It all started recently, this family heritage project I have undertaken.  It is at times a bit tedious, others quite gratifying, and others still – just like work.  I have found that I will certainly need to organize my work very well.  Keeping everything orderly will help:

B = Birth Records
C = Census Records
D = Death Records
F = Father
Ma = Marriage Records (and wife information)
Mo = Mother
S = Siblings

To not have duplicate records, and as the households are listed by the family name, it is not necessary to have C or Ma records under the wives’ folders.

I ran into a problem last night.  Seems the number of characters combined in file names and folder names exceeded the number acceptable.  As I had already created all the folders above, I then had to go shorten them.  Ugh!  As you can see I still have a few to go!

Note:  This is just a partial list of just some of Philips’ ancestors, mostly on his fathers’ side.

I have at least organized my work carefully and can continue adding the records I find in an orderly manner.  All data collected is backed up locally and will be FTP’d daily also, ensuring an offsite backup.

In order to give day to day access to these files to family, I am going to setup an additional FTP account.  This will allow family to stroll through and download these files as they see fit.  FTP is active on the web server, but requires login for security purposes.  Look for more on this later.

BTW, I have changed a few spellings of names, and even one date we had on record already, as the actual hand-written archives clearly did not agree completely with the database information as shown from SVAR.  I have asked SVAR to review them again and update the database(s) accordingly.

An example is here on this parish birth record:
 
It seems clear to me that the name is Lana Cathrina, not Lena Katrina, yet we see on this parish marriage record how the record keeper wrote it:

I am of course using the birth record as a clear indication of the correct name.

After extensive research (going through these parish archives), these are surely the records, yet they do slightly differ.  Other clues lead me to assure myself that I have retrieved the correct records, i.e., the additional information provided with the records, such as ages and places of birth.

In any event, I see a clear hierarchy to my work now:

Hey, Chuck and Steve’s Grand-Kids, Lana is your Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandmother (8th).  She was born on Sept. 24th, 1817 in Torp Soldattorp, Öggestorps, Jönköping, Sweden.

AND, her parents are noted above in her parish baptism record.  Her father was Niclas Johansson and her mother was Britta Persdotter, making them your Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandparents!! (9th)

More to follow!  Great stuff, huh?