FTM2014 - Mastering Genealogical Proof Chapter 2 Review

I was reading +Hilary Gadsby's blog post: Reviewing my Previous Post - What goes Where and What Next? at masteringgenealogysoftware.blogspot.com and was wondering how FTM2014 would do with what the Mastering Genealogical Proof [1] Study Group 2 has been talking about in the +DearMYRTLE Genealogy Community on Google+

During the study of Chapter 4 - GPS Element 2: Source Citations, we talked about five (5) questions. It became "the 5 W's". Who, What, When, Where In, and When is. All that information is what makes up a good Citation. So, can Family Tree Maker (FTM2014) answer those questions? Better yet, ask US those questions so that we can "fill in the blanks".

[1] Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013), 33

I thought that I would use the Citation for the Mastering Genealogical Proof Endnote here, and break it apart, for a good example:

• Who - Thomas W Jones
• What - Mastering Genealogical Proof
• When - 2013
• Where In - page 33
• Where Is - Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society

If I understand this correctly, since this is a Book, I will copy and paste one from FTM2014:

Bart Anderson, The Sharples - Sharpless Family, 3 vols. (West Chester, Pennsylvania, 1966), Vol 1, Page 217. #1989 Hannah H. Sharpless.

• Who - Bart Anderson
• What - The Sharples - Sharpless Family, 3 vols
• When - 1966
• Where In - Vol 1, Page 217; #1989 Hannah H. Sharpless 
• Where Is - West Chester, Pennsylvania

The #1989 entry is the specific person on that page. (a published work). The 4th bullet is from the Citation detail and Citation text fields. The rest is from the Book; Multivolume Set (Print Publish) template.

Template Screen:

Citation Screen:

Wow, that appears to be correct.

The only issue here is the Repository: field. In previous research on this process, a book should not have a Repository, as you can get that book from anywhere. I had my address in that field, as the three books are on my bookshelf. Because I am trying to be standard, I have selected None for the Repository.

[1] Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013), 33. [Book available from the publisher at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/mastering_genealogical_proof ]

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How to Export a GEDCOM file for My Heritage

Earlier this week there was a discussion about Online trees and one of the websites that was mentioned was My Heritage ( www.myheritage.com ).

In this video, I will explain how to Export a file from Family Tree Maker version 2014 in the appropriate format that can be uploaded to My Heritage.



After this tree has been processed by My Heritage, I will demonstrate how to capture the information that will be identified by My Heritage and capture that information for FTM2014.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How to Update your Ancestry Member Tree

This is my End of Day Routine, or the routine that I follow when I have worked on my file long enough where I don't want to have to re-do my work and to update my Ancestry Member Tree.

This is a real file so the length of the video is a little long (13:41) but I have some comments about what is going on, as I understand it.





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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Email Template and Citations

FTM2014 - How I handle Emails

The link above is a short video on how I handle Emails. What I failed to do, was to get into details of the Data Entry for a properly (I hope) formatted Citation. The appropriate format is described in Evidence Explained 1 in QuickCheck Model on page 113 Personal Files & Knowledge, 3.42 E-mail and instant messages. 

Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes to "fill in the blanks" in the Template to get the Reference Note in the correct format. 

To get here, as I showed in the Video, I typed EMA for the keyword search for Personal Email.

.

Here are the fields and the information I put in them.

Source Template: Personal E-mail

Collection [ First and Last Name of the Email, adding "Collection"

Researcher surname: Worthington

Researcher forename(s): Russ

Researcher e-mail address: 

Researcher address: 

Researcher location: [(E-Address) & Street Address for private use,] Hackettstown, NJ

Writer surname: [ sender ]

Writer forename(s): [ sender, full name ]

Writer address:

Writer location:

Writer contact: [ email ]

Recipient surname: Worthington

Recipient forename(s): Russ

Source Comments: 

(Citation detail:) [(e-address for private use) ]; dd month yyyy; " subject "

(Citation text:) date and time of email

In order for the Reference Note to have the right format, I added the information in red in the Researcher location field.

The Source Comments information is my reminder of what to put in the Citation detail and Citation text fields. I then can copy and paste that information into the Citation details field on the next screen.

