Occasionally, I am asked about how and what I keep in digital format for my genealogy research and attached to my family tree.

Last year, I posted one explanation of how I save my digital records, but I only touched on how I decide what to keep and what to discard.

So, exactly how do I decide what to do with my genealogical documents, notes and correspondence?

1. Let’s begin with the simple stuff. Concerning genealogically-related letters written back and forth in the pre-internet age, I have reviewed the relevance of each. The letters themselves have been disposed of. Whether or not I scanned them beforehand depends on their genealogical value. For example, I have a large collection of letter with a distant Williams relative who has since passed away. She and I did many hours of individual original research and shared our findings. Those letters have been digitized, saved and backed up.
2. What do I do with my own notes? I still take notes with pen and paper because I find it much easier to check details. However, I don’t keep any of my own notes. Instead, once I verify information or determine that it doesn’t pertain to the correct person, I generally add those notes into my genealogical software program and attach them to an individual person or even to a family, if relevant. I have absolutely zero stacks of paper notes anywhere, aside from a current investigation.
3. I have a huge collection of original photographs which I’ve inherited and some original records saved by various family members. Those paper copies are all saved in archival quality albums, but each and every one of them has been digitized.
4. Today, most of the records I find in my research are in digital format. I have never owned the original paper copy and those documents are saved digitally. I rarely print them out unless perhaps there is a legibility issue of some kind which requires enlargement, printing and perhaps examining with a magnifying glass. In those cases, if I feel the need to save the digital record because of the information it contains, I will open Word, create a transcription and save both the record and the transcription.

That, in a nutshell, is how I handle the digital format of my genealogy research. “Old stuff” is carefully preserved, while “new stuff” lives a digital life.

November’s Tech Moment is a bit different in several ways. First, the featured program is Microsoft Word, which is not exactly an unknown entity. Second, while Word probably wouldn’t be on anyone’s Top 10 list of drawing tools, it can come in very handy, particularly since it’s free if you have a recent version of Word. Third, because I use a very old version of Word – Word 2003 (yes, really!), I can’t demonstrate any of its features. I can only point readers to links that will explain how to use Word’s drawing tools.

I chose Word as this month’s tech moment because a genea-friend was at my house and lamented the fact that a drawing program that she had been using to create “quick and dirty” trees to figure out DNA matches was no longer free. She was looking for a simple program that would allow her to draw boxes for names and lines to connect that would indicate relationships.

My husband suggested that she check out Word drawing tools, she did, and discovered it would do exactly what she needed it to do.

Since I don’t have access to recent Word versions, here are some links to browse:

• Word: Using the Draw Tab
• How to Draw in Microsoft Word
• How to Enable Pen/Draw Tool – How to Draw in Microsoft Word
• How to Enable Drawing Tools in Microsoft 2021 for Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• How to Draw in Microsoft Word
• How to Draw in Microsoft Word 2013
• How to Draw in Microsoft Word (Freehand and Shapes Tool)

There are enough options for learning here for anyone to get started. Notice that one of the tutorials is for Word 2013!

If you need access to drawing tools for simple tasks, Word drawing tools might be just what you need.