In some countries during certain periods of time or with some surnames, information is gathered on one surname which may not go into any one Family Research Folder in particular, since there is nothing definite to tie the people to any one family. Since this information is often valuable at a later time, it may be necessary to group all the information for that surname in one folder. Rather than labeling it by the husband's and wife's names it may be easier to give it the general surname.

For example: in trying to locate the parents and brothers and sisters of John Doe you come across three or four Doe families in the same general area all having a son named John. You may, of course, place all the research notes on all Doe families into the John Doe Family Research Folder, or you can make a Multiple Family Research Folder labeled "Doe." Later, when you finally find out which family your John Doe was a member of, you may extract that information and place it in the folder for John Doe and his wife and also in a folder for ____ Doe and his wife (John Doe's parents). (see Figure 24)

Then depending on your own preferences you may keep or get rid of the rest of the material in the Multiple Family Research Folder. Whether you keep it or not, it would probably aid researchers later if you wrote down the reasons you had for saying your John Doe was a member of the family you said he belonged to and placed a copy in the appropriate Family Research folder(s).

Another example: when you receive research notes on several families from a researcher or a relative at one time. If you wish, you may separate the notes into the various Family Research Folders they belong to, or you can extract the information desired and place the extracts in the proper Family Research Folders. The materials received from that researcher or relative could then be placed in a Multiple Family Research Folder and labeled by the predominate surname. The name and address of the person you received the research from could also be included. The extracted material could also be cross-referenced to the Multiple Family Research Folder.