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Archiver > TMG > 2005-11 > 1132900091


From: Lee Hoffman <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] Source Record E-mail addresses
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 01:28:11 -0500
References: <6.2.1.2.2.20051124141559.025442a8@mail.bellsouth.net><200511250404.jAP449rJ017758@mail2.mx.voyager.net>
In-Reply-To: <200511250404.jAP449rJ017758@mail2.mx.voyager.net>


Donna St. Felix wrote:
>I put emails on forward and copy ALL to save in a format to use as a
>document for an Exhibit as well as saved in email format in my genealogy
>email backups. In TMG those emails are then known as (example) 'Email.
>JONES, Mary (SMITH) 2005, Nov 24' and I have as many as 76 from one person
>now, all personal experiences and are of course not documents found in any
>court house, etc.

The problem with this is trying to find which of those 76 e-mails was the
one about Aunt Sue having the affair with the travelling salesman. This is
especially so after a few years when you have not looked at the file for a
long time. If you have changed e-mail programs or lost the e-mail program
folder containing those archived messages then you can't easily find
it. Having it is a single file that can be searched in a word processor
(or whatever) may or may not be easy if you can't remember Aunt Sue's name
or exactly what the message topic was.

>Should the person get another email address, which they will be doing soon,
>I plan on adding the second email address after the first in my source

That sounds reasonable. And having a single file does simplify things
subject to the above.

>I've not tried to save the copied emails into a document yet for an exhibit
>as I'm currently copying them to a long Word document. Any suggestions for
>this and what format would be best is welcome! As I mentioned above, I'm
>new ~ and trying to keep things simple for myself and future heirs.

I would not recommend this for the reason stated above. On the other hand,
if the gathered messages are all one long discussion on the same topic then
the idea may be alright. However, for 76 messages that seems to be awfully
awkward to use. Perhaps if the grouping did not have more than say a
dozen messages on the same topic (and that may be stretching it if the
messages are mostly long ones). I find that most of mine from a single
person tend to be on many different topics and over-lapping each
other. Where they stick to the same topic, are relatively short, and only
include two or three messages then I group them into a single Source.

I prefer to keep hard-copies of my messages, keep them by date & time in
the appropriate family folder. This way, I can easily find them since the
Subject and Date of the message (or group) is given in the Source. I also
note on each hard copy the TMG Source Number. In this way I can go back to
the entered data if needed.

I rarely enter copies of messages as Exhibits as there are many and I think
that is unnecessary. I might do this if the text is particularly
interesting or is phrased rather unusually. My file cabinets are to easy
to get to and that leave more room for other things on my hard drive.

Hope this helps -

Lee Hoffman/KY
TMG Tips: <http://www.tmgtips.com>;
My website: <http://www.tmgtips.com/lhoffman>;
A user of the best genealogy program, The Master Genealogist (TMG)


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