My office is getting behind on the filing. That bugged me. I have a good system but it was deteriorating. I also worried about my 18-month-old getting in there and maybe spilling a drink in a filing cabinet full of originals.

I started to scan each file folder. I tried to work thirty minutes every morning before work. I worked my way from the first folder to the last in a drawer. This way everything was scanned, and I might find something was misfiled.

The advantage to this was I had my paper properly filed (yeah!), and I had a backup in case of emergency. I also was able to set up my files in folders on the computer for faster sharing via e-mail. This also seems to speed up my data entry as I can ALT+TAB between Family Tree Maker and the image.

I am not done, but I have over five thousand images of pictures, certificates of birth, death, and marriage, emigration, and so on. I feel more organized, and I believe I am safer with back up (off site of course). It is a long job but it's a good project for when there is a lull in our genealogy.

Thanks to John Odean for today's Quick Tip! If you have a tip you would like to share with researchers, you can send it to ADNeditor@ancestry.com.

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