The Text of the Email, as shown in the video, will be pasted into the Citation Notes.

I don't have the email with the subject at the moment, but will add the Subject line of the email in this Citation.

Here is what that Reference Note looks like:

David Reed, Washington, D.C. to Russ Worthington, e-mail, [(e-address for private use) ]; 06 January 1999; " subject ", David Reed Collection; privately held by Russ Worthington, [(E-Address) & Street Address for private use,] Hackettstown, NJ.

I should also note that the Zip Code is not included in the Template screen, as it is not called for in the Reference note. If you compare this against Evidence Explained, I think it is pretty sure. Will probably post this into the User Form on the Evidence Explained website.

1 Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Pub., 2007. Print.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How I handle Emails

I don't know about you, but I use Email in my research. I was reminded of this when  I was cleaning up my Notes fields. I thought I would share a brief Video on how I handle my Emails. in FTM2014.







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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How I handle the Race Fact

There was an interesting question on one of the Family Tree Maker message boards. I thought that I would demonstrate a solution here. The issue is the Race Fact that you will receive from Ancestry.com when you do a Web Merge.

I have chosen to KEEP that fact when presented. The biggest reason is a Search Web page on Ancestry.com. It's in the Home Page, near the bottom right of that page.

African American Family History
http://landing.ancestry.com/aahistory/default.aspx

I have been about to find a female doing me search from there, because she was reported as "Mulatto".

There is some great information on that link.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTMM-3 - New Installation with an Existing File

This is the first video and blog post specifically about Family Tree Maker for the Mac version 3.

I had the previous versions of Family Tree Maker for the Mac on my Mac laptop. I have been using it and have demonstrated it. I also wanted to know what the difference was between the PC version and the Mac version.

I had FTMM-2 on the Mac and a couple of working files, including several test files to use the TreeSync™ feature in FTMM-2.

I now have FTMM-3 installed and at the end of the installation FTMM-3 found my existing FTMM-2 file.

This video will show what happens now.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Does the Software you use work for you?

An online genealogy researcher and friend +Hilary Gadsby did a blog post earlier today. Please visit her blog at masteringgenealogysoftware.blogspot.com and read

Does the Software you use work for you?

Hilary asks 3 very interesting questions:

What should our software do for us so that we are unable to fall into the habit of entering the data without adding a source citation?  

Do we need reminding to build our citation before we enter the data?

Do we need or could we have a system that automatically generates our citations as we enter them in the software?

I thought that I would create a blog post on this topic, link it to Hilary's blog post, and hope that others post comments on her blog.

I can only speak for a User of the Family Tree Maker (FTM2014) program as it has been my genealogy program of choice. Until yesterday, I have not put my main, working file into an Ancestry Member Tree / Public Member Tree for two reasons. One being Citations, and I had Research Notes all over the place. It wasn't a pretty picture.

From the question, and her earlier comment about "having a totally unsourced tree" I understand that first question.

As a new researcher, the program reminding me to Cite my Source would be helpful. OR might it discourage me from moving forward. After all, I am just starting and now "you" want me to learn something new. Even what is that. The other two questions would be helpful to learn.

Working with the book, Mastering Genealogical Proof, by Dr. Thomas W Jones, the crafting of a Citation and the formatting of source information in Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills gets me into the details of what it is that I am looking at and start to evaluate that information.

There may be a conflict here of wanting to find everything I can find on my family in 30 seconds or less. We have seen that on several genealogy TV programs. But the Citation "stuff" will slow me down, some may say Stop me, from getting done in a "few minutes"

Here is my take on these questions, as a long time user. FTM2014 has some tools that helped me get to the point of publically sharing my family tree.

• The ability to see what Facts do not have a Citation
• The ability to create an Evidence Explained formatted Source
• The ability to evaluate my source information in the Genealogical Proof Standard way

FTM2014 has those tools. When I am in a clean up mode I use the Undocumented Source Report. My working file is a mess, but "workin' on it".

I work on getting ALL my sources into the Source Template feature that was introduced in FTM2010. I am about 1/2 way through the clean up, BUT, that took some work.

