FTM2019 - Master File - Clean Up Summary

A Summary of a week long Clean Up project:

A little over a week ago, I started a Clean Up project of my Master Family Tree Maker file (FTM2019). I found notes back to 1997, which reminded me of how long I have been working on this SAME File. More importantly, I was reminded of the Changes that the program has made over the years. Most of the clean up was caused by those changes, which, in fact, is a Good Thing.

The biggest push, for me, to take the TIME to clean up, is the use of the Research Log (Notes) and Person Notes. Most of the work was to take Person Notes out of the Research Notes Tab and move them into the Person Notes Tab.

I started with 742 PAGES of Research Notes and ended with 578 Pages of Research Notes.

About 800 Pages of Person Notes that ended up with 919 Pages of Person Notes.

I now have NO (0 - Zero) Notes that can be seen in the Ancestry Member Tree. Mostly because of the formatting, or lack of formatting in the AMT. It looks very bad in an AMT, so I marked them ALL Private (for now), for the AMT.

When I started this clean up, I realized that in about 2014, I changed the formatting of the DATE in the Research Log and saw where I had played around with several formats in 2014. I took this time to Reform the dates, using the Find and Replace feature in FTM2019 and updated about 1,150 Entries.

I was reminded about the amount of resource material I have in the Person Notes tab. The plan going forward is to work on those Private Person Notes. Mostly for myself, but may re-consider making them public.

The other MAJOR clean up was to Mark ALL FACTS as Private, with the exception of Birth, Marriage, and Death Facts. I now have a record of the FACTS that I use, and have already Deleted 5 or 10 Facts along the way. Mostly, early Facts that I didn't clean up earlier.

I now have an Evernote Notebook with the Facts I have reviewed already, and how I want to use them. For example, my Military Facts are out of control. I had not documented, at the time, how I was going to use them.

Also, I realized that I had some Fact Notes information in the Person Notes Tab. Again, it's one of those things I changed over time, but hadn't made time to clean up those changes.

Of the 919 Person Notes Pages, I expect that number to go down, as the 488 Fact Notes Pages, goes UP. 

My goal is to be Consistent and to document how I do "stuff" in my File.

AND, I have 1,682 Profiles without Documentation, meaning at least ONE Fact without a Citation. I know who they are, but this review have me hints that I really do have the information about where I got that information, just hadn't entered it correctly.

The Filter In, Filter Out feature is my best friend going forward. That is why the FACT Review was and IS so important, as that is what the Filters help with. Knowing who has Undocumented Facts, helps, but along the way, with earlier Do-Over's, I have notes as to where to look for the Citations for those Facts.

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Copyright © 2021 by Cousin Russ

FTM2019 - Clean Up - No Documentation - Check Research Log

Not Documentation, check Research Log

I run an Undocumented Report frequently, to make sure All of my FACTS have citations. I will add a "No Documentation" Fact for those profiles that I need to find or create Citations. As long as I know, and can see that I need Citations, I know what I need to do.

During this Clean Up project, Specifically in the Research Log and Person Notes fields, I found a gold mine. 

Way back in 1997 I had merged a file from a Cousin, from his Family Tree Maker program into my file. I had made note of that, in the person notes (at the time), that simply gave me the Date, the Filename, and who sent it to me.

During this clean up of the Research Log, those notes ended up in the Research Log. So, as I was into a specific Surname list, in the log, I saw these entries. When I looked at the Profiles, and I moved the Notes to the Person Notes I saw that many of those Profiles and the No Documentation Fact.

Now I can Document those Facts.

In those "good old days", when a FTM file was Merged, Citations didn't go along with the merge, but at least I had made a notation what I did and when, so now I can go back and Document those Facts.

The whole Clean Up of my working File, is so worth the time and effort to clean up the file.
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Copyright © 2021 by Cousin Russ

FTM2019 - Notes Clean Up Project

Clean Up Project:

What does a Family Researcher do on a Holiday Weekend ? Clean House (oops, Family File).

This all started with the change in Terms of Service by Ancestry. That wasn't a bad thing, but I gave me cause to look at my database and do some "house cleaning". 

I have made a couple of Blog Posts about this project:

FTM2019 - Remove Person Notes from AMT

FTM2019 - Just the Facts

FTM2019 - Update Privatized Facts

FTM2019 - I've got Photographs & Bookmarks

FTM2019 and WikiTree

FTM2019 Clean Up

FTM2019 - Web Links Tab

During that process I wanted to do more Clean Up of my database. I have a "Notebook" in Evernote where I keep "how I do stuff" in Family Tree Maker. I have a lot of documentation in that Notebook because that is one way for me to Standardize my database. Mainly because I will Forget something. For example, how I use certain Facts.

When I Privatized the Facts, I put ALL of the Facts into an EXCEL Spreadsheet, then, one FACT at a time, entered that Fact Name into Evernote, as another Chapter.

Since all of the FACTS, with 4 exceptions, are Private, I wanted to Address NOTES. I did a blog post on Notes, Notes, Notes. 

I ran a report in FTM2019, from the Person Collection, Notes, and selected Research Notes. (I have blogged about that as well. Although that was back in the stone ages, (FTM2012) they work about the same.

The Report Showed that I had 742 Pages of Research Log. The good thing is that they are ALL Marked Private. That was the good news. The BAD News is that many of the Research Log had Person Notes in them. Remembering that Family Tree Maker has added and / moved features over time, and this file is the one I started with in Version 3.4. I had notes where they didn't belong.

All of the Person Notes have been privatized already. I did not get a count when I started, but when the Research Log page count was at 723 pages, I had 765 Pages of Person Notes. So I have been moving (copy / paste) the Person Notes from the Research Log to where they belong.

Taking a break from that, I looked at the FACT NOTES: There was 208 Pages of Fact Notes that were Public and 488 Pages of Fact Notes that are Private. Working on making ALL of them Private.

This is where Evernote came into plan. Over time, I have changed how I did "stuff". For example, I created a "Cemetery" database, within this SAME file. I had been entering Cemetery Information in the Burial Fact Notes. I realized that I was retyping a bunch of stuff, so that is when I created the Cemetery database (Profiles with the Cemetery Information). So rather than using the Burial Fact Notes, I created a Link from the Burial Fact to the Cemetery Profile. So I now will go back and clean that up. That is one example of Fact Notes that will clean up.

There are also Person Notes, that my "standard" is to Copy / Paste that information into Fact Notes.

One of the reason for this clean up, is because of the way that Ancestry Member Tree's make (or don't make) Notes available or how they are displayed. They certainly do NOT look like how I have them in FTM2019.

I am about 1/4 of the way through my Research Log, but needed a break from that, so I am going after the Fact Notes, to Privatize ALL of them. Then go back to clean them up.

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Copyright © 2021 by Cousin Russ

FTM2019 Clean Up

After I Privatized my Media Files, I thought I would do some File Clean Up.

This is work on my own File, with 12,661 profiles. I have two questions in my mind as I have been doing this clean up.

What do I need / want to see

What do I want YOU to see

Those two questions have been on my mind when I give presentations on Family Tree Maker or when I blog, here, about the program. I have implemented these questions in a couple of smaller files, but not on my own file. I have been cleaning up a lot of information, like Citations in my file, but not really spent some time making this file public. Too messy, and needed to be cleaned up.

Thinking through the Media file issue, those two questions returned to this file and the related, linked Ancestry Member Tree (AMT). In an earlier blog post I figured out a way for someone finding the AMT, to communicate that I had images for the Profile. I can do that with my Master File.

But what about other information, like Facts, Notes, those stories. I know what I want to handle the Person (Profile) Notes. Each Note will have a Citation, keeping in mind that may be many notes in one persons Notes, but each one will have a Citation and that citation is in Bold. I have been doing that. The bolded Citation is a visual for me, that there is the "next" note, in the person note Tab. So, IF I have notes and I have not put the Citation, in bold, I just Privatize that Persons Notes. Looking at what I had left, not made private, I just privatized that note and moved on. I realized that the notes, with citations, were not consistent. So, I went through almost 200 pages of notes and made them Private. I want to see consistent notes, with Citations, but don't want anyone else to see them YET. Also, Ancestry AMTs do not present the Notes with the formatting (like bold Citations) that I have in my version of the Notes. Remember that those notes may appear in a Book that I may create from this file. That Formatting WILL remain in that Book. I can also unprivatize those notes for that book.

All Notes are not marked as Private.

I already have a number of FACTS that I have marked as Private, like Current Place Names for a Historical location (see earlier blog posts on that), but when I was looking at the 200 Facts that I have in my database, again my use of those Facts were not Consistent.

I did two things with the Facts. Marked ALL but Birth, Marriage, and Death Facts as Private, but Default, AND those existing, as Private. I can see that ALL. As I did this, I created an EXCEL spreadsheet with each Fact and the Number of times that Fact was used. As I went along, I made a quick notation that I needed to fix my usage of that Fact, in EXCEL.

What I also have, is an Evernote (another program) Notebook on how I use Family Tree Maker. I have used that for a long time, especially for Citations. So my next task, and I may blog about this, is to put all of those Facts in Evernote, and describe how I use that Fact and Where I get it from.

In EXCEL, I made a couple of Notes. Self, Records, System. Where did that fact come from. Very high level, but I did this to give me a clue as to the Order in which I want to work on those Facts. Some are easy, some, not so much. My Military FACTS are out of control.

Going forward, my workplan is to make those Private Facts public, as appropriate. Keeping in mind those two questions.

What do I need / want to see

What do I want YOU to see

I have not forgotten my prep work for the 1950 U.S. Federal Census project, as I will switch between the two projects from time to time, probably one day with one project the next on the other.

I probably will share some of this work in this blog, if there is any interest. But I want my file to be the way it should be. I have learned a lot of information since I started AND Family Tree Maker has many new features that make it easier to accomplish my goal.

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Copyright © 2021 by Cousin Russ