I hear you Greg and we’ll be in touch soon. I got some new ideas for the future as well, like that’s news 😂

So, I have a question for clarity! To be clear, we will only have FOUR folders with no sub-folders? For example, we would just dump all photos of individuals under INDIV because, if we follow the wonderful naming convention, and then view, say, alphabetically, they are essentially organized in a filed group. Is this correct? And then, let's say we have several individuals out of, say, hundreds in this INDIV file, who we have photos of their headstones. If we wanted to see their headstones, we could just search "headstones," and they would group up that way. And that is the beauty of just one big file, right?

So I really love this convention! And I read Zimmerman's paper (because I was curious about naming groups). It's a great method overall. I'm going to throw in some monkey wrenches (food for thought?) - I doubt they are a big deal or will apply to most of us, but if we are going with "best practices," and all of that... These would apply should you cross operating systems, upload online, etc. If you are keeping all your files soley on your computer only, these would not be a thing. (1) We should not have spaces in our file names (ever notice the %20 symbol in some file names online? That is filler for a space mark). Instead, use a hyphen. (2) Use lowercase. (3) Avoid forbidden characters, such as the &, which Zimmerman recommends. I'm providing a link here that I found rather quickly - this link is NOT the "be all; end all," there are many other examples online, but this might help you tweak this process if uploading, posting, transfering files is an area of concern. Hope this is helpful... P.S. I think it is rather funny that the link I provided has the %20 - meaning that whoever named this file had the FORBIDDEN SPACES they disavowed in this very article - haha! www.mtu.edu/umc/services/websites/writing/characters-avoid/#:~:text=Keep%20your%20filenames%20to%20a,improve%20your%20search%20engine%20rankings.

you talk down to me like this & you get thumbs down

It would be nice if ancestry would just auto import your matches for you. Like when you go to download your tree if you done your DNA it would be nice if they would just import your DNA the same way. Because I can almost guarantee you no one has the timer the patience to sit at a computer and enter anywhere from 50,000 on matches by hand. I had roots Magic ate to begin with I had the free version and then I bought it on sale during Roots tech which it's usually half price during Roots tech. Upgraded to Roots Magic 9. Then upgraded to Roots Magic 10. If you have a fully functional paid for version of Roots Magic then you don't have to pay for the upgrades. Roots Magic though at least for the last 3 years has been on sale during Roots tech and instead of paying $40 you pay $20 for the fully functional current edition.

After the version 8 implosion, I looked around and jumped over to Family Historian 7. It is light years ahead of RM. At least, that’s my opinion.

I paid for Roots Magic 10 and could never get the hang of it. Now I use Legacy 10 (for free) and it's so much more intuitive.

I had version 7 and never upgraded. I was using it principally to sync with one of my Ancestry trees. And pulling across FamilySearch info. But of course as of the end of last year you could no longer do that which was very frustrating. So I upgraded to 10. I still find a few bugs cause database errors, but I do like the new features. I have DNA stuff with 3 companies so I am looking forward to using the DNA features.

After the disaster with 8, I reluctantly updated to 9 in April 2024 because 8 would no longer log in to Ancestry. Then 10 was released a few months later. 10 is mostly fixes for 9. I'm done with this company.

Even "nobodies" deserve to be remembered, and even honoured. Our countries and heritage are founded on the work of ordinary people. By researching background of some of my ancestors I see one direct ancestor in London was a "Gentleman", but at least one granchild ended up in the workhouse. Financially their lives declined. Their lifestories are important. Many died sick and in poverty. My gt gt grandfather, descended from that family, emigrated and started a new family in New Zealand that subsequently did well. But he himself ended up dying in an infirmary for the indigent, after becoming estranged from his wife and children. We'll never know the story of why that happened and why he ended up in an unmarked grave. Some stories are not passed on or ever recovered. But his life contributed to mine. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. Learning a bit more of the history of the time, family locations and migrations helps provide context to what might have happened. I can appreciate the struggles and difficult choices more.

Awesome. Google sheets is great. I do prefer excel as I’ve used it for work before retirement.

There are ways to use code to batch-change filenames. In the Windows Explorer window, Alt+D or highlight address bar, type CMD or Shift+right click in window, select Powershell Look up code to cut and paste into what appears next. You can make substitutions, add to or delete from the beginning or end of filenames, etc.

Neat, very intelligent and well thought out! Thanks! :-)

Thank you very much!

Thank you! I am pretty much at the beginning of my journey and this is a really big help!

Just watched this now. Thank you so much for the video and for what you do. I subscribed! Hey I also notice the sign in the background about dogs and football. I'm from Pittsburgh, caught my eye right away. Thanks again!

