Maintain your family history

Like any system, the processes and tools you use for family history need regular maintenance to keep working well.

Regular maintenance reduces errors, protects the research you have already done, keeps your data safe, and makes it easier to pick up where you left off.

Skip maintenance for too long, and small problems, a missed backup, a growing pile of uncorrected errors, become much harder to fix.

Maintain a little, and often.

It is never too late to start maintaining your family history. Small, regular habits work best, supplemented by the occasional big overhaul.

Build maintenance into your research routine rather than treating it as a separate, occasional task. Keep your approach simple and consistent, so it is easy to keep going.

Back up your data using the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, on two different types of media, with one copy stored off-site. This applies to your family tree software, research files, and any DNA data and analyses you have downloaded.

Review your research plan and priorities regularly, and check for new sources, DNA matches and analysis tools as they become available. Combine these regular reviews with an annual spring clean.

Introduce new systems and practices gradually, rather than trying to change everything at once. Retrofit systematically by working through one grandparent line at a time, to make the job manageable.

Schedule time to correct citations, duplicates and other errors, and to review and improve your file names, folders and photographs. Breaking maintenance into smaller tasks keeps it from feeling overwhelming..