FTM2012 - Research Notes Options

Genea-Blogger Randy Seaver, of GeneaMusing.com has a series of Blog Posts on the importance of Research Notes. I would encourage you to read each of his Blog Posts on this topic.

 Samples of Essential Reports for Genealogists

Creating Research Notes in RootsMagic 5 - Post 1

Creating Research Notes in RootsMagic 5 - Post 2

Do the Research Notes Transfer via GEDCOM to Family Tree Maker 2012?

Do the Research Notes Transfer via GEDCOM to Legacy Family Tree 7.5?

I found is observations very interesting. Having spent quite a bit of time dealing with the exchange of information between Genealogy Software packages, using the GEDCOM option, including the three Randy has shared,

I had made a quick blog post, earlier, but was not in a position to provide details:

Research Notes

I now want to see how I have done or am doing in the area of Research Notes, within Family Tree Maker 2012 already, as I really haven't focused on this topic, but I have been using the features, just hadn't been doing it consistently or "on purpose". More or less by accident to track what I  have or haven't done.

The first thing I did was to look at the Help file, within FTM2012. This is from the Help menu Index for Research Notes Report.

Looking at that, confirmed that we have many options, based on what level we want to keep Research Notes for. There is a place for Citation Notes, Person Notes, Fact Notes, and Research Notes for a Person.

The Person Notes, are normally where I keep and enter the "stories" of people, as I find them. Part of my Clean Up of my file, is to restoring the field for that purpose, as these Note features have not been around for that long, nor have we had the ability to Print Notes Reports.

In the People Workspace, Person View, the Person Notes are in the Left Column, near the bottom of that Panel, it's the First ICON, and the "stories" or Notes are typed into that area of the screen. (NOTE: these Notes can be marked as Private).

Also, each FACT has the ability to have notes. There are blog entries on how I have used this.

For this specific Example, I have recorded the History of the 11th Kansas Cavalry. The "story" of this Civil War unit is in the Notes section. Above the notes are the Events of this Unit in the Civil War, with Dates and Places where the battles were fought. That data will be displayed in a Timeline Report.

Researching this unit, I found some battle specific information, which I put in the FACT Notes on the Right. If I want more details about that battle, they are right there. In this specific case (the example), that data was found on page of the Citation. Having played around with the Output, that is where I thought these notes would be helpful. It more Battle Related and NOT Unit Specific. The Unit Specific notes ARE in the Notes for the unit. For me, it's two different pieces of information.

I am still searching information on this Civil War Unit, so I have entered some Research Notes for the "person" (person, in this example, is Unit).

This is the 2nd ICON, under Person Notes. (between the Person Notes, and the Private NOTEs on/off ICON).

It notes what I HAVE found, and two more places, at this point, where I want to Research. I had looked at Fold3.com before, but want to go back and look, and I haven't looked at Wikipedia yet. If I think of other places to research, I can put those Notes here. Looking at what I have and haven't done, I don't document normally what I have found and where, as I can see that based on the Facts and the Citation for those facts. BUT, I put conflicting information notes here. Open Conflicting information are in the Task List for that person (the 3rd Tab on this page). So, research notes would contain how conflicting information was solved.

Citation Notes are in the Source Workspace for the Citation.

I have lots of Citation Notes, or better said, there are not many Citations that don't have notes. This is more for me, and it helps be "remember" more about the Source and the Citation that is displayed in the Citation Details, and Citation Text.

Now, what about the Output. How is this information presented in a report?

The Publish Workspace, Person Collection is where the Notes Reports are. Now, I am taking my lead on this from Randy presenting the Research for his PERSON. That is what I am doing as well.

Bringing up that Report, here are the Options: Person Notes: Fact Notes: Research Notes:

They can be displayed in one report, but for this Blog, I'll present each separately. This is the Person Notes, or the stories. This is also available elsewhere.

The about is the basic summary for this unit and the report is 6 pages in length.

This next report is the FACT Notes, where the Military Fact Notes are presented. In this case, it's information about the Battle and not Unit Specific. Remembering the the Unit's participation in the Battle is in the above (or Person Notes) part of the report.

The Research that I have to do, or conflict resolution notes would be shown here.

Although Private Notes are available, this "person" did not have any private notes (yet) and the entire report, to date, is 11 pages.

NOTE: Randy made a number of Valid comments about Family Tree Maker: 1) Timeline does not allow for Citations, and 2) the Research Notes in Roots Magic 5 are in Chronological Order, where FTM2012 are not.

I attended a class which brought up the Chronological Order of Citations was important. I also looked at the Roots Magic Research Notes that Randy discussed but didn't have that great of an impact on me, as it might have on a very experienced researcher or a Professional Researchers.

The Research Report that I generated from within FTM2012 helped me.
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Research Notes

I read Genea-Blogger Randy Seaver on his GeneaMusings Blog.  Of interest has been his series about Research Notes.

Creating Research Notes in Roots Magic 5

I was not going to post about this series, as this first posting was above my head, especially the reference to the work of Elisabeth Shown Mills. My needs for that level of detail was not that important, great reading, but a little over my head.

I am not been at my home PC, where I have Roots Magic and FTM2012 installed to duplicate Randy's experience.

Part 2 of Randy's Blog Creating Research Notes in RootsMagic 5 - Post 2

Got my attention, because I think Roots Magic 5 and FTM2012 handle "Research Notes" differently. In fact FTM2012 has two places for Research Notes. The People Workspace, Person View, there is a Research Notes ICON, in the Notes Tab on the Left side, bottom on this view. The normal Notes, is where stories are recorded, but there is a Research Note ICON, where you can record generic research notes for that Person.

In addition to that option, we have a Citation Note, for any Fact. I blogged about that here:

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-i-work-with-burial-fact.html

In Roots Magic 5, Randy pointed out where his Research Notes go. His example was for a specific fact. If I were to do that in FTM2012, I would record that information in the Fact Notes.

As in my earlier Blog, those notes are available in reports.

I have asked Randy to email me the GEDCOM from Roots Magic 5, so that I can see where those notes appear in FTM2012.

With the current state of the GEDCOM format and with the advanced settings of both programs, it will be very interesting to see where those notes will appear in FTM2012.

I'll post a follow up when I get back to my home PC and/or receive Randy's GEDCOM file.
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Creating Ahnentafel Report in Family Tree Maker 2012

Genea-Blogger friend, Randy Seaver, posted a Blog Post :

Creating an Ancestor List ("Ahnentafel") in Legacy Family Tree 7.5

As Randy points out "Each program does this differently, with somewhat different result". He has posted the above on Legacy Family Tree 7.5, and will post other programs version. 

For the purpose of this blog post, I will generate a 12 Generation Ahnentafel Report from FTM2012.

We start by selecting the focus person. As Randy did, I selected myself. Going to the Publish Workspace, selecting the Genealogy Reports Collection, there are two Genealogy Reports, I am selecting the Ahnentafel Report.

When that is selected the report will start to generate. However, I can continue to select what is to be included or not included in the Report.

The first is to select 12 Generations, and the formatting of the report are also available in the Right Hand Panel.

Note the ICON outlined in Red. That is the Items to Include option. Will return to that in a moment. The Aa is the Font Selection, Header/Footer options is the next ICON, Page Set up, and Save reports follow. For this report, I set the Report Title,  Page Numbers, and Date, will be on each page.

This report, 12 generations is 89 Pages in length. 4 generations, for example were 6 pages in length.

Here is a piece of that report for my Grandparents.

 Under that last line begins the listing of their children, with the same information for each person. Generation 2, for this report, would have been that of my father, who would have been the first child listed, as he was their oldest child. Generation 1, would have been myself.

For this report, only basic Birth, Marriage, and Death information was included.  The parents of each is listed in the text for that person. The marriage information is included with my grandfather, which included that my grandparents were married at the Birmingham Friends Meeting, in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

But, what about Source Information. We can add that but returning to the Items to Include ICON.

This is also the screen where the other Facts / Event information can be added. For this example, the basic information is included but have added "include sources".

What that does to the report is this:

This is information on be Great-Grandparents. I have hi-lighted the EndNote numbers. The 89 page report is now 136 pages, with 806 Citations. Here is a same of EndNotes 43, 44, and 45.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

How I work with the Burial Fact

Earlier, I posted a blog about How I Track Headstone Pictures.

I thought that I would offer how I handle the Burial Fact from information from the Find-A-Grave resource. Ancestry.com is now providing us Hints from Find-A-Grave. I really like that feature. But, what do I do with that information.

I get a hint that points me to the Find-A-Grave website. Selecting the hint, we are taken to this type of screen. It is clear, that clicking on the links will take us to another website, not Ancestry.com. There are several other hints that do the same thing. But, for this post, I am going to continue to Find-A-Grave.

Clicking on the Go to Website ICON, a pop-up window will appear. It's a reminder (Are you sure) that you are leaving Ancestry.com. There is a check box, so that you won't see this again, AND a way to Cancel this operation.

