Tools for the genealogist

Every hobby and profession has a list of tools to help them.

Genealogy is no exception.

Here's a list of some of the tools I have that I believe makes life a little easier for me.

1) Computer.

2) A good quality printer. An all in one is great, a scanner, printer and fax machine.

3) A hand scanner.

4) Memory stick(s).

5) Digital camera.

6) Acid free paper.

7) Acid free protective covers for your papers.

8) Assortment of three ring binders.

9) Ancestry software.

10) Ancestors.

Do you have to have all of the above? Of course not. The only thing you have to have is number 10, ancestors. Since we all have those, we all have a starting point.

The other nine items help us keep track of the information pertaining to our ancestors. Some of them help us acquire new information easier than if we didn't have it, i.e., the computer.

I can sit at my computer and find the 1820 Federal Census for New York state. I don't have to use the computer to get a copy of that Federal Census page, but it makes it easier and it takes less time than writing to the repository, guessing which county and township I'm interested in and having them pull up the exact page and shipping it to me. Not only do I not have to wait for the mail service to deliver my request to them, or their search results to be returned to me, I don't have to pay for postage, search fees or copying fees.

When my mother was alive and working on genealogy, it was all paper and ink. Today you have a choice. You can do a lot of it electronically, or paper and ink. Most of us use both. We have our information stored in an ancestry program or our trees stored online at one of the many places where you can enter the information into your online tree, and we have backup copies in three ring binders.

Why store it both ways? If you have it stored electronically, it's so much easier to share your information with cousin Jane who lives several states away. Just email her the file. The paper copies are for your protection incase something happens and you lose your electronic files. Sometimes you lose your paper files. It's best to have both.

Once you start finding information, acquiring documents, photographs, etc., you'll notice something interesting. The documents and pictures on paper are still here today. We don't have electronic files that are a couple hundred years old or even older. We do have paper documents that are that old and still readable today. Paper has a history of lasting a very long time if you pick a quality paper and protect it with an acid free environment.

Just a few tools that I find very helpful and my reasoning behind why I have things stored electronically and in binders.