I have seen a few recent posts about how people name their actual file
names for source files. I asked a related question sometime back and
based on some responses I came up with a format. This format I came up
with I have stared using but am still trying to work though details.
I in the interest of giving back to both those that helped me and others
that may be wanting to see what I did below is the format I have tried
to use. The format may be hard to read as i stripped the HTML out.
I hope this helps someone and I would love to hear other peoples
thoughts on this style. Email me on or off list as appropriate.
Source Name Filing System
*Format*
Naming format, will use sub directories to group many like items for
easier searching. Use "__" (underscore) for spaces i.e. between first
and last name and middle name. Use a dash between fields (name vs
record type).
Document Type (abbreviation)
"-" (dash)
Last name of person (as listed in document married if applicable)
"_" (underscore)
First Name
"_"
Middle initial (or full name if others are similar)
"-" dash"
RIN (Record Identification Number) use minimum of 4 numbers for RIN
"-" dash
[rest optional]
-- (two dashes if naming a 2nd person like a marriage document)
<<repeat Last, First, Middle name and RIN section if needed>>
<<optional "-" dash and letter (a-z) if there is more than one
document of a type use consecutive letters.
If documents are variations of the same document in some
cases use the same letter then a consecutive number
>>
*Examples:*
OBIT-Doe_John_B-1234-a.pdf
OBIT-Doe_John_B-1234-b.pdf
MAR-Doe_John_B-1234--Smith_Sally_J-9876-a.pdf
AWD-Jones_Jerry_G-0002-a.jpg
AWD-Jones_Jerry_G-0002-b.jpg
AWD-Jones_Jerry_G-0002-b1.jpg
*Source Abbreviations Used*
AWD -- Awards and Special Recognitions
BIB -- Family Bible
BR -- Birth Record including Birth Certificate, Birth Announcement, etc
CHUR -- Church Related Document
CEN -- Census Related document (not sure on naming as it may have
multiple people
DIP -- Diploma or related document for High School, Collage (undergrad
or graduate), etc
SCH -- School Related document if not a Diploma
FB -- Facebook Related Source Document
MAR -- Marriage Related Source Document
OBIT -- Obituary from Newspaper, Funeral Home, or related source
PIC -- Picture, used for the 1-5 select pictures of a person stored as
source material. Some pictures may have witting on them.
RIN -- Record Identification Number, when typing RIN for source
documents enter minimum of 4 numbers and proceed with 0 if the RIN is
smaller.
*Document Format and Manipulation*
Most documents should be storied in PDF Format.
To Reduce the number of documents in some cases one may want to combine
2 or more PDF Documents into one document. Tools like PDFsam
http://www.pdfsam.org/ and jPdf Tweak http://jpdftweak.sourceforge.net/
can be use to combine/split PDFs.
If needed use a tool like PDFCreator from http://www.pdfforge.org/ to
convert a document convert a document/web page to PDF.
*Additional Notes*
Still working out how to deal with documents where multiple family
members are mentioned in a single document. EX: Census documents,
family bibles, etc.
Use Just a last name and something else?
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