I had to understand what Information in a Reference Note of Family Tree Maker, came from the Source or Container of information that is asked for in the Template screen, and what I had to enter in the Citation detail field, the Citation text field, and the Web Address field. I have blogged about that.

The trick for me in doing this is to use Evernote and the Comment field on the Template Screen. That 'extra' effort, OK WORK, was very helpful in understanding the make up of a Resource or End Note.

From helping others, the real issue is defining What I am looking at, and Where did I get it from.

Could it be easier, in FTM2014? Absolutely. Would I want it to be automatically? Absolutely NOT. If it were automatic I would probably never look at the details about what a Citation should look like.

Please join +Hilary Gadsby in this conversation on her new Blog.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - One approach for handling Historic Place Names

There was a question on how to handle Historic Place Names. Here is one approach to that subject. In this case, it's in the state of New Jersey.

My goal is to be consistent in the use of Place Names and to be able to us the Mapping feature of FTM2014.



Will demonstrate how to resolve the place name and where I documented my actions.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How to make Relationship Notes Private

HOW TO:

In an earlier video, I showed how to make Fact Notes  private. I noted the Relationship Notes could NOT be made private from the Publish Workspace because they are Shared Facts.

This video will demonstrate how to make Relationship Notes private.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How to create a Surname Report

HOW TO:

 I would like a print out of All of the Surnames in my file and to see the number of people with that surname.

Here is how to do that.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How To Format a Printed Report

HOW TO: 

When I print a report from Family Tree Maker, I want to have the Title of the Report at the top of each page, the Page Number and Date of the report at the bottom. Here is a short video explaining how to do that.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - Print a Specific Place Usage Report

HOW TO:

I saw a message on Facebook asking how to print a specific Plan Name report. There is a Place Name Usage Report, but that prints everyone one in every place in the file.

This short video will who how you can print a report for a specific Place of everyone who had an event or fact associated to a specific place.

In this example, it will be at the County Level and will show not only that county place, but any expanded places within that county.

For example: Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, but also, Saint Annes Churchyard, Annapolis, Anne Arundel County. You can be as specific as you want, like just Saint Annes, or back up to the County.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - Office Hours

Office Hours 

Since I started the  +Cousin Russ Genealogy Community, on Google Plus, I have had an idea of holding, informal "Office Hours", where I would host a Hangout On Air and talk about how to use Family Tree Maker.

A colleague and friend  has Office Hours for Business Hangouts and Business Hangouts On Air.

So what I have been thinking about have these Office Hours is that they would be recorded. They may or may not be a regularly scheduled HOA, like . 

My thought was that IF I see someone post a Question about FTM2014 and wants to talk about it, I would set up Office Hours and invite the person asking the question to be on the panel as a JOINer for that discussion. I would then post the link for others to join and will set it up to track comments.I would try to limit these to between 30 minutes and an hour, shorter if possible, but would want to cover THAT specific topic.

The schedule would be based on when the person asking the question would have the time to do it.

I only request that you have a Camera and a Headset, when possible, so that we can Screen Share and to be able to have a conversation. Remember as you join an HOA, you will receive a notice that you understand that it will be recorded and accept that screen.

What are your thoughts on this "Wacky TUESDAY" idea? Trying to get ahead of Wacky Wednesday 101a in the  Community.

I will NOT schedule any such Office Hours that will conflict with the Events in the +DearMyrtle Community, as that is my priority.

Please share your thoughts on this Wacky idea.

I will figure out how to get me the topics that might be of interest to you.

Thank you,
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - Clean Up of Fact Notes with +DearMYRTLE

I thought that I would share how I clean up my FACT Notes in FTM2014



Am traing this video feature again.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How I use the Notes Feature with +DearMYRTLE

I thought I would share a conversation that I had with +DearMYRTLE and the use of the various Notes feature in FTM2014. I did an earlier version of this, but Dear MYRTLE always asks the question that users might ask as well.




Thank you +DearMYRTLE
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How I use Notes

This is a Video to discuss how I use the Notes feature in FTM2014



This is a test to see if I can embed a You Tube Video, created as a Google+ Hangout On Air. This blog post may be pulled down later.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - Pennsylvania Certificate of Death Web Merge

Here is a follow up to: The Report Worked the FIRST time

I selected my ancestor, Husband of 2nd great aunt, and went to the Web Search Workspace, as the hint's haven't caught up yet, here is the search screen. The FIRST hint, is the same one that I saw on the manual search.

MY information is on the Left, with the results from Ancestry on the Right. I did the Web Merge from here. I am not sharing those screens, as I have done so in the past.

The Image is in the Media Workspace, I will have to convert the Ancestry Citation to the Template format.

I will do a clean up follow up, because of some "errors" that I saw. For example, the screen above shows the Birth location as "Dubland Ireland". We know how that Dublin is spelled. The normal response would be an indexing problem. Nope.

Here is the transcribed view:

Here is the record

Just reminds me to LOOK AT THE RECORD.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

The Report Worked the FIRST time

Release of New Records - I want a report

My last blog post gave me my list of 8 people who I should look for when the Pennsylvania records were released. Finally had a minute to talk a look. 

I thought I would look for the person from whom I picked up my middle name. I put in the name that I knew and only the state of Pennsylvania.

In this case, I didn't even put in the date. I usually put in the date, but wanted to do a compare and contrast for this.

89 hits. Too many. Because I didn't use data, the sliders were not helpful.,I went back to Edit my search, and put in his birth and death date to see what that looks like.

There he is at the top of the list.AND I found his middle name. How good is that !!!!

Will have to take a look.

Happy Dance !!
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Release of New Records - I want a report

So, an online database is releasing a new set of records for Deaths that occurred in Pennsylvania between the years 1906 and 1924 and I want to be ready. How do I generate such a report?

Go to the Publish Workspace, selected Person Reports, and Custom Report and click on the Create Report button.

Then click on the Items to Include menu in the Right Hand Panel and UNCHECK the Preferred Only box. That is because you want to make sure that you pick up all death dates.

Then click on "Selected Individuals" Then click on Filter IN.

This will bring up what to Include. For this case, it is Death FACT, Place, Contains Pennsylvania. It's important that you have the Place Names resolved so that the State spelling is consistent.

Also, make sure that Alternate facts is checked.

This will give a list of EVERYONE with a Death FACT in Pennsylvania

This has 162 people in it. Now to Filter OUT everyone who died BEFORE 1906.

That got me down to 54. Now to Filter OUT everyone who died AFTER 1924.

That got me down to 10.

The hi-lited name has no death date, which is why it is on the list.

Then Filter OUT Death DATE is Blank.

Now I have a report to run when the records are released.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Notes, Notes, Notes and more notes

As a follow up to an earlier blog post, I had to go look at some statistics about my file. That has caused me to go do some clean up work. Specifically, to get ALL of my Find-A-Grave Sources into the Template Format.

With 8,937 people in my file, with 448 Sources only 197 of them were in the Template format. That is a long term "work in progress". I have always thought that my 2nd most used Source was Find-A-Grave memorials. Sure enough, 55 of the 448 were Find-A-Grave sources accounting for 334 Citations and 2,572 Facts.

So I decided to spend some time evaluating how many of the Find-A-Grave Sources were in the Template format. Very quickly into this project, I realized that over time I had entirely too many notes. Actually, not enough notes, but the notes were not in the right place. That was caused because we didn't have some of the notes, and we were not always able to do anything with the notes.

We have the Person Notes, Sources Notes, Fact Notes, and Research Notes, to mention a few.

What I had been doing early on was the put notes from a Find-A-Grave Memorial into the Person Notes pages.

Some time AFTER I did this work I figured that these notes really needed to be in the Fact Notes field. In the Person Notes field I want the stories that I create or newspaper articles, letters, not "data" that I put into the database.

What I want to do, is to CUT (CTRL+X) from the Person Notes field, and Paste (CTRL+V) that information into the Fact Notes field. I keep my Find-A-Grave Notes in a Find-A-Grave Fact. I have talked about that here, but I created a Find-A-Grave Fact, that is Private, that only I can see them. They won't appear in a report unless I specifically ask for Private Notes. This information is helpful to me.

Because I had done some formatting of the information in the Notes field, so it looked nice, I will see a pop-up message on the way.

It's asking me if I want to keep the formatting of the information. I do, so I select the 2nd option.

I Paste (CTRL+V) (CMD+V for the Mac) that information into the Find-A-Grave Fact Notes field.

BUT, I still have something in the Person Notes field. It is a reference number that I had used for my Research Notes. This doesn't belong here. It belongs in my Research Notes.

Like before, I Cut (CTRL+X) from the Notes and Paste (CTRL+V) it into the Research Notes field.

The Research Notes is that 2nd ICON, and the Toggle Research Notes On or Off is next to it, or the 3rd ICON. Like the Fact Notes, my Research Notes are for my information.

I will take me a couple of hours to do this clean up, but it will be worth it "at the end of the day".

The Find-A-Grave project was put on hold, as I found some interesting issues that have come up, but will blog about that here shortly.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Access the Civil War Collection

This announcement came across my desk and thought I would share it with you

Access the Civil War Collection
To remember the commencement of the Civil War in April 1861, Fold3 invites you to explore all records in its Civil War Collection [http://go.fold3.com/civilwar/]for free April 14–30.

Explore Civil War documents featuring everything from military records to personal accounts and historic writings. Soldier records include service records, pension index cards, “Widows’ Pension” files, Navy survivors certificates, Army registers, and much more. Other record types include photographs, original war maps, court investigations, slave records, and beyond. Items such as the Lincoln Assassination Papers, Sultana Disaster documents, letters to the Adjutant General and Commission Branch, and the 1860 census are also contained in the Civil War Collection.

Confederate-specific records include Confederate service records, amnesty papers, casualty reports, and citizens files, as well as Confederate Navy subject files and Southern Claims Commission documents.

Join Fold3 in its commemoration of the Civil War. Discover information on famous participants as well as your own Civil War ancestors through documents, photos, and images that capture the experiences and vital information of those involved in America’s deadliest conflict. Then commemorate your ancestors by creating or expanding memorial pages for them on Fold3’s Honor Wall [http://www.fold3.com/wall/]. Get started searching the Civil War Collection here[http://go.fold3.com/civilwar/].

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FTM2014 + Public Member Trees = Collaboration

It must be the approaching spring weather but I seem to be treading in waters of controversy these days.

I have been blogging about how to cite my sources, when the Source is an Undocumented Ancestry or Public Member Tree,

Until this point I have stayed away from Using information from them, but have looked at them for research hints. But, if you looked in my FTM2014 family file, you wouldn't find a trace that I had looked at any Ancestry Member Tree (AMT).

A while ago, The Barefoot Genealogist Crista Cowan, had one of her weekly videos that I was watching and for some reason she had "MY" family on her screen. That isn't the first time that has happened to me. After all, that's how I found out that I was related to +DearMYRTLE . I have blogged about some of this in the past.

This time, I want to share how I NOW use information in an AMT. I got the idea from a day long presentation at an Ancestry Day in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago. +Crista Cowan made a comment about how others are helping her with her research. How? By telling her she had some errors in her tree. Hmmm, hadn't though about that before. But what was my first reaction when I saw MY family on her screen? I got back to work on that branch of my family, as we descend from two brothers. I spent a number of hours working on "cleaning up my act", so that IF I were to share my tree with her, SHE would not find any errors.

After listening to her at the Ancestry Day, I re-thought what I COULD do. What if I put MY Tree Online and got Crista Cowan to do MY research. The word of wisdom that I picked up from +DearMYRTLE , in the Google+ DearMyrtle Genealogy Community, Collaboration came to mind. Why not Collaborate with the owner of this "undocumented" Ancestry Member Tree, share with the information that I have with her, and maybe I can pick up some information from her. After all, she is descended from a different brother. Oh, did I mention that I only have information from a couple of Family Group Sheets? So, which is worse? Actually, I have some information in my file that Crista doesn't have.

NOTE: the ONLY information that I gather from an Ancestry Member Tree (AMT) are the Facts. Only the Facts AND I cite them, as I have recently blogged about. But, look at what I see on the AMT:

There is information that I do NOT have in my file, Richard Ridgeway's father, Robert, and when and where he was born and died.

I wanted to Thank Crista for this new information. I did so in the Comments:

So, WHY would I want information from an UNDOCUMENTED AMT? Those Relationships are MY Relationships. But, I have two children that she doesn't have.

I'll trade you one Great Grandfather for 3 more siblings, including mine. Good deal, right ?

In my Research Notes I entered that I had found the AMT that belongs to Crista.

I also posted some  information that I have in my file, into the Comments for her person:

I have a page of information in the Person Notes already, so I just copied and pasted that into the Profile Comments for this person.

IF there had been any documentation in her tree, I would want to Find those records myself. I would create a Task for that person, such as this.

That is from my To Do List, but if that AMT had a source, I would make that a To Do list to locate it, so I could look at the record myself. That is not a trust issue for me but more about I want to see that record myself. I may be looking for additional information, or look at the record differently.

As I mentioned, I have copied and pasted some information that I have for her. She can do with that whatever she wants. I am not concerned if she even sees what I posted, but it's there if she wants it. In fact, I did put two pieces of sources in the comments. I don't want to update her tree, even if I was allowed, but it's there for her.

So, yes, I am using information in an Undocumented Public Member Tree. For me, the fact that she has many relationships in that AMT that are like mine, why not share the resources? Collaboration should make BOTH of our family trees better. No, I didn't say perfect, just better.

Bottom Line: I may share this branch of my file, Online and Public. I also sent an invitation to my "new" cousin to my public tree.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees - New Process for Citations

What a great learning experience about How to Cite Public Member Trees.

It started with my first attempt at selecting the "right" Family Tree Maker Template

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees

I shared that in the Evidence Explained Forum (links in the next blog post). I hadn't selected the right Template and was referred to the QuickSheets, also created by Elizabeth Shown Mills

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees - an Update

The response to the posting in the Evidence Explained Forum brought forward the finer points of a Citation.

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees - What Next

This is ALL GOOD. What an honor to have Elizabeth Shown Mills help this user of Family Tree Maker understand the art of a citation.

Also, I have seen several colleagues follow suit, using their genealogy programs to show their followers that same process. 

+Shannon Thomas, a Legacy Family Tree has a blog post:

Citing Ancestry.com Member Trees in Legacy Family Tree

and my friend +Randy Seaver did a blog post for Roots Magic

RootsMagic 6 Source Citations for an Ancestry.com Public Member Tree

Reality Check:

Clearly, I have the most "clean up" work in the area of a Citation using the Template feature. That is what I am going to discuss here.

I selected the Online Database, National Archives (United States) as the Template, as it provided the information that was needed for the Source information in the Reference Note. Details of that are in the Update blog post.

Since I may use other Public Member Trees (Ancestry Member Trees) in the future, I don't want to have to Remember what goes where and what I have to change. I have put those notes into the Source Template COMMENTs.

Here is the Edit Template Screen:

That is the large (I enlarged it here) box at the bottom of the Template Screen.

This is the part of the Comment that reminds me what goes into the Citation Detail field

Citation Detail:

"[ Tree Name ]" family tree by [ tree name owner ] profile for [ name, (  [birth information - death information ] undocumented / documented data

This defines the Tree Name that is put into quotes; the text family tree by followed by the tree name owner; the text profile for and the information for the profile that I am looking for, with any information on that profile that will help identify which profile I am looking at. That is followed by either the data is documented or not. The brackets remind me to enter that data from the Profile.

The next step, because the Reference Note information is filled in by the Template and the Citation detail, that needs to be edited next. 

From the Template Comments

Reference Note:

Change The National Archives to Ancestry.com

Put  the "accessed" date inside of the parenthesis (http://www.ancestry.com) with a ":" so that it looks like  (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed  ## Month YYYY) 

This reminds me to change The National Archives from the hidden part of the Template to Ancestry.com and I am reminded to carefully Edit the URL piece of the Reference Note. Adding a space after .com and adding a colon and the date. I use 09 April 2014. That date format is a change for me, based on the Evidence Explained conversation.

