Family Tree Maker 2011 - Smart Stories

One of the new features in Family Tree Maker Version 2011 was the introduction of "Smart Stories™". I have posted about this in the past.

Family Tree Maker 2011 is coming

The Smart Story™ feature was briefly described.

What new features are available in Family Tree Maker 2011?

This was a Question and Answer page about the new features, Smart Stories™ being one of them.


Family Tree Maker Webinar on September 15th 

This Webinar discussed the feature and is in the Webinar Archives. The Webinar can be viewed by clicking on the above link.

Family Tree Maker Version 2011 - Smart Story - Biography 

This posting was based on my first attempt at using this feature.

Just a little background on this article and feature. My mother had just passed away. Version 2011 had just been released and I hadn't really used the feature before. As has become "something I do", I created a Book for the Celebration of her life that I made available for the gathering the followed her memorial service. The purpose of this book, and others,  were to share her life with those who attended this Celebration.

The article above tells how I used the Smart Story™ feature to create a piece of the book. There are step by step instructions on how that story was created.

A fellow Genea-Blogger, and friend, Randy Seaver has posted a couple of posts about this feature as well.

Adding a Smart Story to Family Tree Maker 2011 - Post 1

Randy describes his experience with this feature. I encourage you to read Randy's Blog Post. He goes into some different uses of the Smart Story™ feature.

Then earlier this week he posted this article.

Adding a Smart Story to Family Tree Maker 2011 - Post 2

Again, Randy goes into great detail on this use of this feature. He also raises a couple of interesting findings in his use of the feature.

Then, today, he posted this article:


Dear Randy: Do Family Tree Maker 2011 Smart Stories have any practical function?


He was responding to a Comment made on a previous Blog post.

So, I would like to take a minute to talk about the "Practical Function" of the Smart Stories™ feature.

For me, this feature works very well, at least for me, when I created the book for my mother's celebration  that I talked about above.

One of her Ancestors was a Revolutionary War veteran who served and traveled with General George Washington. Trying to tell "his story" in the book, since I know this story would be missed in a bunch of genealogy reports that were also include, I wanted to have a Chapter in the Book that told Jacob Lurvey's story.

 Without going into the step by step for either the book feature, nor the Smart Stories feature, I want to show some screen images that will show a little more detail.


This first one is within the Book Feature, with the Chapter shown on the Left (Jacob Lurvey, Revolutionary War), the Smart Story information screen on the Right, with the Edited story in the center.

All of the FACTs about Jacob are in the Right Panel. They are inserted in the Center Panel then Edited. As a reminder, the FACT Name and Text (Date, Location, and Description) can NOT be edited from this screen. Going back and make the changes in the Person's Page has to be done and then the FACTS brought into the Center Pane. So, I found it best to try it once, and look carefully at each Fact and Edit on the Person page as required.

To look a little closer at the details:

Focusing on the Military FACTs a bit, you see that the Dated Military FACTs are at the top, as all of the FACTs are 'sorted' in the Right Panel by Date, and the Undated Military FACTs are at the bottom.

The Editing that was done, was to put all of the information in Date Order and putting all of the Military FACTs together.

The end results looks like this:

To add a little more to his story, in the chapter before this was a Time Line, still within the book feature, and also introduced in Family Tree Maker Version 2011, helped set up this Smart Story.

 The time line shows that the Revolutionary  War started when he was 13 and joined Washington's army at 14.

This is one example, for me at least, of the Practical use of this feature.

Thank you Randy for reminding me to post this blog.


Disclosure:  I am not an employee or contractor for Ancestry.com or its subsidiary entities. I have accepted travel expenses and Family Tree Maker software from Ancestry.com in the past.  I was not remunerated to write this post.


Copyright © 2011 by H R Worthington

How To: Source a Book - Copy / Paste Source-Citation - A Short Cut

In How To: Source a Book a family book was found and it showed how to create a Source and Source-Citations from information from that book. As you might expect, there may be many Source-Citation entries to be done.

This post how to use a built in short cut to speed up this process.

In the notes, from the book, the wife, Rachel Pearl Johnston's father's name was mentioned. So, we want to add him to the file. For this example, the Add Father button, in the Mini-Pedigree navigation part of the People Workspace, Person Tab is used. With the pull down menu, to the Right of Add Father, the Add Father item is selected.

This will open an Add Father window, where the Name is added. Filling in that field, checking the Sex, Clicking OK will add the father's name to the file.

In the earlier Blog:How To: Source a Book a Source-Citation was created. Clicking on the Pull Down menu, to the Right of New, in the Sources tab, Use Existing Source Citation (CTRL+SHFT+S) will be used.

As before, a list of Source-Citations will be listed, letting the mouse hover over the Source-Citation, more information is provided. The high-lighted one, is the one from the previous Blog that referred to #338 Ellwood Palmer Strode.

The Link to Citation was selected for this Source-Citation. This Source-Citation has been added. Now another Fact, from that same Source-Citation is going to be added, and we want to Copy that Source-Citation to the 'next' Fact.

Right Clicking on that listed Source-Citation will bring up another piece of that Menu. Selection Copy, will be used to Copy that Source-Citation to the Next Fact.

The next Fact was added, in this case a Residence Fact, then using the pull down menu to the Right of New, will provide  the Paste Duplicate Source Citation option.

Completing that Paste, the Source-Citation is added to that Fact.

© 2010, copyright H R Worthington

How To: Source a Book

So, you found and purchased a book that has genealogical information about your Family. How do you Cite your Sources from this book.

When I pick up a book, for the first time, I start at the Sources Workspace. This same process can be done from the People Workspace, Person Tab, and selecting a Fact. But I will start in the Sources Workspace to enter the information about this book. Will add Source-Citation information later.

Going to the Sources Workspace, selecting Add, on the Right side of that screen, an Add Source window will open. For this example, a Keyword will be used to locate the correct Template. "Book" is entered:

Below is the types of Books that have specific Templates.

The Book is a Print Publication. So that entry is selected:

Selecting that will bring up the Add Source Screen to be filled in. All of this information is in the front cover of the book. There is no call number or an ISBN number.

Clicking OK will bring up a completed Source Citation screen.

As it appears that there is a lot of information in this book, the other fields will be left blank, at this point.

Since some of the following steps have been covered in other blog posts, screen prints won't be here.

Going to the People Workspace, Person Tab, the information about the individual is entered. In this case, the Name is Ellwood Palmer Strode. The Name Fact is selected, at the top of the list of Facts, the Right Hand (RH) Panel will present his name and under the name is the Fact, Sources, Media, Notes line. Selecting New and select Use Existing Source-Citation selection, which will bring up a screen, where you select a New Copy. Keep in mind that earlier, the Source-Citation was left blank, but want to use that same Source-Citation for specific information about this person and fact.

The new (copy) of the Source-Citation screen is presented and is filled in. In this specific book, each individual has a Number followed by the name. In addition to the number and name, the page number is entered. Since there is more information on this page, the details of that information will be put into the Notes section for this individual. That is noted in the Citation text, for clarity in End Notes.

Going to the notes section for this individual, specific information is recorded. Because there are written notes in the book, they are also noted. Also, there is some missing information in the book. For clarity, the Text in this paragraph are marked in Bold, as a reminder to pick them up as Facts for this person and other people in this family.

Since this has his Birth Date, that Fact is entered, with birth date and location.

This time, since the same source-citation is going to be used, the New pull down menu, and the Use Existing Source Citation and the Link to Citation option is used. Since there may be multiple 'existing' Source-Citations, placing the mouse cursor over the specific Source-Citation will bring up more details on that Source-Citation. The screen capture would not show in the following screen. The right Source-Citation entry is selected AND the Link to Citation button is used this time.

Let's see what we have so far. Going to the Publish Workspace, Individual, Individual Report, the following Report is generated. The Items to include ICON, in the RH Panel, is verified to Include Sources in the Report. The Birth and Death Facts were entered and Cited. There are subscript number at the end of the Facts with Source-Citations and the Source is shown at the end. The text from the Notes section is also included.

After entering more information from what is indicated in the Notes, return to the Publish Workspace, Relationship Collection and the Family Group Sheet to see the current statue of this Family. As above, each fact indicates that a Source-Citation is associated with it, and is presented at the end of Family Group Sheet.

Going back to the Source Workspace, each Source can be Rated. In the Center panel, at the bottom, is a list of people using that Source-Citation. on the tool bar between the top and bottom of the center panel is a Start. Clicking on that Star will allow the user to Rate the Source. Selecting the "Use standardized ratings" check mark, there are four questions that you select and the details are on the Right. In this case, there are primary sources needed and needs some follow up. As noted above, some of the information on the page about this person are hand written. You can note your justification at the bottom of that screen.

Closing that window, with the OK button, the Source-Citation screen appears. So see details about that specific Source-Citation, hi-lighting it will provide the details on the Right and who is using that Source-Citation on which Facts.

Selecting the "[no source-citation information]"  link shows blanks on the right and the indication that no one is using it. This is there so that it can be selected for the next person listed in the text from the book. It is basically a blank Source-Citation and not being used. Because there is much more information, that [no source-citation information] line will remain.

Returning to the next person mentioned, selecting the name, or other Facts, the New Source, Link to Existing Source-Citation menu is uses, and Create New Copy

Returning to the updated Family Group Sheet, in the Publish workspace, Relationship Collection, the second Source-Citation appears. What was added, based on the text in the notes, the Birth Date and location was added, with it's source-citation.

These steps are repeated until the information in this book are entered and cited. 



© 2010, copyright H R Worthington

Source Citation Template - Group 10 - Publications - Books, CDs, Maps, Leaflets, and Videos

Continuing with the discussion on the use of the Source Citation Templates started

Source Citation Template - Source Group

This series of Blog posts will expand each of the Groups and show the various Categories that will appear on the Category menu. The list of Categories to select from. Each of these categories are referred to in Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills

Group 10: Publications—Books, CDs, Maps, Leaflets, and Videos

Category: Print Publications
QuickCheck Model: Pages 646 - 653

Category: Electronic Publications
QuickCheck Model: Pages 654 - 657

Category: Image Copies
QuickCheck Model: Pages 658 - 661

How to Import Existing Books

With the Family Tree Maker Version 2009 Update (18.0.0.305) the Book Feature was restored to the program. But, what if you had books in your Previous Version of the program. This blog entry will provide step by step instructions on how to Import those existing Books into 2009.

The first step is to click on the Publish Workspace button and select Books:


Figure 95

From here, click on File, then Import Books.




Figure 96

You will note any Books that may be presented as well as the ability to go to an Existing Online book or to create a new Online book at MyCanvas at Ancestry.com. Selecting Import Books, you will see the Back up pop-up window. It is suggested that you do this now.



Figure 97

You will now be presented with the list of Family Files that are from previous versions (with FTW as the file extension). Select the file that has your existing book, and the filename will be put into the Filename field.





Figure 98

At the completion, you will see the number of Books and Book Items that were imported.





Figure 99

The you click on the Saved Books menu and the list of Books will be presented. If you look at the above Figure (99) you will see one existing book, and Figure 100 (below) you will see the three, new, books that were imported.



Figure 100

Selecting a book, you will be taken to that imported book. You may see a note of Warning at the top to the List of Book Items. This is to remind us, that there may be some Editing that needs to be done in the various Chapter. Those chapters are listed down the Left column.




Figure 101

From here, selecting each chapter (Book Items) and edit as appropriated. Some reformatting of the Chapters may be necessary.