Julie Goucher, 2025

On the first of every month I do a series of things, all of which keep me organised and undertaking what I call my office housekeeping.

• Back-up computer files. 
• Downloads from talks, other genealogists etc, these are moved to my cloud storage, into the appropriate filing system.
• Photographs and screen captures (mainly book covers) saved in cloud storage.
• Back-up my genealogical database files. These are held in Dropbox and as soon as I finish with the database I back-up.
• Review my research log – I run through my database, (including any Excel files), locating what I have done and what is still to be done.
• I whizz through my notebook(s) noting what still needs to be done, though mostly things have already made it to my to do list, but this is a good check to make sure nothing slips through the net; and another run through means I capture anything else that occurs to me.

Whilst this might not seem particularly surname related and more general, it is important to keep these basic principles up to date.  Spending time on the basics means that we have a solid foundation on which we can build our genealogical projects etc.