Another Episode of the Fling

One of the more popular posts on my blog to this day is "Fling it in the Folder" a description methods. As I wrote this post 8 years ago I thought it was time for an update. I still use the same system but have tweaked it a bit and changed some of the software I use.

I am reposting my post from 2011 with alterations and comments in Green.

In a couple of previous posts I have alluded to my digital filing system and, in a comment on one of those posts, Sharon Brennan asked me "Can you describe your filing system??

I have hesitated in doing so because my system is neither scientific or complex. It is a simple system that works for me. Having trained in Librarianship many years ago I am in the habit of putting things in alphabetical order so this is the simple basis of my system. With digital systems I prefer a flat structure to one that is deeply hierarchical requiring lots of drilling down to access information.

I have already spoken of my scanning station (I now have a Scansnap scanner on my desk connected to my computer via USB) and my commitment to scanning all the bits of paper I have related to my genealogy obsession. I have also talked about what I do with conference papers.

My system is to "Fling it in the folder". I have a series of folders set up on my hard drive, each file I have, irrespective of format, goes into the appropriate folder or sub-folder. All my image files are additionally tagged with Picasa ACDSee software.

I do not worry about linking Places in that folder to People in that folder or creating other similar relationships between files (but I guess I could hyperlink them if I felt the need at a later date) as my genealogy software manages that for me. 

The folders are: I have added a few extra folders.

Most of the labels are self explanatory but some need clarification.

Correspondence contains genealogy letters of a general nature. Those about a specific surname or person are filed in the Names folder.

Curry All  stores files about the Curry surname in Australia ready for when I have the time or inclination to conduct a one-name study. Renamed CurryAus for my Surname Study.

Geniaus Backup  is a backup of my family site files ie templates and design. I don't need to back up the data as the backup is my TMG database and its backups.

Geniaus Talks is the home of my talks and presentations and articles I write for journals, newsletters etc.

Names is the biggest folder. It has some sorting folders that are prefixed with 00 and then a folder for each surname in my database.

Within each name folder is a series of documents and folders. Each file name is in the format:
Lastname, Firstname DoB File description.

Once I have more than three or four files for an individual he or she gets a folder labelled with: Lastname, Firstname DoB and Date of Death.

Odds & Sods is just that. The place where I fling  graphics, cartoons and other ephemera.

Our  Diary is peculiar to me. It contains an Excel spreadsheet that is my digital diary; the folder also contains other documents such as invitations, programs, tickets that are hyperlinked from the corresponding entry in the diary.

This diary from the day of my parent's marriage has been constructed over the years from documents, printed diaries, old calendars, receipts, certificates, recollections, newspaper clippings and by uing photographs as prompts. I  presently use Outlook for my diary and periodically export this into the Our Diary spreadsheet.

The Headings for this spreadsheet are: Day, Date, Time, Details, Source 1, Source 2, Source 3.

Places is similar to names but contains folders with maps and information about the places of my ancestors. These include, Towns, Houses and Churches.

Presentations has been explained in a previous blog post,Where do you put them? Conference Papers

Research Log and Plans does not house my master research log(that is a Google Docs spreadsheet) Now integrated in my Family Historian software but the smaller logs I create when I am going to visit a particular repository, resource or place eg The National Archives, The Family History Library, or The National Library of Australia.

TMG and TNG are where one finds files relating to my two genealogy software programs. These folders do not have family data. I no longer use TMG so have created a folder for Family Historian my current software of choice.

I keep and tag all of my bookmarks in Delicious Evernote and use Picasa ACDSee software. 
to tag and organise my photographs. Librarything is my program of choice for organising my books.

Perusing this list I am reminded of one other folder - Genealogy - Scans to sort. This is where my scans live until I file them. For consistency I think it will be renamed.

Phew! That was a post and a half - hope it answers your question, Sharon.

Treasure unearthed

I love my portrait drawn by my granddaughter many years ago but I have been lamenting that I only have a very low resolution copy.

You may have heard that I am moving my geneacave into a larger room in the middle of the house. You may also know that I have a small pile of newspapers in my "too hard basket" because I don't know what to do with them.

As I moved the paper pile today I found nestled between the papers my original A3 portrait. I am thrilled that I have found this as I will be able to get a nice, clear scan of the original which will be backed up in several places.

Another New Toy

Thanks to the members of the Facebook Technology for Genealogy Group who gave positive feedback on the  Fujitsu Scansnap IX500.

I bought one online from a Sydney store and it is running beautifully.

So far I have scanned ordinary paper, old air mail letters on very fine paper, photos on regular photo paper, business cards and old greeting cards. It will scan straight into Evernote, Google Docs, Dropbox.... or into any folder one nominates. This device has so many capabilities - there is so much to learn.

Lots of scanning options

The only item the device has refused to scan so far is a tiny ticket to an event. I thought I was stretching the friendship in asking it to do that but my trusty little Flip-Pal that will scan that for me. This latest toy will not scan everything; there is no way I would put a precious original old photo through the feeder, that's a job for my ancient old slow and reliable flatbed scanner.

What it will do for me is allow me to quickly scan the mountains of paper that surround me and help me along the road to becoming an organised genealogist.

Digital Imaging Essentials

When I saw advertising about Geoff Rasmussen's book Digital Imaging Essentials : techniques and tips for genealogists and family historians (Australian edition) I was quite excited as I thought that this would be the book for me. I duly ordered a copy by mail from Gould Genealogy.

Having received the book I now have mixed feelings, I have not yet completely digested its contents but have read most chapters (more than once) to form an opinion on the work. I will apply my favourite PMI strategy (with my librarian's hat on as well) to review this book.

I really wanted to give a positive review of this book as it has great potential but I had to be honest.  Hopefully a Revised Edition will be published soon. I trust that the issues in the print edition will be sorted in the mooted ebook version of the title.

PLUS

• The book is a useful resource for beginners and would be a valuable addition to a library if a revised edition was published (see Minus).
• It has a Table of Contents and an Index.
• It has many illustrations.
• I realised that I did not need this book; it confirmed that I have a a reasonable knowledge in this area.

MINUS

• Diagrams in the book are not labelled.
• The book is poorly formatted with too many blank pages and too much white space. There are many instances where text wrapping could have been employed and image sizes reduced.
• The number of pages in the book could have been reduced resulting in paper not wasted, trees saved and even a few cents on the final cost.
• The book  received was supposed to be an Australian edition. Some attempt has been made to Australianise it yet American terms and examples are used  eg on page 28 the author writes "if I lost the digital image of the death certificate, I could reorder it from the vital statistics department." On page 79 an American example of Minneapolis, Minnesota could have been replaced with an Australian example eg New South Wales, Australia.
• There are formatting errors eg on page 24 the text commences with " Above are two documents...": the documents are actually at the bottom of page 23.
• The scanner section ignores sheetfeed scanners that are commonly used in business to scan large amounts of paper. These are great tool for the genealogist who has lots of loose paper and photographs to scan. 
• Chapter 5 fails to warn that not all scanners will work seamlessly with all computer operating systems or programs like Photoshop Elements or Picasa. 
• The quality of some of the images in the book is poor. All labels on the menu bar on the screenshots on pages 123 and 124 are so fuzzy that they cannot be read. There are fuzzy images on many pages eg 40, 50, 117, 136. 
• On page 117 the author stresses the importance of adding a citation to a digital image but appears to only give instructions for Photoshop Elements (apologies if I have overlooked the Picasa instructions. In this instance that referred to clipings from US newspapers it would have been good to show people how to save clippings from Trove with citations already attached - another case for Australian examples.

INTERESTING

• One should take what one reads on a vendor's site with a grain of salt http://www.gouldgenealogy.com/2012/11/digital-imaging-essentials-the-australian-edition/.
• I should have waited and perused the book at a Gould event; I would not have purchased  it after an inspection and could have saved my money. Ahh, the perils of impulsive online shopping.
• The author has based his book on a collection of 20,000 images. I had a different experience with Photoshop Elements (albeit an earlier version) when I used it with my collection of 50,000 images. I now have 90,000+ images and Picasa works well with them.
• I thought the file formats were TIFF and JPEG (not TIF and JPG as mentioned in the book) as shown in the diagram on page 25 and the file extensions attached to files were .tif and ,jpg. A small point but nonetheless important.

Fling it in the folder - my digital filing system

In a couple of previous posts I have alluded to my digital filing system and, in a comment on one of those posts, Sharon Brennan asked me "Can you describe your filing system??

I have hesitated in doing so because my system is neither scientific or complex. It is a simple system that works for me. Having trained in Librarianship many years ago I am in the habit of putting things in alphabetical order so this is the simple basis of my system. With digital systems I prefer a flat structure to one that is deeply hierarchical requiring lots of drilling down to access information.

I have already spoken of my scanning station and my commitment to scanning all the bits of paper I have related to my genealogy obsession. I have also talked about what I do with conference papers.

My system is to "Fling it in the folder". I have a series of folders set up on my hard drive, each file I have, irrespective of format, goes into the appropriate folder or sub-folder. All my image files are additionally tagged with Picasa software.

I do not worry about linking Places in that folder to People in that folder or creating other similar relationships between files (but I guess I could hyperlink them if I felt the need at a later date) as my genealogy software manages that for me.

The folders are:

Most of the labels are self explanatory but some need clarification.

Correspondence contains genealogy letters of a general nature. Those about a specific surname or person are filed in the Names folder.

Curry All  stores files about the Curry surname in Australia ready for when I have the time or inclination to conduct a one-name study.


Geniaus Backup  is a backup of my family site files ie templates and design. I don't need to back up the data as the backup is my TMG database and its backups.

Geniaus Talks is the home of my talks and presentations.

Names is the biggest folder. It has some sorting folders that are prefixed with 00 and then a folder for each surname in my database.

Within each name folder is a series of documents and folders. Each file name is in the format:
Lastname, Firstname DoB File description.

Once I have more than three or four files for an individual he or she gets a folder labelled with: Lastname, Firstname Do.

Odds & Sods is just that. The place where I fling  graphics, cartoons and other ephemera.


Our  Diary is peculiar to me. It contains an Excel spreadsheet that is my digital diary; the folder also contains other documents such as invitations, programs, tickets that are hyperlinked from the corresponding entry in the diary.

This diary from the day of my parent's marriage has been constructed over the years from documents, printed diaries, old calendars, receipts, certificates, recollections, newspaper clippings and by uing photographs as prompts. I  presently use Outlook for my diary and periodically export this into the Our Diary spreadsheet.

The Headings for this spreadsheet are: Day, Date, Time, Details, Source 1, Source 2, Source 3.

Places is similar to names but contains folders with maps and information about the places of my ancestors. Thes include, Towns, Houses and Chruches.

Presentations has been explained in a previous blog post,Where do you put them? Conference Papers


Research Log and Plans does not house my master research log(that is a Google Docs spreadsheet) but the smaller logs I create when I am going to visit a particular repository, resource or place eg The National Archives, The Family History Library, or The National Library of Australia.

TMG and TNG are where one finds files relating to my two genealogy software programs. These folders do not have family data.

I keep and tag all of my bookmarks in Delicious and use Picasa to tag and organise my photographs. Librarything is my program of choice for organising my books.

Perusing this list I am reminded of one other folder - Genealogy - Scans to sort. This is where my scans live until I file them. For consistency I think it will be renamed.

Phew! That was a post and a half - hope it answers your question, Sharon.

Scanning Station

As a result of my recent retirement and things learnt in a webinar this week I am getting serious about scanning.

Filing is not my forte; I have been a little lax lately as I knew retirement was approaching and that I  soon would have lots of time to sort out papers. The result is a safety hazard on my study floor ie a couple of boxes of papers for filing.  When I receive a paper document or photograph I usually add any data I can glean to my database and toss the resource into a cardboard box for filing in my genealogy folders.

I had intended putting all of this in order, filing it and, at some later date, scanning the contents of all my folders. I now realise that that would mean double handling of the unfiled docs. So I made a decision to scan all of those docs before I filed them away. With this decision made I had to think about scanning. I need to make it easy for myself to do this task or my good intentions will fly out the window.

My Flip-Pal Mobile scanner is good for scanning when I am out and about or for things I need to email in a hurry but it doesn't scan in tiff format. The need to scan in tiff was reinforced in the webinar this week. That means that I should use my desktop scanner which, although it is a few years old, does a sterling job. Since moving to Windows Vista I have had numerous problems with the scanner and laptop crashing. I bit the bullet and downloaded new drivers for the scanner this week but that didn't help the situation.

Then I remembered my netbook that sits on a shelf when I am not travelling. This tech toy runs Windows XP. I wondered if it would have the guts to deal with large scanning jobs. I downloaded the drivers, plugged in the scanner, did two scans (after which the Vista laptop crashes), held my breath and kept on scanning for a couple of hours. I tried again the next day and it worked like a dream.

Hey presto, I now have a permanent scanning station set up in my study so there is no excuse for not scanning documents when they arrive.

I already have a filing system set up for soft copies of documents on an external drive (backed up to another external drive). So all I have to do is save the new scans into a folder "Genealogy scans to be sorted", rename them, plug the hard drive into the netbook and transfer them into their appropriate folders.

And while the scanner groans as it scans huge tiff files I can paly on my shiny new toy.

Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner In Australia

I don't know of any other Australians who have a Flip-Pal mobile scanner.  Some of my Australian  GeniMates are envious of my little toy in its emerald green case that I purchased at the recent Rootstech Conference in Salt Lake City.

A number of Australians are wondering when the Flip-Pal will be available in Australia.  I mentioned this to the people at Flip-Pal when I finally registered my unit this week. They responded  with thie message for my Australian friends:

"As you well know, we do not yet distribute in Australia.  We are actively
investigating what that would take.  It is a matter of both the
distribution/support processes as well as regulatory approvals and it is
hard to set a date for those kinds of things. Just have your friends
regularly check our website.

Thanks for your inquiry.

Happy Scanning!"


My Flip-Pal sits beside my computer ready for action. If a document up to about A4 size comes my way I immediately scan it with the Flip-Pal. The procedure for scanning small documents is easier and more time effective than scanning with my larger scanner. My light little Pal goes with me in my laptop bag when I visit libraries, archives  and elderly aunts.

If you don't know about this marvellous item take a look at this video in which Dear Myrtle demonstrates a Flip-Pal.

The Good Guys from Flip-Pal

Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner

In contrast to my experience with Dell at Rootstech was my experience with the people who are peddling the Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner, another item on my US shopping list. Fellow Rootstech Official  Bloggers had been singing the praises of the gadget and had given it stunning reviews. These gadgets are not yet available in Australia.

When I wandered over to their booth in the middle of the day brandishing my Amex card I was made to feel most welcome. I had to wait a while to talk to them as they were very busy enthusiastically demonstrating the device to the people gathered at the booth. When I spoke to the genteman there he related that they had sold all of their stock but were waiting on another 80 units that they hoped would arrive. He was attentive and gave me a good hearing, I filled out an order form and left feeling that someone was interested in selling me a product.

The Good Guys

At the end of the day I wandered back to the booth to see if the 80 units had arrived. They hadn't but the lady on the booth assured me that she wanted me to have one of them to take back to Australia in my luggage. If I don't manage to purchase one of these I will be disappointed but not bitter because of the delightful manner of the representatives of this company.

Thank you for your interest in me.

Perform OCR with Google Docs - Turn Scanned Images Into Editable Documents

My keyboarding skills are woeful. In the olden days I had a secretary to do my typing and I have never mastered that skill.

The OCR on my flatbed scanner is not the best and I don't always take my scanner along when I go travelling so I was pleased to hear this news from Google Docs.

Perform OCR with Google Docs - Turn Scanned Images Into Editable Documents

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Scanning photos for genealaogists

There has been discussion lately on the Rootsweb TMG Mailing List about scanning of photos for genealogists. Listers have weighed in with opinions and some have given good advice.

Although it was published in 2006 I think that 8 Blunders People Make When They ScanPhotographs by professional archivist, Sally Jacobs, is a most useful guide.