A new year a new challenge. I am working through 12 Family lines this year and January is being dedicated to the Batson Family line. Last week I began reviewing this family line that began when Caroline (Carrie) Batson married my paternal great grandfather Gilmore Francis. I reviewed what records I have for Carrie as detailed in last weeks blog and entered them into my “Clooz” program. “Clooz” is a record keeping software by Ancestral Systems that I use.

This is a screen shot of a census report that shows the records I have input to “Clooz”.

The above is another shot of a Census report for the Batson Surname. Click on the image to enlarge and you can see the individuals and the years that I have them recorded in a census. The last number under personal file # is the file number I have assigned that document. The only significance is the letter B which is the first letter of the last name.

I had none of the Batson documents recorded in “Clooz”, so this is an area that definitely needs work. The other area that need lots of work is the linked documents from the Ancestry.com website to my Family Tree Maker program on my computer. When things work correctly I should be able to go to my FTM program and pull up the profile of Carrie Batson and see the documents that are attached to her under Media. From there I should be able to click on the document thumbnail and the file should open.

I have noticed over the past several years that many of these links are broken. Considering how large the media file for this tree is, it has always been daunting to think about fixing all these links.

I do not understand how this happened, but if you look here, you see the 1860 United States Federal Census 16.jpg~1860 United States Federal Census 27.jpg. I was looking for the one that had Carrie Batson’s parents listed. Ancestry says it is attached to John R. Batson in this media file. It was not shown on his media page. And while I find 5  different ones that were from Hopewell, Muskingum Co. Ohio, the one for John R. Batson’s family was not there, and I looked at all 33 different .jpg’s.

Now you see in the above image were I have identified the 1860  census that contains the John Batson family.

As I go through each family line these are two of the tasks I will need to do for every individual. Then I need to review and update the binder for that family. Included in my binder are:

• Pedigree Chart
• Individuals tab
• Family group sheet
• Individual’s time line
• document log
• photos
• Documents

Copy of birth record

copy of marriage record/s

copy of each census found

copy of deeds

Copy of death record.

•  Map of area showing property owners during individuals time frame
• Photo of internment
• Other documents
• Research Log
• Next individual’s tab
• Family group sheet
• etc.

Too often I have been lazy in keeping my research log. Any hints on how to improve on this?

Another record I would like to develop is a log for contacts I have made on each family line. I could call it a “contact log” and place behind the pedigree chart. I would include the contact information and the relationship along with a log of their correspondence. Has any one else developed something similar?

Thanks for visiting my site.