FTM2012 - Web Search - Advantage

If you follow this blog, you might have noticed that I do a lot of Web Searching, within the Family Tree Maker program. That does NOT mean that I don't search outside of the program, but there are advantages to do this from within the program.

Here is an example of one reason to do this.

In and earlier post, I showed how to add other search websites into the Web Search Workspace. Find-A-Grave being one of them.

Clicking on that link in the Left Hand Panel of the Web Search Workspace, it will bring me to the front or home page of the Find-A-Grave website. From there, I am doing a Cemetery Search (2nd link in the Right Hand column of that website. That will bring me to the Cemetery Search page.

I am looking for a Cemetery in New Jersey. I know that name, but I want to see all of the Cemeteries in Somerset County. So, I TAB out of the name field, which will put the cursor into the Country field. There is a pull down menu there, but I would rather use the keyboard, at this point, since I tabbed out of the Name field, and hit U, until The United States appeared. Tabbing out of the Country field, I hit N a couple of times until New Jersey appeared.

Up until this point, there is no county field, but as soon as the State is selected, then the County field will appear. However, in order to get select a county, I use the SHIFT and the Tab key to do a Back Tab, to the county field, where I would type S, until Somerset County appeared (a tip for the Find-A-Grave website). The same thing happens outside of Family Tree Maker.
 

This will bring up a list of Cemeteries in a specific county.

 Again, as you can tell from the Top of the image, that this is within the Web Search Workspace.

For another example, I have information for a person in Baltimore, Maryland. I use this example, because there is Baltimore County, and the city of Baltimore. Family Tree Maker and the Place Name Authority, and the data in Find-A-Grave handle the City of Baltimore differently. In Family Tree Maker, the city of Baltimore will be listed as "an independent city" as seen in another blog posting.

In Find-A-Grave, it will show up at Baltimore City. (see below). In my example, at this point, the Birth and Death entries show Baltimore, Maryland, USA. That is because that is what my research has shown so far. At this point, I have hints that the person I am looking for might be buried in the City of Baltimore. So as I mentioned earlier, I selected Baltimore City.

My results didn't return any good hints, so I REFINED my search to Baltimore County, got a lot of hints, and added the first three characters of the Surname (last name). I didn't have to look up the name, because the basic information is in the lower Left part of the screen. Again, the earlier data did show Baltimore County.

I didn't get good results with the first characters of the Surname, so I entered the complete surname. The results may look strange here, because of this specific name. At some point in time, this person changed the name. Some records showed "Charles Ridgely Carnan" and others have Charles Carnan Ridgely. However the search results were returned but NOT as I had hoped, and the Cemetery listing is on the Right.

I can now quickly change people in the Lower Left, using the Mini-Navigation bar at the top of the Web Search Screen, or another way to change the focus person just above the name.

 Still not my person. Remembering the Surname issue, I changed from Carnan to Ridgely and got these results. At a glance, it appears that this is my person. I can see the dates that I have and dates that are on Find-A-Grave.

Switching the focus person is easy from the Web Search Workspace, so if I found other Family members in the Cemetery, I can easily compare what is on Find-A-Grave and what I have in my records.

I will have other posts, to take this information and get it into FTM2012.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - Web Search - Add Site, Using Current URL

One of my search websites, is Find-A-Grave. I can always manually type in the URL into the Address Bar at the top of the Web Search Workspace. The "New" button, when clicked, will open the New Search Favorite window. You can enter the URL (Internet Address) and put the name of the Web Site, that you want to use and that makes sense to you.

In the Web Search Workspace, I entered www.findagrave.com into the Address field at the top of the Web Search screen.

The Use Current Site button, once clicked, will  copy that URL into the appropriate field. It will also populate the Favorite name field. In this case, I deleted some of the text that was put into that field. I just want it to say Find-A-Grave.

As you can see on the Left, there is a new link there.

When you enter the Web Search Workspace for the first time (after opening FTM2012), you will get to the normal Ancestry..com search screen. Clicking on the new link, it will open, in this case, the Find-A-Grave website.

I have other Search Favorite sites. GenealogyBank,com and FamilySearcy.org, as two examples. Here is how I manage this list of Favorites.

At the bottom of the Left Hand Panel, to the Right of the New button, just discussed, it what I can Manage this list. I can Move the selected site up or down, Sort favorites Alphabetically, and I can add another site from the Manage Favorite button.

Clicking on the New, will bring up the screen we saw earlier. Note, that I have set the Favorites to sort by name. I had NOT completed (clicked OK) this setting, which is why the list on the Left has not changed.

Having clicked OK, then select Genealogy Bank, clicked on GO, to the upper right of this screen, I am taken to the Genealogy Bank website.

This feature makes it easy to navigate to your other Favorite search websites.
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - Web Search Workspace

A Genea-Blogger friend, Randy Seaver, posted this message today:

Web Searching Using Family Tree Maker 2012

As usual, Randy does a great job of explaining and showing how he uses his genealogy management software. It reminded me, that I should take a little time and show how any why I use the Web Search Workspace for most of my online searching.

In the Left Column are a short list of places, websites, to search from. However, there is a way to add your own websites to search. I will have a follow up post on how to do that. The list above are the list provided with the program;

• Ancestry.com
• Rootsweb.com
• Genealogy.com

There are links to:

• Google.com
• Yahoo.com
• Bing.com

Later, I'll show how to use the Web Clipping feature to take advantage of these other websites, so that some data can be collected and merged into your file without retyping the information that you might find.

At the top, is the Web Search Workspace button. Just under that is a mini-navigation Pedigree chart, as is seen on many other Workspaces. To the RIGHT of that mini-navigation Pedigree chart is a button that will bring up the Index that you would find on the People Workspace, Family View, on the Left.

That is to allow you to change the Focus Person, right from this Workspace. There is another place in this Workspace to change the person as well. Will explain that later.

In the lower part of the screen are two boxes. The one on the Left, is some basic information about YOUR person in your file. When a "hint" is selected, which it is not in the above screen, similar information will be displayed in the Lower Right. This is a quick view to see if you are looking at the right person, before you proceed further.

In the large part, in the Center, is what basic Search screens, that you would see on the Ancestry.com website. Follow up blog posts will provide more details on that part of the screen.

The above screen is where you end up, going from any other workspace, and will focus on the last person that you were looking at in the People Workspace, either the Family or the Person View. Again, it's easy to change the focus person without leaving this workspace.

IF you follow a Shaky leave, you will NOT end up on this screen, but another. I have already posted about that, but will post new ones, as part of this series of Blog Posts.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Find-A-Grave Source and Citation Summary

This is a summary of several blog posts on How I document information from the Find-A-Grave website. Some may consider this overkill, but that is OK. I have found that this works for me.

• Following a Shaky Leaf that leads to a Hint pointing to the Find-A-Grave website. This link will include the steps to record a Citation the shows information that shows the Ancestry.Com State Index collection pointing to Find-A-Grave. I have chosen to Cite these indexes.

Find-A-Grave Citations - from a Shaky Leaf

•  Linking on the Link to the Find-A-Grave website, how I cite the Find-A-Grave website.

Find-A-Grave Citations - From Find-A-Grave

• I have decided to put all of my Sources into the Family Tree Maker Template Feature. This blog post will show the steps to follow to do so, for these Find-A-Grave citations.

Find-A-Grave - Create Source Template

•  When following the Shaky Leaf and the use of the Web Merge feature, the Source will be in the Free Form or non-Template format. This blog post will help convert the Free Form format to the Template format

Find-A-Grave - Transfer Free Form to Source Template

• The final step, for me, is to add headstone photographs to the Burial Fact and the Find-A-Grave Fact. These are only for photographs that I take. I do not use photographs provided on the Find-A-Grave website. This blog post will show how I create a Citation for my photographs and add MY photographs to those two facts 

Find-A-Grave - Add My Photos

•  For those Find-A-Grave Memorials that I have created, below is how this is documented. Since the photograph was taken by me, it will be the Citation Media file

Find-A-Grave - My Memorial

 The steps in the above blog posts can be used for non-Find-A-Grave Sources and Citations.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Find-A-Grave - Transfer Free Form to Source Template

Another in the series of results from or about the Find-A-Grave website. 

There is a problem here, based on the previous blog posts on this topic. That is, when the Web Merge was done, the Source was a generic, Free Form Source for Ancestry.com. In my file(s), I want as many Sources in the Template, or Evidence Explained! format. May be this is picky, but the output is so much better, for me at least.

What we have so far is a Free Form Citation. To Move that citation into the Template. Return to the Source and Citation that came from the Web Merge in the Left panel and selecting that source, then clicking on the Down Arrow in the Right Column, the Template is then selected. In this case, Web; Ancestry.com Maine, Find A Grave Index, 1777-2011 (create in another blog post

Find-A-Grave - Create Source Template

The Free Form citation will now be in the Template Format. BUT, there is data in that Free Form screen that needs to be moved into the Template.

