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From the beginning of my research I was deligent about obtaining good primary and secondary documentation. From the get-go I was also scrupulous about footnoting my family narrative.
Unfortunately, in the beginning, I was a little lazy when it came to detailing sources in my family database. For the first couple of years I used "generic" source citations such as: "census records", "obituary", "death certificate", etc. Initially, I filed all of my documentation in a "Family Document Binder", which has now morphed into six LARGE binders. Yep, I stupidly used that as a source figuring I could easily find any particular document if I needed it. Fine for me but it's surely not going to help anyone else who is fortunate enough NOT to have inherited my binders. I also made the mistake of using my family narrative as source. I guess that's not as bad as the binder mistake but still it only works if the person has my narrative and can go to the footnotes and cited sources.
Thankfully, after of couple of years of entering data, I cleaned up my act and started detailing my sources. No more generic "death certificate" but instead: "Death Certificate, State of Iowa, Linn County, State File#xxxxx, date xx/x/xxxx". But the damage was done so now I'm having to go back and clean up........the census records are particularly nasty.
WORD TO THE WISE AND TO THE NEWBIE: take a little extra time to do it right and you'll save yourself a big headache. It's a lot easier to record the information when
you have just ONE document in front of you as opposed to 6 unwieldy binders!
Rick
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