DOCUMENTING YOUR OWN LIFE

©2023 Donald R. Snow - Page last updated 2023-09-19

Return to the  Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .
ABSTRACT:  Our descendants will be glad that we took the time to document our own lives with details, certificates, events, programs, stories, and our histories.  This class will give some suggestions of how to do this, where to find the information, and how to save it.  Once gathered, it can be posted on places like Memories on FamilySearch Family Tree so it will be available after we are gone.  but even without writing a narrative, this collection forms a good history.  The same ideas can be used to document the life of an ancestor. The notes and other related information, all with active internet links, is posted on  https://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .

    WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

  1. Instructor is Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu ) of Provo, Utah.
  2. The notes with active URLs and additional information in other notes and articles are posted at http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .
  3. Tips:  (1)  To put an icon on your desktop for these notes, or any webpage, just drag the icon from in front of the address (above) in your browser onto your desktop.  (2)  To open a link, but keep your place in these notes, hold down the Control key while clicking the link.
  4. Problem for today:  How to find, save, and label documents and events about your own life.

    5. PRELIMINARY COMMENTS AND EXAMPLES

  5. Labeling the files is important so you can find them and they sort in order
  6. Use a system for new items you find and then go back when you have time and relabel the old items.
  7. The free program EVERYTHING -- https://voidtools.com/ -- allows searches by name or characters for all files from all folders on your computer and in alphabetical order.
  8. Keywords help (tag words), e.g. BIRTH, MARRIAGE, SCHOOL, LDS, EDUCATION, WORK, MILITARY, FAMILY, PEDIGREE, CHILDREN, RESIDENCE, BIOGRAPHY, etc.
  9. Examples from my database using EVERYTHING. 

    10. TYPES OF DOCUMENTS

  10. Birth an/adoption - certificates, indices; some birth certificates are online now 
  11. Marriage - certificates; legal document is the marriage license that you get from the marriage county with witness and official's signatures; some are online
  12. Death - you don't have one yet, but some of your ancestors do; some certificates are online now, e.g. California Death Certificates up to middle 1900s are on HeritageQuest Online 
  13. Newspaper accounts of births, marriages, and deaths - these are public records, unlike most current vital records -- many helpful websites; for Utah see Utah Digital Newspapers--https://digitalnewspapers.org/

    14. TYPES OF EVENTS AND STORIES

  14. Programs from school, church, sports, etc.
  15. Newspaper articles - many are online and searchable - search by name, event, date, or place
  16. City directories - these are like phone books but before telephones; many are online and searchable - see FamilySearch Digital Library and Internet Archive Texts
  17. Yearbooks - high school, college, military, church, trade - see FamilySearch Digital Library, Internet Archive Texts, and MyHeritage.
  18. Portraits, photos, illustrations, etc. - labeling is important so you can see what is in the photo, when, and where
  19. Artifacts - photograph them for sharing, e.g. awards, badges, military insignia, etc
  20. Many links for these can be found on other notes on my website - can search by Google (see top of my webpage)

    21. SUGGESTIONS FOR CREATING FILE NAMES

  21. Use a system so you can find what you are looking for
  22. Include person's name at beginning with surname first, then maiden name followed by (birth and death years). 
  23. Then date of event or document, keywords, where event occurred, where the document came from, the date you found it.  
  24. For extension put file type, e.g. .doc, .txt, .pdf, .jpg, .tif, .html, etc.
  25. Write dates in International Date Format YYYY-MM-DD so they sort chronologically.
  26. Example: "ManwaringDiane(Snow)-(1934-2012)-1934-07-30-BIRTH-CERTIFICTE-VITALRECRORD-UTAH-SaltLakeCity-19xx-xx-xx.pdf"
  27. Example: "PHOTO-2023-09-04-JAMESTOWN-PROVO-UTAH-GillFamily.jpg"

    28. CONCLUSIONS

  28. This system gives a good history of your life, but can also be used to select parts to write a narrative story.
  29. Be sure to include where and when you got the document, since things change on the Internet.
  30. This system puts things where they belong without you having to insert them or rewrite things.  
  31. You can upload any or all of these items to Memories in FamilySearch so others will have access to them.
  32. Our descendants will be glad we took the time to document our own lives, just as you are when you find an ancestor's information.   
  33. Documenting your complete life is a mammoth project, so start small and develop a system for new information you find and go back a little at a time to update information you already have in your files.
  34. Remember: "Small deeds done are better than big deeds planned."
    35. Return to the Events Page or the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page . >