Filing by family group

[yecartmannew]

Hi Everyone

For those of you who file by family group, how do you deal with 2nd families?

Especially if it is the wife who has the 2nd family?

Thanks

[Rena]

I surfed to look at free blank genealogy forms and downloaded a copy of those that I was comfortable working with.   I found this extremely handy where husbands had married women with the same given names and the children's names of those wives were similar too.

As for my gedcom; I chose to note families of step children differently.  Some offspring are listed in the "notes" of the appropriate parent and some branches have all the step siblings/half siblings shown on the tree itself.

[iluleah]

I use Brothers Keeper software which enables you to add 2nd/3rd/4th spouse and/or partner and their children and also ensbles you to generate relationships reports across the whole of the research

[yecartmannew]

Thanks Everyone

I use Rootsmagic (and also have Legacy) for my tree and research, and have all my digital files in the cloud.

I am talking about filing my paper copies. At the moment I file by family group (so children stay with parents until marriage when they get a file of their own). What I am wondering is, if they have a 2nd family should I create a completely new family file for them with the 2nd family, or just add it all in to the first family.

And does it make a difference if the 2nd family is the original wife from the first family?

I file this way as it seemed to make most sense from the methods I looked at when I started as it involves far fewer files, especially for people who never marry (or are outside of the main lines so i never researched a marriage) than if I had a file for every single person in my tree.

But perhaps, if nobody here seems to get what I am talking about, then it  maybe isn't such a common filing system?

So the next question would be what is your filing system?

[iluleah]

Paper files I research and write out direct line only I don't have extended researched paper copies of siblings/half siblings/ additional partners/marriages, however I do show research of the lifetime of each direct line ancestor, like a timeline of their life, so if they had a child out of wedlock with a partner and/or married twice that would be shown in their timeline of life events

[Rena]

All main branches each have their own Lever-Arch File(s) and each surname contained in that Lever Arch File has their own named subsection.   Unless they're interesting or have significant bearing on family traits, etc., , I don't do any extensive research that marries into my main lines;  my main lines being the surnames of my grandfathers and grandmothers and my OH's maternal and paternal grandparents. 

[Josephine]

I keep my paper files in binders. I start with the common ancestors and their children in the first binder, then each child (and his or her spouse and children) gets his/her own binder, and so on. I use the different levels and colours of binder dividers with tabs to indicate a different family grouping. If Bob Smith married Cathy Jones and then Cathy later married Gary Booker, I put the paperwork for Cathy's 2nd family behind a tab at the same level of her 1st marriage but with a different colour and then I group her Booker children together with her because I'm not as interested in those lines. I put labels on the tabs with the couple's or person's name and generation level.

Example using a package of binder dividers with five levels and colours:
Tab 1: Orange
Tab 2: Blue
Tab 3: Purple
Tab 4: Green
Tab 5: Pink

- Tab 1: Horatio Smith & Virginia Collins (1st known generation).
- - Tab 2: Bob Smith & Cathy Jones (2nd generation / 1st child of above).
- - Directly behind the papers in Tab 2, using a green divider turned upside down: Cathy Jones & Gary Booker (and all the papers related to that marriage).
- - - Tab 3: Child #1 of Bob Smith & Cathy Jones (3rd generation).
- - - - Tab 4: Children of the person in Tab 3 and so on until I'm done (4th generation, etc.). (I keep cycling through the tabs as necessary -- the labels make it clear what generation I'm on.)
- - - Tab 3: Child #2 of Bob Smith & Cathy Jones (3rd generation). Etc.
- - Tab 2: Henry Smith & Mary Mayfield (2nd generation / 2nd child of Horatio Smith & Virginia Collins).

The middle tab is always the same colour, unless I use middle tabs from earlier versions of the same product (the manufacturer changes the colours every few years), so it's not a perfect system.

Now, if Bob Smith remarried, I'd do the same thing, but if he had children with his second wife, they'd get their own sections, with purple tabs (3rd generation), and so on down the line, because they'd belong to the family I'm researching.

If I were using traditional file folders and hanging folders inside a filing cabinet, I would give Cathy Jones & Gary Booker their own file folder, and put it either in the same hanging folder as Bob Smith & Cathy Jones or in a hanging folder directly behind it. If my file folders or labels were colour-coded, I'd make theirs a different colour.

Of course, I have everything filed on my computer, too, but I like having paper copies at hand. I've worked in far too many offices that have lost archives due to obsolete technology to ever rely solely on digital files.

Regards,
Josephine