Digital Filing

Someone asked a question on Facebook this morning. It revolved around how to store files for genealogy. The Gorse Fox couldn't resist and responded:...

Storage of digital document is important. The first things to consider (for anything you stare one your computer):

1. How important is the data
2. How volatile is the data (how frequently does it change)
3. Do you need to keep old versions if it does change
4. What is the impact of losing it

This should help you decide on a backup strategy. My strategy varies according to the answers above. In the most extreme case, I have 

• Hourly backups to one external drive
• Daily backups to another (mirrored) external drive
• Daily backups to the Cloud (so there is an off-site copy)
• Weekly backups to a further drive
• Monthly backups to a drive stored up in our loft.

What me, paranoid? Yes! I spent 43 years in the IT industry and have seen too many cases of critical data being lost.

Now having said that… how do you store the data? I think it is important to come up with a naming scheme. This will help, longer-term, in finding the files. A scheme (which I have been using successfully since the mid-1980s) names files as follows:

YYYYMMDD-x (Source) Subject

The first part, YYYYMMDD, is obviously the date of the document in a sortable format.
The  -x is a suffix that could be:

• I - invoice
• N - Notification
• S - Statement
• etc…. (Make up your own scheme)

The (Source) identifies where the document came from:

• (Nat West)
• (Public Records Office)
• (Berkeley Homes)

And finally the subject of the document:

• Annual Water Statement
• Marriage Certificate 
• etc

Finally, these files are stored in a folder structure that helps me go straight to the correct place in the file system:

• /Genealogy
• /Documents and Letters/
• /Documents and Letters/Bank
• /Documents and Letters/Tax
• /Documents and Letters/Utilities

I hope this helps