What work have I done on this Profile recently ?

Here is something that I have not blogged about before, but should have, and that is the History Button at the bottom of the People Workspace, Tree View.

When you select the History button, hover your mouse over a name, you will see what you have done and when

According to the Help:

The Work History list in the Tree tab of the People Workspace lets you review the changes you have made and quickly find and return to the people you have recently worked on. Family Tree Maker lists the names of the last 200 people you added or edited and remembers the names when you close a restart the program

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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Facebook Question: Not enough Information

Here is a question from Facebook:

How do you enter these facts so you know there is no more research to be done.

1. There is no spouse
2. There were no children

Looking for suggestions and/or standards.

Standards, no; suggestion, no, but will answer How I handle this;

I enter what I know from Documentation and Cite the Source of that information. I have a 0 Undocumented FACT policy for my file.

I'll answer #2 first, as it is the easiest. In a word Nothing. I don't guess if the had children or didn't have children. I have blog post that talks about No Children.

FTM2014 - Marriage, No Children

To answer #1, I have two answers

That question implies that the subject person was married. If I have a record that the person was married, just don't know the name, I will use my "unknown name" standard of 5 Underscores. If I find a record that infers that a female married and the record provides her married name, I would enter 5 Underscores plus her Married Name.

_____ _____ for the unknown name
 _____ MarriedName if that is what the record shows.

The marriage Fact needs to reflect something that reminds me that I don't have a record of the marriage.

People Workspace, Tree View, where you see relationships.

Here is an example of a Father who has children, but I don't know the Mother's name, no do I know IF there was a marriage

There is a 1 in the spouse ICON but there is no information in the "Spouse" field. I enter 5 underscores.

That is a visual to me, there I don't know the name. I see that in the Index on the Left of the Screen.

Now, I don't know if they married. I go to the People Workspace, Person View, and select the Relationship Tab, go down to that unknown spouse and on the right, select the pull down menu and select Unknown.

So the relationship is now correct.

The 5 underscores are my visual about the name, but I need to find the name, But what about "was there a marriage. My ToDo List is where I put that.

The Tasks Tab and clicking New on the Left (not shown) will open the Add Task for box, where I entered "Did William Andrews ever marry? then click Edit to put it into a Category. In this case, my Follow up Category.

The task list is always in the Plan Workspace and in the Task List for this person. Not seen on the left is that I already have 10 other Tasks for him. All in different Categories.

I hope that answers the questions from Facebook.
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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Time out for a little Database Clean Up

While we await the arrival of FTM2017, I am taking some time to do some database clean up. I do a lot of file clean up and file management all of the time. For example, I run the Undocumented Fact Report daily. I want to make sure that ALL of my Facts have a citation. I run the Data Error Report frequently, usually daily, I want to keep that clean. I make sure that ALL of my Source Groups are using the Template Feature. Of course, Compacting and Backing Up my file frequently.

I am thanking this down time to go a little deeper into the Sources Workspace. It was a long time before I found this, and I am guessing that others have missed it as well.

To start with, I went to the Plan Workspace, and clicked on the More Button for more File Statistics.

There are two items here that I want to talk about. There are 36 Sources in this file, but am only using the Template in 35 of them. I missed on. Will fix that shortly. This means that when I add information into Family Tree Maker, I put the Source of the information into one of the Template features in the Source Workspace and this is one of the areas I really focus on when I merge records into the program. Many blog posts on this topic. I will deal with that source group at another time.

When I look at the Sources Workspace, All source citations in the List By, 

I have 521 Citations. These two numbers match up, as expected.

There is a dropdown menu where we  have 4 choices. The All source citations, Source Title, Repository, and Person.

When I am working in the Sources Workspace I select and use the Source Title option. It's easy for me to find the Source Group I want to work on.

I want to look at all of the Source Groups by PERSON. I then can look at what Source Groups are Linked to that person. For this Clean Up, I want to scroll down to the Bottom of the list to find the UnLinked Source Groups.

When I select that, I see that I have 0 (zero / no) Source Groups not linked to a Person. That is what I want to see ALL of the time. All of my Sources are linked to someone's Fact.

One down, two to go.

Now I selected List By Source Title, scroll down to the bottom, again to Unlinked, This will give me a list of any Source Titles, and again All Source Groups have Citations.

2 down, 1 to go

The List by Repository has a problem, or ate list one problem.

This specific database had totally relied on Online Records. Any Record found Online, should NOT have a Repository. This List By should not have any repositories listed. There are two Source Groups and the first one has three Citations that have a Repository of Ancestry.com.

I won't go into this now, but when I looked at the Source Group, Template, I determined that I had selected an Incorrect Template, one that called for a Repository. I will blog about how I resolved that in the near future.

Also,that "FamilySearch" Repository, when I looked at it, was NOT using a Source Template. That is the difference of 1 in the File Statistic screen at the top of this blog post. 

I have two clean up items to do:

• Select the correct Source Template for the Ancestry.com Source Group
• Put the FamilySearch Source Group into a Source Template

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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Why the difference in the Number of Media Files ?

I was asked, why do I have a difference in the number of Media files in Family Tree Maker and in the Media folder on my computer related to the file I am working on?

Here is my file in the Family Tree Maker program, the Media Folder for my current database I have 293 Media files..

Using Windows Explorer, I look at the Media folder for that same file., Again 288 Media files.:

So far, I have the same number if Media files. Yes, I check these two numbers frequently.

But, that doesn't answer the question. One of the reasons was discussed in this blog post;

Should I Copy or Link to a New Media File?

The indication that a Media file was LINKED to the Media Workspace instead of the Copy command, looking at the file Media Folder using File Explorer (the Windows file explorer), would have FEWER files vs the Media Workspace. The Media file is in Family Tree Maker, but in another place on the Hard Drive.

If the Media Workspace has FEWER Media files, vs using File Explorer, that would indicate that there are Media Files in that Media Folder that have not yet been added to Family Tree Maker.

To compare what files are not in Family Tree Maker but in the Media folder, you would want to go to Tools, Options, and use the Sort by Filename option.

More Media files in the Media Workspace, may be the LINKED option and not the Copy Option.

More Media files in the Media Folder, may be that there are Media files in that folder that have NOT been Added to Family Tree Maker.

Since we are talking about the number of Media files, and a question that wasn't asked, Why do I have FEWER Items in my Ancestry Member Tree Gallery.

There are Two Reasons, that I know of, that might be the difference. 1) Media files from Ancestry, where a merge was done, may not be in the Gallery. You can see those images, in the Ancestry Member Tree, but those images are coming from Ancestry, not your database. 2) Any Media files, in Family Tree Maker marked as PRIVATE, will not be in the Ancestry Member Tree.

I checked this file, and I have 30 Media files that came from Ancestry, using the Web Merge feature.

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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Should I Copy or Link to a New Media File?

When adding a new media file to Family Tree Maker, you are giving two options. Copy or Link.

Media Workspace, on the right, ADD and there is a menu, will select Add New Media.

Selecting that your File Explorer window will open where you navigate to where the media file is, and you select it. The filename will appear on the "Name:"  field, and click Open.

A new window will open; By Default, Copy this file to the media folder for this tree and link to in there.

That is always my choice and I put a check mark in the "Always use ... " statement.

Here is why. I received a Back Up file, with Media in the back up and I had this problem.

In the lower right is a red filename because the file wasn't in the Back Up up file. The Find Missing Media command wouldn't find it because the Media file is not on my computer.

The reason is that in the owner's file had used the LINK option. That image is somewhere on that other computer.

My Best Practice is to use the COPY command. First to that it IS in the Back Up file and secondly, if I were to edit that media file in Family Tree Maker, I can always make another copy and bring it into the program as a copy again.
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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

RELEASE OF FTM 2017

I invite you to get the current status of FTM2017 on the Software MacKiev / familytreemaker.com  website:

https://support.mackiev.com/498640-RELEASE-OF-FTM-2017

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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Query Answer: Multiple Sources, Multiple Citations, Same Record

I have a User Requested Blog Post:

Handling (almost) identical citations when available from multiple sources. Example: a citation was created (using a template) from a source that was originally found only on FamilySearch. Now Ancestry has the same information available, even using an identical database title (and gives a "hint" to it.) How do you recommend handling the "source" which could be argued is identical, although the channel to get to the source, and therefore the citation, is different.

I submit that these are two different Sources. Ancestry and FamilySearch. That would required TWO Citations, in fact Two Source Groups.

I often will have a Hint from Ancestry.com and it has a Film Number from FamilySearch. I will cite the Ancestry entry, then go over to FamilySearch, find that Film Number and entry and Cite that one as well. Somethings, when I have done this, I find that the Image my be clearer on one vs the other. I will KEEP both and Cite Both. Yes, it may be the same source material.

Find-A-Grave is another example of this. I will cite the Index from Ancestry.com, but will go to the Find-A-Grave website, find that memorial. One source in Ancestry.com the other the Find-A-Grave website. Two Source Groups. Two Citations.

I have 28 Blog posts on how I handle Find-A-Grave information

Hope that answers your question

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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Family Tree Maker 2017 FAQ

Here is a link to the FTM2017 Frequently Asked Questions at Software MacKiev

https://support.mackiev.com/856847-Family-Tree-Maker-2017-FAQ
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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

FamilySync to replace TreeSync in FTM 2017

The retirement of Ancestry's TreeSync® and its replacement with Software MacKiev's FamilySync™ was announced concurrently by both companies.

If you want to read most about this topic, please visit the Sofware MacKiev's Website

https://support.mackiev.com/244426-FamilySync-to-replace-TreeSync-in-FTM-2017

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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Software MacKiev introduces FamilySync™

Software MacKiev introduces FamilySync™

The blog will be posted on Wednesday, March 15^th or Monday March 20^th. TreeSync retirement is Wednesday, March 29, 2017.

Last year, we announced the purchase of Family Tree Maker desktop software by Software MacKiev and because we wanted to make the transition to a new owner as smooth as possible, we committed at least a year of customer and product support.  The goal has always been to maintain the capability to share your family tree data between files on your computer with your personal Ancestry online trees. We’ve been hard at work co-developing a new Ancestry gateway with Software MacKiev to use in their Family Tree Maker 2017, which will be available soon.  We believe Software MacKiev continues to deliver the best value to users of Family Tree Maker with their focus and expertise in software solutions.   

What you should know:

·         TreeSync will be replaced by Software MacKiev’s FamilySync™.  In the new FamilySync, Ancestry’s search, merge, and Ancestry hints will all work as they do now for users who sync with their Ancestry trees and you can also look forward to more exciting new improvements.

·         FamilySync will be available only in Software MacKiev’s Family Tree Maker 2017 edition, which will be released on March 31, 2017.

The upgrade is free for all users who purchased a copy of a MacKiev Family Tree Maker edition since March 1, 2016. Those with previous Ancestry editions, or who got a free copy of Family Tree Maker 2014.1 or Mac 3.1, are eligible for discounted upgrades. The pre-order upgrade is $29.95 for those who sign up for Software MacKiev’s mailing list before March 29 and the upgrade will continue to be a discounted price ($39.95) for a limited time after March 29.

·         Between Wednesday, March 29 and Friday, March 31, there will be a short period where syncing functionality may be interrupted as Software MacKiev rolls out their new syncing technology.  

·         As of March 29, 2017, Ancestry will no longer be supporting TreeSync, given the introduction of Software MacKiev’s FamilySync™.  Software MacKiev will continue to handle all related customer questions for Family Tree Maker.  Visit Software MacKiev’s Family Tree Maker Support Center at support.familytreemaker.com if you have questions.

For additional information, news and discounted upgrade offers for Family Tree Maker, visit www.familytreemaker.com.