if you want your information to be included despite this, just let me know and I'll post it. 

I won't make this first post too long, even though I've got so much info to share with you! I do not have hard copies of much of the information I will be posting here, just digital copies, but you should be able to print anything you would like a hard copy of for your records. 

Any information is welcome, and I look forward to seeing how this goes!

- Patricia Gray
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