Proceeding to the Find-A-Grave memorial for this person. There are links to other family members, data that I might want in my file, and an image of the Headstone. (that was the topic of the earlier blog post:

How I Track Headstone Pictures.

In this specific case, I created this memorial and it's my picture. But what am I going to do with this information. I will Hi-Light (select) from the Name, down to the Find-A-Grave Memorial Number. I want this information into my file.

Up until this point, I have been Pasting that information into the Notes Section for that person.  In reviewing the Notes on many people, I had been putting a lot of information that is Fact Specific, into the Notes. I realized that this was cluttering up the Notes, where Stories can be told. For example, I have a lot of Social Security information that was gathered from the "old" SSDI CDs that I have. That data, does not belong in the Notes, at least for me. 

So, where should this type of data go?

As mentioned in the earlier post, I mentioned that I created a Find-A-Grave Fact. (this is the same thing that I am now doing for SSDI information). I copied that information, hit CTRL+X (Cut) and move to the Find-A-Grave FACT, NOTES section, where it is Pasted.

This is just moving the information from the Notes for the Person, to the Notes for the FACT.

Since this information is for MY research, and don't want it to be in my Ancestry Member Tree, I Privatize the Find-A-Grave Fact. Selecting Options, and Mark as Private.

That will put a Lock ICON to the Left of the Find-A-Grave FACT.

As is my practice, before I make any major change to how I handle information, I wanted to run a Report to see what it would look like. I have a Burial Custom Report, where I can generate it to take with me to a Cemetery. I have the report sorted by the Burial FACT PLACE, then by Description. This will let me group Cemeteries by location, for those Places with multiple cemeteries. The Filter-In / Filter-Out feature will help control this.

The nice thing for me, is that I can now go back to this cemetery and KNOW who I can confirm are buried there AND are on the Find-A-Grave website, AND know who is NOT on Find-A-Grave website. So the next trip, I'll take pictures for myself and for Find-A-Grave for others.

I am now cleaning up my Find-A-Grave notes.

In another Blog, I give more details.

One way to do a Find-A-Grave Cemetery Visit

and

Headstone Collection and Find-A-Grave

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

Customized View for a Person

As we work with the Family Tree Maker program, using the "default" settings, we may want to see additional information. This is especially useful in the People Workspace, Family View, and when we select a specific person, we want to see more information.

This is the People Workspace, Family View. Remember that the Workspace is the Orange button at the top of the screen. Each Workspace as one or more Tabs, or Views. The Default for the People Workspace, is the Family View.

Selecting anyone on that screen, will put additional information about that person in the Right Hand (RH) Panel.

Its just some basic information.

Suppose you want to have more information in that RH Panel. Let's say, the Burial Fact, where you would record where someone is Buried.

At the bottom of that panel, is a Customize View Button. a pop-up window will appear. At the top left is a list of Individual Facts, bottom left is Shared facts. The right has the existing Individual and Shared Facts that are being displayed.

We are going to select the Burial Fact and click on the Right Pointing Arrow. That will put the Burial Fact into the Individual Facts for that person.

Then click OK.

But, suppose I want MORE. The process is repeated, but without clicking OK each time. You just put each fact into the Right Hand side of the screen with the Right Pointing arrow.

Below, I added Education and Military Service. The Burial FACT was between Death and Education, so using the Down Arrow, on the Right, I moved the Burial Fact. I could have done the same with the Death Fact. I would have put the Death Fact between Military Service and the Burial Fact. You control that.

The resulting screen now looks like this.

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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

The 2nd American Civil War Blog Challenge - and FTM2012 Timelines

Timing is everything.

Yesterday, I posted a Blog entry on the Timeline Feature of Family Tree Maker. In reading a Genea-Blogger friend's blog, Bill West put this challenge out to us.

THE SECOND AMERICAN CIVIL WAR GENEALOGY BLOG CHALLENGE

 I used the timeline feature last year, when trying to find the Parents of a Civil War ancestor. His name was mentioned in a PBS series of Gettysburg. Over the course of a couple of months, I found out who his parents were along with a lot of other interesting pieces of information about this soldier.

One of the Finds that I found was the history of his unit.

2nd Infantry Regiment Maryland

Since that article listed all of the Battles that the 2nd Infantry (CSA) faught in, I thought that I would enter it into Family Tree Maker, so that I could track what battles he fought in, and what battles he was NOT in. As it turned out, he was wounded in Gettysburg, but returned to be wounded again about a year later in another battle.

In the link above, listed the dates and places of the battles. That entered, here is what the timeline looked like.

Using the Timeline Report (Publish Workspace), Person Collection, the two battles are there and based on the information on this soldier, I made a note as to his two woundings.