Well, I do a lot of genealogy and have Had Roots Magic for quite a while, I had trouble with Roots magic 8 and still having the same problems with Roots magic 9, I really liked Roots magic 7 It is so hard to find where to put information in and hard to find people that I want to add more information to their file. I am not sure that it was a good buy purchasing Rm9 , Not all upgrades are good upgrades. I am pretty sure I wasted my money.

I've seen much more complex variations that confused the heck out of me. So happy to see it done in a much simpler form and fashion. Thank you!

I feel like you do, the majority of my family may not be famous or wealthy but learning their stories I cherish them so much. For me that is what family history is all about. Learning and sharing their stories. I have family members that fought in every American war; I have farmers, preachers, teachers and roustabouts who worked in the oilfields in my ancestry. I have both slave owners and abolitionist among my ancestors. I have found people who have a true rag to riches story and a couple who blew the family fortune. One or two served in government and a few served time in prison. Some have lived very long lives, and many died young. It is sad to think about how many interesting things people could learn about their family if they would just do the research. Finally, to answer your question, do I have any "somebodies" in my family, I have not personally come across anyone of renown, but someone has traced my ancestry to the Proctor family of Salem Massachusetts. I am hoping to someday try and recreate their research and prove if John Proctor is my 7time great uncle. Thank you for posting an interesting topic and Merry Christmas.

Obviously I love them because of the genealogy value, but I also think that they are truly peaceful places full of love for those that lay beneath our feet. I remember someone likening them to a book of stories.

What an interesting but logical approach. I shall certainly be downloading the gentleman's article . I'm a big fan of including birth dates and I worked this out myself when faced with 2 men of identical names born 20 years apart. Now when I look at the name I know instantly which it is and their relationship to me. Thank you for posting this video

I am currently using RM 8. I usually upgrade every 1-2 versions just because..... I don't use the program enough to be comfortable with the UI and I have found V8 to be especially difficult, possibly because it was so different from V7. I see that V9 is on a Christmas special of $20 for the next couple of weeks. Is V9 more intuitive than V8? That would probably inspire me. Thanks.

I love the program - but I feel I am being fleeced by the price of upgrades. I keep getting issues where I have to re=boot the program

I'm the old one here, I didn't ask while I could. I was too busy raising kids. I'm on Ancestry for the third time. Each time I see the mistakes I made, and others picked up and ran with them. I beginning to think it is one big farce. Really, it is just a lot of Census and people like to think they might run into an important family member. Believe me, now that I am old I realize everyone is important. The main thing I have learned is there is not a perfect family on the face of the Earth.

Very interesting. A death certificate of distant relative told me why there was so much forth and back in the census information of the family, where he, his wife and the children lived.He was a long time alcoholic and died of liver cancer.

Greg, thank you so much for finding and sharing this naming method. It will be so very helpful as I progress on my journey through time and place.

I love RootsMagic. I upgraded to Version 9 and bought the book as soon as it as available. When I upgraded to version 9, the upgrade was $20, which I thought was a bonus.

Great info provided on this vid, much appreciated. I am so fortunate to have much documentation on my family history. I have been able to go back to the 15th century.

This looks like a great idea. One question, though: Will people opening the files on another computer be able to use the long file names if they don't have long file names enabled?

My maternal grandfather died when I was a child. My paternal grandfather was not interested at all. Fortunately both my grandmothers gave me invaluable information that I would have had difficulty finding without them.

This is great! I have been looking for an file naming solution because traditionally I've used a Mac, which allows for commas in file names/folders. Now that I'm using a NAS for my image storage, I've realized this was a giant mistake. I'll have to go and rename all my genealogical files, but going forward - this naming convention will simplify my multiple levels of subfolders. Thanks for sharing!

Great video! All I need is football and my dog! GO STILLERS!

Can you post a video of you spitting into the tube, so I can compare your technique? I'm willing to pay for it

Thanks! Super useful video, and the tips about the differences in what was recorded at different times were helpful. The thought of making one of these for each couple in my genealogy is overwhelming, but I might start with a few and see how it goes. Did not understand until you explained it how ages were reported!

So helpful! Thanks for making this video. Knowing that pathnames “count” in the character limit for a file is very useful.

Thank you for these amazing and truly helpful suggestions. I wish I had thought of some of these on my most recent cemetery visits. I'll remember for next time!

Thank you! I have also struggled with trying different systems and naming conventions.

I just watched your video and went to RootsMagic home page. The price is now $39.95. I was thinking about upgrading for $20 but not double that amount. Thanks for your video.

I started taking my grandkids to cemeteries when they were young. We talk about those buried there. I think they will never find them "creepy".

A family cemetery story of mine: My mother's family settled in southwest Missouri in the 1830s, and many relatives still reside there. There were a number of family cemeteries during the time, mostly on family farms. At least one (first burial 1837) was deeded to the county, and is well-kept and still used, but another was very small (about the size of my back yard). Some time in the early 1900s, most graves were disinterred and moved to the new public cemetery. One grave, that of the original pioneer, remained for another 20-30 years, until they decided to move it and reuse the land. To their immense surprise, when they opened the grave (buried about 1865, reopened about 1935), they found four metal handles -- and nothing more. Southwest Missouri/ Southeast Kansas soil generally is made up of a red clay, with a high acidic content, and the earth had taken his body back -- bones, wood coffin and all -- and left only the rusted iron handles of his coffin. Given another century, they would probably have dissolved also. There was no grave per se to move, so my relatives just moved the gravestone into the new cemetery; didn't seem of much use to transfer the dirt that had taken him.

As to your theory, yes, I think they had a target date of RootsTech. My additional thought is that RMG8 was so buggy at its inception, they needed to present a "new" iteration to present. My problem with that is that they still have not corrected all the issues that users found in RMG8, and may conveniently forget them while making upgrades on the newer bugs in 9. One issue that irritated a lot of RMG users was that in RMG 7 and earlier versions, you could set a report to print on both sides of a page; you cannot do that in 8, nor in 9. The indication that I received early on was that they were working on the bigger problems first, and this would have to wait. Well, they worked on new features before fixing problems, which is far out of character with their previous pattern. When they debuted 8, they superseded some regular Windows functions (<Shift><Ctrl><Arrow> specifically) that were already heavily used in other Windows applications and made them their own. Users have complained, but they have made no indication that they will address the issue. I have been with RootsMagic since it was Family Origins, and started with version 2.0 of that (back in its MS-DOS days), and am still a loyal user of the software, but I feel I'm being shortchanged a bit here. They took away some things we've always had (or simply did not code them in), and after a year and a half have not returned them. As excited as everyone seems to be about Associates, I've been making those notes in my genealogy for years without the feature, and do not find it that exciting, nor worth a new version by itself. Multi color coding is nice, though a number of their colors are had to distinguish from one another. I have recommended that they add patters (cross-hatch, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, etc.) to the list to aid color blind genealogists (as is a friend and fellow user of RMG)

Loved your interviewing family for family history series! I'm about to start my journey, and your videos were so critical for my preperation!

Maybe I'm just a bit of a cynic, but I feel that the latest version has been released because, with version 7, RootsMagic promised a free upgrade to Version 8. Having a Version 9 now means RM can start getting money from those who got Version 8 free. There certainly isn't enough in there to make me want to upgrade.

I agree with you on almost everything you said. And the few things I didn't agree with are because of the things we use more often or less. I am loving the idea of having saved and multiple color sets. I feel like now I will be able to fully use the color coding in ways I could not before because of constantly needing to redo them. And I think the associations will be a game changer in genealogy, even if it may be tweaked in the future.I am writing a family history at my church and I am seeing so many ways that I could use the associations (by confirmation class, by minister, by generation, ECT). I don't know how I am going to do it all, but I think it will help. I am so glad to see this and I think it will be helpful in singular trees, though I do understand why it should not be used in world trees. And for $20, why not. If I was not happy I could always reinstall RM 8 if need be.

I think you theory and timing was correct 9 update- actually I was expecting a major update for 8 . I was wondering why the were they were taking so long but when ver 9 announcement it all made sense. The update was quite worth it, but do understand some people position the ver 9 came out too soon. The $20 update price for me was a no brainer. I do hope the expand on the search capabilities -- moire fields such as gen up or gen down for example

This is too wordy need to get to the point if the video…

Where in Poland is your family from? If you need any more research I could help, you know.

They have.been very helpful.

Good ideas! I also like to label my family photo scans this way. This is essentially 'tagging' the file names directly ... allowing ANY search tool or cloud storage to work properly. An example of my image naming convention looks like this: ArcScan_10331 [John T. Smith] [child] [school portrait] [1940s] [water damage] [keeper] [askmomfordetails].tiff I built myself an autohotkey script to append my most common tags to the end of the filename with keyboard shortcuts. My favorite search program is the free software "Everything" by Voidtools. It creates an index of your computer files so that searching by file name is instantaneous. I also like having a scan number associated with the image - this number is written with archival pen on the plastic sleeve protecting the original photograph. The number also helps me find duplicate files.

Thank you! Sometimes it’s spooky how KZbin throws me a video that is exactly what I need at a certain time 😮. I’m just getting started on sorting & trying to organise a mass of family history materials; and because I’ve not yet got a good or consistent system, I’m constantly distracted by some interesting detail (“squirrel!”). Just a quick look at the first couple of pages of the article, and the “who, what, when, where” idea jumped out at me!