The next step is the information that goes into the Citation Text field.

Citation text

Tree owner contact information

Ancestry Member Tree of [ name ] if ancestry.com email is used or email address

Copy the updted Reference Note into this field in case the Reference Note has to be Reset

Copy profile URL into the Web Address

No check marks in Citation text or Web Address

Couple of points here. I want the contact information here. Remembering that Ancestry.com has an internal email system I could put the tree owners, ancestry user name or I can spell out the name of the tree owner. That is what I have done here, because I know the tree owner. I did NOT include the email address in these screen captures, for obvious reasons, but it's in my file. I want the Citation Text to have the information needed to contact the tree owner.

That information and the direct link to the profile page is in the Web Address field but I do not want them in the Reference Note. The Evidence Explained documents so not call for the full URL. The Web Site, ancestry.com is sufficient.

The final note in the Comments:

If the public tree has documentation enter that into the Research Log and create a task to locate that source information

That reminds me that IF the tree has documentation, I want to locate that information myself. I am NOT going to copy or download it from the Ancestry Member Tree. I want to look at it myself. So, I create a Research Log identifying any Source Information in detail, and create a ToDo list for that person to locate that source material.

The Reference note now looks like this:

"Public Member Tree", database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 04 April 2014); "Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr" family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Richard Ridgway (b. 1679, Bucks, Pennsylvania - d. 1718, d. Burlington, New Jersey, USA) undocumented data

I'll do another blog post in more detail on the information that I gather from an Ancestry Member Tree.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees - What Next

After a delightful chat with The Editor of Evidence Explained forum  I thought I would post an update and my next steps:

This discussion has to do with a Proper Citation for information added into FTM2014, using the Template Feature. I have posted two earlier blog posts on this;

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees - an Update

The first blog post I had selected the totally incorrect Template. I was thinking about how the data looked like in a Family Group Sheet, and the web page looked to me like a Family Group Sheet.

The discussion with The Editor pointed me to the QuickSheet for Citing Ancestry.com® Databases & Images: which I have right next to Evidence Explained: Citing History Resources from Artifacts to Cyberspace (this link is to the electronic edition)

The format should be:

1. “Public Member Trees,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 April 2014), “Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr” family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Richard Ridgway (1679-1718, d. Bucks, New Jersey) undocumented data updated March 2014.

The closest I could get to this was:

"Public Member Tree", database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), accessed 05 Apr 2014; "Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr" family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Robert Ridgeway (b. 24 Aug 1631 Devon, England - d. in Devon England) undocumented data updated March 2014

Close, but not so much; There are a couple of issues that are different.

"Public Member Tree", database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), accessed 05 Apr 2014; "Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr" family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Robert Ridgeway (b. 24 Aug 1631 Devon, England - d. in Devon England) undocumented data updated March 2014

Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), accessed 05 Apr 2014;

There are two things about this piece of the Reference Note:

1. I have to remember to change "The National Archives " which comes from within FTM2014 where I cna not control what it says. I have to change that to Ancestry.com
2. The second is that the "accessed" date should be within the parenthesis of the Website: (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 April 2014) which means that I have to manually edit that piece of the Reference Note. 

The problem here is, that the Source Template, for the Public Member Tree can't be edited to include the date that will be used in the Reference Note. Here is what I had in the Citation Detail screen.

accessed 04 Apr 2014; "Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr" family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Robert Ridgeway (b. 24 Aug 1631 Devon, England - d. in Devon England) undocumented data updated March 2014

All of the information is there and it can be edited but IF I have to use the Reset for the Reference Note, I have to Edit it again.

I am putting the follow note in the Source Template Comment Field:

Change The National Archives to Ancestry.com

Cut the "accessed" date inside of the parenthesis (http://www.ancestry.com) with a ":" so that it looks like  (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 April 2014) 

Then I will copy the correct Reference Note into the Citation Notes field, so that it can be returned to what it should be, before the Reset option was used.

The likelyhood of getting the Template feature to do this, is slim to none. Its a minor technical detail, but it's based on THE Standard.

