Cant understand how to save old emails for quick reference.

Question

I saved old e-mails in folders called Jones, Jonathan by names first. Then saved his correspondence to and from me by date first, then subject we talked about. I am a historical researcher who has switched from XP to Windows 8.1. I have about 29,000 research letters filed by name, then date, then details in the subject line. I cannot afford to lose them, so will not put the XP computer on line at all now.
Meanwhile I need to keep new research letters in a Correspondence file that will not be stored at my ISP. It seems to get messed up after about 10 pages of letters in my IN Box. Do I have to invent some method of transferring a letter into Word, and then storing it under the Jones, John, then Filed by dates, and then subject so I can easily refer to them? I have about 250 different researchers on one subject that I need to keep track of for letters. I can do this also for Family and then again for Friends in different professions, and also for a few different Clubs I belong to, etc. Is there an easy way to do this? Can I have all my letters translate into Word documents before I even see them the first time? I do not subscribe to any groups that want to sell me something or any social media at all. Any help will be much appreciated.

Answer 1

I am an advanced researcher in one subject. I have about 250 researchers I communicate with over the years.
How on earth do I access their letters from say, 1982, when we were discussing something about John Jones in in Grey County in 1852? I know we have discussed that for sure. And that researcher is related to him distantly. In addition, I have about 250 very specific references to John Jones who are totally different men, from different places. I know all the different families from early Canada (basically 1600's to the 1800's). Ancestry.com doesn't even come close to having this type of info organized the way I do.
Back to the question - How do I keep this info organized the way I need to do it. They are real people and can't be treated like numbers. We discussed John Jones from Essex County, Ontario another time and decided he was not the same family at all. etc. The same holds true for a lot of other researchers.
I know Word is proprietary but tell me a better way of Keeping this correspondence straight. Open Office is not the answer. Linux is not the answer either. File cabinets full of correspondence to and from Jane Jones and 250 others used to be the answer - but now it is NOT!
When Word stopped supporting the massive files I already had from my early computers, I had to buy a program that would read Word from discs of letters I had filed from Jane Jones written to and from her, in about 1992. These were kept on separate floppies at that time and I wanted to incorporate them into my 'modern' list of correspondence that started about Y2K.
Do I need a program that will take the text out of an e-mail and automatically, give me the option of editing it for a title, starting with the date, and also the option of filing it where I want like Jane Jones, or Smith, Fred or more specifically Smith, Sally - Descendant of Sam Smith b. 1630 in MA?
And don't tell me I need to put this into an Excel sheet because it has room for thousands of searchable entries. I just need a secretary - or more correctly about a dozen of them. Putting all this research from the XP computer into anything connected to the internet is a total disaster.
It's all very nice to be patriotic and suggest it is safe in the cloud etc. but it is absolutely not ! Windows will throw out so many automatic corrections, firewalls, messages that something is wrong, your computer is locked etc. that you will have to commit Harry-Carry. There has to be a way of saving real correspondence, with real people who don't want to to bother with 'social' media. Help!!