Keeping Track of Emails in your research

A couple of weeks ago, I posted Citing as you Go --- What about Email? on how I might handle information taken from an Email. In the earlier blog post, I used Family Tree Maker for the Mac, 2nd version (FTMM-2). The PC Version (FTM2012) works the same way, but the Template is a little different and the FTM2012 template works as I had expected it to. The Reference Note is much clearer.

That first blog post was the planned way that I was going to handle the emails, but, as emails go, the Source Workspace didn't work as nicely as I wanted. The Subject Line as the Citation Detail followed by the Date of the Email, in the Citation Text, just didn't work for me.

This is what did work for me.

The first step is to create a new Source, Personal Email Template. From the Sources Workspace, clicking on the Add ICON in the upper right of the Source screen, and New, enter EMA in the Keyword box, and it will present the Personal Email template screen.

Because this is "live" data, I have shaded the real data out. But the fields on the Left are clear. The Collection would be what ever you want it to be, in my case it was for a project, so the Collection was the Project Name. It could be for a Surname project. The Researcher information, in this case, was me. The Writer, for this project, was the person who I corresponding with. The Recipient was myself.

If there had been others involved with this project with email. other Sources would be crated for them, but listed to the same project or Collection.

With the new source. we want to add a new Email to the Citation Screen. Normally, you would enter the Citation Detail and Citation Text on this screen.

But, in this case, I want the email included in the Citation Notes. So I copied the email and pasted into the Notes Tab. For my purposes, I "LOCKED" the notes so that when this is uploaded, the text of the email would NOT appear in an Ancestry Member Tree, but the Citation would be there.

Since the Subject Line and Date / Time of the Email, is the important information on the Citations, High-lighting the Subject Line from the Notes Tab, hitting CTRL+C (Copy), will select the subject line.

 Then selecting the Source tab, putting the Cursor into the Citation Text field, and CTRL+V (Paste), will put the Subject line there.

Returning to the Notes Tab, high-lighting and Coping the Date / Time Stamp, back to the Source Tab, that information will be pasted into the Citation Details field.

Below in the Reference Note for this email. That will be the Citation.

For me, the important information is in the "Locked" Notes field, which is the text of the email. Links then can be put on any Facts that came from that email.

Not all emails will have links, from this project at least, in several cases there was conflicting information, which would end up on the Task List for that person for resolution. But by looking at the Citation Notes (or email), it's easy to see what was included in that email.

Another Source was created for me as the Writer and this person would be the To: person on the email.

For me, what was important is the Sequence of the Emails, by date / time, then the subject line. The Emails are still in my email program.



_______________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Found a couple of Family Tree Maker Tutorials on a You Tube Channel

I don't know if you have noticed that I have added a Page to the Blog, Training Resources.

There are a number of online resources that may be of interest in learning how to use the Family Tree Maker program. Each of us learn in different ways. Each of us teach / present in different ways. I thought that I would pass along this series of You Tube videos on the use of FTM2012. 

Jesso George - You Tube Channel:

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 1- Family Tree Maker Basics

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 2 - Creating a Tree 

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 3 - Adding Details to Your Tree 

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 4 - Using Maps 

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 5 - illustrating Your Tree 

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 6 - Adding Sources 

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 7 - Sharing Your Tree 

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 8 - Researching Online 

Family Tree Maker 2012 Tutorial 9 - Using Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com

_______________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

GenDetective and Family Tree Maker - Options

After posting GenDetective and Family Tree Maker yesterday, I looked a little closer at what GenDetective™ has for options for dealing with Facts in Family Tree Maker, and Facts/Events in GenDetective. I don't normally run into Immigration Records, so my manually changing Arrival to Immigration Facts was not a big chore to clean up. I am sure that other users of Family Tree Maker have custom Facts that might be useful in how they are handled in GenDetective.

So, rather than changing the Family Tree Maker fact, which means adding an Immigration Fact, Copying an Existing Citation from Arrival, Linking that Existing Citation to the New Immigration Fact, and Deleting the Arrival Fact, GenDetective has another way, and so much easier, to handle it.

