52 Ancestors Challenge Week 42: "Lost" - Research Stymied by Disasters, Part 2

Continuing my report of famous, or infamous, events that destroyed significant genealogy resources in my own research: 

4. The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake 

At 5:12 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, one of the deadliest earthquakes in U.S. history struck the northern coast of California. It occurred prior to the development of the Richter magnitude scale, but it is estimated to have been a 7.9 magnitude quake. It was soon followed by devastating fires that lasted for several days. It is estimated that more than 3,000 people died. It has been suggested that hundreds of fatalities occurred in the Chinatown area of the city that went unrecorded. The total number of deaths is still uncertain but over 80 percent of the city was destroyed.  Approximately 300,000 out of 410,000 residents were left homeless. Newspapers described vast areas, including Golden Gate Park, as covered with makeshift tents for more than two years following the event. It is said that more material was removed from the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake than was dug out of the earth to build the Panama Canal.

An inestimable numbers of vital artifacts and records were lost when the city institutions were reduced to ruins. The fire that resulted from the quake covered over 490 blocks. It burned for four days until rain helped to extinguish it. It consumed City Hall and its Hall of Records which house all the city's vital records. It also destroyed libraries, courts, jails, businesses, at least 30 schools, and more than 80 churches. The earthquake still serves as a demarcation in the City's history; there is City history and City history prior to 1906.

It was, however, the first widely photographed natural disaster in history. So we have pictures of the aftermath, but not images of those records which may have included the birth of my great-great aunt's husband, Thomas Leechin.

I believe Thomas was born in San Francisco on November 11, 1891. We are not entirely sure though. He may have been born in China. We're not even sure if he was of 100% Chinese ancestry though. His mother may have been an American. Anti-Asian policies and discrimination caused many Chinese immigrants to fabricate their records at that time often referred to as being a "paper son." Paper sons or paper daughters is a term used to refer to Chinese people who were born in China and illegally immigrated to the United States by purchasing documentation which stated that they were blood relatives to Chinese-Americans who had already received U.S. citizenship. So Thomas's origin story is unclear. If his 1891 birth certificate could be found for him in the city where he recorded he was born, San Francisco, we might have been able to know his family's origin but we know there are no birth records for that city prior to 1906 unless the family held on to the originals. So, insert shrug here.

5. Ellis Island's Fire in 1897

Have you ever been to the Statue of Liberty? When you were standing on line, the remnants of a brownstone behind you was actually remains of Castle Garden. The first American immigration station. It was opened in 1855, pre-dating Ellis Island and post-dating the arrival of most of my people. Although, I'm not entirely sure of that. I haven't had great success finding many passenger lists.

Between 1855 and 1890, more than 8 million people arrived in the United States through Castle Garden which was operated by New York State. In April 1890, the U.S. government assumed control over immigration and established a temporary processing center in lower Manhattan called the Barge Office while Ellis Island facilities were being constructed. Ellis Island's immigration processing center opened on January 1, 1892. It was constructed entirely of wood. 

Danger! Danger! You know what's coming...

During the early morning hours of June 15, 1897, the fire which burned for nearly 2 hours, left all but 3 stone structures standing on the island. All that remained was the engine house, the electric and steam plant, and the doctor's house. The main building, which was 750 feet long, 250 feet wide, and three stories high was gone as was a restaurant, laundry, morgue, storage house, the pier, and, you guessed it, the record building. All gone.

Fortunately, all of the 222 employees and immigrants on the island that evening were rescued. No lives were lost but all the records for passenger arrivals at Castle Garden from 1855 to 1890, the Barge Office from 1890 to 1891, and Ellis Island from 1892 to 1897 we're destroyed.

For the next 3 1/2 years, authorities went back to using the old Barge Office while a new fireproof structure was being built on Ellis Island. On December 17, 1900, the new steel, brick, and stone building opened on Ellis Island. The port was permanently closed for immigration processing in 1954.

 

In a nation of immigrants, having a major port experience a fire after one of the largest period of immigration could have been completely devastating in terms of records. Fortunately, the U.S. Customs Office also collected passenger lists so while the Ellis Island Foundation’s Passenger Search does not include ship manifests for years prior to 1897, Customs Lists for those passengers arriving at New York from 1820 to 1896 do exist. Quite similar to a ship manifest, these records detail each passenger’s name, age, country of origin, as well as how many pieces of luggage they carried. 

6. Bombing of Four Courts, Dublin, Ireland, 1922 

Not all disasters destroying documentation occur on U.S. soil. I just happen to have had ancestors here for a very long time and thus I have learned most about disasters that get in the way of my research. There are surely many many other abroad. Of of course, there was the Four Courts bombing in Dublin in 1922 during the Irish Civil War. 

Located on the north bank of the River Liffey, Dublin's Four Courts building opened in 1802. Originally, it held the four courts, thus the name - the Chancery, King's Bench, Exchequer, and Court of Common Pleas. In 1922, the Public Records Office was within the Four Courts building complex. Two days into the Irish Civil War, on June 30, 1922, a massive, deliberate explosion destroyed hundreds of years of documents. The explosion was so loud that it was heard up to 20 miles away and so forceful that fragments of mediaeval manuscripts were found strewn miles away from the site.

The deliberate destruction of national libraries, museums, and cultural artifacts has been considered a war crime since the 1954 Hague Convention. Not that this stops such destruction. In 1992 hundreds of years of civil records were destroyed deliberately during the Siege of Sarajevo wiping out over a million culturally valuable objects and irreplaceable records. But I digress - -

The Irish Public Records Office housed many genealogical treasures including the Irish census returns dating back to the first, most comprehensive one in 1821. Only fragments of the census remain. It also housed original wills dating back to the 16th century and more than 1,000 Church of Ireland parish registers filled with baptism, marriage, and burial records. Nearly everything they held was lost.   

Too often, though, I hear claims that ALL of Ireland's records were lost and as a result tracing your Irish ancestors is impossible. That simply isn't true. The destruction of the Public Records Office is certainly a hindrance to researching Irish ancestry but many valuable records remain. For example, baptism, marriage and burial records for Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, and Methodists were not housed at the Public Records Office. Nor were Griffiths Valuation; the primary source of land and property records for the middle of the 19th century. A good number of indexes to wills and probate bonds survive.  Much of your success in Irish research, though, depends on if you know where your Irish relatives lived. I, however, don't know where all my Irish ancestors were from. Well, I know where my Hinch and Hughes families were from but my Fays, Grays, Kelleys, and Joyces - - I have no clue. And could you get more common Irish last names? Sometimes with a less common surname you can pinpoint regions where the names were more prominent but seriously - Fay, Gray, Kelley, and Joyce???

There is debate and controversy surrounding the party responsible for the bombing but regardless of the culprit, the destruction of the Public Records Office is disgraceful. It wiped out priceless records of Irish history, robbing future generations of their heritage.

A century later we are all still trying to assemble bit and pieces to fill the gaps from copies, indices, and notes from people who researched the collection pre-1922. Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury research project is underway, though, working to retrieve as many of the duplicated documents as possible through other archives. Some records were rescued. Three hundred bundles of documents which were retrieved from the fire were locked away for the last century in the National Archives and they are being digitized for researchers to access. Some of these records date back to the 14th and 15th centuries. So there is still hope that someday some resource will surface to assist me in my quest, but I feel the grief of that disaster frequently.

52 Ancestors Challenge Week 42: "Lost" - Research Stymied by Disasters, Part 1

This topic brought to mind the considerable number of records lost to genealogists due to fires and natural disasters. Loss of life is of the highest concern, of course, but these disasters can go beyond the destruction of buildings and landscapes to damage invaluable records and images of our cultural heritage. So many events like these have impacted and hindered my personal genealogy research that I am going to do this in 2 parts. Here is part 1:

1. The Destruction of the 1890 U.S. Federal Census

Who amongst us genealogists doesn't wish this record set had survived?? Any American genealogist quickly comes to learn about the destruction of the 1890 U.S. Federal Census. Often it as brushed off as the result of a fire but the truth is the 1890 census records sustain two fires; one on March 22, 1896 and another on January 10, 1921. Ultimately, though, it wasn't destroyed by a fire; it was destroyed by Congress in 1935.