How was this done? Simply created a New, Unrelated "person". To be able to show how long the Unit has been in place, I added a "birth" and "death" fact, for the unit, as the Organizational Date and Muster Out Date. That would tell me that he was wounded during the 7th month that the unit had been established and again at 21 months.

Looking at this soldier's Timeline, we see that he had enlisted into the CSA before his unit was formed, at the age of 18. He was wounded at 19 (the first time)

Looking down the timeline a little further, we see the 2nd wounding and his final "retirement" from the CSA. His Civil War Record showed that he was absent on August 14 because he was in a hospital in Charlottesville. Returned to Duty September 1863.

 The on August 19, 1864, he was wounded "in action" where the upper portion of his right thigh was amputated.

He lived to be 83 years old.
________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

FTM2012 - Use of TimeLine Feature

Genea-Blogger Randy Seaver put up a blog post on Legacy Family Tree 7.5 and a feature he learned about:

Chronology Report in Legacy Family Tree 7.5

Please read his blog post.

I thought that I would show how I used the TimeLine Feature to help understand something that was going on in Randy's Family Tree, and where the TimeLine Feature gave me hints to resolve Why his Brick Wall person (William Knapp) had been in Middlesex County, New Jersey, the ended up in Newton, New Jersey.

Without going into details, I had not found William Knapp as head of household, and in the pre-1850 Census, could not find him. The only clue was that he may be been living in another household. I had suspected that he may had been living with 'in-laws', but couldn't find enough details to prove anything, it was just a theory to follow up on.

Here is where the Time Line feature of FTM2012 came into play. Going to the People Workspace, Person View, there is a TimeLine Button.

It's not very impressive, just that he was Married in 1804, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, and the next is 1830 in Newton, New Jersey. Today, that's not a big deal, but in 1830, not so much.

There are two other options for the TimeLine Feature. Show Family Events, and Historical Events.

 Not sure that historical events has an impact here, but what was happening within his family.

This is showing, and some Family Events above what is here, show that he had children born in Middlesex prior to 1823, then the children were born in Newton, New Jersey. Nothing clear, just that something happened.

Since there is very little information about William Knapp, and the his wife Sarah was from Middlesex County, and that there was some guessing that they may have lived with "family", I looked as the Time Line for Sarah'a father.

Clearly he was in Middlesex County, but he DIED in 1823.

So, the next hint for the move from Middlesex  County to Newton, may be caused by the death of Williams' father-in-law.

I am still looking for documentation to back this up, but the TimeLine feature of FTM2012 provided some clues.


________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

How I Track Headstone Pictures

At the moment, Family Tree Maker does not have a way to generate a REPORT based on Media Categories, at least that I have found. I have all of my Headstone pictures in a Category I created called Cemetery.

I am an active contributor to Find-A-Grave. If I take a photo of a headstone, I post it on Find-A-Grave, and if the person is in my file, I link that photo to a Citation.

There are options here, Which Citation?

I chose to create a Custom Fact called "Find-A-Grave". I use the Description Only format, and it will contain only the Memorial Number for that person. One reason is for this report but the second and more important is that I don't have to look around for that Memorial Number, if I created the Memorial and want to link other family members to it. Spouse, Parents, Children, etc. That number if right in front of me, in my file. I can also request that the owner of the Memorial create the link between people.

Why, I have one ancestor, that through Find-A-Grave, has a 4 generation link. My Great-Grandfather down to a cousin of my generation. So, someone looking just on Find-A-Grave, can see the relationship (but I digress).

I use the Burial Fact, for the Place and put the Cemetery Name into the Burial Description. This allows for sorting for this report, especially where there are multiple cemeteries on a specific Place Name and I use the Place Name Authority to ensure that place names are consistent. I also use the Find-A-Grave Cemetery Name, as they would have a Cemetery Name conflict situation if they weren't consistent.

Here is an example: Buried in West Chester Pennsylvania, and the Birmingham-Lafayette Cemetery.

Below that is the Find-A-Grave Fact, with the number, but notice the Lock ICON on the Left End of that line. That means that the Find-A-Grave FACT is a Private Fact. This Fact would not show up in the Ancestry Member Tree, for example, nor in normal Reports. It's important to me, but not to others.

Notice the Right End of that Line. 1, 1, 0. One Citation, One Media file, and Zero Notes. Looking at the Media Tab, it the headstone Image from Find-A-Grave. It is one that I took and it on the Find-A-Grave website for this person.

That as background. I am going to that Cemetery for other relatives. I have a couple of images that I downloaded from Find-A-Grave and want to replace that downloaded image with one of my own. If I can't get to a cemetery, because of distance, I will ask permission of the photographer, through Find-A-Grave, to have that image in my file.

Here is how I set up this report. (set up one time, but can use at any time). I went to the Publish Workspace, Person Collection, Custom Report, and clicked on Individuals to Include, and Filter In >.  I only want information on those that have a Fact called Find-A-Grave. The All Facts item is selected (below), then in the pull down menu, selected Find-A-Grave, and select Any Data, Exists. So anyone with the Find-A-Grave Fact, will be included in the Report.

Now everyone with the Find-A-Grave Fact will be in the report. In this case, there are 49 people with the Find-A-Grave fact.

I want this sorted by the Burial Fact, Place then Cemetery (or Description), but include the Name and the Find-A-Grave fact. You will remember that I marked the Find-A-Grave Fact as Private, so the "Include private facts" item, must have a Check mark AFTER selecting Find-A-Grave Options at the bottom of that box. Each Fact has its one settings that can override the default setting for the report. The other two Facts, in this report, would NOT have the check mark in that box, only Find-A-Grave.




Here is what the report looks like Again sorted by Place, then by Description.

BUT, I want to use this report again and don't want to have to redo this each time I want the report.

The ICON, on the far Right, is the Save Report ICON (Just above the red box). The report title I entered was Find-A-Grave Report. Clicking on the Save Report ICON will bring up the Save Report screen and FTM2012 will put that Report Title into that report name.

The next time that I want that report, I click on the Saved Report Collection, and select Find-A-Grave Report.

NOTE: As you add Find-A-Grave Facts, the Select Individuals step, at the top of this blog, will have to be redone. That is, selecting everyone with any data in the Find-A-Grave Fact.
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

What, No Leaves to follow ???

I was doing some screen sharing with DearMYRTLE and were talking about the Web Search feature. I noticed a Shaky Leaf on my Great Grandfather. I had some research for him, as I was reviewing my Census Records for "the family". But when I brought up the People Workspace, Family View, he had a new shaky leaf. Clicked on it, and there was a New Hint which was his Civil War Enlistment record. Wow. I hadn't seen that image myself, but I had notes from a cousin, that they had seen that record.

But that was it. I know I had looked for other Civil War records for him, with no luck. Where was his pension file? So, off to Fold3, where I have had luck with Civil War records. Nothing.

No more shaky leaves, nothing on Fold3, so what do I do. There has got to be more information about him somewhere.

I guess we get rely so much on those hints, that we, or at least I, get lazy. I know there my be more on him, or on his Civil War unit.

So, to the Web Search workspace. What I like about FTM2012, is that it pre-populates the Web Search screen with the information for the person you go to the Web Search Workspace From. In this case, my great-grandfather.

The top part of the page has the basic information, name, dates, places and relationships. And below that is the searching that you want to do.

I made my selections, which was "All Collections", but no Family Trees. Just below the Search button, is a view that will stay on the screen, of the data in my file on this person. Very handy when you start looking at results.

So, I clicked on the Search button.

Now we are talking. Kansas, Civil War Enlistment Papers. That is the shaky leaf I had seen earlier, but had not taken any action to merge that information into my file. Below that was another record on U.S. National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. I had not seen that record before. The other hints will be taken care of soon, as they all are for my great-grandfather. For not having any Shaky Leaves, there is some good information here.

Below is his Civil War Enlistment image. I have seen his signature before, that what a gem this is.

That next hint really looked interesting, as it puts him into a Disabled Civil War Volunteer hospital. Dates, names, and places are listed.

What was interesting was the "Kind and Degree of Disability" entry, stating "Brights Disease of Kidneys". Will have to look that up, as well as some of the other terms on this document. He did die young,  with notes in my file that indicated that the cause of his death may have been Tuberculosis, Cancer of the Prostrate, and Heart Failure.

Another search result, provided the Pension File card, with a number on it. Sounds like a 'road trip' to NARA in the near future. Perhaps, Dear MYRTLE will show me the ropes to that repository.

A little more searching found more details on the Unit he served with, during the Civil War.

 Paging through the "List of Soldiers", here he is.

When the View Record link was clicked, this is what appeared.

Not bad, for not having any Shaky Leaves to follow.

Lesson Learned: The shaky leaves are the low hanging fruit, as I have heard it called. But don't forget to use the Web Search Workspace, to get to some of those other records.

Better get back to data entry, citing my sources, getting the new sources into the Template Feature, and managing the new media files that were included in the Search Results.


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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington