Source Citation Template - Find-A-Grave

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

 There have been several Blogs, written today  (10/21/09), on How to Cite a Gravestone from the Find-A-Grave website.

As a contributor to Find-A-Grave as well as posting a blog on Tombstone Tuesday, I thought it was time to continue the Use of the New Templates found in Family Tree Maker Version 2009 and now 2010 and address this specific issue..

Here are two Blog Entries that might be of interest on the topic of Citing Find-A-Grave information:

Citation: Is it ever okay to enhance the standard? Opinions, Please..." by Herstoryan

and

How To Cite A Gravestone from Find A Grave by Thomas MacEntee

In researching Tombstone Pictures on Find-A-Grave, a photograph of the Headstone of Hiram Deats, Jr. Based on the information in my Family File, this was the correct Hiram Deats, Jr.

Figure 246

Downloaded the image to the Media Folder for this Family File, gave it a filename that was meaningful (Deats-HiramJr) and Added it to the Media section for this person (People Workspace, Person Tab, Media tab in the Center).

Hi-Lighting that image, and going to the Right Hand Panel (RH Panel), and selecting the Burial FACT that was already known, from a Cemetery Visit, Selected New, Add New Source-Citation in the Source-Citation portion of the RH Panel.

Figure 247

This brought up a New Source-Citation Screen (2), where New was selected. This brought up another screen, where More (3) was selected, as this is where the Templates are chosen from.

There is a more detailed description on this blog post:

Source Citation Template - Source Group

In that blog the various Source Groups were discussed. From the list of Groups, Cemetery Records (1 below) appear to be the best match. That would be Group 3 

 

Figure 248

Looking at the Category Listing, Grave Markers appear to be the best choice for this Headstone photograph. Selecting the specific Template would be the next choice and that would be Online Image.

Figure 249

This completes the Selection of the Template, but now to "fill in the blanks" for the Find-A-Grave Source.

Figure 250

The Create surname, in this case, is Find-A-Grave. No Creator forname is required, but the Web Site Title (Find-A-Grave) and URL (http://findagrave.com) is entered. The year is also entered.

Clicking on OK will bring up a Specific Source-Citation screen.

Figure 251

For this example, the Date of the Citation was entered in the Citation Details, and in the Citation Text box, the information was transcribed from the photograph of the headstone. Giving Credit to the photographer would also be acceptable.

The Source-Citation will appear like this:

Find-A-Grave, Find-A-Grave, digital images (http://findagrave.com), October 21, 2009. Photograph of the headstone of Hiram Deats Jr - Born Sept 10 1853 - Died Feb 6 1928 - Cherryville Baptist Cemetery Cherryville, Hunterdon County, New Jersey.

Note: When entering information into the Citation Text field, the Enter Key (return) will NOT be recognized in the end note (Source-Citation). In this example you will see Dashes (-) in the entry. "Hiram Deats Jr - Born Sept 10 1853"

Evidence Explained: 5,16, page 229 

File Organization - Filenameing Convention - Individuals

Among the Genealogy Blogging community, there have been a number of Bloggers talking about 'Getting Organized". There have also been a couple of PodCasts talking about the same topic.

Please see my earlier Blog on this topic: http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/search/label/Organization. This link will bring up any blog entries that I have posted on Organization.

In my first post on this topic, I talked about what file naming convention I used in a specifc file. I have given this some serious thought, but in a more generic, not file specific file naming.

In the Family Tree Maker program, all Images are, by default, are stored in a Media Folder based on the File Name of the family file.

For example: The family file is located in:

My Documents\Family Tree Maker\MasterFile.FTM

The Media Items are in:

My Documents\Family Tree Maker\MasterFile Media

Here is what the filenames look like using Windows Explorer:

Figure 220

This JPG files are a results of a Web Merge.

There is no meaningful information in the names of these files. For example, the second filename on that list is:

08061202192718.JPG

Figure 221

It is a Registration Report. Looking at the Image with any photo editor doesn't really say what time of Registration Report it is. Of interest, for entry into Family Tree Maker is his Occupation.

So, looking at the Files, external to the Family Tree Maker is of little help.

The view within the Family Tree Maker is a little clearer:

Figure 222

From the People Workspace, Person tab, selecting the Occupation FACT, Farmer in 1918 (signature line on 2nd page) there is a Source Citation Image of this World War I Registration Report.

Figure 222 shows the Source-Citation information, the Filename and the Location of the file. That agrees with what is seen in Figure 220.

The task here is to have the ability to look externally to Family Tree Maker and Internally to Family Tree Maker to know what image is.

The format of Filenames that is under consideration is:

Surname_FirstnameMiddlename-year-Event

The Surname followed by an Underscore, followed by the Firstname, followed by the Middlename (if appropriate), followed by a Dash and Year, followed by a Dash and the Event.

In this case:

Worrell_JosephWilson-1918-WWI-Registration

In the External view, all images for Joseph Wilson Worrell will be sorted together with Windows Explorer, then sotret by Year, followed by the Event. For sorting purposes, the plan is to keep an individuals images together, then by years. The Event sorting isn't that important for this user at this time.

Will have another blog post on other types of Records.