The first fire, on March 22, 1896, was in the Department of the Interior's storage space in Marini's Hall on E street in Washington, D.C. That fire destroyed and/or damaged most of the special schedules; the ones related to mortality, agriculture, etc. The second fire occurred on January 10, 1921 in the Commerce Building in D.C. That destroyed about 25% of the population schedules and cause smoke and water damage to another 50%. The damaged records then sat in a warehouse until Congress authorized its destruction on February 21, 1933. The actual destruction didn’t take place until 1935.

Based on the existing aggregate data it represented a population increase of about 25% since the 1880 Census. That increase was in part the result of a tremendous amount of immigration that took place between 1880 and 1890. It also would have reflected a great amount of westward migration. Not to mention that it was the first census to be tabulated by a machine known as Hollerith’s Machine. Technology! In it, respondents answered questions about immigration, naturalization, military service, and the maternity questions regarding the number of children born and living.

Less than 1% of it did survives. Perhaps you are lucky enough to find your ancestors in the fragments that exist from Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and the District of Columbia. Give it a shot. Take a look. My family isn’t in there but maybe yours is. About 6,000 names are listed.

There have been far too many instances in my own research when making the jump from the 1900 census back to the 1880 census has proven to be impossible. 20 years is a lot of time for lives to change drastically; marriages, name changes, deaths, loss of infants, relocations, etc. I can attest that is is possible to miss something you never ever had. 

2. U.S. Military Personnel Records, NPRC Fire of 1973

Ever try to get your ancestor's records of service from WWI or WWII from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)? No luck, right? Yeah, me too. 

That is because on July 12, 1973, a devastating fire ripped through the 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri. Of the 22 million individual files that were stored on that floor alone, approximately 16–18 million Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF) were destroyed. This vague number is due to the fact that the records had never been indexed, microfilmed, or duplicated. There is no database or registry to check on what was lost. Each file was as specific and unique to the individual as was their military service from basic training and burial.

In 1956, the Department of Defense constructed its six-story, state-of-the-art archives building outside of St. Louis to serve as the NPRC, which was formed in an effort to streamline federal agencies archival processes and house service records of all federal civil and military service personnel.  By the time of the fire in 1973, the NPRC had amassed a collection of about 52 million individual personnel records. The building's major flaw was that it lacked a sprinkler system. Yeah, for real. That seems ridiculous to us now but at the time of its construction there was a strong fear that such a system's potential to cause water damage was more likely than the occurrence of a fire.

That fire, though, burned for over 22 hours. Forty-two fire districts worked together to contain the fire to the 6th floor. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured, but the fire caused the roof to collapse and the heat was so  prolonged and intense that metal shelves and filing cabinets melted. Water and debris were everywhere. Records were reduced to ashes. It is estimated that 80% of the Army personnel records for those discharged between November 1, 1912 and January 1, 1960 were destroyed as well as 75% of the Air Force's personnel records for those discharged between September 25, 1947 and January 1, 1964 (with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E.). To this day the cause of the fire is unknown.

Once extinguished, though, the painstaking effort of restoration began. The July heat and humidity in St. Louis created circumstances ideal for mold growth and thus approximately 90,000 cubic feet of documents needed drying immediately. Ultimately, vacuum chambers in the nearby McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation plant were used to squeeze literally tons of the water out of the salvaged records. 

The NPRC’s work to restore and reconstruct these records continues to this day. The Center’s treatment labs use the latest technology to make remaining damaged files legible again. However, the sad reality is that the vast majority of records were reduced to ash. No technology can make ashes legible. Typically NARA can prove a veterans eligibility for benefits or next of kin entitlements from auxiliary records not originally stored with the rest of the files. Unfortunately, auxiliary records only tell part of the story the. The fuller history of an individual's military service is often just lost forever.

3. The New York State Library Fire of 1911

On March 29, 1911, a fire in New York's State capitol city of Albany, destroyed an enormous amount of historical and genealogical records. The New York State Capitol building is currently the seat of New York's state government, but in 1911 it also housed the State Library. The fire started in the Assembly Library. Fueled by the abundance of paper, some dating back to colonial New Netherland, the fire quickly spread down the hall to the nearby State Library.

Unfortunately, the Library and all its materials were scheduled to move to a new building on January 1, 1911 but due to construction delays all materials were still in the Capitol building when the fire occurred. The more famous, horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Co. factory fire happened in Manhattan just 4 days before the Capital fire. The conflagration of these events led to the a strengthen of building codes and safety laws in New York State and eventually nationwide.

Nearly half a million books, stacked floor to ceiling on pine shelves, were destroyed as well as over 300,000 manuscripts and the entire card catalog consisting of nearly 1 million records. In fact, only about 7,000 books and 80,000 manuscripts were saved through the heroic efforts of several librarians.  Present day researchers of New York history owe a great debt to the librarians who risk their lives running around the burning corridors to save books and documents.

Like with the aforementioned fires, as soon as the building was safe to enter, the recovery effort began. And again, even the many volumes that escaped the flames were severely damaged from smoke and/or the water from the firefighters efforts to extinguish the fire.  Researchers and librarians often come across tangible evidence of the fire in the form of documents charred around the edges or shriveled from water damage. Among some of the important documents saved was the original Emancipation Proclamation, written in Abraham Lincoln’s own hand.

With my deep New York roots, it is hard to estimate what more I might be able to learn about my family history if those resources had they survived. By the way, according to Capitol lore, the ghost of sole victim of the fire, 78-year-old night watchman, Samuel Abbott, is said to haunt the Capitol’s fourth floor where his body was found. 

52 Ancestors Challenge Week 43: "Organized" - Write Your Own Forward

Very often though I have heard others describe me as organized. My office is pin straight so sure, I appear to be. I should probably go through all my filing and get rid of old stuff I no longer need but at work everything is in order. It has to be or it would look like my bedroom which looks like a bomb went off in it. I thought, "oh, if I just had some time at home I'd get that all in order too" but nearly 2 years of working from home and that didn't change. Thanks, COVID.

Anyway, this organized bit...

 

We talk about how to keep our research organized but it is also important to get a clear understanding of how the resources we use are organized by their creators.

 

Recently I used a book called Long Island Genealogical Source Material [A Bibliography] by Herbert F. Seversmith, Ph.D., F.A.S.G and Kenn Stryker-Rodda, Litt.D., F.A.S.G. which is a special publication of the National Genealogical Society (NGS), Number 24 published in Washington, D.C. in 1962.

 

I used it in person at the Huntington Historical Society in Huntington, New York. However, it is available online at archives.org: https://archive.org/details/longislandgeneal00seve/page/n1/mode/2up 

It has a strange configuration. After the forward, which you should always read, it contains 4 parts: 

1. The Bibliography of Sources arranged alphabetically by author's surname
2. A list of Places with reference to the bibliographical sources in part 1
3. An alphabetical list of library symbols used in part 1
4. An alphabetical list of Libraries 

You have to read that forward to understand how this information is arranged. One might want to jump into the bibliography but the best way to begin is to start with part 2 - the list of places.

There you look up the community you are interested in researching. The name of the town will followed by numbers; hopefully several numbers (see snippet of page 100).

 Those numbers refer to the listing in part 1. So, for example, for the hamlet of Merrick there is local history information available using source #440.

Source #440 is the entry above by Charles N. Kent.

At the end of that entry you see strange abbreviations: DLC, MWA, N, NBLiHi, NJQ, NN, NNC, NSmB. Each of those correspond to a significant repository which you can find named in part 3.

• DLC = Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• MWA = American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA
  
• N = New York State Library, Albany, NY
  
• NBLiHi = Long Island Historical Society, Brooklyn, NY (now the Brooklyn Historical Society)
  
• NJQ = Free Public Library of the City of Orange, NJ
  
• NN = New York Public Library, New York City, NY
  
• NNC = Columbia University, New York City, NY
  
• NSmB = Smithtown Public Library, Smithtown, NY

You would then have to look up those locations and in 1962, you would have had to go to one of those places to use that resource. With the existence of the internet maybe you can find the resource online now, but maybe not. And maybe the repository no long holds the resource. Call in advance to find out.

My point to sharing this information, is not only to inform other researchers of Long Island history of this valuable bibliography and directory, but to also underscore that it really doesn't matter how you organize your own research materials, as long as you leave some instructions for future researcher to understand your madness, to understand the system you use. Sure you can attend all sorts of classes and webinars on how best to organize your genealogy research BUT - - you can just organize it in whatever way works for you. All you have to do is leave some notes about how you organize your stuff. Write your own forward to your collection of personal research resources. 

52 Ancestors Challenge Week 41: "Passed Down" - Genealogy skips a few generations

Aside from a few family stories and heirlooms I possess, most of which I have already written about, I can't think of much that has been passed down to me. Do bad genes count?

So instead I'm going to write about a connection I made on Ancestry that passed along family history that was not "passed down."

I have tried to do a bit of family history research for my brother-in-laws' families in case my young nieces every become interested in their paternal lines. I've also done some research on my step parents' families for the same reasons.

For a wide variety of reasons, death and estrangement among them, I didn't have much to work with on any of these families. When speaking with my brother-in-law's father, he was forthcoming but didn't really know much. I sensed he was estranged from his mother and siblings although he didn't come out and say that. In general, it sounded as though my brother-in-law was much closer to his maternal side of his family.

Prior to the birth of my first niece, though, I decided to build her a family tree. In fact, for her christening I made her a shadow box of a family tree for her. 

You can see there is one line, on the far left, where I couldn't get further back than my brother-in-law's great grandparents. I stuck some satin flowers in there to maintain the illusion of fullness but I couldn't get further than James J. McMahon of Jersey City, New Jersey & his first wife Nora. 

I was able to figure out that James had 2 wives; the first of which my brother-in-law is descended from. I am assuming the first wife died and James remarried to a woman named Delia. On his oldest daughter's Social Security Claim & Application info, she listed her mother as Nora Kane, not the woman named Delia who was living with her in the 1930 census.

From there I came across a potential marriage license for James and Nora. Once I received it from the New York City Clerk's Office, I began to poke around on Ancestry for other trees which may have possessed a hint or two. I contacted a woman whose tree had a Nora Keane married to a James McMahon. Kane? Keane? 

She immediately wrote back to me a lengthy response, which is not typical on Ancestry. Generally people use Ancestry for a brief time and then abandon their accounts, likely due to the expense of an annual subscription. You write them but you may never hear back from them and if you do, they tend to have just copied their tree from some other Ancestry user. There is a lot of bad research out there.

In any case, this Ancestry user, who I will call Bonnie, wrote back and said that she had referenced my tree in her research and that if I was willing to share my personal email address, she would send me two files she had obtained from James McMahon's nephew. One of which was a family tree compiled by my brother-in-law's grandmother.

Whaaaat? A family tree written by my brother-in-law's grandmother? And he knew nothing about it?? How did Bonnie have this? Why didn't Margaret's son know any of this? My brother-in-law's grandma was into genealogy!

So it skipped a generation or two but here Bonnie was able to give my niece, now nieces, something back that I might have never been able to piece together on my own including family stories in their great grandmother's own words.

James Joseph McMahon was born on July 2, 1887 in Doonmore, Killard, County Clare, Ireland and died on August 6, 1960 in Jersey City, New Jersey. His first wife was Nora Keane, born  March 17, 1897 in Derryard, Doonbeg, County Clare, Ireland, less than 2 miles from where James was born, died on February 16, 1927 in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The couple had more than just my brother-in-law's grandmother, Margaret, their oldest child. Margaret had a younger sister Alice Joan who lived to be 71. There were also 3 younger siblings who all dies as infants - James Andrew, Clare, and an unnamed infant. 

Nora was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, New Jersey, along with her infant children. 

I suppose that tree has really been "passed around" more so than it has been "passed down" but it is still good to have. Thanks, Bonnie.

52 Ancestors Challenge Week 40: "Preservation" - Preservation v. Conservation and How I Handle Both

The word "preservation" does not invoke in my mind the spirit of one of my ancestors, so instead I am going to address the distinction between "preservation" and "conservation" and describe my commitment to preserving my family history. Many people use the terms interchangeably but they really aren't the same thing. One you are totally capable of doing yourself and the other needs a professional.

To preserve something is to protect it and to conserve something is to fix it. 

As a genealogist it is likely that you want to see both things happen for your collection. You should actively be doing preservation all the time. Preserving your genealogy research, documents, photographs, heirlooms, etc. by organizing your piles of paper records, labeling photos, and putting everything in archival quality sleeves and boxes ought to be every genealogist's commitment to their family history. Preserve it! 

Conservation, again, should be left to professionals.

Thus, it is important to be able to distinguish the two needs for your collection and to learn the best practices for preserving your precious family records that, hopefully, will survive for generations to come. You need to know reputable retailers from whom to purchase quality archival materials such as folders and boxes that are both acid free and lignin free. 

• Do not use metal paperclips or staples - they rust. 
• Do not use tape unless it is acid free tape, otherwise, it will, in time, yellow and damage paper. 
• Do not use rubber bands - they are the devil's snot. I said it! Overtime they deteriorate into clumpy, gooey, gunk. Don't do it!

When you have something that is already damaged, though, and you want to restore it to its original condition, that is conservation. Again, seek a professional! You do not want to cause more damage by trying to do it yourself if you really don't know how. Gorilla gluing Aunt Gertie's broken Victorian brooch back together will significantly devalue it. 

I suggest always checking with the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) (http://www.conservation-us.org/). They have a section of their website called "Find a Conservator" where you can locate someone in your area to help with your conservation problem whether it is a damaged book, textile, image, etc. Yeah, sometimes you have to pay someone to do it right, but sometimes they might offer advice to you before you fuck up that precious piece of family history forever.

How do I commit to preservation, you ask? Ok maybe you didn't but I'm gonna tell you.

First off, confession - - Like most people I am not good at keeping up with organizing my genealogy records. Sure, I am a professional cataloger and I look all shades of organized but I let it slip just like everyone else. It takes time. Often time I do not have. So...

...you may have noticed my first name is the same as a month. When April rolls around I do my computer files back up, my preservation of family stuff, and the review of all my paper files at work - annually. It makes sense then, workwise, because May is annual report time at work. I've got to get stuff in order for that and if I'm doing it for work, I might as well do it for genealogy stuff too. I do try to stay organized all year long as I collect records and family ephemera but come April I try to catch whatever fell through the organization cracks. And it is always much more than I wish it was. 

Setting an annual reminder to make things right in your world is good back up plan, even if you are not named after a month. Just pick one in which to set some time aside. 

But really we should be preserving as we go along. So here is my advice for making preservation more automatic.

Develop a filing scheme!

This should include both a paper filing plan and an electronic file naming scheme. 

I used to have this great system. Every document I obtained I made a copy of it for each family member named within it. I would then file it away in a folder for each individual. For example, I made 3 copies of my own birth certificate; I filed one in a folder for me, one for my father, and one for my mother. The system worked wonderfully. If you asked me about my dad, I would just bust out his folder and every document I had that mentioned him was right there. Fabulous!

The downfall of that system was that it was so cumbersome. It would grow exponentially every year. It is one thing to have 3 copies of a birth certificate in 3 folders but consider, if you will, a will.

I have one will in my collection that is 14 pages long and names 28 relatives. In my old system that would result in 392 pages of paper. Think about census records; they name whole households which is not too weighty if you have 3 family members in a household but what about those families that consisted of 10, 11, 12, 13 children. Watch out photocopier and what a waste of paper!

So I now have another system in place; one that has significantly streamlined my paper collection. I developed an Microsoft Access database in a graduate class I took many years ago and I still use it. This database changed my research life!

The database allows me to keep 1 copy of each document and link it to as many people as necessary, sort of how Ancestry allows you to link 1 census record to many family members resulting in that census showing on each person's profile page. Each paper document I acquire is given a unique identification numbers and simply filed in an a protective sleeve in a binder in the order in which I acquire them. Each individual is also given a unique identification number which allows me to pull up a list of all the documents related to a specific individual. I then use that list to retrieve the documents I want.

Cut the volume of my old collection significantly. I went from 4 4-drawer file cabinets stuffed with folders and papers to about 6 2" 3-ring binders.

When I save electronic files to my computer, I just rename every document to fit into the following pattern. "Surname_First name_Year of document_Abbreviated type of document." So my great grandpa's birth registration, for example, was named Earle_Abram_1892_birth reg. His death certificate, Earle_Abram_1973_death cert. If I stick with that pattern the documents will sort themselves out by family name and then in chronological order for each individual. All of Abram Earle's documents will list themselves chronologically as Earle_Abram_year_document type.

I know, I know, I make it sound much easier than it is to keep everything in some sort of order, accessible, and preserved but always leave just a few minutes more to organize as you go along and it will be so much less time consuming and overwhelming.