FTM2014 - Mastering Genealogical Proof Chapter 2 Review

I was reading +Hilary Gadsby's blog post: Reviewing my Previous Post - What goes Where and What Next? at masteringgenealogysoftware.blogspot.com and was wondering how FTM2014 would do with what the Mastering Genealogical Proof [1] Study Group 2 has been talking about in the +DearMYRTLE Genealogy Community on Google+

During the study of Chapter 4 - GPS Element 2: Source Citations, we talked about five (5) questions. It became "the 5 W's". Who, What, When, Where In, and When is. All that information is what makes up a good Citation. So, can Family Tree Maker (FTM2014) answer those questions? Better yet, ask US those questions so that we can "fill in the blanks".

[1] Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013), 33

I thought that I would use the Citation for the Mastering Genealogical Proof Endnote here, and break it apart, for a good example:

• Who - Thomas W Jones
• What - Mastering Genealogical Proof
• When - 2013
• Where In - page 33
• Where Is - Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society

If I understand this correctly, since this is a Book, I will copy and paste one from FTM2014:

Bart Anderson, The Sharples - Sharpless Family, 3 vols. (West Chester, Pennsylvania, 1966), Vol 1, Page 217. #1989 Hannah H. Sharpless.

• Who - Bart Anderson
• What - The Sharples - Sharpless Family, 3 vols
• When - 1966
• Where In - Vol 1, Page 217; #1989 Hannah H. Sharpless 
• Where Is - West Chester, Pennsylvania

The #1989 entry is the specific person on that page. (a published work). The 4th bullet is from the Citation detail and Citation text fields. The rest is from the Book; Multivolume Set (Print Publish) template.

Template Screen:

Citation Screen:

Wow, that appears to be correct.

The only issue here is the Repository: field. In previous research on this process, a book should not have a Repository, as you can get that book from anywhere. I had my address in that field, as the three books are on my bookshelf. Because I am trying to be standard, I have selected None for the Repository.

[1] Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013), 33. [Book available from the publisher at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/mastering_genealogical_proof ]

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How to Export a GEDCOM file for My Heritage

Earlier this week there was a discussion about Online trees and one of the websites that was mentioned was My Heritage ( www.myheritage.com ).

In this video, I will explain how to Export a file from Family Tree Maker version 2014 in the appropriate format that can be uploaded to My Heritage.



After this tree has been processed by My Heritage, I will demonstrate how to capture the information that will be identified by My Heritage and capture that information for FTM2014.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How to Update your Ancestry Member Tree

This is my End of Day Routine, or the routine that I follow when I have worked on my file long enough where I don't want to have to re-do my work and to update my Ancestry Member Tree.

This is a real file so the length of the video is a little long (13:41) but I have some comments about what is going on, as I understand it.





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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Email Template and Citations

FTM2014 - How I handle Emails

The link above is a short video on how I handle Emails. What I failed to do, was to get into details of the Data Entry for a properly (I hope) formatted Citation. The appropriate format is described in Evidence Explained 1 in QuickCheck Model on page 113 Personal Files & Knowledge, 3.42 E-mail and instant messages. 

Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes to "fill in the blanks" in the Template to get the Reference Note in the correct format. 

To get here, as I showed in the Video, I typed EMA for the keyword search for Personal Email.

.

Here are the fields and the information I put in them.

Source Template: Personal E-mail

Collection [ First and Last Name of the Email, adding "Collection"

Researcher surname: Worthington

Researcher forename(s): Russ

Researcher e-mail address: 

Researcher address: 

Researcher location: [(E-Address) & Street Address for private use,] Hackettstown, NJ

Writer surname: [ sender ]

Writer forename(s): [ sender, full name ]

Writer address:

Writer location:

Writer contact: [ email ]

Recipient surname: Worthington

Recipient forename(s): Russ

Source Comments: 

(Citation detail:) [(e-address for private use) ]; dd month yyyy; " subject "

(Citation text:) date and time of email

In order for the Reference Note to have the right format, I added the information in red in the Researcher location field.

The Source Comments information is my reminder of what to put in the Citation detail and Citation text fields. I then can copy and paste that information into the Citation details field on the next screen.

The Text of the Email, as shown in the video, will be pasted into the Citation Notes.

I don't have the email with the subject at the moment, but will add the Subject line of the email in this Citation.

Here is what that Reference Note looks like:

David Reed, Washington, D.C. to Russ Worthington, e-mail, [(e-address for private use) ]; 06 January 1999; " subject ", David Reed Collection; privately held by Russ Worthington, [(E-Address) & Street Address for private use,] Hackettstown, NJ.

I should also note that the Zip Code is not included in the Template screen, as it is not called for in the Reference note. If you compare this against Evidence Explained, I think it is pretty sure. Will probably post this into the User Form on the Evidence Explained website.

1 Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Pub., 2007. Print.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How I handle Emails

I don't know about you, but I use Email in my research. I was reminded of this when  I was cleaning up my Notes fields. I thought I would share a brief Video on how I handle my Emails. in FTM2014.







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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How I handle the Race Fact

There was an interesting question on one of the Family Tree Maker message boards. I thought that I would demonstrate a solution here. The issue is the Race Fact that you will receive from Ancestry.com when you do a Web Merge.

I have chosen to KEEP that fact when presented. The biggest reason is a Search Web page on Ancestry.com. It's in the Home Page, near the bottom right of that page.

African American Family History
http://landing.ancestry.com/aahistory/default.aspx

I have been about to find a female doing me search from there, because she was reported as "Mulatto".

There is some great information on that link.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTMM-3 - New Installation with an Existing File

This is the first video and blog post specifically about Family Tree Maker for the Mac version 3.

I had the previous versions of Family Tree Maker for the Mac on my Mac laptop. I have been using it and have demonstrated it. I also wanted to know what the difference was between the PC version and the Mac version.

I had FTMM-2 on the Mac and a couple of working files, including several test files to use the TreeSync™ feature in FTMM-2.

I now have FTMM-3 installed and at the end of the installation FTMM-3 found my existing FTMM-2 file.

This video will show what happens now.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

Does the Software you use work for you?

An online genealogy researcher and friend +Hilary Gadsby did a blog post earlier today. Please visit her blog at masteringgenealogysoftware.blogspot.com and read

Does the Software you use work for you?

Hilary asks 3 very interesting questions:

What should our software do for us so that we are unable to fall into the habit of entering the data without adding a source citation?  

Do we need reminding to build our citation before we enter the data?

Do we need or could we have a system that automatically generates our citations as we enter them in the software?

I thought that I would create a blog post on this topic, link it to Hilary's blog post, and hope that others post comments on her blog.

I can only speak for a User of the Family Tree Maker (FTM2014) program as it has been my genealogy program of choice. Until yesterday, I have not put my main, working file into an Ancestry Member Tree / Public Member Tree for two reasons. One being Citations, and I had Research Notes all over the place. It wasn't a pretty picture.

From the question, and her earlier comment about "having a totally unsourced tree" I understand that first question.

As a new researcher, the program reminding me to Cite my Source would be helpful. OR might it discourage me from moving forward. After all, I am just starting and now "you" want me to learn something new. Even what is that. The other two questions would be helpful to learn.

Working with the book, Mastering Genealogical Proof, by Dr. Thomas W Jones, the crafting of a Citation and the formatting of source information in Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills gets me into the details of what it is that I am looking at and start to evaluate that information.

There may be a conflict here of wanting to find everything I can find on my family in 30 seconds or less. We have seen that on several genealogy TV programs. But the Citation "stuff" will slow me down, some may say Stop me, from getting done in a "few minutes"

Here is my take on these questions, as a long time user. FTM2014 has some tools that helped me get to the point of publically sharing my family tree.

• The ability to see what Facts do not have a Citation
• The ability to create an Evidence Explained formatted Source
• The ability to evaluate my source information in the Genealogical Proof Standard way

FTM2014 has those tools. When I am in a clean up mode I use the Undocumented Source Report. My working file is a mess, but "workin' on it".

I work on getting ALL my sources into the Source Template feature that was introduced in FTM2010. I am about 1/2 way through the clean up, BUT, that took some work.

I had to understand what Information in a Reference Note of Family Tree Maker, came from the Source or Container of information that is asked for in the Template screen, and what I had to enter in the Citation detail field, the Citation text field, and the Web Address field. I have blogged about that.

The trick for me in doing this is to use Evernote and the Comment field on the Template Screen. That 'extra' effort, OK WORK, was very helpful in understanding the make up of a Resource or End Note.

From helping others, the real issue is defining What I am looking at, and Where did I get it from.

Could it be easier, in FTM2014? Absolutely. Would I want it to be automatically? Absolutely NOT. If it were automatic I would probably never look at the details about what a Citation should look like.

Please join +Hilary Gadsby in this conversation on her new Blog.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - One approach for handling Historic Place Names

There was a question on how to handle Historic Place Names. Here is one approach to that subject. In this case, it's in the state of New Jersey.

My goal is to be consistent in the use of Place Names and to be able to us the Mapping feature of FTM2014.



Will demonstrate how to resolve the place name and where I documented my actions.
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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington

FTM2014 - How to make Relationship Notes Private

HOW TO:

In an earlier video, I showed how to make Fact Notes  private. I noted the Relationship Notes could NOT be made private from the Publish Workspace because they are Shared Facts.

This video will demonstrate how to make Relationship Notes private.



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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington