Genea-Musings - Knapp Hit

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