Monday Madness

Usually Monday madness is about a line that you have that drives you nuts. Although I do have a few of those type lines, today's madness is more about organization and the options that come with a re-organization of genealogy files.

The dilema? To pitch or not?

With 20 years of genealogy documentation stored in my office - sometimes things get out of hand. I go down to the husband's office and I think "gee look at all this clutter", of course he claims he knows where everything is, but from all the times I hear, "Karen, do you know where __________ is?", I must admit I do wonder.

My office on the other hand is organized, although at times a bit cluttered. Its all the research, I just get so into it, soon I have twelve books, three files and more all on my desk. This documentation is in notebooks and in my filing cabinets.

With the re-organization project I am hoping to eliminate some of the clutter. NO, I do not want to get rid of my books, but the large cumbersome notebooks and alot of the file folders I would love to get rid of. Of course doing this brings some questions to mind.

• If I have entered a will in its entiretity and scanned & linked the image do I need to keep the copy in the notebook?
• How about obits? How about death certificates?
• Does it matter if its an original or a copy?
• Should I save the documentation on the direct line only?

These notebooks are big & bulky - and now empty. Everything is out & in stacks on my floor as I scan and type, double checking everything as I go.

How about you? How do YOU handle this sort of stuff? Do you have your documentation scanned into your computer? Did you keep the originals? I'd love to hear your solutions to these things!

Its a discussion worth Monday madness for sure!

Happy researching!

Karen