As my tree has grown over the years it has gotten increasingly more complex to keep everyone organized. I don't know how other researchers work, but I don't add sources and people to my records in any logical fashion. I usually start with an ancestry 'leaf' or occasionally with a particular person in mind...
Ten minutes later I am off on a completely different section and can't remember how I got there. I did start using OneNote (chosen because it automatically saves what I type) to keep track of my progress. I make a simple note about what records I add to which people and any notes that I might find important later on. I also toyed with updating Family Tree Maker and my Ancestry tree simultaneously, but that became an annoyance and I found myself avoiding the whole process entirely! So it's just notes and updating Ancestry for now.
I think it might be helpful to have a more 'pruned' version of my tree in addition to the ever expanding one [I know I just said I didn't like updating more than one tree at the same time...]. I try not to be picky about what records I save...meaning even if this person is the mother-in-law of the husband of my great grand uncle I still add him/her. While I firmly believe these individuals do have an important place on my tree, I want to focus on closer ancestors to get through my list of 2896 records that need to be sorted through.
So, my idea is to make a second tree that is only filled with my direct ancestors...the 'backbone' of the tree. My hope is this might be a creation of a more manageable size that I can physically print out and really LOOK at. For research purposes this will hopefully help me visualize holes. Another advantage is this will help me focus on the records I would like to evaluate first.
Thoughts? Does anyone else do this?
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