FTM2012 - 580 - 1940 Census Support

This patch also included a new, or an updated Template to include the 1940 US Census.

Going to the Sources Workspace, selected Add, New, and typing "cen" for census, without the quotes, there are two 1940 Census Templates. Year only, or Year and Location.

The good news, the work that I had for the 1940 Census were automatically updated, which was very good. (for me at least)

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - 580 - New Family View Report

One of the NEW Features, with the 580 patch, is a Family View Report. It presents the ancestors, spouse, and children of a person (similar to the People Workspace, Family View).

Publish Workspace, Relationship Collection, Family View Report.

 Nice clean report. I didn't have to do anything but select the Focus person.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - 580 - Undocumented Facts Report

An updated feature, Undocumented Fact Report, Added option to include only preferred facts.

There has been an Undocumented Fact Report, but users requested that ONLY Preferred Facts be included in this report. We now have that feature.

Publish Workspace, Sources Collection, Undocumented Report. In that screen is a check mark to "Include only Preferred Facts".

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 Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - Patch 580 - Calendar Report

Just received a notification of an update to FTM2012, bringing the version up to 21.0.0.580, in the Help, About Family Tree Maker window.

Calendar Report:

Added option to adjust font size (five predefined sizes)

There had been issues in this are in the past. One was the number of individuals that could find into one calendar day. From what I can tell, this resolves this issue.

 The font sizes are as seen above. The default is Medium. I looked at my Calendar for May, and only found ONE person. Looking at the above, I had Immediate Family selected, I should have had at least two people. Wondering what was wrong, I checked the Calendar Options. (first ICON on the Left, just above the word "background". I notice that I had a check mark in the "Include births and marriages only if still living". I removed the Check Mark.

Now the calendar looks better. I played around with the Font Sizes to make sure I had everyone listed on this Calendar, and I do. The font size was set to Small, and the 31st has everyone listed.

 There are other options for you to review, including color options. This blog post is only showing the Font Size option.
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

City Directories (Beta) Revisited

In an earlier post: City Directories - Citations there as a comment by an Anonymous Apr 29, 2012 05:13 PM reader. Basically it said that I didn't have it "right". So, I took a look at the details of the comment and agree that I wasn't sure to begin with. Happened to follow a Shaky Leaf hint this morning and had another City Directory (Beta) hit to give it another look.

This person is in Newark, New Jersey. In order to generate the correct Citation, I picked up the top line of what Ancestry.com provides, that it provides:

New Jersey, Newark, 1899-1901 - Holbrook's Directory Newark 1900.

The specific family is on Page 680.

The next trick, in this case, is to find who the Publisher was. Went to the beginning of the Directory and finally located the publishers, name, and location.

 Holbrook Newark Directory Company, Newark.

I selected the Digital Archive Template for this Directory. Clicked on Add, New, and typed "dig" as the Keyword (for Digital) and selected that template.

The date to enter is:

• Collection: U S City Directories, 1821-1989 
• Collection format: digital archives
• Website creator/owner: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc
• Website title: Ancestry.com
• URL: www.ancestry.com
• Year: 2011
• Comments

That information came from the Source Description from Ancestry.com.

For the Citation detail: I entered

entry for Agnes Steiger Klepp accessed: 07 May 2012

and the Citation text:

citing Holbrook's Directory, Newark 1900 Holbrook Directory Company;  (Newark, New Jersey) page 680

So the Reference Note is:

"U S City Directories, 1821-1989", Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), entry for Agnes Steiger Klepp accessed: 07 May 2012. citing Holbrook's Direcotry, Newark 1900 Holbrook Directory Company;  (Newark, New Jersey) page 680..

 (just noticed a typo in the image) But the Reference note is correct.

Again, the sequence of the Text in the Reference Note is controlled by the Template selected, and the information that is put in the Citation Details, and Citation Text fields. The formatting of the text is under the control of FTM2012.

I am changing my City Directory (Beta) entries to this format.


Lesson Learned: Evidence Explained! is a great resource. But sometimes identifying the right template, based on that resource, is difficult when working with Online Resources.  (for me at least)
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Why Use the Web Merge Feature ?

