Monthly Archives: September 2012

Genealogy Software Comparison, Part 3b: Citing a Census Source – FTM

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In preparation for delivering some help sessions at my local genealogical society, I am working to become proficient in three genealogy applications:  Family Tree Maker (FTM), RootsMagic  (RM) and Legacy Family Tree (LFT).  I will be using various features of each package and blogging about my experiences.  The “Part 3” posts will look at adding a source citation for a census record.  I will use RM in Part 3a; FTM in Part 3b; and LFT in Part 3c.  If you’d like to start at the beginning, the first post in the series is:  Genealogy Software Comparison.

In the Person tab of the People Workspace, I clicked the plus sign to add the census fact to my grandma Ida.

FTM Add Census Fact

I entered the date and place of the census in the spaces provided.  Then, I added the source information, a “new” source.  On the “Add Source Citation For Census For <person>” screen, I clicked on the “New…” button to display the “Add Source” screen.

FTM - Add Source

I was a bit confused about what to do next until I clicked on the “More” button to display the “Select Source Template” screen.

FTM - Select Source Template

On that screen, I selected “Census Records” Source group, “Digital Images” Category and “Population Schedule – Untied States, 1790-1840 (by Census Year and Location)” template.  After clicking on “OK” I saw the following “Add Source” screen with appropriately labeled fields to fill in for my census citation.

FTM - Add Source

I completed this form and clicked OK again.  The “Add Source” window closed revealing the “Add Source Citation for Census for <person>” screen again.

FTM - Add Source Citation for Census

The Source title field was filled in with the information I had entered on the previous screen, i.e. “1920 U.S. Census, Ohio, Hamilton Co., …”   The citation detail box contained a daunting set of instructions for data to be entered there.  Luckily, the information was available in a tool tip as I typed in that text box.

FTM - Edit Source CitatioThe text box for entry of the citation details was not as user friendly as having the individual fields displayed.  This would also have given the program the opportunity to provide help for each field.  I would have expected the template to walk the user through the data entry field by field.  To see the source citation that the software builds, a user must go to the Reference Notes tab. The resulting source citation contained of the necessary elements, but was not exactly in the form prescribed in Evidence Explained [1].

FTM:  1920 U.S. census, population schedule, Ohio, Hamilton County, Cincinnati, Ward 9, enumeration district (ED) 163, p. 232 (stamped),  sheet 4A, dwelling 51, family 83, Ida T. Ulrich; NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1390; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).

EE: 1920 U.S. census, Hamilton County, Ohio, population schedule, Cincinnati, Ward 9, Enumeration District (ED) 163, p. 232 (stamped), sheet 4A, dwelling 51, family 83, Ida T. Ulrich; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 17 September 2012); citing National Archives microfilm publication T625, roll 1390.

[1] Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007), 240.

Genealogy Software Comparison, Part 3a: Citing a Census Source – RM

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In preparation for delivering some help sessions at my local genealogical society, I am working to become proficient in three genealogy applications:  Family Tree Maker (FTM), RootsMagic  (RM) and Legacy Family Tree (LFT).  I will be using various features of each package and blogging about my experiences.  The “Part 3” posts will look at adding a source citation for a census record.  I will use RM in Part 3a; FTM in Part 3b; and LFT in Part 3c.  If you’d like to start at the beginning, the first post in the series is:
http://wp.me/p2BB2a-h .

Census records are fundamental to searching for information on our ancestors.  I like to think of the every-10-year snapshot as a framework for our their lives, a skeleton upon which to hang stories and details that flesh out the family history.

I started with an image from Ancestry.com of the 1920 census for my grandma Ida and her husband Arthur.  The census was taken on 6 Jan 1920, less than a year after they were married.

1920 Census for Arthur & Ida T. UlrichClick on any image to see a larger view.

I added a “census” fact for Ida and entered the details on her Edit Person screen.  Then I clicked on the “Sources” button and then “Add new source” to enter the source citation.  I selected “Census, U. S. Federal (Online images)” from the extensive list of source types.  When I selected a particular source type, the right hand panel displayed an explanation of that type of source and gave a reference to Elizabeth Shown Mills’ book Evidence Explained (EE) and sometimes a reference to her QuickSheet Citing Online Historical Resources (QC). (See the green box I put around this reference in the picture below.) This is wonderful information for the genealogist who is serious about source citations.

RM

After I selected the desired source type and clicked OK, I entered the Master Source and Detail information on the Edit Source screen.  The screen had a field for each desired or required field, along with help text in each field.These fields are specific to the source type selected, so that a user sees only what is needed for each type of source.

RM - Master SourceAs I entered each piece of information into the screen, the resulting source citation appeared on the right hand side in the three formats: Footnote, Short Footnote and Bibliography (or Source List).  Below is the Edit Source with all the pertinent data entered.

RM - Eidt Source

The resulting source citation (Footnote) for Ida and Arthur’s entry in the 1920 census is: “1920 U.S. census, Hamilton County, Ohio, population schedule, Cincinnati, Ward 9, enumeration district (ED) 163, p. 232 (stamped), sheet 4A, 51, family 83, Ida T. Ulrich; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 17 September 2012); National Archives microfilm publication T625, roll 1390.”

This is the citation I was hoping for and it agrees with EE p. 240 and the example given on QC’s cover page, as promised.  It was easy to follow the screen flow and the field help to construct the source citation desired.

Next:  The same exercise using Family Tree Maker (FTM).

 

Genealogy Software Comparison, Part 2c: Starting a Family Tree – LFT

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In preparation for delivering some help sessions at my local genealogical society, I am working to become proficient in three genealogy applications:  Family Tree Maker (FTM), RootsMagic  (RM) and Legacy Family Tree (LFT).   I used an early version of FTM in the late 90’s and I’ve been a user of LFT since 2008.  RM is completely new to me.   RootsMagic and Legacy FamilyTree offer a free version of their software with a limited set of features.  Since FTM does not have a similar free option, I decided to use the paid versions of each software package. This series of blogs will document my impressions of and experiences with these three software packages.

In this post, I review the process of creating a family tree file and entering a bit of data in Legacy Family Tree.  I entered a snippet of the maternal side of my family tree:  my grandmother, her husband and her parents.  For each person, I entered dates and places for birth, marriage, death and burial.

Legacy Family Tree, version 7.5.0.201 – www.legacyfamilytree.com

I started the Legacy Family Tree application.  Since I have used LFT for my research data, it opened my family database.  I clicked on “File” and then selected “New Family File…”

LFT = New Family FileThe Legacy Guided Setup Wizard walked me through the steps to begin a create file.  I was offered the option to start from scratch, import information from another genealogy program, open an existing Legacy file or open the sample family file that comes with Legacy.

If the user self-identifies as a  member of the LDS church, there is an option to sign into FamilySearch to download information on user and ancestors.   Next, the wizard presented an initial data entry screen.

I did not enter anything here because I was not starting with myself.   After I clicked on “Finished”, I was  able to name my file and select a directory to store it in on my hard drive.

Then I was presented with the following screen with lots of blank fields.    I confirmed that this is the same screen that I would have gotten if I had selected “No” above.

Since I knew how Legacy worked, I knew to add my grandmother’s name into the first field in the large box labeled “Female.”  I suppose it would have been better if I had entered Grandma Ida’s information into the fields for “my” data in the previous screen.

This all blank screen may be a bit daunting to a first time user.   However, I believe that most users would have entered their information on the last Wizard screen, so they would not have seen this totally blank screen.

Below is Grandma Ida’s information.

Below is the family view for Grandma Ida, her spouse and her parents.  This is the LFT default view.   It is possible to change the five fields displayed (birth, christening, death, burial and cause of death) by right clicking on one of the five labels.  It is simple to do, but not as obvious as the “Customize View” button in FTM.   Other views available are Pedigree, Descendent and Chronology.

Summary

All of the programs were relatively easy to use for basic data entry.  LFT may not be as intuitive as the others.  The wizard did include the “Watch Legacy Tour” button, but the object of this exercise was to enter some basic data without peaking at any Help or Tutorial, so I bypassed the tour.

Next time:  Entering a source citation for a census

Genealogy Software Comparison, Part 2b: Starting a Family Tree – FTM

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In preparation for delivering some help sessions at my local genealogical society, I am working to become proficient in three genealogy applications:  Family Tree Maker (FTM), RootsMagic  (RM) and Legacy Family Tree (LFT).   I used an early version of FTM in the late 90’s and I’ve been a user of LFT since 2008.  RM is completely new to me.   RootsMagic and Legacy FamilyTree offer a free version of their software with a limited set of features.  Since FTM does not have a similar free option, I decided to use the paid versions of each software package. This series of blogs will document my impressions of and experiences with these three software packages.

In this post I will review creating a family tree file and entering a bit of data in Family Tree Maker.  I entered a snippet of the maternal side of my family tree:  my grandmother, her husband and her parents.  For each person, I entered dates and places for birth, marriage, death and burial.

Family Tree Maker, version 21.0.0.580 – www.familytreemaker.com

I started the program and chose the “Enter what you know” option.  I entered Ida’s name.  After I entered her last name, the program automatically put that name into the “New tree name” field.  Since that was not what I wanted, I was glad that it allowed me to change the database name as well as select the location where the file would be stored.   A place names lists is already populated (similar to what I had seen on Ancestry.com), so the first time I began to type Cincinnati, there was a list that I could select from.  Subsequently, the list just contained the place names I had entered.

The workflow of FTM encouraged me to enter parents’ names before I entered any additional detailed information for Grandma Ida.

FTM New Tree

After I entered information on the initial screen, I was given the option to allow Family Tree Maker to search Ancestry[.com] automatically.  I chose “No.”  After I clicked on “OK” the following screen came up, where I was able to enter death and marriage information for Ida.

The Custom View button near the bottom of the screen allowed me to add the fields for Burial information to this initial data entry screen.

Entering the cemetery name after the city resulted in an error icon after the burial place name, so I removed the cemetery name from the location field.  I did not see a way to attach the name of the cemetery to the burial event.

Entering the additional detailed information for Ida’s parents and husband was simple and intuitive.  The family tree view made it easy to navigate from one person to another.  Since I’ve been a user of Ancestry.com for several years and FTM bears a strong resemblance to that web site, the user interface feels very familiar.

Here is a summary of the information entered.

 

Summary

Family Tree Maker was easy to use for initial data entry.  The screens were very intuitive.  I never had to search around for how to enter the next person’s information.  One possible disappointment is the lack of a place to enter cemetery information on the burial event.

Next time:  Data entry in Legacy Family Tree

Genealogy Software Comparison, Part 2a: Starting a Family Tree – RM

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In preparation for delivering some help sessions at my local genealogical society, I am working to become proficient in three genealogy applications:  Family Tree Maker (FTM), RootsMagic  (RM) and Legacy Family Tree (LFT).   I used an early version of FTM in the late 90’s and I’ve been a user of LFT since 2008.  RM is completely new to me.   RootsMagic and Legacy FamilyTree offer a free version of their software with a limited set of features.  Since FTM does not have a similar free option, I decided to use the paid versions of each software package. This series of blogs will document my impressions of and experiences with these three software packages.

This post will review creating a family tree file and entering a bit of data in RootsMagic.  Subsequent posts will review the same process in Family Tree Maker and Legacy Family Tree.  I entered a snippet of the maternal side of my family tree:  my grandmother, her husband and her parents.  For each person, I entered dates and places for birth, marriage, death and burial.

RootsMagic, version 5.0.4.1 – www.rootsmagic.com

I started the RootsMagic application and chose the option to create a new file.  I enter file name (RM-test) and choose the location on my hard drive for the data file.  I started tree with Ida Theresa Huber , my maternal grandmother.  I entered her birth date and then her birth place as “Cincinnati, Hamilton Co., Ohio, USA.  I am in the habit of putting “Co.” after the name of the county.  Experienced genealogists would recognize the leading comma in “, Hamilton, Ohio, USA” as a placeholder for the missing city name.  Others may mistake the comma as a typo and interpret the location to be the city of Hamilton, Ohio.  Thus, my preference is to put the “Co.” after the county name.

However, this practice triggered County Check in RM.

I decided that I would like the benefit of county check so I gave up “Co.” after the county name and accepted the alternative offered.  I also clicked on “More Info” and saw some historical information on the Hamilton County.  I was also offered “Online Info” button which took me to the FamilySearch Wiki page for Hamilton County, Ohio, and “Online Map” which took me to a historical map where I could enter the date and see the configuration of Ohio counties on that date.  This is a site that will be very useful in determining the correct locations for ancestral events.

Locations are remembered in the software.  The user only needs to begin typing and then select the proper location from the list of previously entered locations.  As there are usually many events that take place in each location, this saves typing and helps eliminate typos – provided one is careful the first time.

I added my grandmother and her parents.  The workflow was very intuitive.  I added her father, then her mother, then their marriage information.  I then entered a marriage event for my grandmother.  I was prompted to enter a new person or select an existing person as her spouse.

When I entered the burial location for each individual, there was just a single text entry field.  I typed the name of the cemetery in parentheses after the city name.

I reviewed the person’s information and noticed that there is a field called “Place details” that might more appropriately contain the name of the cemetery.

I changed the entry for the burial location, separating the cemetery name from city, county, state and country information.  I think the resulting sentence reads more naturally now.

Overall, the initial data entry experience with RM was very intuitive and logical.  I especially liked that I could easily navigate to historical county information in just a couple of “clicks.”

 

Summary

RootsMagic was relatively easy to use for basic data entry.  The program led me through the input process for the four family members in a way that was logical and intuitive.

Next time:  Data entry in Family Tree Maker