I am heavily into genealogy, and wonder how I will be able to cut down on the amt of time I spend on it if I am able to full time.  The biggest drawback to having less space than a house is just the sheer volume of files, photographs, research notes, etc.  Are there any folks out there who research their family history from the RV's dinette?  I have an entire spare bedroom devoted to computer & equipment, file cabinets, bookshelf & binders (about 50 1" binders devoted to families), plus stacks of paper everywhere!  To be absolutely fair, now I have stacks of research done for various RV's

Any experiences, comments, suggestions?
gypsy

Ellie is correct...filing documents in a text file would be the cleanest way to keep up with research. If you have Word or MS Works you can catagorize all your papers. The excisting papers that you have would have to be scanned to page files and then sorted and stored by topic. You could even go further by saving all the files to CDs so if your computer crashes you would still have them on disk. You will be astonished how much of that paperwork can go on one CD and save yourself a lot of room and weight. Also looking up data would be so much easier if you sort and file it where you can look it up later without digging through tons of papers....just a thought Sherri and Joe

All good suggestions so far. My Wife has spent much time at it and uses the family tree program and backs up the files to disc.

OH YES!!!!!!!!!  I am saving photo's and documents to an external hard drive that fits into my laptop case.  I have a subscription to Ancestry.com and I use Family Tree Maker 16.  My mom got me into doing geneology a few years ago and I got hooked,  I figure I don't have to give it up when we travel and part of the traveling is going to be to places where I can do more research.  Have laptop will be a traveling genealogist.  I bought hubby a small portable scanner that we can carry with us as well so it will all fit into the computer bag in the closet. 

I am an avid reader as well and I have had to get rid of my library so I bought a kindle and now I can have a library in a very small space, ya just got to love modern technology. 

Another genealogist researcher here! Been doing my family research for years and have binders, files, etc here at home which I plan on boxing up (after reducing duplication and consolidate files) and keep with one of my children or in storage with other special items I want to keep even--if and when--we sell our house and are on the road full time. I have electronic backup(we use Cabonite)for all my files and photos and I plan to continue research while on the road. Our on-the-road itinerary will be partially designed with my research in mind! Have laptop....will travel...will research!! lol

http://www.carbonite.com/how_it_works/

-- Edited by nwlambear on Sunday 28th of June 2009 10:08:23 AM

-- Edited by nwlambear on Sunday 28th of June 2009 10:11:52 AM