Lisa Louise Cooke, Hard-Drives and Me

As noted in my last post, I listened to Lisa Louise Cooke’s hard-drive organization podcast for the second time. At the top of the first one, she mentioned that she encouraged her listeners to spend one-hour a week on genealogy. I am so glad I heard that again as it made this whole project seem much more manageable. No matter how busy I am, I can probably come up with an hour a week. 

I listened to the rest of the podcasts while trying to stay balanced on the elliptical. I could feel myself becoming overwhelmed again, particularly because Cooke groups everything by family and I have realized I prefer to group things by type. Another difficulty is that I was resistant to filing documents and notes for my family history research separately from those collected for my other research projects. Since I am an immigration historian, I collect many of the same documents that family historians do. Additionally, my job requires constant note-taking and writing. I really did not like the idea that the research I did on my family was different and ought to filed separately from everything else.

The podcasts finished about the same time I was done with my workout, so I put the problem out of my mind and ran some errands before going home.  Then, with a big mug of tea, I sat down at my laptop to sort out the whole hard drive organizational conundrum.  And I cracked it!  I wonder if it was the exercising or the tea that helped solve the problem?

Here is an annotated version of what I came up with:

1. Windows Documents Directory
1. Notes
1. Books
1. A-G (by author, not title)
2. H-M
3. N-S
4. T-Z
2. Genealogy Misc (I added this while actually doing the organizing, it wasn't part of the original plan. I ended up with a whole bunch of ancient files that I wasn't sure what to do with, so I put them here)
3. Manuscript (this will include notes and transcriptions from actual documents and will be subdivided by repository)
1. National Archives of Scotland 
2. Presbyterian Historical Society
3. National Library of Scotland
4. Western Reserve Historical Society
2. Digital Documents  (this will include digital images of the actual documents)
1. Books
2. Census
3. Military
4. Passenger Lists
5. Wills & Estates
3. Research Aids and Forms
1. Family Group Sheets
2. Family Trees
3. Other
4. Pedigree Charts
4. Papers Projects and & Presentations (drafts of things I’ve written, researched or presented)
1. Book
3. MA Thesis
4. Historian's Family Blog
5. OGS Conference
1. Presentation
2. Proposal
6. PhD Dissertation
7. Project Ideas

These folders will be interspersed with all the other ones in my Windows Document folders, but that doesn’t bother me. What I like about this system is that it integrates my family history and other research.  If you do want to have a separate genealogy folder, you could simply place folders similar to mine in a folder called "Genealogy."

The best part is that I actually did it. The project only took about two and half hours, and that includes time I spend reorganizing files that had nothing to do with historical research. The files might not all have the best names, but they are all in the right place. 

I think I ought to have piece of chocolate with my next cup of tea, don't you?