diff --git a/.fossil-settings/ignore-glob b/.fossil-settings/ignore-glob
index f33667c5..5f768e93 100644
--- a/.fossil-settings/ignore-glob
+++ b/.fossil-settings/ignore-glob
@@ -19,6 +19,10 @@ localdoc
 .claude
 .omo
 
+#subfolder for temporary reference files - not source controlled
+#we may use git clone to get a copy of the reference files - but we don't want to track them in the repo
+TEMP_REFERENCE
+
 #Temporary files e.g from tests
 tmp
 
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index cc3fc2cd..dd03c735 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -52,6 +52,11 @@ scratch*
 #Built tclkits (if any)
 *.exe
 
+
+#subfolder for temporary reference files - not source controlled
+#we may use git clone to get a copy of the reference files - but we don't want to track them in the repo
+TEMP_REFERENCE
+
 #ignore fossil database files (but keep .fossil-settings and .fossil-custom in repository even if fossil not being used at your site)
 _FOSSIL_
 .fos