This is my new "standard" work around for this type of a Source and it's citation. Each citation using this template will be handled this way. I have submitted, on the Feedback forum, to add a New Template to handle The Public Member tree issue. That is, to use the same Template, but to have one where The National Archives is changed to Ancestry.com.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees - an Update

I did a blog post on Ancestry Member Trees.

FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees

As mentioned in the Comments, I forwarded the blog post to the Evidence Explained user Forum for comments. It was clear to me, that I had selected the wrong Template. I had also forgotten to look at a resource I have on my desk, QuickSheet: Citing Ancestry.com® Databases & Images also by Elizabeth Shown Mills. On the 3rd page, the third and fourth items on the QuickSheet, was the format that I am to use.

Two things caught my eye on the Quick Sheet. First the term "Public Member Trees" and, looking at the data elements I had seen that format before.

As I have shown here in the past, I took that example apart to determine what comes from the Source Template and what I need to provide in the Citation Detail. When I do that, the Template needs to provide the "name" of the database, where did it come from and the URL.

That is when I discovered my first error. I used the term Ancestry Member Tree. For me, that was an FTM2014 'term' and not what we suggested on the Quick Sheet. So, I went back to that image I had provided in the earlier Blog post. and sure enough, "Public Member Tree" is the correct title of the tree.

That can be fixed easily. What I then had to do, is to find a template that would allow me to have Quotation Marks around the "right" database title, the word "database" the Company Name, and it's URL. The year of the database as well. I have worked with such a template so I used the Keyword of DAT. 

As before, I was in the Sources Workspace and since this will be a NEW Source I clicked on Add, the New (screen not seen), which brings up the screen to enter a Keyword. What I remember working on before were records from the National Archives Records Administration (NARA) database. 

That Template is asking me the right questions.

The only thing I won't enter, because Public Member Trees are dynamic, meaning that the user's created the information and the online profile that does NOT have a date, I am leaving the "year" field blank.

I click OK and now have a New Source. But, what about the one I did earlier? Do I have to re-do that? Answer, NO. I just need to replace the old with the new SOURCE.

Here is the old source and citation.

In the upper right, just to the left of the Green Plus sign, is a downward pointing arrow where I select this new one.

All of the data, citation information, from the "old" Source will be brought into the new Source Template.

There were two things to be cleaned up. The Citation Detail had this information in it.

Profile of Richard Ridgway (1679-1718), Ancestry Member Tree; accessed 04 Apr 2014.

That is not very helpful, as there are a number of Richard Ridgway's in that tree as well as mine. It needs to be filled more completely with some quotations around the tree name. I changed it to this:

accessed 04 Apr 2014; "Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr" family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Richard Ridgway (b. 1679, Bucks, Pennsylvania - d. 1718, d. Burlington, New Jersey) undocumented data updated March 2014 

A far clearer description. Also, when I went back to that online tree, none of the Facts in that tree had any documentation, but I do know that the owner had last updated "the tree" within the last month. The profile doesn't tell me IF Richard was updated, but by the Citation, I can tell that the owner has been active, based on the Owner's profile in my earlier post.

There is ONE issue to be handled carefully. Thise is what the Reference Note now says, remembering that the Reference Note is a combination of the information from the Source Template, some information that we enter, and some generated from within FTM2014, information from the Citation Detail, and Citation Text.

"Public Member Tree", database, The National Archives (http://www.ancestry.com), accessed 04 Apr 2014; "Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr" family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Richard Ridgway (b. 1679, Bucks, Pennsylvania - d. 1718, d. Burlington, New Jersey) undocumented data updated March 2014.

The National Archives comes from the Template, so we don't have control over that. The URL comes from the field we complete any time the Reference Note is Reset The National Archives information will need to be changed to Ancestry.com.

"Public Member Tree", database, Ancestry.com(http://www.ancestry.com), accessed 04 Apr 2014; "Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr" family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Richard Ridgway (b. 1679, Bucks, Pennsylvania - d. 1718, d. Burlington, New Jersey) undocumented data updated March 2014.

So now the Citation Screen looks like this:

Looking at the QuickSheet and the feedback from the Evidence Explained user Forum, I think this is a little closer to what the Reference Note should look like.

I will share the blog post to the forum for another review.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington