Even though I’m coming up on the end of my family file cleanup, (which I started sometime in 2010), sometimes I just love to dig into my Original file and clean that up a little too. I just can’t seem to let it go. Am I going to always have two working files? Or will I eventually scrap the original? I just can’t decide. I don’t think I’ll ever fully delete the original file.
With all the new databases that come out on a regular basis, sometimes I want to just dig into that old file, and just test the waters out a bit. Sometimes it’s really just to see if the database is going to be a very prolific resource for my family tree. I’m never really sure if the more rural areas of my family recorded the vital records or not. I know it wasn’t mandated until the 1900s in those states, so I know it’s a toss up.
Two of the databases I’ve really been digging into is the Ohio, County Births and Ohio, County Marriages databases over at FamilySearch. I’m digging up my Ohio roots right now on my file cleanup, so I’m really able to progress. I’ve already had some of these records recorded, but only from an index at FamilySearch, so I didn’t have all the information from the original record.
Yesterday though, I wanted a little break from the cleanup. So instead of just sitting in front of the TV watching the Housewives on Bravo, I opened up my Original file and I printed out the above report. The great thing is that I used the instructions discussed by Russ Worthington on his blog about preparing for the 1940 U.S. Census. Only I didn’t prepare for the 1940 U.S. Census.
I prepared for the Ohio, County Births database. I filtered in individuals with a Birthplace containing Ohio. Then I filtered out anyone born before 1856 and after 1909. Voila. I had an Ohio Birth Report to work from. It turned out to be 18 pages long, but my printer prints on both sides of the paper, so I went ahead and printed it out for ease of use.
After all that preparation was done, the dryer buzzed and my full day took over. Hey, I have the list though, which means now when I have some extra time, I can just bring up the Original file, take out the list and work from that. The great thing is even if I input information into my old database, I always have that up when I’m working from my new database. So I can easily find my sources and information in my old program once I get to that person in the new database.
Sure it might not make much sense to work in such a haphazard way, but then again if it wasn’t that way, it wouldn’t be me researching. It’s how I roll. That’s right, I roll back and forth over and over again.
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