Back up, back up and back up again. Then make hard copies and back them up with photocopies stored somewhere else.

I'm a bit wary of 'Family Tree Maker', I don't know why, but I suspect it is the cost aspect of it. I know I can get information for free from other sources and I'm mean at heart.

When I first started putting my tree onto the computer 12 years ago, I used a programme supported by Windows 3.1. When the new computer did one of its annoying automatic cleanups and deleted every programme not used for more than 6 months or some such thing, I lost everything that I'd put onto that programme. Suddenly, all my trees, all the notes I'd put on each record, all the connections were gone. We've tried all manner of ways to restore them, but they are unobtainable. Because we run Windows 2003, the 3.1 programme used to open them is no longer supported. Even when I reloaded the software, they refused to open.

So...

I bought a copy of the BBC's 'Who do you think you are' Family History PC CDRom and have had some very good experiences with it. It takes a bit of getting used to and again, it tries to link you to sites where they want you to pay for information you can get for free elsewhere, but it is very good. I spent a week putting all my notes onto that programme and sorting through papers. I know there are some notes and comments that are gone forever, but the majority of the clues are in the papers so if I ever get a month at home alone with the computer (I'm thinking broken ankle or something that means I can't travel to work but can still function fairly normally from the waist up) and can stop the cats from sleeping on the boxfile, I'll get it all sorted into some proper order again.

I've been doing my tree for nearly 25 years now, mostly waiting for census returns to be published, and it was only in the last 12 years that I got it onto computer. Before then, everything was written on paper and those are the worst ones to try and keep in any order.

The best way to organise generations is to keep each family of siblings on the same horizontal line. This is best achieved by using a roll of paper - a old fax roll is perfect for this. Rule it into lines running the length of the paper and each stripe becomes a generation. If you have large families like mine (11 is the greatest number so far), the roll can get quite long.

I worked up the direct line first - tradition states it should be the male line but mine went no further than my father, so I followed the three names I had. Each father was tracked back through Parish church records and census returns and when that was exhausted (it all breaks down around 1700 unless you are landed gentry or nobility), I followed the distaff lines (mothers). Each sibling was noted and eventually, their wives and children. Consequently, I have a roll of paper about 8ft long and proof that my mother was related to at least 32 of the children with the same surname, who went to her school in the 10 years she was there.

I colour coded my original paper files - I used the primaries for each grand parent (I only ever had 3 grandparents) and the direct line was filed in folders of that colour. Census information was divided into family groups and the whole excerpt so I could refer to each family individually. One day I'll get each sideline into its own folder within the main family.

Because my notes were targetted at the beginning, I missed a lot of information about those siblings.   I find that the 'scattergun' approach is better. Making a note of everyone with the same surname 24 years ago would have saved me several annoying months of trying to find cousins and siblings. I'm lucky that I can do this because my family names are not common - not a Smith, Jones, Brown or Clarke amongst them!

One other thing that you've already noticed: Don't assume that all the photos in your album are of family. I have several pictures of a blonde child aged about 5, whom no-one could identify. At a family party in January, I met the original, now aged 64. She was the girl that my uncle had proposed marriage to at the grand age of 6, and had remained friends ever since.

Good luck. It is a most rewarding and frustrating hobby, and if you let it, can take over your life.

Of course, you could employ someone like me to look it all up for you, but it's not as much fun - the high when you find a long lost relative is fantastic!

LTS