In a recent post I talked about organising your records so I thought in this follow up I’d show specifically how I do it.

Physical Records

I actually don’t have that many physical records, mainly ordered certificates and original documents, but I still want to keep them in an orderly fashion.

In my case I have a series of oversized folders into which I have put tabs. Each tab is a surname and then within that acid free pockets to keep the records. I try and keep these in date order although that can be tricky with multiple people of the same surname.

I worry about protecting items, particularly old photos from fire. I do have a firebox but that is small and already is near capacity with other documents, passports etc. I have taken digital photos of all my old photos and this will have to suffice until I can find another storage place.

Digital Records

Digital documents are much easier to deal with and over the years I have developed an organisation that works well for me.

I have a folder for each surname and then, within that, a folder for each person using their full name (minus surname) and their date of birth to help differentiate those with the same first name. Within that I have the set structure, as shown below, which has a folder for each significant event. Some folders, census for example, also have sub folders, one for each census year in this example.

In these folders I store any documents that relate to the relevant event.

├── 01.Birth
├── 02.Baptism
├── 03.Marriage
├── 04.Death
├── 05.Will
├── 06.Census
│   ├── 1841
│   ├── 1851
│   ├── 1861
│   ├── 1871
│   ├── 1881
│   ├── 1891
│   ├── 1901
│   ├── 1911
│   ├── 1921
│   └── 1939 Register
├── 07.Divorce
├── 08.Occupation
├── 09.Residence
├── 10.Military Service
├── 11.Education
├── 12.Other Registers
├── 13.DNA
├── 14.Criminal
└── 99.Media
    ├── 01.Pictures
    ├── 02.Audio
    └── 03.Video
├── zz.Suspect