DON'S FREEWARE CORNER -- JUN 2014
AN EASY WAY TO FORM TIMELINES USING FREEWARE AND FILE NAMING
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DON'S FREEWARE CORNER 2014-06
AN EASY WAY TO FORM TIMELINES USING FREEWARE AND FILE NAMING
©2014 Donald R. Snow
These notes are published in our Utah Valley Technology and
Genealogy Group (UVTAGG) monthly newsletter TAGGology and are then
posted here on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
where there may be updates, corrections, or additions.
A timeline is a listing in chronological order of events related
to something such as a person's life. Some genealogy
programs, e.g. Ancestral Quest, have a built-in timeline creator
that will mix your ancestor's life events with world events and
show them chronologically. What I will describe here is a
method of doing an interactive timeline with files, primarily
document or image files, and freeware programs, so that the files
automatically sort in chronological order and form the timeline
for a person. The freeware program EVERYTHING is a major
part of this and is a very handy tool for many other things as
well. I have discussed it before in this column and it is
available from http://www.voidtools.com/
. There is a portable version of the program that you can
run from a flash drive without installing it on the computer, so
you can use it at a FHC or elsewhere. The program searches
for all files on the computer regardless of location, organizes
them by name, size, date, path, etc., and shows them ordered by
any of these. It allows you to select any words or
characters you want and search for files with those in the titles
and it brings those up almost instantly. If the titles have
been labeled in a systematic way, showing them in alphabetical
order forms a timeline. In the past I haven't always used a
systematic method of naming files, so when I first ran EVERYTHING
and searched for files with Don and Snow and other keywords in
them it found files all over my computer that I didn't even
remember I had and I as able to collect them into particular
folders. I found lots of duplicates that I still need to
examine and delete. EVERYTHING allows you to run, rename,
move, copy, or delete files. You don't have to move the
files to work on them, since EVERYTHING shows them wherever they
are, but I have found it helpful to put the ones I am working on
into a single folder. To move them with EVERYTHING you can
highlight the group and drag-and-drop them to the desired folder
which you have open in Windows Explorer or some other file
management program. Since you are only moving these files
and not renaming them, only the path changes for them in
EVERYTHING.
Here is my systematic naming pattern that helps form the
timelines. I use this for scans and text files of documents,
screenshots, letters, newspaper articles, portraits, etc. I
don't use this for photographs, other than portraits, since having
too many photographs would make the timeline too cluttered.
Here are a few examples from the several thousand files I have so
you can see the pattern. On my computer clicking on any of
these opens that file to view it. Or using Windows Explorer
with the Preview Panel open (click on Preview in upper right
corner), just arrowing down shows what's in each file as you go.
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1931-03-19-Birth-Certificate-CityOfLosAngelesCity-CertifiedCopy-Dated-1951-07-20--Scanned-2012-10-26--031.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1942-11-03-LDS-PatriarchalBlessingByAlbinAHoglund--Scanned-2013-10-24--019.tif
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1950-06-00-School-UCLATranscript(PositiveCopy)--Scanned-2013-10-24--075.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1950-09-14-LDS-NameTagForOwnMissionaryEndowmentInSaltLakeTemple--Scanned-2013-10-24--081.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1950-11-00-Portrait-LDS-PhotoForMexicanMission-LiahonaMagazine-Nov1950--ScreenshotWithLinks-2014-06-09.rtf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1951-05-29-Letter-From,SnowDonaldRay,GuatemalaQuetzaltenango.rtf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1954-04-05-Letter-FromEldonStaffordSnowToDonaldRaySnowInUSNavyStationedInSanDiego--Scanned-2013-10-24--063.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1956-06-00-School-BYUTranscript.jpg
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1957-07-00-News-LDS-UniversityofUtahAlumniMagazine-1957-07&08-University4thWardBishopric-OscarWMcConkieJr&NealAMaxwell&DonaldRSnow--Scanned-2013-10-17--22.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1958-03-19-Marriage-LicenseIssued1958-03-13ByStateOfUtahToMarryDianeManwaring--Scanned-2012-11-01--115.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1959-08-28-School-UniversityOfUtahTranscript-p1.JPG
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1959-08-28-School-UniversityOfUtahTranscript-p2.JPG
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1961-07-31-LDS-TempleRecommend-LosAngelesTemple-MenloParkWard--Scanned-2013-10-24--054.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1962-09-23-Medical-ImmunizationRecord-OralPolioVaccine-AlsoDates1962-11-04&1962-12-09&1963-03-10---Scanned-2013-10-17--23.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1965-01-08-School-StanfordUniversityTranscript-1Front.JPG
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1965-01-08-School-StanfordUniversityTranscript-2Back.JPG
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1970-01-13-Math-BYUMathDeptColloquium-ResearchTalk-Gronwall'sInequalityForPartialDifferentialEquations--Scanned-2013-10-31--64.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1972-01-01-Math-ResearchPaper-Gronwall'sInequalityGeneralized-AmericanMathematicalSociety-ProcOfAMS-33(May1972)46-54--1972-S0002-9939-1972-0298188-1--2012-03-10.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1973-01-01-History-AppointmentBook1973--Scanned-2014-05-14--204307.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1974-03-24-News-ArticleAboutFulbrightAwardToPeru-ProvoDailyHerald--Scanned-2013-10-17--40.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-1998-11-03-LDS-MissionCallToNewYorkNewYorkNorthMission--Scanned-2012-10-04.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-2001-11-05-LDS-IndividualOrdinanceSummary--Scanned-2012-10-26--015.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-2006-10-20-School-BYUClassOf1956Reunion-SongByJanieThompsonThatMentionsDon&DianeSnow--Scanned-2012-11-01--002.pdf
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-2007-03-18-LDS-MissionCallToEnglandLondonMission.tif
SnowDonaldRay(1931-)-2011-06-04-News-LDSChurchNewsArticleStGeorgeLiveWithPhotosOfDonSnowAsErastusSnowInStGeorgeTabernacle--Screenshot-2014-06-10.pdf
ManwaringDiane(Snow)(1934-2012)-1985-07-15-LDS-LetterFromElderHughWPinnockQ70ThankingDianeForWorkOnNewHymnBook--Scanned-2014-01-25--152605.pdf
ManwaringDiane(Snow)(1934-2012)-2006-02-12-LDS-MS7-SacramentMeeting-DianeSoloistWithChoir-Scanned-2012-10-26--057.pdf
ManwaringDiane(Snow)(1934-2012)-2012-10-14-Death-Obituary-SaltLakeDeseretNews-2012-10-14--Screenshot-2014-04-10-14h-29m-50s.pdf
NAMING SYSTEM
My file naming system used above is as follows.
SurnameGivenNames(Married
Surname)(BirthYear-DeathYear)-YYYY-MM-DD-[Event
descriptors]-[Further descriptions]--[Scanning information].ext
Writing the surname first, then the given names, puts the files
for each person together. The birth and death years shows me
immediately the person are time period and I don't have to use
Jr., Sr., etc., which usually aren't part of their real name
anyway. The date written in International Date Format
(YYYY-MM-DD) makes alphabetical sorting chronological, also.
This works for all files stored anywhere on the computer when
using the freeware program EVERYTHING. If the files are in a
single folder, they sort chronologically in any file manager
program, e.g. Windows Explorer. When you rename any file
with this convention, it is placed where it belongs in the
timeline in EVERYTHING without you having to figure out where it
belongs. It is easy to rename the files, but does take
time. With files in a single folder you can use freeware
programs such as Bulk Rename Utility (available from http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php
) to add the name and information at the start or change
descriptive terms to others through the entire collection.
To rename files I have found it helpful to open Windows Explorer's
Preview panel (click on upper right side) so you see a preview of
the file in the right panel. You can open this panel by
moving the bars on the left side to make it larger. This
allows viewing the file to decide on its name without having to
open it in another program. To include websites and URL's
you can make rtf files containing the links so they are
clickable. The last example in my list above, about the
Church News article, is a pdf that has the active URL at the top
and a copy of the entire article. It was generated and saved
using Print Friendly, a freeware add-on or extension for various
browsers.
To label the event or topic (after the date) I use several
keywords including Birth, Death, Marriage, Medical, LDS, School,
Military, News, Math, Genealogy, etc. You can select your
own keywords. This makes it easy to find things pertaining
to that type of event by just including that keyword in the
EVERYTHING search. It's like asking for chapters of your
life and easily getting timelines for each topic by just searching
for your name and those keywords. If you don't have a
document or file for a particular event now, you can always form
an empty text file and name it so it goes where it belongs.
I usually avoid leaving spaces in file names since sometimes when
those are copied into other programs special characters get put in
for spaces and the titles become harder to read. If a file
pertains to the person's entire life, such as a genealogy or
biographical website, I usually don't put the date right after the
name, but put Genealogy or Biography, and then the date, so those
all sort together after the timeline files.
Only the names and dates need to be in the places shown in the
titles to form the timeline. Other information can be
anywhere in the title and it will be searchable, but making the
rest of the title systematically helps in reading the list and
finding items yourself. I include the scanned date and
sometimes even the number that the scanner put on the file since I
keep the original hardcopy documents in folders labeled "Scanned
2014-04", etc., in a file cabinet. That way I can find the
originals, if I ever need them. I include the screenshot
date since websites change and may look different the next time
you view them.
I hope this gives you some ideas that will help in your family
history research for your own life and for your ancestors.
It has already helped me immensely and I just discovered this
approach a few weeks ago and will undoubtedly make changes to it
in the future. I am converting file names a little at a time
as I work on my own or an ancestor's information and I am not
trying to do everything at once. This approach uses the
power of the computer to organize your data, but it's still a lot
of work to rename the files.
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Return to Don's
Freeware Corner Page or Don's
Family History Class Notes Page .