Direct-lines vs. Top-of-the-line

If I was doing this only for myself I would nest the direct-line folders down into top-of-the-line ancestors. (pp. 72 & 92 of the book). But I've been here before.

I once wrote part of my family history as cliff-hanger installments and sent it to two sisters and a niece. I started at the 6th generation because one set of 4th great-grandparents met on the banks of the Susquehanna and immediately fell in love (as the story goes) and migrated to Ohio. It was a very romantic and obvious place to start, in my opinion. And then the story went backwards into the American Revolution and forward to the present.

I got NO response until I sent a picture of the family homestead built in the 1830's overlaid with photos of the first generation to grow up there. Yay, photos!

And later, when I got close enough to the present to send a photo of a great-aunt who looks like one of my sisters, there was an "Oh, I get it!" moment.

I have a list of people who are going to inherit my family history work, whether they want it or not. I've already set up backup drives for each of them that are updated regularly in case I drop over suddenly. Some of them may never get past the MRIN vault and that's OK.

My vault is looking quite busy with 116 direct-line folders.

Now that I think of it, another idea would be to go ahead and nest all the folders down and leave a README text file with a list of all the MRINs for the direct-lines and a simple explanation of how to search for them. There's a free program called Directory List & Print that can do this. 

But I'm still not going to do it that way. There are enough explanations that come with the filing system as a whole and how to install and set up Legacy. I want to give them just one thing that's got a big START HERE button that goes directly into our parents' folder and brings them into the heart of it. They don't have to think; they just have to go there and then there's some chance it will pull them into the rest of it.

It's one of those things where there's no right answer. Consider who you're sharing your family history with when you're gone and can't be around to explain it anymore.