One feature that has become more important to me, is the Web Merge feature. I have talked about clean up that I might do afterward, but the driving force, and benefit to me, to use this feature is the "View Online" link that is available on the Citation Screen.

For my example, I will do a Web Merge with a link, from Ancestry.com that goes to a Find-A-Grave memorial page. The link is in the Right Hand Panel, of the Sources Workspace, with a specific Citation in the Center Panel.

Clicking on that link will take me directly to the Ancestry.com web page where the information came from.

Lesson Learned: This link has become very valuable to me, while doing the clean up of my Citations, My goal, is to have those links on as many Citations as possible.
________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

1940 Census - Summary of Work

A month's worth of work has been completed, following the release of the 1940 U.S. Census. I thought that I would make a summary of what I was able to find in these Images.

I ended up with:

6 New Sources. That is Census Records in 1940 by Location. Or 6 Counties where I was able to locate and identify people in my file

23 New Citations. That is really 23 Households that I was able to find, just scanning through the census images

92 People in my file, were listed in these Households

2 of the 92 ended up with the Supplementary Question list (see below)

The people per household averaged 4 with a range of 2 to 9.

I documented 719 Facts, many were new, some were additional citations on information already in my file.

One of the 2 "special" people was a Student, which confirmed what I already knew, but the 2nd person, a female, now has a To Do List item. Find that extra Child. I know of 2 children, but the answer to in column 50 was 3

These numbers do not reflect information that was gathered from previous census records that I picked up during this past month.

I should mention that all of the Facts have been documented with, my understanding at least, the correctly formatted Citation. Oh, and it's all in my Ancestry Member Tree that is in Sync with my file on my PC.

Lesson Learned: It was certainly worth the time and effort to Manually Scan through these images and not wait until they become searchable. I was (almost) amazed as to the number of households that were on the SAME Page, on the Census Record.

________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Charting Follow Up - Lesson Learned

Yesterday I posted this blog post:

Time for a Chart

There were some details that I overlooked, that I would like to discuss, in case you are interested in creating a Chart by a 3rd Party Vendor.

In this case, I am using Family Chartmasters

Two suggestions:

• Read the details of what you are buying

• Read the Chart Screen with the Chart Size.

Here is a piece of an email I received this morning:

The chart you sent is 62 inches wide by 16 inches tall.  Normally we would print that on 62 inches of 24 inch paper. 

But what you paid for was 42 inches wide and 12 inches tall.  

Oops. The size of my Chart is wrong.

Here is the screen capture from the Family Chart Master's website:
 

I had selected 42" wide, but my chart was 62" wide. So, It's important to be aware of the size of the Chart you create and the size of the Chart you are purchasing.

The wonderful folks at Family Chart Masters were willing to make an adjustment, but I wanted to see what it would look like, as I had liked what it look like, which is where my focus was.

Going to the Publish Workspace, Charts again. Since I saved this, I was able to open the Saved Chart. It opened and I selected the Advanced Option and made the adjustments with the sliders on the Top and Left.

My chart is now 61.14 by 23.94 and should fill the Chart just find.

One issue that may be an issue, is the Placement of the Title. It's in the Center of the 2nd of 6 pages, although the setting in FTM2012 says "Center". It will be interesting as to where the Title will appear on the Chart.

Lesson Learned: Verify the Chart Size against the Size of the Chart you are having printed by a 3rd Party.
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

To Do / Task List

I may have posted about this before, but I will do it again.

This is a follow up to: 

Family Tree Maker 2009 - Tasks

Very little has changes from that Blog Post. This is an update / reminder on how I am continuing to use this Feature.

I normally don't like To Do Lists. But I have found that I can't live without it. Too much "stuff' to remember "to do". For example, I have about 3 people that I wanted to locate in the 1940 Census, but they were not where they  "should have been". In one case, I think it's a matter of the Enumerator miss recording a household. So, I want to "remember" to wait until the Indexing is complete for this state, and let the Web Search engine find them.

There are lot's of options on how you want to use and manage the To Do or Task list.

I keep my general notes or project Tasks as Hi-Priority. Normally all at the top, so they are obvious to me. The Middle Priority are for People. The missing 1940 Census people are listed there. These Tasks are created from the People Workspace, Person View.

I make the Low Priority, the tasks that I have completed. They are marked as Priority, but I don't delete them. I want to make sure I don't create a Task that I have already created and completed.

The Task or To Do list is in the Plan Workspace, right there when you open the program.

This is part way down my 300+ ToDo List. It marks the difference between my Hi Priority Tasks and the Middle Priority Tasks

You can see the Name of the person with the Task, in the lower part of the screen. Selecting that person, and clicking GoTo, will take you to that person. Very handy.

You can create categories that meet your need. For example: I have a Clean Up category, a Locate Source Category. Most of my Clean Up are hi priority right now, while the Locate Source was created when I found someone were a Fact didn't have a Citation.

This is find and dandy, but some times I want to print a sheet, and Check things off as I go. Will enter the completion later.

Going to the Publish Workspace, Person Collection is a Task List Report.

 As with most reports, there are options. Information to show, or not to show.

This piece of the report is must like the view in the Plan Workspace, that is the Hi and Mid priority settings. The Clean Up report that I created has fewer items showing my the handy Check box to mark up when I am done.

Back to how I marked my missing 1940 Census person:

In the People Workspace, Person View, near the bottom is the Notes, Media and Task tabs.

Clicked on New and a window pops up, and I entered my To Do list for the 1940 Census that I am missing.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Time for a Chart

I haven't done much Charting of my data. But after this past weekend, I want to create one. The chart I want to create is one that will show some ancestors and descendents of my Aunt. My plan is to have this chart done by someone who I met at RootsTech 2012, and the products they displayed were awesome. For this specific project, I want it to be a 'step up' from what I could do, IF I took a PDF file to a local office supply house, there may be some limitations with a PDF file and I would like a little color in the chart to help my "Facebook" generation cousins understand what they are looking at.

Go to the Publish Workspace with the Selected Person from the People Workspace, Person View, of the Mini-Navigation Pedigree chart just above the Publish Workspace. From the Collection, select the Charts menu, and the Hourglass Chart.

The Chart will start to be generated, but you can change your options during this process.

In the Right Hand Panel, I selected 5 generations of Ancestors, and 3 generations of Descendents. I want it Centered on the Page and the siblings of the primate person. This puts my person in context of the family.

Here is what it looks like so far, but not very good.

In the Right Hand Panel, I'll use the Advanced setting (poster) to see what it really looks like across the page(s). It's to squashed together (one page in hieght) and want it to be "taller". There are settings on this screen to make adjustments that you want. There are slider bars horizontally and vertically. Also the settings at the bottom of this screen.

Moving the Horizontal bar to the right, and the Vertical bar up, I have added the 2nd row of "pages" so that it fits within that 2nd page.

Getting better.

So far, it is 36.3 x 20.66 in size.

Now to add some Color and to increase the size of the Chart Title. The "As" or normal Font ICON for Family Tree Maker will provide some option's for the Font Color and Size.

Need some more color, so will check the Box, Border and Lines Options. Just to the Right of the Font settings.

Will make the Male member of the tree in a dark blue outline and a very light blue fill. The females will be pink, with a light pink file.

Will use rounded corners of the person boxes.

Will add the Submitter information and the Date of the Printing, in the Header / Footer ICON>

Why not add some Background to the Chart. there is a pull down men for that, which you can browse through and select what the background will be.

If I had stopped at 4 generations, I might have added pictures, but I don't have pictures of everyone on the chart. If I had a lot of photos, I could add them as well.

I choose a "tree" for the Chart and set it to 60% transparent. The Coloring of the boxes are seen below.

Will go back to the Advanced button to see what it looks like now, and did some tweaking of the settings.

The Chart is done.

I did a File, Export, and created a file to be sent to my vendor.

For this Chart, I am going to use Family Chart Masters

They have multiple ways of taking the data, but the Pre-Created Charts is the option that I will use of this process.

I selected a 42" Wide Chart, 40 lb paper.. They offer other options, for both creation, and delivery, as well as consulting for the tree. There will be a screen so that I can upload my Family Tree Maker file to Family Chart Masters.

I have not used their services before, but what I saw, I liked.

I am looking forward to the results.


________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington