I wish I had started doing this properly from the start, but better late than never. I think I have about 5000 individuals in my database – not sure how many families that is. I used to organize my documents by surname until I came across an article on the internet that explained how to organize by family unit. I use The Master Genealogist software for my research, so I have to create the family units needed to organize this way, but here is the link that explains how to do it using Legacy, PAF, Ancestral Quest.
The idea is that each family unit has an ID – I designate this ID starting with an F to separate it from the individual IDs which start with an I. Example my individual ID would be I1 as I am the first individual in my database, but my family unit ID is F1 until I get married/have kids. Then my spouse/children & I will be assigned a new family ID. I can also use this family ID to index transcribed documents in my Clooz electronic filing cabinet.
Unfortunately not all genealogy software assigns a family ID. So I was using my website genealogy database family IDs. Problem with that is when I upload a major update, the family IDs may change. I then code the original document with the family unit ID and file them in 3-ring binders with numbered indexes 1-100. Depending on how many families you have in your database, this could run into several binders. Each binder is also numbered so the first binder holds families 1-100, the second binder holds families 101-200… I also make sure in my computer database to record the family ID I’ve used in each individual.