Note: the order of filling out the Citation Details and the Citation Text is not important. I did it in this order for someone who may not have created a Template before.

To move the Free Form to the Template form

Right clicking on the Old Citation, will being up a window on the right, and select Replace Citation.

 

This will bring up the list of Sources, where we want to select Web: Ancestry.com; Maine, Find A Grave Index, 1777-2011 again.

Where we select the Template Citation.

You will be asked "Are you sure" and give you the old and new, so the answer would be Yes if this information is correct.

The new Template Citation is now as it should be. The free form information is now present AND the link to View the Online Source is still here. The Reference Note is now as it should be.

The Reference Note will now look like this:

Ancestry.com Web, "Maine, Find A Grave Index, 1778-2011", database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com) online; accessed: 17 Sep 2012. index for John Carroll.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Find-A-Grave - Select a Source Template

This is part of a series of Blog Posts dealing with the Find-A-Grave website. In this case, We are going to Select and Use a Source Template for a Hint that lead to an Ancestry.com Index link to a Find-A-Grave website. These steps are generic enough so that any Source Template can be created based on information from the Find-A-Grave website.

Staring in the Sources Workspace, clicking on Add, right hand panel, then selecting New, will bring up the Template Keyword search screen. Will enter CEM for Cemetery. There are other ways to get here, but I find the Keyword Search is quicker.

I consider Find-A-Grave as a Derived Compiled data source. Because I want to have the many Find-A-Grave grouped by the Contributor to the Find-A-Grave website. I may have communications with, or want to have communications with that Contributor. We may share relatives, they may be in a location that I can't get to and may wish to seek help, I may want to transfer control of one of my Memorials to a member of the family, or I may want to request the memorial to me, as I am family. Being able to group by contributor, to me, is very helpful.

Once the Add ICON is selected, the New button is selected the list of Templates are presented. The last entry is the choice for this.

 

The Template Form will ask for Creator Surname and Creator forename(s) For these Ancestry entries, I enter "Web" for the Creator surname. The reason will be clearer shortly. The Creator Forename is "Ancestry.com". The Description Title is the Top Line of the Web Search screen show above. For these cases, I take the Top line of the "hit" screen, which has the title of the collection at Ancestry.com. In this case, "Maine, Find-A-Grave Index,  1778-2011". The Website Title is Ancestry.com, the URL is "www.ancestry.com" and the Year is taken from the Source information on that Web Search screen from Ancestry.com.

I add two more lines in the Comments, and they are what I put into the Citation Details and Citation Text. Citation Details is "online; accessed: " It's clear that this index is Online and the date it was accessed is imported. After reviewing the Reference Notes and looking at Evidence Explained! it determine what data has to be entered in the Citation Details and the Citation Text to get the desired Reference Note. I do this for all Source entries that I put into the Template format.

These two items will be copied and pasted into those two fields on the New Citation window for this Template.

All that was added to the Citation Detail is the date accessed.

The Citation Text reads: Index for [ full name ]. That is replace by the persons full name from the database, which may be a little more then what is on the hint. The name differences will be reflected in the Name Fact.

 

The resulting Reference Note will look like this:

 Some may stop here, but I will go a couple of extra steps. I Paste the Source information from the Ancestry.com website and Paste it into the Notes tab for the Citation.

For example:

Source Information:
Ancestry.com. Web: Maine, Find A Grave Index, 1778-2011 [database on-line]. Provo, UT. USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Original data: Find A Grave. Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi: accessed 20 March 2012.
Description:
All data in this third-party database was obtained from Find a Grave. Ancestry.com does not support or make corrections or changes to the original database.

 This comes in really handy on other Sources, where a film number might be included.

One more additional step that I take is to do a Screen Capture of what I saw on the Web Search screen. I shows all of what was on that screen and I save it as a JPG file..

 Now to add this 'media' file to the Citation. Selecting the Citation and the Media Tab, I select Add New Media file.

 I locate that media (JPG) file on my hard drive and it will be added.

Before it is added, you will be asked to put this image into a Category. I use a Cemetery Category for this information.

Almost done. I want to put a description on that Media file. I use the Reference Note from the Citation and will paste that into the Description field. (hi-lite, CTRL+C)

Selecting the Pencil ICON, on the Media Tab is the Media Detail screen.

Where the Reference Note is pasted as seen below.

As mentioned before, this are just the steps that I use when following a Shaky Leaf for a Find-A-Grave Index entry. It is NOT required or needed. The actual time to do this is not long, but the end result, for this End User, has paid off in the past.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Find-A-Grave Citations - From Find-A-Grave

Continuing a series of blog posts on how I cite information from the Find-A-Grave website. This blog post started with following a Shaky Leaf, and citing the information found on Ancestry.com. It's really an index entry from Ancestry, but can lead to information on the Find-A-Grave website:

Find-A-Grave Citations - from a Shaky Leaf

As mentioned, the steps described may not be needed, but it also included how to Move a Free Form Citation to a Template, and how to take the content of that Free Form Citation and make it a Template Citation.

This blog post is a follow up to that, where clicking on the link from the Shaky Leaf, to the Find-A-Grave website, and how I cite these findings.

This is the page that the link from Ancestry took me. It's on Find-A-Grave.com. There is some data and a picture.

The Lurvey Cemetery, in Maine. There is some information that I didn't have before.

The first thing that I do is to Hi-lite and Copy the Name down to the Find-A-Grave Memorial Number.

I want to record what is on that page. I will paste it in a Find-A-Grave FACT that I have created in FTM2012, in the Fact Notes. Clicking on the Green PLUS (People Workspace, Person View, Facts tab), will bring up the list of Facts, where I scroll down to the Find-A-Grave fact that I had created.

I select the Notes Tab, for Find-A-Grave, and Paste the information there. I will then Edit out un-needed information from the Paste. The Contributor information is very important and I keep it here. More on that later.

This information is for me, for help documenting dates and relationships that my be included on the Find-A-Grave website, so I will Mark this Fact as Private. Either clicking on the Lock ICON, or the Options menu will offer that option.

The Find-A-Grave Memorial Number is entered as the Fact Description. The number, for me, is important for making Links on the Find-A-Grave website, as appropriate. Again, that fact is private and for my information.

The next step is to create a Source, for the Compiler that is shown above. Going to the Sources Workspace, Add, New, selecting the keyword CEM, as shown in the earlier blog post (link at top of the page), this is the Source information that is entered on the Template.

The compiler's name, and the Find-A-Grave Website is entered. This information comes from what has been pasted in the Fact Notes.

This is the citation that is created.

For the Citation Details, I put the Persons full name, as I know it, the (YYYY-YYYY) formatted date followed by "Find-A-Grave Memorial # .....; accessed dd mon yyyy. and in the Citation Text I copy and paste the Created by information from the Fact Notes. The Citation Text is NOT included in the Reference Note.

Now to link the Citation to the person, based on the existing data found. Existing Data is important at this point. This will put Citations on those Facts that are on the website.

In this case the Death Date and the Find-A-Grave facts are included. On the Citation screen, the Source tab at the bottom, and selecting New will bring up the screen below, where you scroll down to the person in question, then selecting the Fact. IF more than one Fact, as below, the CTRL Key is used to select the additional facts.

Returning to the People Workspace, Person View, shows the additional information. Any new Facts can be added here. Selecting the Citation added to the Find-A-Grave Fact, that is related to this Compiler, and click Copy, will allow you to go to any New Facts that came from Find-A-Grave, such as the Burial Ground. That was added below, and on the Source Tab (on the right), selecting the bottom option, will paste that citation to this new fact.

Below is what the Citations looks like. (from the Sources Workspace, or double clicking on the citation.

Selecting the Death Date, Burial Fact, and Find-A-Grave will show this same citation.

At this point, there are no media files linked to this citation. Follow up posts will show what media files, may or may not be linked to the Citation. That depends on the source of the media file. If I have taken a photo, I will link that to the Fact, with a specific Citation. Photos from the Find-A-Grave website will not be used at this point in time, as there isn't a feature to hide Media files on an Ancestry Member Tree.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Find-A-Grave Citations - from a Shaky Leaf

One genealogy resource that I use is the Find-A-Grave website. Many times it helps fill in some of the holes in my research and provide additional information on where to look further.

This blog post will be by following a Shaky Leaf that leads to an index that Ancestry.com had done, linking to the Find-A-Grave website.

Like other "indexes" it's up to the end user to Cite this hint or index. I choose to do that, mostly to help me clear these helpful shaky leaves and to end up with a link from the Citation Page to view that Online Resources from within Family Tree Maker. Some will think these are extra steps, which may be true, but there is no requirement to do this.

Here is the process that I used to Cite a Shaky Leaf on a Find-A-Grave Index hint.

We'll start with the Shaky leaf which says that there are 2 Ancestry Hints.

Following that link, the 2nd Hint is for Find-A-Grave. The lower left window is data from the FTM2012 database while the lower right window is information from the Hint. In this case it is for John Carroll and it does have the Death Date. My data was not exact, so this will be new information.

This is what is in the Web Search workspace after selecting the Find-A-Grave hint.

 

The information so far is my person. The next step is to merge this Ancestry Record into FTM2012.

 

When the Merge button is selected a Merge Window, or Windows will open. In this case, there will only be one Window. Other records may have additional steps.

 

This gives an overview of what FTM2012 "thinks" you want to merge, but WE have the options. For example, the "new" data from Ancestry had the complete Date, while my file was less complete. So, the Bullet is put in the Right column for the Death Fact, and the right information will be Preferred and the left date will be an Alt. (alternate) Date. It will also include the citation. I don't want to loose information I already had, but I can make the more complete date in my file. Each of the choices should be reviewed based on the Users way have handling this type of data.

The final Web Merge screen will be a Summary of what is going to be merged into the FTM2012 file. In this case, there are no media files.

One thing that I will do, is to high light and Copy the Source information on the Web Search screen, with this record selected. When you complete the Web Merge, you will be returned to that screen. I copy that information to put it into the Citation Notes for future reference, if needed.

  

By default, the Citation will be in a "free form" format and it does not use a Template. The key, for me is, the ability to View the Source Online, lower right corner, just below the Reference Note.

 

To create a Template, clicking on Add, right hand panel, then selecting New, will bring up the Template Keyword search screen. Will enter CEM for Cemetery. This is a Derived Compiled data source. The last entry is that choice.

 

For these Ancestry entries, I enter "Web" for the Creator surname. The reason will be clearer shortly. The Creator Forename is "Ancestry.com". The Description Title is the Top Line of the Web Search screen show above. In this case, Maine 1778-2011. The Website Title is Ancestry.com, the URL is "www.ancestry.com" and the Year is taken from the Source information on that Web Search screen from Ancestry.com.

 

I add two more lines in the Comments, and they are what I put into the Citation Details and Citation Text. Citation Details is "online; accessed: " It's clear that this index is Online and the date it was accessed is imported.

These two items will be copied and pasted into those two fields on the New Citation window for this Template.

All that was added to the Citation Detail was today's date.

The Citation Text reads: Index for [ full name ]. That is replace by the persons full name from the database.

 

The problem now is, there is Citation in the Free Form Citation. To Move that citation into the Template. Return to the Source, and Citation, what was in the Web Merge in the Left panel and selecting that source, then clicking on the Down Arrow in the Right Column, the Template is then selected. In this case, Web; Ancestry.com Maine 1777-2011.

The Free Form citation will now be in the Template Format. BUT, there is data in that Free Form screen that needs to be moved into the Template.

Note: the order of filling out the Citation Details and the Citation Text is not important. I did it in this order for someone who may not have created a Template before.

To move the Free Form to the Template form

Right clicking on the Old Citation, will being up a window on the right, and select Replace Citation.

 

This will bring up the list of Sources, where we want to select Web: Ancestry.com; Maine 1777-2011 again.

Where we select the Template Citation.

You will be asked "Are you sure" and give you the old and new, so the answer would be Yes if this information is correct.

The new Template Citation is now as it should be. The free form information is now present AND the link to View the Online Source is still here. The Reference Note is now as it should be.

 Some may stop here, but I will go a couple of extra steps. I Paste the Source information from the Ancestry.com website and Paste it into the Notes tab for the Citation.

 This comes in really handy on other Sources, where a film number might be included.

One more additional step that I take is to do a Screen Capture of what I saw on the Web Search screen. I shows all of what was on that screen and I save it as a JPG file..

 Now to add this 'media' file to the Citation. Selecting the Citation and the Media Tab, I select Add New Media file.

 I locate that media (JPG) file on my hard drive and it will be added.

Before it is added, you will be asked to put this image into a Category. I use a Cemetery Category for this information.

Almost done. I want to put a description on that Media file. I use the Reference Note from the Citation and will paste that into the Description field. (hi-lite, CTRL+C)

Selecting the Pencil ICON, on the Media Tab is the Media Detail screen.

Where the Reference Note is pasted as seen below.

As mentioned before, this are just the steps that I use when following a Shaky Leaf for a Find-A-Grave Index entry. It is NOT required or needed. The actual time to do this is not long, but the end result, for this End User, has paid off in the past.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington