Backup Your Genealogy Data

flash drive

You put years of time and effort into your genealogy research but how much time do you devote to backing up your data? When was the last time you went through those data folders and made sure you had a backup copy either on a CD, DVD, flash drive or uploaded to an online service?

Backing up your data is essential since hard drives fail, laptops are stolen, and some media like CDs don’t last forever. The first day of each month has been designated as Data Backup Day as a way to motivate our readers to at least think about their data and the consequences of not having access to it.

So here’s our way of nagging you. We won’t post a story about someone’s data loss – we’ve either experienced it or have heard from others who have. Do it for your data and the ability to pass your research on to someone else in your family. Just do it.

Data Types To Backup

The main focus is your research database but think about backing up these items as well:

Internet favorites and bookmarks
emails
photos and scanned documents
blog posts and templates

Resources

Here are some links that will help you determine the way to backup your data as well as some personal stories from other genealogy bloggers about data loss: