ResearchProjects & Reports

Organizing your collection is key to both presenting your genealogy and to researching it. When doing your family history, you will find that you accumulate a variety of hard copy materials, even if you go the electronic route. The types of materials you are most likely to gather will be
photographs,  family stories and genealogical documents like Ancestral charts of Family Group  sheets. Whatever your collection is comprised of, you need to organize all of it  so it’s easy to use.  

Once you’ve got your collection in order, you’ll see where you need to focus your attention in order to further your research. Your family history might include the basics (who, where and when) or it could include details about  your ancestors’ lives, the times they in which they lived, or information about  where they lived and what it would have been like. All of this
information pulls  together to create a picture of what was having an impact on each of  them.

Wills & Estate Planning

If you have items you would like to go to a specified person, consider preparing a list with images to be added to your will. You can also add in the background of the item(s) so the stories don't get lost over time.

Genealogies (Family Trees)

A family history can be a few pages, a binder, a book or photo album,  or even a filing cabinet full of folders and pages. It could be a simple
list  identifying when individuals  were born, married and died or it could be more  comprehensive and include a myriad of other details about our ancestors’ lives.

 I use standard record keeping resources - hard copy and/or electronic, depending upon the clients’ wishes. Standard documents include 
ancestral charts (sometimes referred to as pedigree charts) and family group sheets.  These are free to download from our site—see the Products section.

In addition, we also use and provide a variety of tracking documents  that show where and when the research took place and the results of
the  review.

There are a variety of genealogy software programs in use. Where electronic database files are generated, we will provide our clients with the industry standard GEDCom files to be used with their software.

Custom presentation materials like scrapbooks (paper or electronic) and PowerPoint Presentations can also be prepared.

Organization & Preservation

Different types of media, including old photographs and documents, become more delicate as they age.  While paper (or papyrus or vellum) has proven  it can last for centuries and could be considered one of the most reliable  storage methods, it needs help to last as long as possible and stay in good  condition.

Even though film and disks are likely to last for many, many years, the electronic vehicles that access them (VHS, televisions, computers, etc)  change with alarming frequency. This is something you need to plan for. It isn’t  easy to view that old film footage anymore and we sure don’t want to lose it!

There are a variety of archival methods and materials that can be used to help preserve your collection. Alternatively, mementoes stored on older formats can be copied to newer technology.

Backing up your collection is extremely important. You don’t want to  put in all the time, effort and money and then lose it all because you didn’t  keep another copy somewhere else for protection