It's also important to pay attention to the steps as the GEDCOM file is being imported into GenDetective. There are very helpful videos on the GenDetective website for details.

For Example:

Should here be an Media File associated with the Burial Fact. Its a matter of changing the answer to the question: Is a media file required?

Another example is for an Obituary. I haven't used an Obituary Fact, up until now, in Family Tree Maker. BUT there is a question there "I use a specific event to track and record Obituaries?" So, if I had another Event that was equal to an Obituary Fact, I would specify what Fact that was.

In my case, I hadn't identified that Arrival / Immigration issue until after I was into the report generator of GenDetective, there is another way to let GenDetective know that Arrival is the same as Immigration.

Once the file has been initially imported into GenDetective, in the Analyzer application, after clicking on Exit Analyzer Wizard, you are taken to the next screen, where I selected Event Definitions.

Since a Fact in Family Tree Maker is the same as an Event in GenDetective, I selected Arrival, and in the pull down menu on the Right, I selected Immigration.

Now, when I go to the Research Progress report in GenDetective, I can clearly see that I have or don't have a record of immigration.

So, if you have a lot of Arrival Facts, and want to have them show up as Immigration in GenDetective, the option is there to be used.
_______________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

GenDetective and Family Tree Maker

I don't normally Blog about software besides Family Tree Maker, PC and Mac versions, but I had the opportunity to fill in as host for Monday's with Myrt webinar series. The Webinar on November 26th, we discussed what websites the participants used for their Online Research. We used a Case Study as an illustration. Remembering that Not Everything is Online, the December 3rd Webinar was to discuss the "next steps", to prepare for a visit to a repository or location and get our feet on the ground for follow up research.

I have posted a couple of articles on how I have used the existing reports in Family Tree Maker that I have used for such a visit.

This time, I wanted to use a 3rd Party software program to help with this research trip. I have had, and have used GenDetective in the past for some of the reports, but thought GenDetective would really help with this project.

I'll NOT go into the details, yet, on how I used GenDetective for this project, but I want to point out that I had to re-think how I handle a couple of situations to make GenDetective work for me. This has to do with my data entry, and NOT what GenDetective does or doesn't do. In fact, GenDetective did exactly what I wanted.

There is a Blog Post on the GenDetective with some more details about this.

The issues that I have identified so far 1) in the way I handle Obituaries, and 2) Immigration information from Census Records.

I have considered Obituaries as a Source, up until now, but didn't really have a way to "track" what Obituaries I had or didn't have. If I found one, I recorded it as a Source, and cited any Facts that I was able to take from that Obituary. So, really, I have not idea what I have or don't have. Running a Search Progress report in GenDetective reflected that I didn't have ANY Obituaries. So, to resolve that, I am just adding an Obituary Fact for each Obituary that I have. This is easy to do, as I just go into my Source Workspace, looking at the Newspaper Sources, and find the Obituary and link that obituary to a Obituary Fact for the person who is the subject of the Obituary.

For this Case Study, I had a number of people in the file who had Immigration data on Census Records. When I ran the Search Progress report, there was no indication that I had any data.

In most of my Census Record data, I use the Web Search and Web Merge feature. I have a list of Facts that I want to collect based on the year of the Census Record. I have blogged about that here as well.

When I look at a Census Record that Information is there, but wasn't recorded clearly enough for GenDetective. Again, a User input issue.

Here is an Example of a 1920 Census Record:

Column 13 shows that the Immigration date for the first person was 1890 and the second was 1900. Important information.

A rotated view of the same record.

When the Web Merge feature is used, the "Arrival" Fact is used. Not very helpful, as to what "Arrival" means. Family Tree Maker has a built in Immigration Fact. GenDetective is "looking" for that Fact / Event. to report that there is an Immigration Date for the person.

So my clean up is to Locate all Arrival Facts, Add an Immigration Fact for each person that has an Arrival Fact, and Copy and Paste the Citation from Arrival to Immigration, the delete the Arrival Fact for that person.

Now the Source Progress has that data in the report.



_______________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington