Family Tree Maker User

How are we related?

2012-01-27T09:48:00.000-05:00

How I found out that my parents were related before they were married.

The relationship between the person you have selected on your screen, will show the relationship between that person and the "Home" person. But, sometimes you may want to look at other relationships.

Family Tree Maker has a Relationship Calculator feature.

In my research, I found that my parents were related to each other before they were married. Here is how you can determine these relationships.

Go to the People Workspace, Person View, and click on the Tools menu. Select the Relationship Calculator.

This will bring up a screen, that will allow you to select the two people that you want to see how they are related.

In this case my father and mother. The First ICON to the Right if the Name, will bring up the Index, where you can select the names.. At first glance, is shows Husband and Wife. BUT, on the Relationship line, there is a Number 2. This indicates that there is another Relationship between these two people.

The pull down menu indicates that they are 5th cousins 2 times removed. By selecting that 2nd relationship the Right Hand Panel will show the relationships.

That's difficult to see the relationship, so click on the View Relationship Chart.

This is only a part of the full chat, but this view will show back to the Common Ancestor.

One other thing to do, is to Switch these two people in that earlier screen. There may be other, more distant relationships.

In this view, my parents are related 5 times.

Lesson Learned: I am asked many times, should I split may file, based on mother and father, or grandparents, etc. This is an example of the benefit of maintaining one file. You may miss this fun information.
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Family Tree Maker for the Mac - FTMM-2 Update

2012-01-12T21:16:00.000-05:00

from Ancestry.com Blog by Michelle Pfister

An update for Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 is now available. This update resolves a number of reported issues from the community.
Fixes include:
•        Performance and stability improvements
•        Improvements to resolve sync errors
•        Improvements for handling downloaded media in synced trees
•        Syncing of accepted and rejected hints
•        Option to include/exclude Ancestry media in synced trees
This free update will be available the next time you open Family Tree Maker for Mac 2.

FTM2012 - Different Cemetery Report

2012-01-08T09:32:00.000-05:00

There are usually multiple ways to do a task, or prepare a report. A report that might work for me, as presented here, might not work for others. This is especially true for users who are used to the Custom Report found in Version 16 and earlier.

Based on some feedback on this Blog Post: Family Tree Maker User: How to create a Cemetery Listing I thought I would create a different report. For an example a more detailed report about the people buried in a specific cemetery.

In the Publish Workspace, Person Collection, Custom Report, the first action is to Select the persons with information in the Burial Fact. Select Selected Individuals in the right hand panel. I entered Burial Report in the Report Title.

This window will open, where you click on Filter In >, select All Facts, Select the Burial Fact, Any Data, and Exists.

That is selecting everyone who has any information in the Date, Place, or Description for the Burial Fact. This will move everyone in the file that meet this criteria from the Left column .o the Right. In this case, there are 101 people who meet that criteria.

Now to determine what information should be in the Report. Clicking on Items to Include left end of the Right Hand Panel, which will bring up the Items to include selection. In this case, I want to see the Name, Birth, Marriage, Death, and Burial Information. (top part of that window) but I want it sorted by the Burial Description field, where the Cemetery Name en normally entered. This will group the report by Cemetery, then the report will be sorted by Name.

Here is the resulting Report. It contains information about the individuals who are buried in each cemetery. Because the Burial Fact has the Place Name, that is also included the report.

But suppose you want only a report on a Specific Cemetery. Click on the Selected Individual button in the Right Hand Panel, then < Filter Out. We want to remove everyone who is NOT buried in the Green Mount Cemetery. Select All Facts, Burial, Description, Does NOT Contain, and type in Green Mount Cemetery, then OK.

This will provide the same information, but only those buried in the Green Mount Cemetery.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Blog Summary

2012-01-03T07:19:00.000-05:00

Who Knew?

I don't know about other Bloggers, but as a former webmaster for a number of websites, knowing IF your website is being viewed is important, how people find it, help the webmaster use tricks and tools to make the website visible to the intended audience.

This one a little different, in that it's more of a "How To" Blog. It still takes time to maintain, but is it being used, is it useful to the viewer.

I just received the weekly summary from a web counter and I am approaching 100,00 Page Views. From one who is not a writer, that number is incredible.

Thank you for visiting this Blog and I do hope that you find it helpful.

All the best,

Russ

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - Sources with Citations but without Links

2012-01-02T21:39:00.000-05:00

Another common thing, at least in my file, is to have Sources with Citations, but no links between the Citation and any Fact. Also, People without Citations.

In an earlier post, I used the UnDocumented Fact Report.

Another way of locating people without Citations is to use the Source Group, Listed by Person menu.

Again, No ICON is an indication that this person has NO Citation. This is just on the Name Fact, not like the Undocumented Fact Report. But for clean up, this might be a better way to start. Select a letter of the alphabet, and work through the list. You could review ALL of the Facts for the people without a Citation on the Name.

If you scroll down, to the very bottom of this list, will be an Unlinked listing. This is a listing of Citations what there is nothing linked to it.

Each of those Citations on the Right have not links to any Facts.

Normally, that Links tab would show the name and fact that is LINKED to that citation.

As with any clean up, especially this last one, it's a good practice to Back Up the file BEFORE you start deleting anything. In a number of the cases that I have already cleaned up, the Citation was valid, I just needed to Link it up to the appropriate Fact.

Lesson Learned: Review the Unlinked Citations from time to time. Back Up your file BEFORE Deleting these Citations.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - Sources Clean Up - Sources without Citations

2012-01-02T21:23:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, I find it helpful to Clean Up information that I in my family file. My main research file was started with Family Tree Maker Version 3.4. It's been through each version and patch since. Not to mention, the learning curve in learning how "the new version" works. Things like doing a Merge of two files, before I knew what I was doing.

My goal for 2012 is to clean this file up. It will probably take a year to do so, but it needs to be done.

A short time ago, I talked about a new feature that was added in a Patch for FTM2012. FTM2012 Patch - New Feature - Undocumented Facts in which you can generate a report for all Facts that do not have a Citation linked to them. Its a very handy report. My smaller files are very clean. Running that report on this file is 462 pages long. Not going to print that. To get that report, go to the Publish Workspace, Sources Category, and select Undocumented Fact.

There is another way to do the same thing, but in smaller pieces, like in Surname Order / by letter. By going to the Sources Workspace, there are several ways to list the Sources as seen in the pull down menu under Source Grouping, Listed by: The choices are Source Title, which is the default listing, by Repository, or by Person.

We're going to start with the default, or Source Title: Notice the ICONS or lack of ICONS to the left of the Source Title. If there is NO ICON, there is not Citation. Basically, that Source is not being used in this file. By looking to the right, you will see Source Citation: 0.

That Source can be deleted by Right Clicking on the Source Title:

There are other options there as well, but we will Delete that Source.

Lesson Learned: Clean Up your Source Title Listing from time to time.

FTM2012 - Exporting a Branch

2012-01-02T08:37:00.000-05:00

How can I delete a small group of individuals in my file quickly?

or

How can I share a Branch of my family tree, that would include those not directly related?

These were features that were available with the All-In-One Tree in Family Tree Maker Version 16 and older. Since Version 2008, we had the ability to Export direct Ancestors or direct Descendants of the selected person. The Extended Family Chart is the name of the chart that replaced the All-In-One Tree.

Go to the Publish Workspace, select the Chart Collection, and select the Extended Family Chart.

Depending on the size of the file, a Chart will be created. This chart is a visual view of your tree. In reviewing the tree, you find an "island" of individuals. That is a few number of people that you want to Delete them or to move them to a file by themselves.

BACK UP YOUR FILE before proceeding

Selecting the first person, and then selecting others, while holding down the CTRL key, will allow you to select those persons to be deleted.

Then, Right Clicking on one of the individuals, will bring up a menu, where you can delete them.

Selecting Export, Selected Persons will bring up a screen to name the new file, with only those selected people in the new file.

The new family file has been created.

There are a number of way to work with the Extended Family Chart with the menu items shown below:

An example might be that you want to share all of the Descendants of a branch of your file, that are NOT directly related to the "Home Person" but are related to the ancestor of choice. By using "Select Person and All Descendants and Spouses" will allow you to create a new file with those individuals in that new file.

Select Person
Select Person and All Descendants
Select Person and All Descendants and Spouses
Select All instances of This Person
Select Person and nonspousal Relations
Select Person and All Relations
Select Generation
Select Generation and All Descendant Generations
Select All
Select All but This Node
Remove Person from Chart
Unmark All
Delete From File
Export
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FTM2012 Calendar Feature

2011-12-29T12:04:00.000-05:00

Its that time of the year, when you might want to generate a calendar for important dates to remember. Like Birthdays and Anniversary Dates.

The Calendar features is in the Publish Workspace, Other Collection.

There are choices on who to include in the Calendar, the Immediate Family, All Individuals, or Selected Individuals. For the purpose of this calendar, I want everyone who is still living. It's beyond the immediate family, because I want to include cousin's, aunt's, uncle's, or a broader group of people.

Here is the Calendar with All Individuals:

Pretty full, and I am guessing, that there are many dates that have more people in the file then show up in this Calendar. There are OTHER options, that I will show later. But, this is beyond what I am looking for. So, I need to do some Filtering (Selected Individuals)

Clicking on the bottom button (Selected Individuals), where I selected FILTER IN ==>, which will bring up a window, the Birth DATE, That is After 1900. (you can choose any date you wish, but I chose this for a start with). This will move everyone from the Left side of the window to the Right window who was born after 1900.

Because this calendar will be used to sent Birthday and Anniversary Cards, I will Filter Out anyone who has passed away. Those are also important anniversary dates to remember, so at this point, you can Generate the Calendar.

To reduce the list to those living, the Filter OUT <== button will be used.

Filter Out, Death Dates that are NOT Blank. This reduce my 600 names down to 431.

Now I have a calendar for each month.

There are other options available to use, on the Calendar Options menu (first ICON in the Right Panel, just to the right of the Calendar.

The Events & Anniversaries to Include allow you to change the Color of the Event, OR if you want to include the event at all.

In the example above, not to Filter Out anyone, The "include births & marriages only if ntill living" option could be chosen.

IF you only want Birthdays, for Everyone in your file, the Filter In option would not be required.

Lesson Learned (when using the Calendar feature): Check the Calendar Options, as well as the Filter In and Filter Out feature.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 and AMT - Filenaming and Captions

2011-12-28T11:10:00.000-05:00

As with much of what we do, in Family Tree Maker, or any other genealogy program, we should take a few minutes to think about how we want to handle "things". Unknown Names, for example. This isn't about Unknown names, as I have posted about that before. Suggestion has been to try it as far as Data Input, Finding that entry while working on the file, and How does it look in the Output.

FTM2012, for me, has made me go back and relook at two items. File Names and Captions for Media Files. What is new, is how the Captions appear in the Ancestry Member Tree (AMT), now that we have the TreeSync™ feature. The AMT does not deal with File Names, but it does rely on the Captions that we put on those media files.

For Consideration:

Sorting by Filename
Sorting by Caption
Use of Categories
Use of Windows Explorer (or Finder for the Mac)

We use Media files for a Person, and for a Citation image. We attach or Link a Media file to a Source, Citation so that we have easy access when working with a specific Fact that has a Citation with a Media File.

We should consider how the Gallery Looks in the AMT, for ourselves and others that find out Online Tree.

File Names:

The file name format that I use for Federal Census Reports is:

YYYY_Fed_ST_County_City-SurnamePreferredName.jpg

When the Sort by Caption is turned OFF, in the Tools, Options menu, in the Media Workspace, all of the Census Records will be seen, sorted by the State (ST), then County, they by City or the next Jurisdiction on the Census Record. That is followed by the Head of Household's Surname, and the Preferred Name that I have selected for the Name Fact.

Note: Users may handle Census Records differently, but over time, I have found that I do all of the Census Record based on the Head of Household. It has become much easier for me. If I have a 'hit' on a child or non-head of household, I will select the Head of Household and do the Web Merge based on that Head of Household. Another User's preference.

One of the benefits of this, is when looking or comparing the number of Media files with Windows Explorer.

Note: I choose to keep ALL of the Media Files, for a family file in the < family file > Media folder.

If there is a number of files / media item difference, between with FTM2012 and in Windows Explorer, I can pretty quickly see files that are not in my file naming convention.

For Census Records, and the Caption, I reverse the format a little:

Preferred Name Surname - YYYY United States Federal Census

Again, this is something to think about. What looks good for YOU.

So, when the Sort is changed to be by Caption, then any Media file for that person will be listed and sorted.

I wouldn't look at the Media Workspace to determine WHO has a Census Record, but I would see what Census Record a person has in the People Workspace, Family View, Media Tab for the selected person (Right Hand Panel). I would also see who is listed in the Census Record by looking at the Links tab in the Sources Workspace, and selecting the Census Record Citation.

The use of Categories of the Media Files are also helpful. In use Census - Federal and Census - State Categories.

This has been helpful for me, no matter which Sort is used, Caption or Filename.

Keeping this in mind and expanding that to Person Media Files, those Media Items in the Peple Workspace, Person View, Media Tab (left, half way down the screen), the Captions that I use are very similar

Preferred Name Surname - YYYY - Event

This continues the Sorting by Date, but see the Event as well. 1955 - Birthday Party, for example. So, looking at the Media tab for a person, the sorting is by Date for that person. At this point, that format has worked for me in the AMT Gallery.

The file naming for a Person's media is different, for me, then the file naming for a Census Record. I prefer to see my Census Records grouped, both within FTM2012 and with Windows Explorer, by date. The grouping for a Person, I want to see that persons pictures grouped together.

SurnamePreferredName-YYYY-Event

When I use the term Surname, for a female, that is the Birth Surname.

Again, the Sort by Caption or Sort by File Name is not an issue but it DOES keep a person's media files organized.

But, what if I have 5 names in a row (PreferredNameSurname) how to tell the difference? I add the birth year following the Surname.

Lesson Learned: Try different ways of handling Media Files, Captions and File Names and determine what works for you.

I have redone this structure several times, and with the TreeSync feature I am revisiting it again. Thought I would share this experience here. Please feel free to comment on your experience.

Thank you.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - AMT - Clean Up from AMT Updates

2011-12-22T10:54:00.000-05:00

Continuing working with FTM2012, an Ancestry Member Tree (AMT) and the TreeSync™ feature, I wanted to post what might be consider doing when the AMT has been updated. Specifically in the area of Census Records.

When a Census Record is added to a person, in the AMT, only that person's record will include the Citation for the facts that were found. This also applies to early Census Records when using the Web Search, Web Merge feature. Here is an example of an 1850 census record that was done in the AMT.

I noted that the URL in the lower right, and that was the reminder that this Citation was created online in the AMT linked to this FTM2012 file.

Note that there are only three (3) Facts linked to that Citation. However, if I look at that Census Record (printer friendly form), we see that there are 5 people that were on that record.

These other four people do not have the 1850 Census Record linked to them.

In addition, the Source Citation and Source Information is note complete in the Citation Details nor Citation Text.

I copied the Source Citation text from the printer friendly form and pasted that into the Citation Details field. The complete Roll, Page, and Image are important for me in the Citation Details. (this is not unique to the update in the AMT, but is part of my clean up following a web merge as well)

The clean up that is done from here, is to view that print out, and add the Citation to each Fact that is gathered from that Census Record.

Each Census Year will provide different pieces of information. For the 1850 Census, I try to gather:

No Relationships
Names
Ages
Abt year of birth
State where born
Occupation if listed

I try to do that for every one listed.

Since there are no relationships listed, I use the Name Fact, Notes field to record the House Hold and ages of those in the household. It helps later on when relationships do start to appear in the 1880 Census.

Here is an example:

or:

1850 Census links David Auble (32) to Sarah Auble (30), William Auble (5); Francis Auble (3); Charles Auble (1)

I have blogged about this before. This same data in pasted on each persons Name Fact Notes.

After going through everyone listed, adding new facts, or citing existing fact, the Citation usage now looks like this.

Bottom line, I went for 3 facts using this Citation to 18 facts for these 5 people.

Why do all of this: I can quickly see what Census Records I might have overlooked for that person. As I use the Residence Fact for recording where someone lived at the time the Census was taken, I can see pretty quickly what census years I need to go after.

The Name Fact Notes help me develop the relationships over time. Looking at the 1860 census record and recording it in the Name Fact Notes, I see:

1850 Census links David Auble (32) to Sarah Auble (30), William Auble (5); Francis Auble (3); Charles Auble (1)
1860 Census links David Auble to Sarah Auble (59); Wm A Auble (15); Mary F Auble (13); Chas Auble (11); Kate Auble (8); Anna Auble (1); Mary Caughlin (26) - Servant from Ireland

In the 1860 Census, Mary F appears as being 13, so where was she in the 1850 Census? Frances is gone, but she was 13. I wonder if Francis in 1850 is not Mary F in 1860. Haven't found what the F is for Mary. Wonder if it's Francis.

Kate, Anna, are new, and were born after the 1850 Census. I also include here, the Servant. I don't, at this point, have any need to be in my database, but she, Mary, was a member of the household.

Sounds like extra work, right? BUT, look at the 1870 Census Record

1870 Census links Daniel Auble (53) to Sarah Auble (50); Mary F Auble (23); Charles Auble (21); Rate Auble (17); Anna Auble (10); Cora A Auble (8)

David is not Daniel, and Kate is now Rate. The census image confirms what is here, do I noted that it may have been a census recording issue.

William is gone, Francis is gone or is that Mary F. Cora is new, but only 8.

Looking at the Image itself, it's noted that David was a Boot and Shoemaker, so that was entered at his occupation in 1850. That may be useful in the future.

Lesson Learned: Review the data that was added from the TreeSync.

I have found, over time, that these few extra steps help put the family picture together.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 and AMT TreeSync - Clean Up, follow up

2011-12-21T19:04:00.000-05:00

In my Blog Post, FTM2012 and AMT TreeSync - Clean Up Genea-Blogger Randy made this comment.

I dislike Abt Bef Aft and Bet

With the modern computer programs, I much prefer About, Before, after and Between for clarity and readability. I would also like to see Say as an option.

The Option works for Abt > About, but not the others. There need to bem ore options for these.

He is absolutely correct.

What I was really discussing, and was clear about this, is the Data Input, or the screens we see in FTM2012. Let me use this as an example:

I have the Birth Date "Abt 1769". That is the input side and what we see on the screens. I am not sure if Randy was talking about input or output, so I decided to see what our OPTIONS are on the Output side.

The first that I tried was a Chart.

b: Abt 1769 is the result on the chart. But, there are Options, in the Items to Include Menu.

Selected Items to Include (upper right), then selected Birth as a Fact, then looked at the Birth Options, which brought up my choices. The only choice was Full, Short, Abbreviated, but that was ONLY for the Fact Name. B. or Birth for example. So, no choices on the Charts.

For me, and the amount of data that you might put on a chart, I'm OK with that. Don't know Randy's reaction.

But, I wanted to look at the more formal Genealogy Reports. How was that displayed.

Well look at this. Abt is spelled out, in this more formal report. No options, but I don't think that options are needed if the formal Genealogy Report spells it out.

Not quite satisfied with this answer, I went back to the Tools, Options, Name/Dates/Places options to see what happens if I change Abt to About.

As you can see, the Abt is not About. So, returning to that Chart, Abt is not About.

Randy, Thank you for the comment to dig a little deeper into our options, both for input and output.

And if you are wondering, going back to the Input side, entering Abt 1700, will be changed to About 1700.

Lesson Learned: When working with how you want to deal with the formatting of your information in your file, check both Input and Output and what your options are.

For example; How to handle Unknown Names. I have talked about that, but when the User is wondering how to handle such things, check BOTH Input and the Output before going in one direction or the other.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 Update to 21.0.0.466

2011-12-21T17:00:00.000-05:00

If you haven't done so already, please check the Help, Check Update menu, as there is an important update available. The Text of the Update says:

This is a small but important update to address a specific issue reported by the community. The issue resolved with this update has to do with media from a downloaded Ancestry tree not linking correctly to the media items in the newly created Family Tree Maker tree.

It is important that this update be run.

This will bring you up to 21.0.0.466

When Family Tree Maker opens, it will open to the Plan Workspace. Make sure that you look at what file that you are about to open. It may NOT open to the file that you just had opened before the Update. Just double check the file that you want to open.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 and AMT TreeSync - Clean Up

2011-12-21T15:40:00.000-05:00

What I have learned, be it from importing a GEDCOM file, doing a Web Merge, and a TreeSync™ operation, a review of the outcome of these should be reviewed BEFORE moving forward. Especially if you have created your own "standards" on how you want information presented in your FTM database. I have covered many of mine on the Blog.

This one is very minor, but work posting what is seen and how to correct it. It's very simple.

Family Tree Maker allows for Abt, Bef, Abt, Bet, types of dates. I have mentioned before, that if I see and record a birth Year, from a census record, I prefer to have that presented as Abt. YYYY. Understanding that the recorded year is a "guess". The birth year may change over time for a person based on when the Census was taken, how provided that date, OR age, and how the census taker recorded it. In early census records, the Age was given. So the Calculator can be used to estimate the birth year. Thus Abt YYYY for my birth entries.

When doing a TreeSync, this is the observation, and I always check for.

It is showing ABT, as it is presented in the online AMT version of this same file. To date, I have only seen this ABT vs Abt for ABT and not the other options.

To change the ABT to Abt, globally, click on Tools, then Options

Then select the Names/Dates/Places tab. Then type over Abt with Abt.

This will globally change the ABT to Abt within FTM2012.

Lesson Learned: Review your data after a TreeSync

This has been reported to the Family Tree Maker developers:

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - Update via AMT Clean Up

2011-12-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

In our continuing Dialog, Genea-Blogger Randy Seaver updated the file that I have as an Ancestry Member Tree (AMT). He did a lot of work, which I certainly appreciate. Thank you Randy.

However, I now have had some observations on that means to me, and my (our) file.

This is probably my own issue, in how I maintain my files in FTM2012, but think that it's important for other users to see and attempt to understand.

I started by returning to the Places Workspace, because the Place Names from Ancestry and the AMT are NOT in the Place Name Authority (format) that FTM2012 wants. For example, AMT had this entry:

Newark Ward 4, Essex, New Jersey, United States

However, Ward 4, should be in the Description Field for Newark. The PNA wants this format:

Newark, Essex, New Jersey, USA

The PNA format is important for me, as it makes the Places in a consistent format, and is important with the Map feature.

One of the clean up activities is to change the first example, into the 2nd example and move the Ward 4 to the Description field for that Fact. I do this clean up activity for the Web Merge feature and not the update from AMT.

This is an easy clean up procedure.

I am also picky about how information is recorded in my file. I want to have recorded in a Fact Entry, the same information that will be seen when looking at a Citation Record and Image. For Example: an 1850 Census Record might show the AGE of a Person and the State where that person was born.

When I reviewed the first person that was updated, I saw this entry, with many citations.

The full birthdate is entered and "probably Newton, Sussex, New Jersey, United States" was listed at the Birth Fact. That IS how the file was imported as a GEDCOM file from Randy (!). But the next Citation is from the 1850 Census. Two things are wrong with that. 1) full birth date, and 2) probably ..... States. That would NOT have been found in that census record. Clicking on the Media tab for that Citation, and locating Charles we see:

Charles was 1 year old, and a little further to the right it said New Jersey. Bottom line, for me, is that this Citation is WRONG. The is a Birth Fact of "Abt 1850, New Jersey, USA. That is where that Citation belongs.

Another Citation with the "probably Newton" was the 1860 Census. What I did for the 1850 and will show the 1860 Census, is to Detach / Unlink that Citation from the "probably Newton" entry, and re-link it to the Abt 1850, New Jersey Entry.

The ICON that is hi-lighted above, that looks like a Chain Link, is the ICON to Unlink this 1860 Census Record from the "probably Newton" birth fact.

That will bring up a "are you sure" window. It Needs to be remembered, so that it can be re-linked to the correct Birth Fact.

What was unique about this record, so what I can pick it up easily, was the iOS Application entry. There are also other details in this entry that will help select it, when it is relinked. Clicking Yes, will Unlink this Citation from this Birth Fact.

The above if the Reference Note for that Citation, so I know what Source and Citation that I just Unlinked.

Now to select the correct Fact, for this Citation. I selected the Birth, Abt 1850, New Jersey, USA and clicked on New, under Source, but select Use Existing Citation, as we know it already exists.

Then it's a matter of selecting that Unlinked Source.

The the Unlinked Citation.

Now that citation is on the correct Fact.

Lesson Learned: When an AMT is updated, online, a review of that data may be required in the FTM2012 file. Then Re-Synced.
Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 Web Search on Family Search / Web Clip

2011-12-20T19:35:00.000-05:00

What if, you want to search on another website, such as FamilySearch.org.

Select the Person you want to do a search for, and go to the Web Search Workspace:

Normally, the Ancestry.com Search screen will be presented.

In an earlier post, I provided instructions on how to add a Personal Favorite Site: Adding LiveRoots.com Search Engine

For this case, I added Family Search and it's URL familysearch.org

In selecting Family Search, I am taken to the Family Search website, where information in typed in.

I entered William Knapp. The nice thing about this screen, is that in the lower left corner is some data about the person I am searching for.

In order to trim down the results, the Birth Year of 1700 was selected. (Birth years were in 100 year intervals). Death Year of 1800 (again 100 year intervals) and that the sex is male.

Scrolling down the list of hits, one was my person. Am able to check a couple of items, right from that screen to know that this IS my person. Clicking on that record shows additional information.

Now, how to get that information into Family Tree Maker. The Web Search Workspace, in the Lower Right box, has a Web Clipping feature. This is where you select data and create information that will be merged into Family Tree Maker.

The above in in the Lower Right box. Hovering the mouse over that 1st ICON on the Right, and clicking on that ICON will Enable the Clipping feature.

Once it is enable, you hi-light (drag your mouse across) the Name, in this case. With the Name selected this window will open where you select that type of information that you have selected. In this case, Name.

You then go to the next piece of information you want

Will select the Death Date, and in the pop-up window, select Death, Date.

Other items were also selected. But want to point out that somethings there will be another window that opens. I wanted to capture that he was a Shoemaker. Selecting Shoemaker the only Fact that is offered is Other, and will want shoemaker into the description field.

Here is where the other window appears. It will be a list of Facts in your file, in this case, Occupation is that Fact.

So now the Shoemaker information will be in the Description field for the Occupation Fact.

As you select these fields, they will appear in the lower right box. This is where you can compare this new information against the data in your existing file for this person.

Once this is reviewed, then you click on the Merge ICON.

You now will be presented with the normal Web Merge Screens, where you can further define what you want included in the Merge.

I noted that in the third choice, the Shoemaker description was going to be discarded. I don't want that information to be discarded. I had a date and locate in the Left Panel (information in my file), but in the Family Search screen, it only provided the occupation. So, I need to change Discard to Alt. That is done with the pull down menu on the right end of Discard.

The Next button will provide the Merge Summary.

Merge Now will complete the transaction.

Returning to the People Workspace, Person View, we can review what was just done.

The birth date and location is hi-lighted above, and the Citation is in the RH Panel.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - Practical AP and FTM2012 TreeSync™ test

2011-12-20T15:36:00.003-05:00

In our continuing dialog, Randy Seaver posted two Blog posts while he was using the iPhone Ancestry AP. His first blog post was not successful, nor as expected. Ancestry Member Trees, Family Tree Maker 2012, and the iPhone Ancestry App. One of the Family Tree Maker developers, Mr. Duff Wilson, posted a reply, as did I.

I also posted my experience using the iPad2 Ancestry AP. Ancestry Member Trees, Family Tree Maker 2012, and the iPad Ancestry App

In turn, Randy posted a more recent experience: Ancestry Member Trees, Family Tree Maker 2012, and the iPhone Ancestry App - Post 2

The file that I am using, in FTM2012 is uploaded any is Synced in my Ancestry Member Tree (AMT). Randy is an Editor to that file. So, he made some updates, using his iPhone to the AMT. When I opened FTM2012 I had indications that the AMT had been updated, in the Plan Workspace.

The text and the Down Arrow are my indications that something was updated as well as the three time stamps. I selected the SyncNow button.

Here is a brief summary of what as done.

One new person, 7 people changes, 3 new sources added, 13 citations added. Randy must have been busy.

Clicking on the View Details button:

Provides some additional detail of what happened. This is only the top part, but the next screen will be at the end of this list.

There are the 3 new Sources and the 15 Citations that were added.

Note: the Sync Process is NOT yet complete as the Media files need to be downloaded.

Will check the Media Workspace when the download is complete.

Check mark and In-Sync, with the Media Complete status in the lower left corner of that screen. So the Media files should be in the Media Workspace.

They are. Just to ensure that they are there, I used Windows Explorer, to look at what was in the Media folder associated with this Family File.

Please note the date/time stamp of these files, specifically for the 1850 Census Media file. The bottom one, 1850 United States Federal Census.jpg is the file I downloaded in my earlier post, so the 1850 United States Federal Census-1.jpg file, and the files in between, are the images that Randy had merged in the AMT with his iPhone.

I won't describe how I handle these filenames, as I have done so in the past. But, I want to see what the Sources Workspace looks like, since these Media Files are linked to the Citation.

This is the Sources Workspace, with the Citation with the 1850 Census Image is linked to. By clicking on the Media Tab, the Details of that image are resented and confirmed the Filename of that image.

The Name and Facts are listed on the right. So, to Charles Auble's People Workspace, Person View.

The first column indicates a Citation is there and it has that Media file, the #1 in the second column. With the Media Tab in the Right Hand Panel selected, that same image is presented there.

Thank you Randy for updating this "joint project" with your iPhone. The results were the same as when I updated the same AMT with the iPad2.

Lesson Learned: The mobile APs from Ancestry, with FTM2012 and the new TreeSync™ feature, worked as expected..

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Ancestry Member Trees, Family Tree Maker 2012, and the iPad Ancestry App

2011-12-20T02:35:00.001-05:00

My Blogging friend, Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, posted this earlier in the day.

Ancestry Member Trees, Family Tree Maker 2012, and the iPhone Ancestry App

Randy has an iPhone and I have an iPad2. So, I should be able to duplicate his findings. Since I am working with a file that I created from his file, we have the same basic information. I have been doing additional research, working on his Brick Wall.

I opened the Ancestry AP on my iPad2, located David Auble found the 1850 Census Record and added it to the Ancestry Member Tree (AMT). Sorry, no screen captures for that, but I followed his blog post.

I then opened FTM2012 and verified that I had not included the 1850 Census in FTM2012, which I had not. Before I close the file down, it do a Manual SyncNow. The Sync ICONs on the Plan Workspace, and in the upper right corner of the People Workspace, Person View, indicated the hi-lighted down arrow, indicating that the AMT had an update and that a Sync was needed. Here is the Change Log.

The first thing I noticed, that was new for me, was the Repository (1) indication, where iOS Application was New. The Facts are marked, the Source and Citation was also marked.

I went to the People Workspace, Person view and looked to see if a new, 1850 Residence Fact was there.

As you can see, it is there, along with a 1 in the second column, which indicates that the Citation has a Media file.

To check that out, I went to the Media Workspace and there was a New, 1850 Federal Census Record image there.

I was not able to duplicate the "no show" of the Media File when you did the same set of tasks. It is clear that your People Workspace, Person View, that there is NOT a 1 in the 2nd column on the Residence Workspace.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 Is Now Available!

2011-12-15T11:23:00.001-05:00

Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 Is Now Available!

from Family Tree Maker Blog by Tana L. Pedersen

Today Ancestry.com announced the release of Family Tree Maker for Mac 2, an updated and expanded version of the world’s No. 1-selling family history software, now with TreeSync™, a feature which lets you sync one desktop family tree and one online tree on Ancestry.com. With TreeSync now you can access and update your tree wherever you are whether it’s through Family Tree Maker, Ancestry.com, or using the Ancestry iPhone or iPad apps. And sharing your tree is easier than ever. Simply email invitations to family and friends and they can view your online tree or collaborate with you.
Other improvements in Family Tree Maker for Mac 2 include:

New Mac-only features. Now you can capture photos using your iSight or built-in camera and import it directly into Family Tree Maker. And if you’re using OS X Lion, you can take advantage of the new full-screen capability—with one click fill your entire desktop with the Family Tree Maker workspace.
Easy-to-understand combined family view. The family group view has a new “blended families” option that lets you display all of a couple’s children in one location, including stepchildren and adoptees. An icon next to a child’s name lets you see at a glance whether he or she is the child of the father, the mother, or both parents.
More Ancestry integration. Find other Ancestry members who are searching for your ancestors by viewing Member Connect activity in the expanded Web Dashboard. You’ll also see links to message boards and notification of your new Ancestry messages.
Enhanced performance. Now you can choose the type of Internet connection you’re using, which allows Family Tree Maker to tailor how it downloads information from the Web. Uploading and downloading speeds have been improved, and there is an increased ability to upload large files to Ancestry.com.
New image collection. Create beautiful family trees and reports with a variety of new backgrounds and images.

To purchase Family Tree Maker for Mac 2, visit our store; the software is also available at select retailers such as Amazon.com, Fry’s, and MicroCenter.

FTM2012 Patch - New Feature - Ancestry Media

2011-12-08T11:12:00.001-05:00

FTM2012 - Version 21.0.0.452

With the recent patch for FTM2012 there were several new features added. Here is another one of them.

Option to include/exclude Ancestry media in synced trees

Prior to the patch, Ancestry media file were included in the TreeSync™ feature. Some more extensive Ancestry Member Trees (AMT), the downloading of the media files could be time consuming. We we now have a new option.

From the Plan Workspace, the pull down menu to the right of SyncNow, Options, has some new choices.

Clicking on Sync Options will present you with:

With the Check Mark, as see above, the Citation Media files will be downloaded when the Manual Sync is done.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 Patch - New Feature - Undocumented Facts

2011-12-08T08:38:00.001-05:00

FTM2012 - Version 21.0.0.452

With the recent patch for FTM2012 there were several new features added. Here is one of them.

As you enter your data into Family Tree Maker, every once in a while you may miss adding a Citation to a Fact. The new Undocumented Fact Report has be added to help identify those Facts without documentation or Citations.

Go to the Publish Workspace, Source Collection and the new report will be there.

Clicking on the Generate or double clicking on the report ICON will bring up a report.

This gives you the Name of the person and the Facts without a Citation or Undocumented Facts. Double clicking on the Name, for this example, Julianna Howard, the Edit Person screen will appear.

The zero's (0) in that first column indicates that there are no citations for those two facts.

A welcomed new feature.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Patch for Family Tree Maker 2012

2011-12-06T08:15:00.001-05:00

Please use the Help, Check Updates in FTM2012 to receive an important Update.

This update contains important improvements to the Family Tree Maker 2012 product. The improvements address issues with overall stability and performance as well as the new TreeSync™ feature.

These improvements include:

Fixed

1.TreeSync Improvements

Multiple sync errors fixed

Sync upload/download, and incremental sync performance improvements

Implied relationships are created on AMT now

3 hour media download time out fixed

Sync indicators, icons, states, and sync refresh messaging issues

Improved handling of deleted relationships

2.General Performance Improvements

Faster import (from all formats)

Faster sync change log generation and display

Improved media refresh, thumbnail creation,

Improved handling of source citation pasting and changes

3.GEDCOM Import/Export, fixed a number of issues (missing/unsupported tags, duplication of media, missing media links)

4.Pasting source citation, fixed failure to paste citations to name facts

5.Place name parsing, fixed issues related to country and place modifiers

6.Login, fixed Web Search login issue

7.Maps, fixed accuracy of maps

8.Media download, fixed issue where duplicate media items were downloaded in some cases

9.Media copy/link, fixed problem where media was copied in cases where it should have been linked

10.Smart Stories, fixed issue where smart stories were not updating correctly in some cases

11.Conflict resolution, fixed issue where the sex fact was not handled correctly in conflict resolution

12.Conflict resolution, fixed issue where citation and media conflicts were reported unnecessarily

13.Clearer & safer option for deleting online trees from Ancestry

14.Title for Extended Family Chart is left justified by default

New

15.Ability to sync accepted and rejected hints between FTM & Ancestry

16.Option to include/exclude Ancestry media in synced trees

17.Undocumented Facts Report

18.Outline Descendant Report, Option to list only direct descendants between an ancestor and one descendant

19.Task List, Options to include/exclude task attributes and reclaim space for items excluded

20.Data Errors Report, Added option to list event dates that are not valid

21.Ability to select multiple facts in the source citation link dialog

It is important that this update be run.

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 19 - Unrelated People

2011-12-04T17:41:00.001-05:00

One of the post merging tasks is to check for any "islands" or people without relationships. What I hadn't looked at in the 2nd GEDCOM file, was for any data errors. But I ran the Data Error Report on this merged file and found some errors that need to be addressed.

Going to the Publish Workspace, Person Collection, selecting the Data Error Report. There is an Items to Include ICON. Since I know that I will have illegal characters for the 5 underscores (_____) for unknown names, I removed that option. Also removed missing birth and marriage dates, as I know there are many missing.

Want to make sure that All Individuals is selected in the right hand panel and generate the report. There was one Potential Error that I expected was "This individual's children sort order may be incorrect." (in blue) Afterall, there may have been additional children added to a family. That is easy to resolve on the People Workspace, Family View, with the Sort Children ICON on the right of the Marriage Line.

What I wasn't expecting was a series of "This individual has no parents, no children, and no spouses". (in red)

Here is where the payoff was for putting a Citation on ALL Facts that reflected where the information (fact) came from. Each of the items on this 2 page report, came from the 2nd file, or the file that I merged into my initial file.

The next task will be to Identify each of these people and add a New Task. For these Data Error Tasks, I use the exact wording that is in the Data Error Report.

Looking at the Family View and the mini-pedigree chart, each of these people, in the report have no relationships.

Lesson Learned: After a merge of two files, run a Data Error Report.

For this issue, I will go back and review that 2nd file that I had backed up BEFORE the merge, to see if this was an issue in that file, with the potential of being a GEDCOM issue.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 TreeSync™ Frequently Asked Questions

2011-12-04T12:06:00.001-05:00

There is a very handy FAQ Knowledge Base article on the FTM2012 with TreeSync™ on Ancestry. or Please go to the Knowledge Base website:

http://ancestry.custhelp.com/

and enter 5362 in the Search Support field and click on the Search Button.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 18 - Research Log

2011-12-03T21:05:00.001-05:00

As you may have noticed, I am a follower of many blogs, but for working with genealogy software, Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is on my list. He had a posting on Research Logs in Genealogy Software

I made an attempt to respond: FTM2012 Research Log I wasn't really happy with that post. Today I thought that I would take a little closer look at FTM2012 for a Research Log. I haven't really used this before, but I was doing some research finding a lot of Negative results. In that past, if I didn't find anything the first time, I would probably go back and research again. Today was one of those "but I already looked there and didn't find anything". So, I went to the People Workspace, Person View, Note Tab, but selected the 2nd ICON, which is the Research Log for that person. Here is what I entered:

I entered the Date, the Website and how I did the search, with the results. Although this example was all negative, I did have some positive results which I also recorded.

That's the input, but how does that help? What does the output look like?

Went to the Publish Workspace, Person Collection, Notes Report. Selected All Individuals and put a check mark in the Research Notes item on the right.

The blue box shows the positive result, and the red box the negative. I will save this report as a Research Log and refer to it from time to time.

Lesson Learned: This is a Research Log in FTM2012.

Thank you Randy for the Challenge.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 17 - Merge Clean Up

2011-12-03T11:19:00.001-05:00

In File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 15 - Merge Files

I mentioned an issue that needed to be addressed. When merging files, that have a common source, there may be duplication of information in the Notes section for a person. (People Workspace, Person View, Notes Tab.

The two files that were merged in Part 15, came from a common source, that is Randy's main file. A review of the Notes of each person, I found this. (as an example)

The information in Red is a duplicate of that in Blue. So any one that was in both files and have notes, may have this duplication of information in those notes. Each of these notes will need to be edited to remove the duplication.

A Custom Report for everyone with Notes can be created to identify people with Notes. The problem in the custom report is that Fact Notes and Person Notes are included in that Custom Report.

Going back to that Merge Screen, talked about in Part 15: (below, left column, either To Review or Merged), a review of each of them against the Custom Report will show whose Notes need to be reviewed for duplication.

This is not a new issue when Merging files.

Lesson Learned: Review the Notes for each person involved in the merging of two files.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 16 - Notes to Description

2011-12-03T07:13:00.001-05:00

Discovered another Clean Up issue, when importing a GEDCOM file into FTM2012. The issue is the difference of opinion on where certain information goes and how many fields are associated with a Fact or Event. I will NOT get into any finger pointing, only that when a GEDCOM file is imported, and the probably goes between any genealogy software program receiving or sending a GEDCOM file.

The specific issue here is a Burial Fact. In Family Tree Maker there are three fields. Date, Place, and Description. The GEDCOM that was imported had another field, apparently, called Address.

Family Tree Maker wants us to enter the Cemetery Name into the Description field. This has been true for many previous versions of FTM, probably back to version 4, when we separated the Place and Description with a slash. Place / Description.

When reviewing the file, there were a number of Facts with Notes. Opening the Notes as a note like: Address Woodlawn Cemetery.

There is a "1" in the third column on the Left and selecting the Notes tab, is the "Address: Woodlawn Cemetery.

In this Blog Post: How to create a Cemetery Listing. I showed how to create a Cemetery Report and that the Cemetery Name comes from the Description field. So, it is important to me to move that Cemetery Name from the Burial Notes field to the Burial Description Field.

Copy and Paste Cemetery Name and remove the word Address from the notes field, as, in this specific case, want the Notes number to be zero.

Now the Cemetery Report will provide the cemetery name.

Lesson Learned: Check the Notes following the importing of a GEDCOM file as there may be information that needs to be moved into the Description field for a Fact in Family Tree Maker.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 15 - Merge Files

2011-12-02T20:16:00.001-05:00

Continuing this File Sharing and Brick Wall theme, Genea-Blogger Randy sent me an Email with a GEDCOM file attached, of the Ancestor's of William Knapp's wife, Sarah Cuter. I had spend the afternoon on a road trip to where William and Sarah where married, and many Cutter's are buried.

As is my practice, I do not JUST merge files. I take a little time to "get a handle" on the new file. I did the same "clean up" on this new file as I did with the first file, documented in this series.

The next thing, in preparation for Merging of these two files, is to do a File, Back Up on both files. From the Plan Workspace, I clicked on the More button to get the Statistics on both files.

This is new New file.

This is the file that I have been using for my research:

I kept this working file (GEDCOM for Blog) file open and clicked on File, Merge.

The next screen is a suggestion to Back Up your file.

Since I had just backed up both files, I clicked on No. But I suggest that if you are merging files that you Back Up your file using the YES on this screen. Then you will see the files starting to be merged. They HAVE NOT been merged yet. You must select the file that you want merged into the currently open file. The File is selected.

The next screen is asking if you want to Merge the two files, OR Append this 2nd file to the currently open file. I chose to Merge the files.

The next screen is the MERGE WIZARD screen. What is important on this screen is to completely review each entry in the Right Hand Panel, for each Person in the Left Hand Panel.

In the RH Panel, you will have three choices, Select the Preferred Fact, you can Discard an item, or you can choose the item to be set at an Alt. Fact. You select the Preferred fact like the Birth Fact, below, where I selected the Birth Date and Place. That made the Birth Date become Discard but I changed that to Alt.

The LH Panel, has three sections: For Review, Merged, and New. Each person SHOULD be selected and the data reviewed BEFORE the Merge Button is selected. The Merge Button on this screen is to Merge everyone in the LH Panel. I do NOT recommend that you do you that until you have reviewed all of the data.

.

Clicking on the Merge button will cause the two files to be merged.

The Plan Workspace, MORE button shows that some new people have been added, as expected.

A quick review of the file does not show too many issues, so I did a SyncNow to update the Ancestry Member Tree.

What was really nice is that ALL of the Tasks that I had entered into the new file came through into the Merged File.

Lesson Learned: Back Up your files before any Merge and check the results before moving one.

There will be a follow up post on one issue that w.s observed.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 14 - Maps

2011-12-01T12:37:00.001-05:00

So, I continue to track William Knapp, in hopes of finding his parents.

The more I look, the question list gets longer.

Decided to use the Map feature, within the Places Workspace, and selecting a Person, rather than a Place to track William's Journey. Consider the Map:

The record that have have found, shows that he was born in Dutchess County, New York. After considering that what is not Putnam county was also Dutchess County when he was born. It wasn't until 1812 that Putnam County was created.

Looking at where he was born, with the little detail that we have, and where he died, it's a pretty straight line between Dutchess County and Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey. In fact, there is a road that pretty much connects those two places. Along that road (Rt94) you'll pass through Goshen, New York on your way to Newton. Having driven that road, stopped at a couple of cemeteries, I found Knapp's along the way, with several large families in and around Goshen, part of my wife's ancestry.

But, now let's through in where William Knapp was Married.

Again, this was generated by FTM2012, just added the boxes to see the three points a little clearer. By car today, that would be about a 5 hour trip, mostly interstate. Remembering this is between 1775 and 1804, and adding a "what if" here, What IF "Dutchess County" was really closed to Poughkeepsie and there was more "commercial" boat traffic on the Hudson River connecting Albany, north of or upstream from Poughkeepsie down to New York City, or over to Newark or another New Jersey landing, what does that do?

That changed the "distance" issue that was in my mind, back into reality. Another mode of transportation, the Hudson River, makes the trip so much easier.

OK, so far, just now need to find the reason for the move, remembering that he was a Shoemaker.

Lesson Learned: Use the Map feature to see the migration path of the person, or people you are researching. But, keep history in mind. I was stuck in the reality of today (car) verses the mode of transportation of the late 1700's in mind.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 13 - To Do List

2011-12-01T10:15:00.001-05:00

Took a couple of days to actually do some research and to give a presentation on Family Tree Maker 2012 to a local Family History Interest Group. The great thing about working on this Brick Wall, is that I was able to share some of the experiences of the Brick Wall as part of the FTM2012 presentation. Use of some of the new features, as shared here, were examples for this group.

My colleague and friend is exploring Roots Magic 5, specifically, in the area of the Research Manager. Exploring RootsMagic 5 - Post 2: The Research Manager

Earlier, I posted about File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 5 - Task List.

I am afraid, from what I have read, they aren't quite the same. That is, Research Log and a Task List or To Do List.

This post will talk about the Task List.

Instead creating a bunch of screens on the Task feature, a screen capture of what is in the Help Menu might be helpful. To get there, click on Help, select the Index Tab, then scroll down to Tasks. The View selection provides some details on how to use the Task List.

When I am working with Tasks, I keep in mind a couple of things: 1) Tasks for a Person, 2) Generic Tasks for the File, and 3) File Notes.

File Notes: These notes are for generic notes that I want to include about the file, so that if I were to share the file with another researcher, it might answer some of the "why did he do that" questions. An example for this file is: Identify Parents

Another is: If document says "of" a place, will be reflected with a Residence Fact

I make all of my File Notes High Priority Tasks. No specific reason, but what them visible when I open the file.

What I am trying to relate in the first Task is that when I seen a reference to a person, and the reference says [ person's name ] is "OF" [ place ] that I will put that place name into the Residence Fact. That has helped me, in the past, to track where a person lived over time.

The second task here, is assigned to William Knapp (on the right side of the screen), as the Task is Identify Parents, of William Knapp. That Task will appear on the Task tab, in the People Workspace, Person View for William Knapp.

There are also Task Categories / Locations. The First Task is in a Category of File Notes, so that all of the File Notes can be seen by selecting that Category, and the Identify Parents has a Category of Locate. I keep these, as High Priority. Any other File Notes, will end up in the High Category, but I will have other "locate" items, but with a lower priority, as with trying to locate a document, or a book.

Right now, and this will certainly change, I have the following Categories.

Census - Census Related
Clean Up - To clean up an item for the file or a person
Conflict - Need to Resolve conflicting information
File Note - Notes about the file
Locate - Find a item
Review - Review data already entered, or another document

To see this list, I clicked on the Filter ICON

This ICON allow me to select only those Tasks for a select(ed) Category. Clicking on that ICON will bring up this screen.

Here is a couple of examples of the Tasks:

You will notice check marks in a number of these items. That means that they are one. I reviewed the Birth notes for David Auble, and the Residence notes for him. I cleaned up a couple of times, one for the file, where I removed all of the Death Description = Y from the GEDCOM, and I cleaned up Burial Notes for William Knapp.

There is one Conflict list above, where I need to resolve some conflicting information about Sarah Smith.

This task list helps me understand the work that needs to be done, or the work that HAS been done in this file. Again, generically or for a specific person.

A couple of days ago, I sent Randy an update on the work that I had done. I did that from the Publish Workspace, Person Category, Task List report.

Here is a sample of that report.

The two High Priority items are listed first, and that conflict is the 4th item. If an Item is complete, there will be a check mark in the Status Box.

There are controls over what is in this report, as with other reports and charts in FTM2012.

One of the nice features about the Task List, from the Plan Workspace, is that you can get to a specific person's Task, but high lighting that person's name, and clicking on the GoTo button in the upper right corner of the Plan Workspace.

People Workspace, Person View:

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 12 - Research Begun

2011-11-27T01:00:00.001-05:00

Just an update. The clean up of the database is done. Really happy with the information that was provided. Great research has been documented, as I expected. But, now to get to this brick wall.

There are some hints for me to look at a little deeper. I find that the Find-A-Grave website can provide some hints. Some times the headstones have more information then what might be on Find-A-Grave, but there are hints.

Recently, I discovered a way to keep track of relationships that might be clear in Census Records and Find-A-Grave information. How? With the use of the Name Fact Notes screen. It's in the People Workspace, Person View. I have been putting these Notes in the Preferred Name Fact. An entry might look like this:

Find-A-Grave links William Knapp to Sarah Cutter as wife
Find-A-Grave links David Auble to spouse Sarah G Knapp, and her parents William Knapp and Sarah Cutter
1880 Census links David Auble to Parents Birth States; Spouse; Sarah G Auble; Children: Charles Auble; Fannie Auble; Katherine Auble; Anna M Auble

This shows two Find-A-Grave findings and an 1880 Census Record. In the Find-A-Grave pages, the relationship was noted. In these two examples, the Headstone was NOT on the page. I visited the Cemetery, but it was locked. I will re-visit the burial ground to take pictures.

It also shows a possible Task / To Do List item. In this example, David Auble has a daughter, in the database of Frances M, while I have now seen twice a reference to Fannie. Could the Census Record be wrong? But, I have found that my having a note dedicated to tracking relationships has been very helpful.

These notes are NOT available in the Ancestry Member Tree (ATM) screens. That's good, as they are my notes. BUT I can pull a report on Notes.

There was a reference to an old Book for the Cutter Surname. That is of interest, at the moment, because Sarah Cutter is William Knapp's wife's name. What brought William Knapp and Sarah Cutter together, one from Dutchess County, New York and the other from Woodbridge, New Jersey. Perhaps there is a hint in that book. I found it as a Google Book and have been reviewing what was provided. I am able to put Sarah's family together, with an ancestor who was in the Revolutionary War. There appears to be a pull back to that part of New Jersey once William dies. There may be a couple of other surnames in the book that has connections to William.

Several times, looking at some census records, Shoemaker, as a trade shows up.

In an earlier post by Randy, he brought up the topic of a Research Journal. It's not clear to make that Family Tree Maker has a good way to do this, but what I started to do, is to Share, using Dropbox, the Status of my ToDoList. The ToDo / Task List is not part of the TreeSync™ feature of FTM2012. But it does indicate what has been done, and what needs to be done. The other view, is to look at the Sources list. Glancing down the Source Workspace, it is already showing the number of Citations that are in the Source Group list. If there is a Source with very few, or no Citations, that indicates one of two things. 1) haven't looked at it, or 2) nothing found in it. Adding those Sources to the Task List, not assigned to a person, will show what has been looked at and what hasn't.

But, the search has begun. Randy's research log and notes are pretty clear that records may be few and far between. So the search has to be broader.. Will be looking at that Revolutionary War ancestor of Sarah my give a clue.

The next task will be to look at the history of Dutchess County, to see what was going on in the late 1700's that would cause William to head "south" to New Jersey.

Lesson Learned: Broaden the research, step sideways then back. Check out some history.

The "sideways" in this context is looking at his wife's ancestry.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 11 - Comment and Status

2011-11-26T13:32:00.001-05:00

I want to make a couple of comments, as the Clean Up is almost complete.

The file that I received has 86 People in the file. All 460 Facts have now been documented at least once, with where and when the GEDCOM came from. So, the Search can begin.

My comments about "clean up" are NOT a reflection on anyone, nor any software program. The GEDCOM file was generated by Roots Magic 4, and Family Tree Maker Version 2012 opened that GEDCOM file.

It is NOT my intent to say one program is right nor wrong, only that the End User may have work to do, on that GEDCOM file before merging that information into their own file. And, don't forget to Back Up the file as you go. Don't rely on any "automatic" back up that any program does. That is my own opinion. The Back Up feature, from what I have seen over the various versions of Family Tree Maker includes some file maintenance that the automatic back up doesn't do.

Each of us, over time, create our own way of using what ever program we use for our Family Research. I certainly have, and change frequently, as I may find a "new" or different way to find what I am looking for. This "clean up" is of my own doing, to bring the file to what I am comfortable in working with it.

Now that the file is pretty clean, still have a couple of things to do, I have posted this FTM2012 file into an Ancestry Member Tree, that is Private, and not searchable, and have Invited Randy to the AMT as Editor.

After reviewing the comments on Randy's Blog and this one, I chose to delete any Death Facts that only carried the "Y" in the Description field. It doesn't contribute to the Brick Wall that is the Task at hand.

For those interested in the overall GEDCOM Issues, please visit the BetterGEDCOM Blog and the BetterGEDCOM Wiki. You might want to get interested in this activity, to share your experience and to help with a solution. Links are:

http://bettergedcom.blogspot.com/

http://bettergedcom.wikispaces.com/

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 10 - Burial Fact Report.

2011-11-26T10:55:00.001-05:00

In the continuing effort to clean up this file, the Burial Fact "problem" was identified here:

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 9 - Burial Fact

The problem now is to determine how much work is this and is it worth the time to clean this up. For me it is, especially so that Cemetery locations and what information might be on a Headstone may be important in breaking down a brick wall. (probably not in this case) but the family patterns might be important. The Cemetery Report that was mentioned in that lost blog post is nice in that you can see multiple cemeteries based on the Place Name.

Need another Custom Report to see what work needs to be done. Will go to the Publish Space, Person Collection, and select Custom Report.

The first ICON in the Right Hand Panel, left end of that panel is the Items to Include ICON. Clicking on that will bring up the Items to Include Screen. In this case, the "default" Fact, Birth , Marriage, and Death facts will be selected, but will add Burial. To the right, the Fact Notes are checked. So, if there are any Name, Birth, Marriage, Death, and Burial Facts that have NOTE's will be included in the Report.

It may be overkill for this issue, but, I want to see all of the notes. In order to see the Notes in the Fact information will be displayed.

The above example show some additional Notes, which is why I made the selections that I did. May have to review other facts later on, but this is still in the Clean Up mode.

This report was 7 pages long, but I know who I have to look at a little more closely for this, not so obvious, information.

Since this report appears to be of use, I want to Generate this Report later on to see how the Clean Up is doing.

With the Report still on the screen, looking in the RH Panel, far right ICON, is the Save Report Option. This will save this report in the Saved Report Menu. I named this report "Custom Report for Fact Notes, and the report name is in the bottom field, and added to the list of Saved Reports.

Lesson Learned: If you create a Custom Report or any Chart or Report that is helpful, use the Save Report Feature.

Note: if Selected Individuals are part of the set up of the Report, remember to bring up again,port again, and re-do the Filtering that was done the first time. The key for me, is in the Naming of the Saved Report.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 9 - Burial Fact

2011-11-26T10:27:00.001-05:00

While cleaning up the import of the GEDCOM file, I noted that there were not Cemeteries Listed. There were hints in the notes, that there were some Burial's where the cemetery was known. I for one, use burial information, as some headstones can provide clues to my research.

There was also a number of persons who had Notes for the Burial Fact.

Having done some testing in this area (GEDCOM between Roots Magic 4 and Family Tree Maker) I thought I knew what the problem was.

Take for example this entry:

It is noted that in the third column of numbers on the Burial Fact, there is a "1". That means that there is a Note for this Burial Fact.

Secondly, the Burial Fact, in the RH Panel only shows two fields, Date, and Place. Looking an the Help Menu in Family Tree Maker, it says:

If you have imported all or portions of your tree, you may need to edit many facts to correct information. For example, you may have recorded cemeteries in the Place field of the Burial fact. You can easily move the cemetery information to the Description field using the Fact Data Options dialog box.

So, we need to look at or Add the Description field for the Name of the Cemetery.

The advantage here is the ability to generate a Cemetery Report. I talked about there here:

How To Generate an Address Report

To change the Fact Properties, select the Fact, then Options, and in the Drop Down menu, Fact Properties.

The current Burial Fact Properties only will display Date / Place. Selecting Date / Place / Description will add the Description field.

Please note, that within FTM2012, the ability to Edit the Fact Sentence was added. Will leave that along for the moment.

The Description field was added, but there was no information in that field. Remembering my experience with Roots Magic 4 last year, I remembered that RM4 and FTM2011 don't "agree" on what do do with the Name of the Cemetery. RM4 uses an Address Field, while Family Tree Maker, according to the Help Menu uses the Description field for that. The Cemetery Report shows the advantage for that.

Noting that there is a "1" in the Notes column and selecting the Notes Tab, the "address" field and cemetery name is listed. Another Clean up task for this person. That is, moving the Nates information into the Description Field. Copy and Paste will do that.

A follow up post will describe how to generate a Custom Report to Identify what needs to be cleaned up.

Lesson Learned: How different genealogy programs handle the Burial Fact and where the Name of the Cemetery will appear.

I'll let Randy show the Roots Magic 4 View of the Burial Fact, if he so chooses.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - "Y" in Death Fact

2011-11-25T21:22:00.001-05:00

As a follow up to an earlier post, for the Clean Up of this GEDCOM file, Randy just posted his study of the issue. His genealogy software is Roots Magic 4, and he wanted to see what the cause of the "Y" in the Death Fact that I was seeing. He posted the following: The Strange "Y" in a Death Description Field in a RootsMagic 4 GEDCOM File

What is important about that blog post, is a comment from Roots Magic.

Wanting to test what Randy's theory is and the comment about the GEDCOM "spec", I ran a test but creating a Custom Report for Everyone in the File, with the report showing Birth fact information, and Death fact information, including the Death Description, where we were seeing the "Y".

The report shows that if there is a Birth and Death fact, with date, there will be no "Y". If there IS a Birth fact and no Death Date or Death Place, there will be a "Y" in the Death Description field.

Lesson Learned: Not every software vendor implements or interprets the GEDCOM standards the same way.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 8 - Import Citations

2011-11-25T20:21:00.001-05:00

The last major piece of the preparation of this file for use, is to put a Citation on Each Fact that was provided by the GEDCOM. It's not important to me, at this point, to know where my Genea-Blogging Colleague got the data from. In fact, the GEDCOM process may have interfered with the Citation being imported into FTM2012. That has happened to me before.

If this was a serious file for me to consider to be included / merged into my own file, this step might look a little different. No Citations would normally raise issues for me.

A feature that was lost many versions ago, was that importing any GEDCOM file into Family Tree Maker would include some information about who the file came from and the date of Import into Family Tree Maker. Many users complained about that feature so when Version 2008 came out, that "feature" was dropped.

For the purposes of the Brick Wall problem, I want to be able to see what Facts came with the file, and what data was added to the file for sharing later.

The first thing that I normally do, when I pick up a new Document, or in this case an Email with a GEDCOM file, is to go to the Sources Workspace and create a Source. A new source can be added in a number of ways, but I have found that I keep myself out of trouble by starting with the Source Workspace. Do I already have a Source for this document? is one of the reasons that I start there. In the older versions of Family Tree Maker, we had the Master Source list. The Source list is much like that and serves the same purpose, but just called Source.

Since Family Tree Maker started to offer the Evidence Explained! Templates, I try to use them when ever possible. The Output is really cleaned up and consistent, in the Bibliography, EndNotes, etc.

Going to the Sources Workspace, clicking on Add in the upper right, a window will open, where "new" will be selected. I have found that using the Key Word search (3 characters) is the easiest way to select the right Template. For this example, EMA (for email) will be the key word that I will enter on the More line.

The first choice is Person Email.

A blank screen will be presented to be filled out. Because there is some private information that I will enter I will not show a screen capture of the completed screen, but the Field information and the field hints will help you complete this template.

The completed Source screen is here, with the information for the Citation. The Citation Detail says "11/24/2011 GEDCOM file Received and Imported into FTM2012". That is what is important for me in this specific file. But is very useful when sharing data with another researcher.

The Citation has been created but not linked anywhere.

The next step is to start to apply the Citations to all Facts. Looking at the First Person in the Index, there are NO Citations, for what ever reason. That isn't important to me for this Brick Wall. The source information may still be in my colleague's database.

Clicking on New, for the Name Fact, in the RH Panel of Sources, will select Use Existing Source Citation, because the Source and Citation as already been entered.

Choosing that Source and Citation is done next.

Again, part of that Citation is whited out on purpose. But that is the Existing Citation for this first Fact.

The subsequent "Use Existing Source Citation" is used, FTM2012 will "remember" your last selection, so you don't have to scroll down to the Citation, it will have a very light background so that you can tell it has been selected.

The end result for this first person now looks like this.

This step will be repeated for each of the 86 people in this file. Time consuming, yes, and it is not necessary, if that is your choice.

Lesson Learned: Document what information you find, or in this case, what you were given.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 7 - Clean Up Notes

2011-11-25T17:56:00.001-05:00

This is a continuation of what might be done when sharing information from another researcher. I am using a specific file as an example to help my colleague Randy Seaver of the Genea-Musings Blog. I encourage to follow his side of this story, as well as her other MOST interesting Blog posts.

This next task is to identify everyone in the file who has a Person Note. The issue here is caused by the way GEDCOMs are marked, sent, and received. In this case, my initial review showed extra spaces in the notes. I talked about this here: File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 4 - Person Review

The easiest way for me to know who has Notes, would be to generate a Custom Report. This report is in the Publish Workspace, Person Collection, and selecting the Custom Report.

Then I want to Name this Report - Custom Report for People with Notes. This naming will help me remember how the report was created, as I will be Selecting ONLY those Persons with Notes. I will be selecting Individuals To Include for this report.

When that button is selected, a "filter" screen will open. There have been other blog posts on this feature. http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/search/label/Filter

On the screen that opens will select "Other", and in the Search Where, will select Any Persons / Fact Notes and keeping "exists". This will move the people who meet that criteria into the Right Hand (RH) Panel.

In this case there will be 12 people with notes.

Now the only thing we want in this report is the Notes and the Name of the Person. In the RH Panel, there are a number of settings, but for this report, we want to select Items To Include, which is the Left most ICON in the RH Panel.

In the Left side of this screen, normally, there is Name, Birth, Marriage, Death Fact. Each with their own control. We only want the Name. To remove a Fact, select it, and click on the "X" on the right.

In the Right side of thew screen, we want ALL of the Notes that are available. There are Person Notes, Fact Notes, Research Notes, Private Notes, and Relationship Notes. We want all.

The report was generated. In this case, it is an 11 page report.

The names are identified as well as their notes. Some people had long notes, other, not much at all.

Creating a new Task was made to "Clean up Spacing in notes", assigned it to the Clean Up Category, and made it a low priority.

While the Notes are being reviewed / cleaned up, I want to run the Spell Checker on the notes. So that was a second task added, as a clean up, and Low Priority.

There are now 42 Tasks in the List. As I added the Tasks, I cleaned up a couple, and ran the Spell Checker on that set of notes. Those that I cleaned up are marked as Complete.

Control over the Task List has been touched on for FTM2009 here http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2008/09/family-tree-maker-2009-tasks.html

Lesson Learned: Importing of a GEDCOM may require some clean up of the data. Its so much easier to do BEFORE it is merged with your own data. Leave some time to do this clean up. Don't be in a hurry. (sounds like a voice from experience).

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 6 - Abt Dates

2011-11-25T13:24:00.001-05:00

FTM2012 - Index of People Report (edit)

In the above blog post I talked about how to use the Index of People Report to edit information already in their record. That same process will be used here to take care of the Abt Dates for Birth , Marriage, and Death Dates. Again, this is my preference, to have something stick out in areas where there is work to do. The option would be to make a To Do list for everyone, but after thinking about it I chose to use the Abt term for these three dates. We have options, and this is the one that has worked for me.

So, to the Publish Workspace, Person Collection, selected the Index of People Report. Reviewed the list, and selected the first person with a year only date.

I selected Aube, David, and double clicked on his Name. You will note, that only the Name will bring up the next screen. On this screen, you can edit the Facts as presented, and in this case I am adding Abt in front of the Date (YYYY).

I had already updated the Birth fact and have selected the Marriage Fact and added Abt there too.

The final result is.

This process was completed for everyone in the file in less time then it took to create this blog post.

Again, this is my preference for handling this situation. The goal here is to help break down a brick wall.

However, what I am posting here, is how I would normally handle my own data, as well as looking a data BEFORE I would consider merging this data into my own file.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 5 - Task List

2011-11-25T12:45:00.001-05:00

In Part 4, I left us with a couple of Tasks.

ToDo List:

Add a Source of the person who sent me this file, and a Citation for Each FACT that is included.

Add "Abt" for Birth, Marriage, or Death Dates.

Clean up the Spacing in the Notes for Individuals with Notes.

Part 5 will show how I will track this work. The first two a generic across the file, while the 3rd item, only impacts those persons with notes.

Going to the Plan Workspace, Current Tree, most of the bottom part of the screen is for the Task List / To Do List. Clicking on New, will bring up a screen where you enter the information about the task. Will use the wording above.

Over time, putting Tasks into Categories may be helpful. For this example, will create a New Category or Clean Up.

It should be noted that the placement of these screens are not what you will see. They have been moved so that that various screens can be seen at one time.

The first generic Task has been entered and the next one, will only have to select the Clean Up Category and select it.

OK, to the third Task, I will specify the people that needs to have their Notes Reviewed. Since I have only looked at one person, will select him, and add a Task to View his notes for the extra Spacing.

The starting point for this is, on the People Workspace, Person View and selecting Tasks. The next screens are the same.

The End Result adds this person's task to the Plan Workspace, but with his name.

By selecting that line, and clicking on Go To, you will be taken back to that Person View in the People Workspace.

One of the features of the Task List / ToDo List, is the ability to prioritize them. I added a Task for our Home Person 'to find his parents', which is the Brick Wall, and that the Spacing Issue isn't that important at this time and will be a little time consuming. So, I lowered it's priority and put the Finding the parents in a higher priority. So the new Plan Workspace looks like this.

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 4 - Person Review

2011-11-25T12:08:00.001-05:00

On to the People Workspace, Person View. Just want to see what is in the Home Persons record. As a review, the right side of the list of Facts, are 3 columns of Numbers. The first column is the number of Citations for that Fact. The second column indicates if that fact has any Media Files, like an Image of a Census Record. The third column indicates if there are any Notes for that Fact.

What is Missing, here for me, is that there is no indication about who provided me with this file, the Facts that were provided in the file, so that I can see later, what I provided. In this specific person's file, there are a couple of Zero's in that first column. It may be that a Citation was not put the Name Fact, or Sex Fact. Not important at this point.

Two other issues, and they are only issues for me, is the Birth Date being 1775, and the spacing in the Person Notes at the bottom of the screen.

When I see Year Only Dates, I choose to make that Abt. YYYY, or Abt 1775 in the case. This becomes a little more important, again this is for me, to see Abt dates for Birth, Marriage, and Death Dates.

The extra spacing in the Notes aren't very important, but they will in the future. That spacing, from what I have seen, is caused by the construction or reading of the GEDCOM file.

ToDo List:

Add a Source of the person who sent me this file, and a Citation for Each FACT that is included.

Add "Abt" for Birth, Marriage, or Death Dates.

Clean up the Spacing in the Notes for Individuals with Notes.

I blogged about the ToDo / Task list already, but for this series, I'll be more specific for this file.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 3a - Why Map

2011-11-25T11:46:00.001-05:00

Perhaps a quick look at the Map feature will shed some light as to why this Place Name feature may be important. After the last post, I went to the Place Workspace, and selected Person, in the Left Hand Panel, drop down menu, to see the journey of the Home Person, based on data that we have so far.

The Right Hand Panel, shows the Facts we have for this person. The Birth (1775) is in Dutchess County, New York (upper right end of line), it is believed that he was married (1804) in Woodbridge, New Jersey, the bottom and mid point in the line, and Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey. (1856).

The brick wall, is to locate the parents of our Home Person. Just this view, might raise some questions, not with the data, but why and how. Is there a reason? Far to early to tell, but there may be a hint in to looking into this movement of our Home Person.

There is another bit of information, not in this file, but this Surname shows up in a location that is almost a direct line between the starting point and ending point that this map shows. Today, there is almost a single road that connects these two end points. So, visually, this points out that the movement over time, of the home person, may help with the Brick Wall.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 3 - Place Names

2011-11-25T11:16:00.001-05:00

Continuing Clean Up of file. Again, this is for my purposes with no reflection on the person who sent me this file, but our common goal is to attempt to attach a brick wall.

Earlier, I addressed how to import a GEDCOM file, then how to address Unknown Names. Each of us needs to identify these unknown names as we each have them.

This next step is to deal with Place Names. For this example, at this point, Historical Place Names may not play a role in this brick wall. But, for me, based on some observations in this file, the use of the Map feature will be important. In the 1700's the travel between Dutchess County, New York, to Woodbridge, New Jersey, to Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey needs to be looked at. For me, at this point, the use of the Map feature is important. Who had an event (or Fact for Family Tree Maker) in the various locations will be important.

Going to the Places Workspace and looking down the Left Column is an ICON that indicates that that Place Name is not in the format that the Place Name Authority (PNA) of Family Tree Maker 'wants' or suggests. This ICON will appear any time a new Place is entered as seen in the upper right of this screen.

At the top of the Left Hand Panel is a Resolve All option (its in that green bar). Clicking on Resolve All will bring up a Chart of all of the Place Names that are not part of the Place Name Authority. However, it is NOT required that we accept or use the PNA. In this specific case, MOST, but not all suggestions will be accepted.

There are four columns. with out check marks. The first column indicates that the user accepts the suggested PNA name. If the list looks like the entry is really a Description, then the 2nd column can be used for that, and there are other choices.

There are several here that I will leave as Unresolved (those in blue). They appear to be valid place names, but at this point, I am just cleaning up the "easy ones". There others can be resolved later. At this point, it's data consistency that is important for me, for this project.

The Unresolved ICONs are still on the left, and they are the ones I chose not to resolve. What is important, at this point, is that I have a good look at who has a Fact that took place in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey AND I can see where it is. There are zooming in and out which will be used later. But This gives me a good handle locations within this file.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 2 - Unknown Names

2011-11-25T10:15:00.001-05:00

Continuing this series of File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 1 - Import and wanting to help a colleague with a Brick Wall, the next step is to take a look at what is in this new file.

There are a couple of things that I want to do here:

Unknown Names
Place Name
Citations

I have a way of handling Unknown Names. I use 5 Underscores, if I don't know a name, be it a given name or a surname. [ _____ _____] for example. Before I started to look at how to do this, I considered the input and the output. What really caught my eye was on the output. People want to help "fill in the blanks". The 5 underscores, from my experience, has helped with this.

The Place Names Authority in Family Tree Maker has a purpose, mostly to get the data consistent but is very helpful when using the Place Workspace, and the Map feature.

In my own file, some times it is obvious that a Place Name is a historical place name, like St. Mary's Parish, Maryland. In this case, I generally will double enter data. Once with the Historical Place name that would be reflected in a document (source) that I am looking at, but I may also include the "current" place name that the Place Name Authority of Family Tree Maker would suggest. I do want to use the Mapping feature. There are resources that may help over lay the Historical Place Name with the Current Place Name.

In this specific case, I am not sure that this will be an issue.

For Citations, I want to see what is and what is not documented AND I want to be able to have a Citation on Every FACT that was included in this imported file. That isn't a feature to do this in FTM2012, but I will show how I did that in this case.

Going to the People Workspace, I wanted to Set the Home Person for this project. I entered Knapp, William in the "Find" field, and right clicked on that name and selected Set As Home Person. The advantage of this is for quickly being able to see any relationship between anyone in the file and this Home Person.

Looking at the Index (Left Hand Panel), here are a few people with our Surnames. C. Mary, Clara, and two Elizabeth's. I will now change them to make their surname _____.

I selected Clara, and entered "_____" (without the quotes) after "Clara" and moved to the next field. Below is the result of that. The Pedigree shows her with the 5 underscores, the Family View, the wife's surname has the same underscores. This is just a reminder that so far, we don't have the surname for this person.

What I did notice on Clara, was the letter "Y" in the Death Fact for her. There isn't a Death Date, nor Place. The Description field would normally be filled in with a more specific location, like "At Home" or the name of a hospital, an address, or a little more detail for where the death took place. If it was a Burial Fact, the Description might be for the name of a Cemetery.

So, what is this "Y" all about?

Looking at Roots Magic 4, there is an option to make a person as "living" when death information is not present. Or said differently, no check mark would indicate that the person had died. Below is a screen capture from Roots Magic 4.

That lack of a Check Mark, in that GEDCOM file, shows up as "Y" in the Death Description filed on import into FTM2012. Running a Custom Report in FTM2012, there were 49 people in this file with this indication. For now, I won't clean this up. Only pointing out A reason to Look carefully at your data before merging a file into your own file.

All of the Unknown Surnames have been updated as seen by the Index on the Left.

Lesson Learned: How do YOU handle Unknown Names?

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

File Sharing and Brick Walls - Part 1 - Import

2011-11-25T09:32:00.001-05:00

Over the past couple of days, I have been helping a Genea-Blogger with a brick wall. I thought that it might be worth some time to document the steps, and perhaps my approach for this type of problem, that is a Brick Wall.

Having worked with file sharing before, there are a couple of things that I like to do from the very beginning. The file sharing that is being used in this case is a GEDCOM generated by Roots Magic 4.

Last year about this time, I had done some testing with file sharing using a GEDCOM from Family Tree Maker to Roots Magic 4. I sent a GEDCOM file to another Genea-Blogger, who was at that point a potential "cousin". However, when my GEDCOM file was opened in RM4, none of my Citation information was brought into Roots Magic. That kicked of the BetterGEDCOM project. I did a lot of testing for that project, trying to show the issues that the GEDCOM process that made file sharing very difficult. I spent a lot of time documenting the information that is in my database, and for it not to show up, was alarming.

All that to say, is I know that there are issues, so when I receive a GEDCOM file I KNOW it want to "clean up" that file before I start to work on it. I want to document what I do, before I start to research with that file.

The GEDCOM file was emailed to me, I detached the email and saved the GEDCOM file on my computer where I know where it is. I then go to the Plan Workspace, New Tree Tab, and select the Import from an Existing file. When the Import is selected a window opens where you navigate to where that file is on the computer.

The filename is put into the filename field at the bottom of that window, then you are asked to Name the Tree. In this case, I named it GEDCOM for Blog. This is the file that will be used to start the clean up process. This is NOT a clean up because of the Sender of the file, but for my own purposes. Some because of what the GEDCOM will do and some for some "standards" that I have found to work for me and my own research.

Just as a reminder, I am only looking for information to help with a Brick Wall. I am not trying to duplicate or create a new tree for the Genea-Blogger. Only, if there is such information, a record or two to help with the brick wall.

When the Continue Button is depressed the Import process begins.

The status of the import is see above. Note that at the 84% mark, there are 3 Errors. In reality, this file was a new file that I received this morning. The first file had 109 Errors. After some investigation by the sender, there were records in the first GEDCOM file that were unique to Roots Magic 4, but eliminating those unique records, were were left with 3 Errors. The sender and I did some investigating into the 109 errors as we both wanted to know what that was about. Which we did. (Unique Roots Magic Data).

After the import is complete a .LOG file is created to allow the user to see some details about the import.

This is the Summary, with some numbers, including the 3 Warnings. Clicking on the View Log File we see:

We had seen these same errors before, so they are not unique to Roots Magic. In reality, this is a pretty clean handoff.

The next post will show what the result is.

Learning: When I receive a GEDCOM file from another researcher, I use this process, especially IF I am considering merging this data into my own file.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 Research Log

2011-11-24T14:05:00.001-05:00

Genea-Blogger Randy Seaver posted an interesting blog post on Research Logs. Research Logs in Genealogy Software.

I had to look to see IF I kept a "Research Log". Family Tree Maker hasn't, in the past, had a good way to keep a research Log as Randy presented a Research Log. However, I have in fact been keeping a Research Log based on the Task Feature or the To Do List.

Here is my ToDo List for one of my files: This in in the Plan Workspace and look at it every time the program opens.

In the above list, there are generic file issues, and people specific items on the To Do List. I keep File notes at High Priority, (none in this file at the moment), and completed items, as Low Priority. When you select one of the Task For lines, and click Go To, you will be taken to that person's Task List.

To Add to a person's Task List, clicking on Task (4th tab), then New, you can enter the task. It's helpful for me to assign a Category to that task, for sorting purposes on the Plan Workspace.

This is also a Research Note ICON on the Person's Note page. It's the 2nd ICON under Notes:

Clicking on that will bring up the Research Notes to that person.

I had discovered that this person had been in the Civil War and I wanted to follow up on that. That is what the Task was, to follow up. I found some information but haven't followed up on getting all of the information into this persons page yet, but wanted to put the link to where I found some of the information.

I also put Sources in the Source workspace that I want to do more research from. So, if I look at my Source List and don't see any Citations, that is a reminder for me that I need to look at that Source a little more closely.

As for reports, the Task list in one of the Reports in the Publish Workspace, in the Person Collection.

Which Template for an Index

2011-11-21T16:07:00.001-05:00

In an ongoing dialog with Genea-Blogger, Randy Seaver, I mentioned to him that I followed a Hint on his Brick Wall, William Knapp. He posted what he found here: Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 27: Doing a Web Search - Case 1 - Source Citations

Randy did a great job of documenting what he did and why. The end result is that he had actually seen the microfilm that had the information on it.

For me, I was having difficulty in selecting the most appropriate Template, within Family Tree Maker that would point me to find that Microfilm, or to the original document that was found.

I did a websearch and found this entry.

I viewed the information in that link:

Confirmed that this was the right person, and noted two things. 1) the Source Information:

Ancestry.com, New Jersey, Deaths and Burials Index, 1798-1971 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011), www.ancestry.com, Database online.and 2) what listed next:

"New Jersey Deaths and Burials, 1720–1971." Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2009, 2010. Index entries derived from digital copies of original and compiled records.

Ancestry's entry in an Index of information, which is where I found it, but that is an Index from FamilySearch.org. I am gussing, that if I go to FamilySearch that I will find the same record, or index.

BUT, this isn't the record, only an index. The record was in a book in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey, was transcribed and sent to the New Jersey Archives. I may get there, so I would want to see the record itself, if it still exists. Randy has seen the Film. I am not looking at the Film, so that isn't the Template I want to use.

After I did the merge, I went to the Sources Workspace, selected the Source that the merge provided, and Clicked on the Pencil ICON to Edit that Source. That will bring up the Edit Source screen. In this case, I wanted to Change the Source to a Template.

Clicking on Change and started to type Death (dea), as a keyword, so see what templates would be available. What seemed to be obvious was that this is a Local Record, from a Vital Record Register. So, I selected that template.

That brings up a screen for me to fill out.

Notice that as you tab through the fields, you will be prompted as to what goes in that field.

New Jersey, Sussex County, Local Jurisdiction would be Newton, etc.

So far, this looks good. But then I looked at the Reference Note for this new Citation:

Newton, Sussex, New Jersey, "New Jersey Deaths and Burials Index, 1798-1971", Database online.; www.ancestry.com.

To me, that Reference Note is what I would "like to be looking at" directly (wishful thinking) and NOT the "Index" that I am actually looking at. So, that isn't the right Template. Had I seen the actual register when I visited Newton last week, that is what I would have selected.

I then went back to Change and didn't use the Keyword but did the manual selection process for an Artifact and Archives, selected Archived Material, and Digital Archives.

Clicking OK brings up this screen;

What that gave me for a Reference Note was:

"New Jersey Deaths and Burials, Index 1798-1971", Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), Online Database.

I'll keep that one. Like Randy, I am not sure that is enough information, but the Citation does tell me that it IS and Index, the name of the Document, and that I was looking at Ancestry.com when I found the information.

At this point, I can now check, since FamilySearch was mentioned, that I could go there to do further searches, especially for the MicroFilm Randy mentioned, or to the New Jersey Archives in Trenton, where this record should be located.

Thank you Randy.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

In search of William Knapp - Follow up for Randy

2011-11-18T17:40:00.001-05:00

A word of caution on this Blog post -- It's not the traditional "how to use" Family Tree Maker blog post.

My friend Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings got me going yesterday. I search for a couple of hours, as I blogged about how I did the search, but ran into the same "brick wall" are he has. Randy has become a good friend, over the Internet and in person, I thought I would help him with this brick wall.

Also, the Knapp surname is not unfamiliar to me. They are all through my wife's family tree. She does quiet well on her own research. BUT, we have on a number of occasions taken a 'road trip' looking for Knapp's. I have many headstone pictures on Find-A-Grave and my Headstone Blog.

Also, Newton is 20 - 25 minutes north of me, and it was a very nice fall day, but my time was limited. I checked the Sussex County Historical Society for their hours and holding. They listed a Flat File for Knapp AND they were open today. Also, the cemetery where William Knapp is buried is "in town" (Newton, NJ).

I asked for the Flat File, the person getting the file paused and sheepishly handing be a folder with 3 small pieces of paper. How can this be? A Shoemaker in town, on only 3 pieces of paper?

There were a couple of other patrons in the genealogy section of the building and one gentleman working on a laptop. I had mentioned that I was working on a brick wall, the parents of, mentioned the name, as the folder was found. Then the voice behind the laptop said "you won't find them". (ouch, that brick wall hurt, ran right into that one)

The voice became a gold mine of information that was "good to know" but had nothing to do with that brick wall I just ran into. What he did say was the Death Certificate was in the Archives in Trenton but the parents weren't listed. I was only a Ledger Entry.

We compared notes on the Death information that I had, and the 1850 Census record I had found. So we were talking about the same person. It wouldn't surprise me if that gentleman hadn't provided some of the data I found last evening.

He had a bunch of information on his laptop. Don't know what, but then he started up a Desktop that was running Windows98. Oh, I am in trouble now.

What he showed me next was a transcription of the 1840 and the 1830 Census records that he had done for Newton Township, which includes the town of Newton. The 1840 Census showed 2 children and a worker. That's about what I had found in the 1850 Census. 1830 showed 8 children. That is getting closer to Randy's 11 children. But, I found some newspaper articles that should be able to explain the "missing children". I will share that newspaper information with Randy via Email.

What I didn't have, was the name of the Newpaper with the Obituary in it, so I can not go look for that specifically. It was the 6/21/1856 Sussex Register.

Besides transcribing Census Records, he specializes in Deeds. In his laptop he has a land transaction that included William Knapp and a property that was a couple of blocks from where I was. The deed was in 1833. I have an Image from the transcribed deed that I will also email to Randy.

My time was up. The folder guy asked if he helped me, of course I said yes, "that will be $15.00". No problem, I am now a member of the Sussex County Historical Society and will go back when I have some more time.

While talking to the group, I mentioned that my wife's Knapp's had been in Goshen, NY. In fact, I had found a William Knapp there before I went to Newton. Wrong person, but they did confirm that the Knapp's were in the area between Newton and Goshen. The both are very near State Route 94, which connects the two towns.

Before I went on my way, I checked out the cemetery. Small, old, CHAINED cemetery.

So, my next trip to Newton will do some more research but will also ask the Historical Society about the Chained Gate into the Cemetery. I would see the cemetery from the front door of the Historical Society.

Learned a new word today, but no one could explain it. It was on the Deed. "Messuage" In context "messuage on Spring Street, Newton where William Knapp currently lived". The Deeds book was Vol. S4 Page 594. (just recording that for future reference).

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Genea-Musings - Knapp in 1850

2011-11-18T02:07:00.001-05:00

As a follow up to my previous post: Genea-Musing - Knapp Hit

I updated what I learned from that first hint / hit and wanted to see what else I might find. So, directly from William Knapp's (People Workspace) Person View, I went back to the Web Search Workspace. Because I have gone there this way, I am taken back to the Web Search screen, with the data filled in for me. (top of the center panel of the Web Search Workspace)

Bottom Half of this screen.

I mentioned in the first of these Blog posts, that the "Restrict To:" settings, just above Search, is what my "default" search settings are. They can be changed depending on what is being searched.

I then clicked on Search and found this set of results.

This time, I received additional "hits" / Hints, including the 1850 Census Record for William Knapp. Reviewing my data (lower left panel) and the census record data (lower right panel), it looks like the right William Knapp. But let's look closer.

Still looks right, including his wife, Sarah. But we picked up some more data. Sarah was 66, and two of the 11 children, Catharine aged 40, and Elsey aged 19. In the 1850 Census we don't know the relationships. I'll add a ToDo item for Elsey, as show would have been born when Sarah was 47. This time, we have an Image that we can look at for more details, if there is any.

Looking pretty good. William is listed as a Shoemaker, but there isn't much new information in the 1850 Census to capture for the file.

Will go ahead and merge this new information into the file. There wasn't much information that was to be added in the Web Merge, but the Summary Screen has the fact that there IS an image (Media file) for this record.

A note: If you have a Filenaming convention, as I do, you are given the option to Rename the image. Clicking on the Rename link will bring up a window that will allow you to rename the Media File. After this media file IS added to the Citation and into the Media Workspace, I'll add the Caption for this image.

After the Web Merge is complete I sent back to William Knapp's page, and checked the new Fact (Residence) for him. In the Right Hand Panel, is a Media Tab. Clicking on that will allow you to see the Citation media file. Very handy for going back if you have any question about the data that you are entering. You will notice a "1" in the second column on the Right. That is the indication that theee is a Citation Media file linked to that Citation.

I then verify that all of the Facts from that Census record has the 1850 Census Record Citation. That would be, Name, Birth Year (abt 1775), birth Place (New York), Occupation in 1850 as Shoemaker, Residence Fact: 1850 Newton, Sussex, New Jersey. That will be changed with the Place Name Authority to Newton, Sussex, New Jersey USA, by my choice. In this specific case, the Census Record has the Family Number in the Left Column of the Census Record.

I have found that, over time, tracking of Family Number, Household Numbers, come in handy when evaluating "the neighbors" or other family units in a specific location.

I also added "Abt 1784" for Sarah, "Abt 1810" for Catharine, and "Abt 1831" for Elsey. For birth dates, from census, I always use About (abt) dates. For other Facts that I pick up, I will use the Census YEAR for that. Like Residence would be 1850. For William, I put 1850 Shoemaker. So, now I have two pieces of information that says that he was a Shoemaker. The 1850 Census and the Death records.

I now have two To Do items (Tasks). For Sarah, it appears that she was still alive with William died in 1856 and that I had indicated that by using Aft 1856 for her Death Date. BUT, I want to follow up on that. Clicking on the Task button, for Sarah, in the People View, I add a Task. I added another Task for Elsey Knapp to see if she who her father and mother were, is it appears that she may not be Catharine's sister.

As a reminder, the Complete Task list is in the Plan Workspace, with the Name, Task, and Category of the Task.

So, where do we stand at this point? Here is the Family View (People Workspace) as we know it at this time.

Learning: Additional information about William and Sarah, as they were in the same household, we added her birth year (Abt 1784), additional information about Williams occupation, and we added two children, Catherine and Elsey.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Genea-Musings - Knapp Hit

2011-11-18T00:45:00.001-05:00

One of my usually daily Blog's to read is Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings. He posted an interesting blog post on using FTM2012 and the Web Search feature.

Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 25: Doing a Web Search - Case 1

Randy provided the following:

For Case 1, I'm going to pick one of my "brick wall ancestors." William Knapp (born 1775 in Dutchess County NY, died 1856 in Newton, Sussex, NJ), who married Sarah Cutter in about 1804 and had 11 children.

I created an unrelated person in my family file with the information that he provided. I wanted to help Randy with this brick wall.

The first thing I was was a shaky leaf. Might be what Randy found. BUT, there was one thing that I have set differently in the Tools Menu, Options selection, is that I do not want to see any Ancestry Member Tree "hints". I may change that setting if I have exhausted my other searching. So, I wanted to see what that leaf was about.

So there is ONE Ancestry hint for William Knapp. That may be good news or it may be bad news. Good News, One Hint. Bad News, One Hint. So, let's see what we find. I clicked on that hint, which goes directly to the Web Search Workspace, and does the search for me, without using the Search screen that Randy used.

This is nothing bad about going to that screen, but I have the settings at the bottom of that search screen the way I want them, which basically ignores the "possible tree matches". That is how I have my settings to start any search.

So, here is that one hint:

It is a New Jersey, Deaths and Burial Index, 1798 - 1971. I checked the data in my file (on the Left, against what was in the selected record (the only one, in blue), and checked the date from that record. Places and Dates look really close.

Because I don't have all of Randy's data, I can only guess how close this record is. Time will tell (I hope)

I viewed that record from Ancestry to see if there was more information then was in the Lower Right Box. The only "new" piece of information that was in this record was that THIS William Knapp was a Shoemaker.

For this case, I am going to Merge this record from Ancestry into my file. I start with the Merge Button in the Right Hand Panel, just above the name.

In this case there was only One Merge screen to review and excepted what was suggested from the Merge Process. What IS important on this screen, or Web Merge Screens is NOTING what information (Facts) ARE included and what ISN'T included in the Merge Process.

When the Web Merge Screens are completed, the LAST screen is a Summary screen. In this specific case, it's noted that there is NOT a Media (image) associated with this record. Otherwise it would have a check box under the "preferred information". The data that will be included and the Source and Citation information that will be included in the Web Merge are on this screen.

Back to the People Workspace, Person View a New Fact was added. That is the Death Fact, with the complete Date. I keep the information this way. Meaning that I now have Two Death Facts. The first one, currently marked as Preferred, only had the Year, which is what Randy posted and the second one, with the full death date. June 16, 1856. That Fact has the appropriate Citation in the Right Hand Panel.

One of the next things that I do, immediately, will be to put that Ancestry Citation into the appropriate Template for the Source. I won't go into that here. Have talked about it before, and my create another blog post on how to change that format.

This is the Source Workspace, with the Citation Selected. At the bottom of the Center Panel are the Facts that have that citation linked to. The Citation Detail and Citation Text may be changed when I move that Source to the appropriate template.

In the lower right corner of this screen is a Link to View Source. This is very helpful if you want to go back to a Source to see if you missed anything.

What WAS missed in the Web Merge was that he was a Shoemaker. I will add an Occupation Fact, with the SAME citation. This listing also indicates that he was married, not a widower. There is an indication what his wife may still have been alive, so I added a Death of "Aft. 1856" on her Person Page. I'll make a Task (To Do List) to get confirmation of that in some other record.

New Information Learned: he was a Shoemaker.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Sons of the American Revolution

2011-11-16T13:05:00.001-05:00

How do I track a SAR Application in Family Tree Maker?

A question I haven't seen asked, but I have found a number of these records for a specific line in my family. So, I figured out what I wanted to capture and what the Output might be, if I or someone else would want to apply. I don't know the rules for such an application, but only know some of the valuable information that are in the existing application. Based in the applications, could I generate information for an application.

I created three new Facts for my File:

SAR Ancestor:
SAR Descendent:

SAR Membership:

What I wanted to capture for each person named in the application is these three items. I look at more for those who are named in more than one application.

The application number in this example is 91617. Wilfred Wason Blunt was applying as a descendant of John Ross Key. In the 1st column on the right is the number of Citations, which would be this application, 3 in the second column, indicates that there are three pages of Images from that Application and can be found in the Media Tab on the Right.

This may be overkill, but since I was trying to read the information on these forms, (very poor image in this case), I might as well document for each individual that I found along the way. In this case there were 14 people with dates, some I had and some was new information.

At the end of the data input, I created a Descendant Chart between John Ross Key and Wilfred Wason Blunt.

FTM2012 and AMT Hints

2011-11-14T02:14:00.001-05:00

In the past, Family Tree Maker users (Version 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) have wanted some why to look at ALL of the Shaky Leaves that are in their PC based program. We didn't have that feature.

If the same user had an Ancestry Member Tree (AMT), they could go to their AMT and look at everyone with a Hint. However, that wasn't very helpful, as the AMT and the Family Tree Maker files were not synchronized making it a little difficult to take the next step. That is, taking action on that hint.

With FTM2012 there is a way to manage these hints. Here is a screen capture from with the People Workspace, Family View with some Hints.

Clicking on the leaf will take you to the Web Search Workspace where a Web Merge can be done, if the user wishes. Normally, that is the way I like to work, that is One at a time, so that the "hints" can be evaluated. However, from time to time, I would like to concentrate on a specific family or group of families. The above view isn't very helpful.

Return to the Plan Workspace, and there is a link to the Ancestry Member Tree (AMT). It's not important if the TreeSync™ feature has been used recently or not.

Using this Link will take you to the AMT in a new Browser window.

Using the pull down menu, Tree Pages, selecting the Tree Overview link will take you to the Overview of your AMT. In the above screen, you can also see those Hints.

Under the statistics of the AMT is a link to the Hints in the tree. This example shows that there are 61 hints for this tree. Clicking on that link will take you to a list of those 61 people.

The really nice thing about FTM2012 is the ability to work on this tree, either Online in the AMT or in FTM2012. The user now has the flexibility to work from the AMT, or to print this list and work on this list from within FTM2012. Since I like to write on this type of report, knowing what I have done, want to do, or want to ignore AND I am more comfortable working within FTM2012, I would do so. BUT, and I have done this, is work off of this list from here.

We have options.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Civil War Map

2011-11-14T00:52:00.001-05:00

As a follow up to: Military History in FTM2012 I wanted to map out the 2nd Regiment Infantry, Maryland during the Civil War. I have the dates and locations of the Battles that they fought in, and wanted to get an idea how far this Infantry traveled.

The first step is to go to the Places Workspace. In the Left Hand (LH) Panel, under Places, there are two choices. 1) Places, and 2) Person. The Places is the default settings and will show on the map where the place is that is selected in the LH Panel. In this case, I want to see where the "person" had events (or Facts). So, in the pull down menu, Person is selected.

When Person is selected I scrolled down to Maryland, 2nd Infantry in the LH Panel. In the Right Hand (RH) Panel, is a list of Places that are listed with Facts for that person. In this case, none of the boxes were selected, as normally Birth, Marriage, and Death Facts are checked, so I put a check mark in all of the Military Facts that I had inputted into the file, based on the Regimental History.

The above doesn't look very good, because it was zoomed in pretty close. Using the Minus (-) sign in the upper left of the Center Panel, I zoomed out to get the map I wanted.

Military History in FTM2012

2011-11-13T11:05:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago, Ancestry.com had a Webinar on Military Records. I have been tracking down a Civil War relative and have created a file, specifically for he and his ancestors. It was not clear when I started this research that "he was one of mine". I only had a Name, Ridgely Howard, and a place, Culps Hill at the Battle of Gettysburg. I have, in fact, determined that I am related to him.What wanted to do, was to create some sort of story on the 2nd Infantry Regiment, Maryland. I have a couple of books on this outfit, but how to use Family Tree Maker 2012 to reflect the story of this regiment in the Civil War.The Webinar reminded us that they had Regimental Records online. In my research, for Ridgely Howard, a lot of the Civil War records were on Fold3.com. What I had not seen, was the records on this regiment on Ancestry.com. This is what I found there. Just what I was looking for, a time line of the Battles that they fought in the Civil War.

So, I created (People, Add Unrelated person) a Person in FTM2012 called the 2nd Infantry Regiment, Maryland. I used the Military Service Fact, to capture the Dates, Locations, and Battle, if appropriate, for each event or fact.

From Ancestry, there were write ups on some of these battles. From those write ups, I created SmartStories™ for each of those battles. I used the Caption of the Media File (SmartStory) to make sure they were in the order of the battles.

Below is the People Workspace, Person View for the 2nd Infantry Regiment Maryland.

In the above screen is the Media tab, where a New SmartStory can be added. Clicking on the New, Create Smart Story, a dialog box will appear. For the SmartStories of the battles, I used the Start with Blank Page option and was able to Copy and Paste the details of the battles. But for this post, I wanted to capture the Timeline of the battles, so that it will appear in the Ancestry Member Tree for this regiment in the AMT. I selected the default, Auto populate Smart Story.

In the Right Hand Panel, of the SmartStory is what information that I wanted in the SmartStory. In this case, I wanted all of the data to be included, what was only the Military Service Facts.

This is the un-edited list of Facts that were populated for this "person".

I have discussed how to use this feature before.

Posts on the SmartStory feature

As you move your cursor over the text, you will see what can be edited and what can not be edited. In the example below, the Date is hi-lighted.

After doing some editing, this is the SmartStory that was created to reflect the Timeline for this Civil War Unit.

The Timeline button, in the People Workspace, Person View would look like this.

The point of this, for me, was to have a view in the Ancestry Member Tree, and in FTM2012, an overview of this Civil War Regiment. When reviewing my Civil War hero, and his dates, I have a good idea what battles he fought in.

He enlist on August 21, 1862, but into the 1st Regiment Maryland, so would have been in the initial organization of the 2nd Regiment. He was wounded on July 3, 1963 at the Battle of Culp's Hill. This would have put him at the battle of Centreville and Winchester, Virginia and the first day's battle in Gettysburg for this unit on July 2.

He missed the Battle at Martinsburg, but returned to the battle at Cold Harbor, Virginia.

He was wounded on the 2nd date's battle at Weldon Railroad, Virginia and would be out of the rest of the war, as he lost his leg in Weldon Railroad battle.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Civil War Pension - Blog Response

2011-11-10T15:20:00.001-05:00

This is in response to a Blog post by my friend Randy Seaver:

Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 22: Creating a Civil War Pension File Source

This is part of a series of blog posts in an effort to help us understand how to use FTM2012. As you may know, it has been frustrating at times, and in the area of Source / Citations, I would guess frustrating isn't the right word.

Here is my take on this topic of dealing with Civil War files and not in response to Randy's very fine Blog.

In another Blog, not on Family Tree Maker, I told of my search for a Civil War hero using the Inferential Genealogy that Dr. Thomas Jones has described are conferences and in a video series on Family Search.

I am not sure that there is a right way, nor a wrong way of recording what we find on any of our Ancestors, especially our Hero's. I am only going to talk about how I do some of this recording.

We, as users, will have our own ways of doing this recording of information. I ask myself:

What Facts do I want to use AND Why?
What does out data look like on Output?

With all of our choices what makes sense.

What do I want to capture?
What do I want to Share?

Having been working on a couple of Civil War soldiers, I thought about the questions above.

The limitless number of Facts that we have, and that we can have "Alt" Facts, or the multiple Facts that we can have, what makes sense for reports for myself and what might I want to share with others. There are some limitations, but what information do I want to use for my analysis and what do I need to try to tell the story of this hero.

I tend to record "just the facts" and where I found the Facts. I have a gentlemen in my file with 20 pages of Civil War Records, another with 30. So I captured his Civil War Journey, in fact I am still adding facts for the Military Service Fact. I am working on a timeline for his unit, with dates and places of battles that his unit participated in. All of that to say, that I use the Military Service Fact for the information from his Civil War records with one Source, a number of Citations, referring to pages within that record.

I consider the Military Service Fact for my information in helping me try to put the story together. The SmartStory feature I will probably use, and have used in the base. But the Notes Section for the person is where most of the story will be documented.

Here is a link to an earlier post for a Revolutionary War Hero.

Family Tree Maker 2011 - Smart Stories

Oh, but the Notes do not allow for Citations. But, what I do is to type in a Citation, that makes sense to me, and not in the Evidence Explained! format, but enough information. For example:

First and Second Maryland Infantry
Muster Rolls
Page 444

HOWARD, DAVID RIDGELY.

Pvt. Co. A, 2nd Md. Inf. b. 1844. Res. of Baltimore. Enl. Richmond 8/21/62 age 18. WIA (flesh wound to thigh) Gettysburg 7/3/63. Paid 7/17/63. Ab. wounded in Charlottesville hospital 8/14-17/63. Transf. Richmond hospital. Returned to duty 9/63. Paid 1/11/64. Present 3/31/64. WIA (upper portion of right thigh amputated) Weldon R.T. 8/19/65. Ab. wounded in Richmond hospital 8/21/64. Retired to Invalid Corps 12/24/64. Paroled Charlottesville 5/1/65. Member, Army & Navy Society, Maryland Line Association 1910, res of Baltimore. d. 12/23/27. Bur. Green Mount Cem. Brother of James McHenry Howard, 1st Md. Inf.

I already have a Citation for this document, for each of the facts that I took from the above paragraph. I normally will show these Notes when I share my research. If I were to generate a report, I would only reflect the Preferred Facts and not all of the Facts that I have collected. I think that the reader of the report is not as interested in how many Military Service Facts I have, but only the Preferred Fact which is

Bet 21 Aug 1862 - 01 May 1965 - 1st Maryland Infantry - CSA

The above documented summary is exactly the information that I found in the 20 pages from his Civil War Records. In fact, I am still inputting that data.

Back to my questions:

What Facts do I want to use AND Why?
What does out data look like on Output?

The basic, normal facts that the reader can understand, using the Clearest and Preferred Fact and the Notes. I know which Facts help me with research but don't display all of the Alt Facts that I have. Those facts help be determine the Preferred Facts. I am also concerned about the reader.

In reality, I would put this information into a book on this Hero, using the Book feature of Family Tree Maker and would include a Bibliography. I doing usually include EndNotes in reports, but in the Book feature, I have a statement that if the reader would like the EndNotes, I can generate that, because I understand the need for them. But, my family really doesn't care. They want the Story, not how I got the Story.

To show the Timeline of his Military Service, this is what is in FTM2012:

FTM2012 - Surname Report

2011-10-28T15:04:00.000-04:00

One of the featues that I use a lot, especially when I want to have a little higher level view of my file is the Surname Report. This report can be found in the Publish Workspace, Person Collection.

There are the usual features for this report. You can select All Individuals, Immediate Family or Selected (filtered) individuals.

The first ICON in the Right Hand Panel is the Font type, whether or not you want the Page Header on each page, what footer information on each page, is in the second ICON. page set up, Save Report Settings, and Save Report. Report settings will all the user to save the settings for this report when ever it is brought up. The Save Reports is a specific set of parameters you might want to use for a specific reason. The Saved Reports menu will be any Saved Reports up.

This is the report format. At the end of the report is a summary.

FTM2012 - AMT Privacy Settings and Roles

2011-10-28T10:51:00.000-04:00

Within Family Tree Maker version 2012, with TreeSync™, the user has control over who can see what, once the tree is in the Ancestry Member Tree.

From the Plan Workspace, SyncNow menu, the following screen will be presented.

The top choice is to make the tree Public or Private. From that screen:

Public Tree

Making your tree public benefits you and the community

When your trees are publicly viewable, it is easier to find relatives using the Ancestry.com sites.
Members of Ancestry.com sites can get in touch with you and help with your research. (This is done without showing your name or email address.)

All personal information is protected

Information about living people is automatically hidden from others and is NOT included in our search index.
You can change your mind and make your tree private anytime.
Only you can edit your tree unless you invite people to work with you.

Private Tree

This setting makes your tree "Private" so that it can't be viewed as a Public Member Tree. Note that the information from your tree will still be indexed for searching, but those who find your information can't view your tree without your permission.

What does this mean?

Even if you don't share your tree, other members can still learn if a specific deceased individual is in your tree, in addition to the birth year and birthplace of the person and your username (but no personal information about you).
They can then contact you anonymously through the Connection Service on Ancestry.com sites to request more information. Keep in mind that members who want to learn from your tree may also have helpful information about your tree to offer you in exchange.

There is a check box that says:

Also prevent your tree from being found in the search index.

Note: although your tree will instantly become public or private, it usually takes about a week or more to be reflected in the search index.

Roles:

You can also invite people to your Ancestry Member Tree. There are three Roles that you can assign to them: Editor, Contributor, Guest. That role can able be adjusted:

To adjust the role for someone you’ve invited, click the drop down menu and select the desired role.

Editor: Gives the invitee the ability to edit any person in your tree
Contributor: Contributors have the ability to upload photos or stories to your tree, but cannot make edits to the tree
Guest: Gives this person you've invited access to view your tree and leave comments

You can also adjust if the person has rights to view living individuals in your tree by checking or un-checking the Can see living people box under Living information
- Ancestry.com considers a person to be living if the individual has no death information entered and is younger than 100 years old
- This option cannot be adjusted for those invited as Editors

Click Save changes to complete the adjustments

This can also be done in the Manage Tree on Ancestry.

Family Tree Maker 2012 Webinar

2011-10-27T11:18:00.004-04:00

Webinars: Online Seminars

Note: There is no cost to register for webinars. Audience members may arrive 15 minutes before scheduled webinars. Archived Webinars below contain actual video and may be viewed at any time at no cost.

Upcoming Events

Family Tree Maker 2012: New Features

Date of Presentation: Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Join us on Wednesday, November 9th at 8:00 pm (Eastern Standard Time) for a free webinar that will teach you about the new features in Family Tree Maker 2012. You'll learn about TreeSync—the ability to link and synchronize your desktop tree with an online tree at Ancestry, how to use the new blended families display option, create new charts and reports, and more. Even get your questions answered by the developers who created it. This webinar will also be useful for users of Family Tree Maker for Mac – coming soon with TreeSync!

Direct Descendant Chart

2011-10-24T21:20:00.000-04:00

A friend has returned to Family Tree Maker Version 2012. The chart will allow us to show the direct Descendant Chart between two people.

First, go to the Publish Workspace, and the Chart Collection. Choose the Descendant Chart. You can click on Generate Chart or double click on the Descendant Chart ICON.

Go to the Right Hand (RH) Panel and you will see some new selections. The default for the Descendants is All. but in this case we want to select one of the descendants. Selecting the pull down menu we will see the list of Descendants.

For this example, Benjamin Chew has been selected as the Ancestor and we want to show the Direct Descendant Chart down to David Ridgely Howard. So in the pull down menu we select David Ridgely Howard

In the Box, Border, and Line Options we can do some color coding. In this example Red will be for Females and Blue for Males.

The borders of the boxes can be formatted with Double lines, Rounded Corners and other options.

Will add the Birth - Death years to this Chart (YYYY - YYYY) or the Lifespan selection for each person to go along with the name. This is in the Items to Include ICON in the RH Panel.

Will add a background to the chart, by selecting Background in the RH Panel, scroll through the selections and choose one.

The default Page Set Up for the Descendant Chart is Landscape. For this chart the Portrait setting was selected. The final chart is below.

There are many ways that you can customize this Chart. To this user, this is much improved over what was in the earlier versions of Family Tree Maker.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Genea-Musing Blog for FTM2012

2011-10-18T09:43:00.001-04:00

A blogging colleague has been identifying issues with the Exporting of a GEDCOM file in FTM2012. In his posting of October 17th Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 7: More GEDCOM Trials I thought that I would try to duplicate his experience. To date I have not

This blog post will document for us, Randy and I, what I am doing as I go, so he can see the steps I am taking and he can, if he chooses can do the same thing. With hopes that one of us identify what is going on.

I had an Ancestry Member Tree (AMT) that DearMYRTLE, another Genea-Blogger, and I used in a Webinar on AMT's. It was already Online, and I had not used FTM2012 with that tree to date.

The first thing I did was to Invite Randy to be a Guest to this tree. Under Manage Tree, Share, this screen was brought up.

This screen capture was taken AFTER I did the download, but this screen, using the Gmail link in the left column, is how I invited him to this AMT. Permission Settings may be changed in the future for Randy.

Then in FTM2012, I selected this AMT to be downloaded and Linked.

This is the Plan Workspace, Download from Ancestry and Request Download was selected.

The Data from the Tree was downloaded and the Media files are now being downloaded as seen below. I will take NO action on this file until the Media Download is complete.

The download has completed and the More button was selected to see the statistics of this file can be seen. Key to note, the Number of People and the Number of Media files.

Here are the statistics from the AMT.

The Number of people is 142 in both places, which is good. However the Media number may not agree with the AMT summary. FTM2012 shows 28 Sources and 126 Media (154), while the AMT shows 87 Photos and 65 Records (152). I point this out, as I do not think that the AMT summary and the FTM2012 summary "count things the same way" and how media files are linked.

In FTM2012, a Media file can be linked to a Person or a Citation as a Media File. One Media file, linked to a Citation, may be used by any Fact that is linked to a Citation.

Looking at the Media Workspace, the 126 count is at the bottom of the screen. In this example, in the Media Workspace, you can see that some of the Media files may be linked to a Person, and others linked to Citations.

Taking one individual, you can see that 2 Media files are linked to the Person and 5 are linked to Citations. In this case, there are 5 Citations, (1st column on the Name Fact line) and 5 Media files (2nd column on the Name Fact Line). The Person Media Tab is selected on the Left, below the list of Facts, and the Media Tab is selected in the Right Column with the Name Fact selected.

What can't be seen in this view, is how often these 7 media files are used. In the above image, for example, the 2nd image on the right is used as indicated below. This is from the Media Workspace, selecting that Image, and selecting Details for that image.

That image is Linked to 4 Facts, for 3 different people.

In AMT, that same Media files shows up for Elsie May

This is to provide a hi-level view of this file with hope that it will help show how media files are used in FTM2012 and AMT.

In FTM2012, we'll Export this file to a GEDCOM file. From the File Menu, selecting Export, Selected Individuals, I will select ONE person, Hiram Edmund Deats, from the Left Panel, and click on Include > in the center and his name will now appear in the right panel.

After clicking on OK, the Export format window will appear.. We will select GEDCOM 5.5.

To further define the GEDCOM file format, Other, ANSI will be selected.

The GEDCOM file will then be created. This file can then be emailed to Randy.

For this blog, we will Open that GEDCOM file. What should happen, after I email this GEDCOM to Randy, along with a Zip file of the Images for this file, he should be able to open the GEDCOM, and Link the Media files and see what is shown below.

This is the import summary. 1 Person, 6 Media Files, 16 Sources.

No, the next image is the new files, Media Workspace. Keep in mind that these images are already on this computer, so they will be there. When Randy receives the GEDCOM file AND a Zip file of the Media Folder, he will then use the Find Missing Media feature in FTM2012 to link the media files that are indicated in the GEDCOM Links to media information.

This shows the 6 Media files. Going to the People Workspace, Person Tab, those 6 images can be seen, 2 in the Person Media, and 4 in the Facts Media Tab.

The GEDCOM file is created, with one person in it, now to get the Media files into a ZIP file to email to Randy. The 6 images were copied into the Media Folder for this FTM2012 file. Right clicking on the Folder Name ( <filename> Media) the option for the Zip application that I use, 7Up, has a link to put all of the files in this folder into one ZIP file to be attached to an email.

.

When this Blog is posted, I will send an email to Randy, with 1 person in that GEDCOM file and a Zip file with the images. He open the GEDCOM in FTM2012, and Unzip the media to the Media Folder for the filename he creates for this test.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Product Manager describes the TreeSync™ feature

2011-10-14T12:48:00.000-04:00

Below was posted on the Family Tree Maker message board and thought it was appropriate to post it here as well. Duff certainly can explain things much better than I.

The new TreeSync™ feature will sync a tree between one instance of a tree in Family Tree Maker and one instance on Ancestry.com.

To start, you can upload your tree from Family Tree Maker to Ancestry by clicking Upload and Link to Ancestry from the Plan workspace. This will create and link to a new tree on Ancestry. If this is a duplicate of one that you already have online, then you can simply delete the old one.

Or you can start with your tree on Ancestry if you already have one there. In this case, you can download and link it to a new tree in Family Tree Maker by clicking Download from Ancestry on the New Tree tab in the Plan workspace.

Once the two trees are linked, you can then access and edit in either place. But again, you must start with a single tree in one system and upload or download to the other--creating a new tree in the other.

TreeSync will not synchronize an existing tree in one place with an existing tree in the other.

Although your entire tree is uploaded, only you can see information about living people even if you make your tree public. If you make it private, only you and those you invite can see any information in your tree.

I hope this helps.

Duff Wilson
Product Manager
Family Tree Maker

FTM2012 - Media Workspace full of ICONs not images

2011-10-14T12:36:00.002-04:00

OK, so you go to the Media Workspace, after downloading an Ancestry Member Tree (AMT) from Ancstry. That AMT has images in it, but the Media Workspace is full if ICONs and not of the Images that are supposed to be there. What to do?

At the bottom of the Center Panel of the Media Workspace is the number of Media files that should be there. Clicking on that ICON will bring up a Helpful screen that will explain some of the reasons why the images are not there.

The above image, shows that when you select one of those ICONs, you will see that the "File Not Found" message in the right hand panel.

Close that window, if you looked at it. In this workspace, with the ICONs showing, use the CTRL key plus the F5 key (CTRL+F5) and a new window will appear.

The command will then go to your AMT and download All Media files or the Missing Media files.

The downloading window will then appear, as the Missing Media files are being downloaded. Please remember that the download of Media files may take some time, depending on the number of files and the size of the files.

As with other download of Media, a Media Download complete will appear in the Plan Workspace.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Genea-Musings Scenario 1 (Roots Magic 4 to FTM2012) - Part 3

2011-10-14T11:31:00.001-04:00

Final Follow up on Genea-Musings Scenario 1 (Roots Magic 4 to FTM2012)

Randy's final comment was:

If a user creates a GEDCOM file using FTM 2012 (or any other program) that includes Media file links to files on the user's computer, and then transmits that GEDCOM file to another computer (his own or someone else's), the user will have to send the Media
file folder contents to that other computer. If the link text to the Media files do not reflect the file folder names on the receiving computer, then the links will have to be changed, or the Media will have to be properly linked to the Persons or Facts.

This is, I think, the heart of the GEDCOM transport where Media files are involved. The GEDCOM gets the Data from one place to the other. The Media files are NOT part of the GEDCOM, as I hope has been shown in earlier blog posts, only links to them.

What must happen 'next' is to get the information in the Media Folder, for that file, from one user to the other. The "sending" user needs to look at the contents of the Media Folder, for number of Media files, and the Size of Space used by the Media Folder, using Windows Explorer.

Using Windows Explorer and navigating to the Media Folder for the test file for Roots Magic 4, and Right Clicking on the Folder Name, there are 2 files in that folder and the total size of the folder is 252 KB. That entire folder will probably fit into an email.

Email limitations for more Media files and larger Media files other options will have to be explorer to get the Media to the other user.

When the receiving user receives the Media Folder or files, they would have to be saved where that user wants them saved. If the receiving end user is also using Family Tree Maker, they can be saved in the < filename > Media folder for that file. The "Find Missing Media" or CTRL+F5 feature can be used by that user.

If the receiving end user is a Roots Magic 4 user, each of the Media files would have to be manually inserted into Roots Magic 4.

I am only using Roots Magic 4 as an example. AND this is not a negative comment on Family Tree Maker nor Roots Magic 4. This issue is a generic GEDCOM issue. As I have said before, I am not an authority on GEDCOM, I only know that the "industry" has not uniform way of Sharing our genealogy research.

So, when sharing our research, both the sender and receiver of a GEDCOM, which includes Media files, have work to do.

Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

Genea-Musings Scenario 1 (Roots Magic 4 to FTM2012) - Follow Up

2011-10-14T11:13:00.001-04:00

As a Follow up to:Genea-Musings Scenario 1 (Roots Magic 4 to FTM2012)

Another user of Family Tree Maker posted feedback on Scenario 2, and posted her results in the comments to Randy's post.

I want to complete Randy's comments and observations where he said:

When I create a GEDCOM file in FTM 2012, my assumption is that any Media links associated with selected Persons and Facts included in the FTM 2012 database should be included in the GEDCOM file.

This is a true statement. The file that I talked about, using Roots Magic 4, was a GEDCOM file created by FTM2012. When this was done, and the GEDCOM file was imported into Roots Magic 4, the image was NOT in the newly created Roots Magic 4 file.

One thing I learned about GEDCOM files, between genealogy programs, is to Review the .LOG file. That .LOG file will contain error messages about information that was not imported into the receiving program.

Unknown info (line 18472)
    0 @M40@ OBJE
    1 FILE C:\Users\Russ\Documents\Family Tree Maker\Inferential Genealogy Study-2012_Current Media\Howard-James_M-DavidR.jpg
    2 TITL James M and David R Howard Co. A, 1st Md. Inf. (Dave Mark, Baltimore, Md.)
    2 DATE 7/23/2011 5:01:14 PM
    2 TEXT First and Second Maryland Infantry, C.S.A., page 205

That error message is why the image was not in RM4 when I opened it. The Link was there, however, and this is only a guess, that the format used in the GEDCOM from FTM2012, was NOT what RM4 expected.

This is one of the many GEDCOM issues, that will not be addressed on this Blog. I am not a GEDCOM expert, only know that there are far to many technical issues that I am not qualified to address. I am a user of Family Maker and I have experienced GEDCOM issues between applications in that past.

To answer Randy's comment, yes the Link is there. Did it work, No!

Randy continued:

When I created a GEDCOM file in FTM 2012 from the Scenario 1 database, and then imported that GEDCOM file back into FTM 2012 (I could have used another program), the links to the Media items were included the Scenario 1 database and are in the /Family Tree Maker/"Scenario 1"/Media file folder on my computer.

I think I answered this in my earlier post on this topic. Opening that GEDCOM file back into FTM2012, (GEDCOM to FTM2012), yes, the links AND images will be there. However, the actual Media files will remain in the "Scenario 1" Media folder. The GEDCOM points to where that Image is located, Opening that GEDCOM in FTM2012 will find that image in that folder.

But, Randy said "I could have used another program", the answer is different. The Link is there, but the format of the Link may not be implemented the same in FTM2012 or Roots Magic 4. As a user, I don't know, which is right nor which is wrong, but the hand off did NOT work between the two, as seen in the .LOG file.

Randy continued:

However, when I created a GEDCOM file in FTM 2012 from the Scenario 2 database, and then imported that GEDCOM file back into FTM 2012 (I could have used another program), there were no links to the Media items in the Scenario 2 database and no Media files in the /Family Tree Maker/"Scenario 2"/Media file folder.