Legacy Family Tree 8 Source Citation for an Ancestry.com Public Member Tree

Posted on April 8, 2014 by bethbenko

There have been several blog posts written lately about how to properly cite an Ancestry.com Public Member Tree using two of the more popular genealogy database programs, Family Tree Maker 2014 and RootsMagic.

Russ Worthington started the discussion with Family Tree Maker and Ancestry Family Trees. Next, he engaged Elizabeth Shown Mills in the discussion Citing of an Ancestry Member Tree.The editor of the Evidence Explained Blog gave the following as a properly formed citation for this type of source:

1. “Public Member Trees,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 April 2014), “Cowan Mulliner Woodruff Kerr” family tree by Crista Cowan, profile for Richard Ridgway (1679-1718, d. Bucks, New Jersey) undocumented data updated March 2014.¹

Russ had two follow up posts: FTM2014 and Ancestry Member Trees – An Update and FTM2014 and ancestry Member Trees – What Next?

Randy Seaver wrote RootsMagic 6 Source Citation for an ancestry.com Public Member Tree.

I am going to take a stab at citing such a source using Legacy Family Tree 8, using data from my own research.

First, I looked for a Master Source in the SourceWriter of the appropriate type for an Ancestry.com Public Member Tree. The “Family Group Sheet” seemed to match what I needed. I selected “Online images” for the medium.

Next, I filled in fields for the Master Source.

And added details for the particular tree I was referencing.

The resulting citation is: “Public Member Tree”; database, “Weiland Elmar Trier Familienstammbaum,” Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 17 Jul 2010).

There were no “fields” to enter information about the author of the tree or the specific person of interest within the tree. If I added additional details to the “Collection or Database” field, they would appear within the double quotation marks with the name of the family tree.

Since the “Family Group Sheet” did not produce the desired results, I looked at the “Pedigree Chart” master source. Because this Master Source only had an option for medium of “Privately held” and not “Online database,” the citation it produced was lacking even more of the necessary data fields. I decided to use the Generic Source and the Online database medium.

I filled in the Database Title, Format, Website Title, URL and Date accessed. Note that this access date will apply to any citation detail associated with this Master Source. There are only two fields on the Source Detail screen to hold all the rest of the data for the citation, but at least I was able to place the data so that the resulting citation looked as it should.The “Item of Interest” field contains: ‘ “Weiland Elmar Trier Familienstammbaum” family tree by Elmar Weiland, profile for Johann Georg Weiland (b. 1789 in Illingen-Genweiller, Saarland, German, d.1851 in Hocking County, Ohio, USA)’ That’s a lot of information for a single field.

The “Credit Line” field contains: “undocumented data updated March 2010”

My resulting citation is:

“Public Member Trees,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 17 Jul 2010), “Weiland Elmar Trier Familienstammbaum” family tree by Elmar Weiland, profile for Johann Georg Weiland (b. 1789 in Illingen-Genweiller, Saarland, German, d.1851 in Hocking County, Ohio, USA); undocumented data updated March 2010.

Conclusion:

By trying different SourceWriter Master Sources, I was able to build a citation that closely matched the model given
Much of the detail information was concatenated into the single “Item of Interest” field, not taking advantage of the convenience of SourceWriter
As mentioned above, the access date entered in the Master Source will need to be changed when citing other trees (or even this one) that were viewed on other days

So far, the bloggers have addressed the simpler case of undocumented data in a family tree. Who will be the first to tackle documented data?

——————————————————————

¹ Elizabeth Shown Mills, “Citing of an Ancestry Member Tree,” Evidence Explained, 4 April 2014 (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/citing-ancestry-member-tree : accessed 8 April 2014), #2.

URL for this post: http://www.bnk94.com/groupwgenealogy/2014/04/08/legacy-family-tree-8-source-citation-for-an-ancestry-com-public-member-tree/

RootsTech 2013

Posted on April 23, 2013 by bethbenko

I was fortunate to be able to attend the 3^rd annual RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City earlier this year. I’ve been asked by a local society to give a brief talk about my experiences there. I’m writing this blog article as a way to organize my thoughts and to share them more broadly.

The registration process was online and very easy to use. I registered early to take advantage of early bird discounts. I stayed at the Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City Downtown, adjacent to the convention center and about a block and a half from the Family History Library (FHL). The hotel was great and the conference rate included a large and varied breakfast buffet. I began each day very well nourished!

The free RootsTech mobile app allowed attendees to stay abreast of schedule changes and late breaking announcements. The conference guide was available as a downloadable PDF file. I ended up not using the file because the guide booklet (6” x 9” x ¼”) was so convenient to flip through. Conference organizers also made the entire syllabus available for download. In fact, as of today, it is still here . Kudos to the conference and presenters for their willingness to share. And speaking of sharing: Videos of sessions and keynotes from 2012 and 2013 are available for your viewing pleasure.

I was a bit disappointed in the sessions. The vast majority were marked “B” for Beginner or “E” for Everyone – whatever that means. There were a few I-for-Intermediate sessions unevenly sprinkled throughout the schedule. Some time slots had multiple Intermediate presentations and many had just one or none at all. There were no sessions designated as Advanced. As is typically the case at conferences, some session times had more than one talk I wanted to attend and others had none that excited me.

My favorite sessions from RootsTech 2013 were:

Eleven Layers of Online Searches at FamilySearch.org by Barbara Renick
How to Use Google Earth for Genealogy (workshop) by Lisa Louise Cooke
Digital Photo and Document Organization: Understanding Metadata (workshop) by Randy Whited
Can a Complex Research Problem be Solved Solely Online? by Thomas. W. Jones

The Expo Hall was large and jam-packed with interesting booths to visit. I visited with OCLC, my former employer. They announced that they will be including the FHL catalog in WorldCat, the union catalog that itemizes holdings at the world’s libraries. I spent time learning about Evidentia, a new program designed to help genealogists organize their sources and analyze data. I bought the program, but have not yet spent any quality time with it. No conference would be complete without a visit with Leland Meitzler at the Family Roots Publishing booth. I love books and never leave that booth empty-handed. There were many other vendors – too numerous to mention – featuring their software, databases, charts, etc. It was definitely exciting to see so many genealogical products and services.

Will I attend RootsTech again? Yes and no. I am not inclined to register for the conference. Most of the sessions were too basic for me to get much out of them. The Expo Hall was open to all without registration. I wouldn’t mind be there to look. This year the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) held their Professional Management Conference at the SLC Radisson on Tuesday and Wednesday before RootsTech. I attended the PMC and enjoyed it. My plan for next year is to go to the APG PMC and take advantage of the opportunity to share a room with someone going to RootsTech. I could still visit the exhibitors, network with genie friends and do some research at the nearby Family History Library.

The URL for this post is: http://www.bnk94.com/groupwgenealogy/2013/04/23/rootstech-2013/

Genea-Goals 2013 – Update

Posted on April 16, 2013 by bethbenko

OK. The first quarter of the year is over and it is time to see how I am doing on my Genea-Goals for 2013. Status in pink.

Blog more often – at least 2 or 3 times per month – Haven’t done it. This is the first post since I set these goals back in January!
Attend RootsTech and the APG Professional Management Conference – March in SLC – The APG PMC was great — lots of wise words from Tom Jones and informative presentations by Judy Russell. RootsTech was BIG — 6,700 registered attendees! Maybe I should blog about these?
Attend a national institute – Registered in my first-choice session, room booked, airline tickets purchased. Can’t wait!
Take the NGS Home Study Course – graded option – after the revised version is available in May – I just heard that the new course “American Genealogy Studies: The Basics” is in pre-release. I will start this soon. Right now I am working my way through the free NGS Family History Skills course.
Speaking
1. Prepare 3 more talks – have ideas for 2 new talks
2. Present 10 times – have presented 3 times so far this year and have 3 more talks scheduled — one of them in 2014.
Research trip to Allen County Public Library – planned for fall
Apply for ProGen – not yet
Personal Digitization
1. Digitize old slides – Completed scanning of 600 slides inherited from my in-laws. Dug out 16 slide carousels belonging to me and my hubby. There are over 2200 slides! Although I won’t scan each and every one, this could take a while.
2. Digitize old (pre-2003) pictures – after the slides are finished.
Marketing
1. Change LinkedIn profile – not yet
2. Edit APG listing – not yet
3. Submit information for CCGS Speakers Bureau – did it
4. Submit name for NARA researchers list – not yet
Volunteer activities
1. DPL – twice a month – check
2. NARA – twice a month – check
3. B’fld GS – Treasurer, maybe VP in FY14, organizing newspaper indexing project – check
4. Boulder GS – Recording Secretary, Publicity – check
5. CGS – Publicity – check
6. * New * GGSC – delegate to Colorado Council – check

It’s been a busy first quarter. I definitely haven’t paid enough attention to my blog. Education activities are on track. Scanning has taken more time than anticipated (~5 minutes per slide). Volunteering is taking up a lot of time and energy. I’ve been trying to sit on my hands when “opportunities” arise. I’m hoping to have more of these goals check off next quarter.

Genea-Goals for 2013

Posted on January 18, 2013 by bethbenko

I’ve been reading other blog posts about Genealogy Goals/Resolutions for 2013 and I’ve been pondering what mine should be. It has taken a while to come up with a final list — and, no, “cease procrastinating” is not on the list! Since the 1st of the year, I’ve been busy. I’ve given a 3-hour Legacy Family Tree workshop. Last evening, I was the featured speaker at a local society meeting. I’ve celebrated 3 family member birthdays so far in January — 2 more to go!

So here are my genea-goals for 2013 – in no particular order.

Blog more often – at least 2 or 3 times per month
Attend RootsTech and the APG Professional Management Conference – March in Salt Lake City — already registered, have hotel & roommate, bought plane tickets
Attend a genealogical institute (one of the following: SLIG, IGHR, GRIP)
Take the NGS Home Study Course – graded option – after the new, revised version is available in May
Speaking Engagements
1. Prepare 5 more presentations on genealogy/technology topics
2. Present 10 times
Research trip to Allen County Public Library
Apply for ProGen
Personal Digitization
1. Digitize old slides
2. Digitize old (pre-2003) pictures
Continue my Cincinnati research and apply for First Families of Hamilton County
Volunteer activities
1. Denver Public Library – twice a month
2. NARA, Denver – twice a month
3. Broomfield GS – Treasurer, VP in FY14, lead newspaper indexing project
4. Boulder GS – Recording Secretary, Publicity
5. Colorado GS – Publicity
6. Germanic GS of Colorado – delegate to Colorado Council of GSs
(GS = Genealogical Society)

That’s it! This list seems ambitious, but I’m committed to take my genealogy to the next level by taking advantage of some high-quality learning opportunities, volunteering in local repositories and preparing and giving presentations.

The URL for this post is: http://www.bnk94.com/groupwgenealogy/2013/01/18/genea-goals-for-2013/

Why Apply to a Lineage Society?

Posted on December 2, 2012 by bethbenko

Both my mother’s and father’s families lived in Ohio in the last two centuries. Early in my Ohio research, I joined the Hamilton County Genealogical Society, a chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society. On HCGS web site, I read about the lineage societies they sponsor:

Century Families of Hamilton County – This program honors the descendants of the pioneers who settled (or were born) in Hamilton County between 1 January 1861 and 100 years ago from today.

Settlers and Builders of Hamilton County – This program honors the descendants of the pioneers who settled (or were born) in Hamilton County between 1 January 1821 and 31 December 1860.

First Families of Hamilton County – This program honors the descendants of the pioneers who settled in Hamilton County prior to 31 December 1820.

“Wow!” I thought, “I’ve got people in Cincinnati back to about 1817, I’ll apply. Piece of cake.” I downloaded the forms and read through the pages of instructions. This was not going to be as easy as I had first thought. I quickly determined that I should take baby steps with the applications, applying for Century Families first, then Settlers and Builders and eventually First Families.

I would need to supply copies of evidential documents for name, birth date and place, parents names, death date and place, marriage date and place. The documentation must start with me and work backwards in time to the ancestors eligible for Century Families (my maternal grandparents and both sets of great-grandparents on that side). Where did I have a copy of my birth certificate? I had been married, widowed, and married again, so I needed marriage and death certificates to prove how the name on my birth certificate had morphed into the name I have now. I was used to gathering such documents for my ancestors, but not for myself. Compiling the records for my parents was easier since I had obtained birth, marriage and death certificates a few years ago.

I turned to the binders I use to capture documents I had on the earlier generations. There is nothing like revisiting your research and supporting documentation to point out the “holes” in your study. I re-examined each document to make sure that they “proved” what I thought they did. More importantly, would the lineage society committee find them sufficient proof for the facts stated?

In the summer of 2011, I conscientiously accumulated all my evidence, wrote source citations in the margins of each along with my name and membership number on the back. My Century Families application packet was 32 pages and included 25 source documents. I must have done a good job because my application was accepted without a peep from the committee. My Century Families medal and certificate arrived in the mail shortly after the awards luncheon.

This year I applied for the Settlers and Builders society for one set of great-great-grandparents and their parents. The application packet added 20 pages and 13 source documents to the first. Several of the documents were in German and required “certified translation.”

This time I heard back from the review committee regarding my application. I needed additional documentation to prove the full names for some of my ancestors. Francis Seraph Huber was sometimes “Frank S.” “Franz” or just “Frank.” (Including his middle name was important to me because his father had been one of the founders of Cincinnati’s St. Francis Seraph church.) His wife Mary Louisa Danheimer appeared in various documents as “Mary”, “Mary L.” and “Louise.” A death certificate showing my great-great grandmother had been born in Cincinnati was not sufficient proof of her birthplace. I needed to supply a census record to back up that fact.

I am thankful for a patient and kind committee chair, Kenny Burck, who guided me in submitting the necessary supplemental documents. My medal and certificate arrived in the mail earlier this month. Next year, my goal is to apply for First Families of Hamilton County.

So, why apply for a lineage society?

The process of completing the application and supplying necessary proof documents was a great learning experience. Reviewing previous research and documents pointed out weaknesses in the stories of my ancestors. The application began with me and worked backward in time, generation by generation. This is the model that our research should follow. Each statement of fact required one or more document to substantiate that fact. And each document required a source citation. All of these good genealogical practices were reinforced in the application process.

And besides, the medals are cool and can be worn as conference bling!

Genealogy Software Comparison, Part 4b: More on Census Records – FTM

Posted on November 1, 2012 by bethbenko

In the earlier post on RootsMagic (RM), I described the process to enter the transcription and image of a census record to its source citation. I also l looked at how to share the census fact and source citation with the other family members included in the census record. Today’s post will look at those same features in Family Tree Maker (FTM).

I added a census fact to Nicholas Huber in my tree by going to the Person tab in the People workspace and then clicking on the blue plus sign to add the fact.

I added the source citation following the process described in the earlier post Citing a Census Source – FTM. The resulting Source Details are shown below.

I clicked on the “Resource Notes” tab and entered the information transcribed from the census record. Next I went to the “Media” tab to link the census image.

I clicked on the “Attach New Media” button. (If I had previously attached this census image to a source or individual in my FTM database, I would have clicked on the “Link to Existing Media” button.) The “Select a Media Item” window allowed me to select the correct file from my hard drive.

Then, the “Copy to Media Folder” window appeared.

To save space in my FTM database (and thus on my hard drive), I chose the option to “Link to this file where it is (without copying it).” I selected the “Census” category and then “OK.” The Media Detail window allowed me to add a Caption, Date and Description to the image as well as to change the Category and mark the image Private.

After entering the desired data and clicking “OK” I now had my source citation with transcription and image of the source record. Now, I wanted to attach all of this to the other three members of the family who appeared in this census record.

I searched all around on Nicholas’ Person tab (in the People workspace) trying to find the button or icon that would allow me to copy his 1910 census fact and source. I couldn’t find any. I looked unsuccessfully in the Companion Guide, the electronic book that comes with the software. Next, I went to the Online Help Center and accessed the Knowledge Base. I typed “copy fact” into the search box and saw several articles related to facts and to making backup copies of the database. I started reading through all the articles and finally found what I was looking for in the article “Add, edit or delete a fact in Family Tree Maker.” I followed the instructions very carefully and successfully copied the fact and source citation from one family member to the other three. Here are the steps.

I went to the Person tab on the People workspace and right clicked on the fact for the 1910 census that I wanted to copy and selected “Copy.”

Then, I right clicked again on the same fact and selected “Paste.” The “Paste Fact” window appeared and displayed Nicholas and his family members.

I selected the people to whom I wanted to copy the fact and source citation, namely Theresa, Ida and Clarence and I deselected Nicholas.

I read in the knowledge base that it is important to deselect the original person from whom the fact is copied. Failure to do so will result in a duplicate fact being created for this person. After I clicked “OK” to complete the copy/paste, I checked the facts for Theresa, Ida, and Clarence and saw they now had the 1910 census fact and the source citation.

In FTM, the process to add the image and transcription to a source citation was easy enough to do. The screen flow was intuitive. Copying the fact and source citation from one individual to others was somewhat more difficult. It was not clear at first how to accomplish the operation. Having to deselect the person whose fact was being copied in order to prevent undesired duplicates seems to indicate a poorly designed feature. In the end, I managed to do what I wanted to do, but the procedure seemed too complicated.

The URL for this post is: http://www.bnk94.com/groupwgenealogy/2012/11/01/genealogy-software-comparison-part-4b-more-on-census-records-ftm/

Genealogy Software Comparison, Part 4a: More on Census Records – RM

Posted on October 30, 2012 by bethbenko

Census records are fundamental to US genealogical research in 19th and early 20th centuries. I like to think of the census records as a framework on which to build our ancestors’ full story. If we manage to locate all the relevant census records, we are provided with decennial snapshots of our ancestral families. We can then research other sources to fill in the details of the intervening years and produce a complete biography.

In Part 4 of this series, I will expand upon the entering of census data that I began in Part 3. In earlier posts, I entered a census fact for an individual and examined the source citation that the program created. I compared each citation to Evidence Explained to see how close they were to Elizabeth Shown Mills’ standard. See the summary post for my conclusions.

Since a census record documents the individuals in a household, it is important to enter census data for everyone who was living together at the time of the census. One would hope that the software programs would make it easy to replicate this data across all proper family members. It is also desirable to include a transcription of the census data and link to the image of the census page.

This post will work with the 1910 census for Grandma Ida’s family. In 1910 she was living with her parents, Nicholas and Theresa, and her younger brother Clarence.

Starting with Nicholas Huber’s “Edit Person” window, I added the census fact for the 1910 census and the source citation. I covered this procedure in the blog post Citing a Census Source – RM and will not repeat it here. Here are the Master Source and Source Details for this census record.

Next, I clicked on the tab labeled “Detail text” and entered the transcription of the census record.

To add the image of the census record, I clicked on the “Media” tab, then on the “Add new media” button. I selected the media type ( “Image” — could also be “File,” “Sound” or “Video”) and the location for the media. This will be “Disk” because the image is on my computer. Alternatively, I could use my scanner to get a digital copy of a photo. After clicking “Disk” a Windows file picker appears so that I can select the right file.

After loading the image, RootsMagic displays the Media Properties window where I can enter relevant information such as caption, description, date, reference number.

This census image is now attached to the Source record for the census Fact. Note that it is also possible to attach the census image to the Census Fact directly. To do this, I would click the box under the small camera icon on the line corresponding to the Census Fact on the Edit Person screen. (See the red circle is in the picture below. That area is blank before adding the image and contains a green check mark after adding the image.) I don’t know that attaching the image to the fact is better or worse than attaching the image to the source for that fact. In this case, I have done both. This does not increase the size of my RM database significantly, because RM just stores a pointer to the image on my computer’s hard drive.

Now that the census fact is properly documented for Nicholas Huber, I’d like to add the same census fact to the other three family members. To do this, I click on the 1910 census fact in Nicholas’ “Edit Person” window and then click on the “Share” button.

The “Select People” window allows me to choose the individuals who will share this census fact.

A review window allows me to review those who will share this fact and add or remove people as needed. Note that people added here must already be in the database. It is not possible to add a “new” person (e.g. the baby who shows up for the first time in this census or the newly found mother-in-law now living with the family) from this window. In such cases, the new person should probably be added to the database before doing the fact sharing.

After I complete this operation by clicking “OK,” I can check to see that this 1910 census fact has been shared with the other family members. Below is a snapshot of Grandma Ida’s facts. The shared 1910 census fact has a special icon to indicate that it is shared.

The entering of the transcription and attaching an image to the census fact was easy to do. RM makes it simple to share a census fact from one person with others in the database.

The URL for this post is: http://www.bnk94.com/groupwgenealogy/2012/10/30/genealogy-software-comparison-part-4a-more-on-census-records-rm/

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

Posted on October 10, 2012 by bethbenko

In the last few posts, I have reviewed adding a census source citation in RootsMagic (RM), Family Tree Maker (FTM), and Legacy Family Tree (LFT). I will give a summary of my experiences below.

In order to provide a thorough analysis of each program’s capabilities, I am going to take a somewhat scholarly approach to the task of developing source citations. First, it is necessary to clearly state some definitions. Elizabeth Shown Mills has published single page quick sheet that summarizes the research process and defines the relevant terms.

SOURCES: Artifacts or books, digital files, documents, films, people, recordings, websites, etc.

INFORMATION: Statements or raw data offered by a source.

EVIDENCE: INFORMATION that is relevant to the research problem.

SOURCES provide INFORMATION from which we select EVIDENCE for ANALYSIS.¹

A Citation is a reference to the source, with details (e.g. page number). ”Citations are statements in which we identify our source or sources for a particular assertion.” Citations appear in Source Lists (bibliographies) and in Reference Notes, either as footnotes or endnotes. Each citation type has a specific format.²

All three programs use the concept of a master source and source detail (RM and LFT). FTM uses the terms source and citation detail, but it is the same idea. This concept was very confusing to me the first time that I encountered it. How does one know where the dividing line is between the master source and the source detail?

The answer is easy in the case of a book: the source detail is the page number and everything else (author, title, publisher, etc.) is part of the master source. Census records are a bit more complicated. It is easy to assume that the year and type of census (e.g. “1920 United States Federal Census”) should be part of the master source and that sheet and page number, dwelling number, family number and person’s name should be in the source detail. What about city/township, county, state and enumeration district? I struggled with this for a while.

RootsMagic provides an excellent explanation of this concept in their free, online webinar: “Sources, Citations and Documentation with RootsMagic” at http://files.rootsmagic.com/webinars/2011-02-04-Sources-Citations-and-Documentation-with-RootsMagic.mp4. I recommend it for anyone who seeks clarity on this issue.

In each of the three programs, I entered a census “fact” or “event” for my grandparents using the 1920 census as my source. I used a template in each program to construct a citation. I compared the citation that each software program produced to a citation I built “by hand” using Evidence Explained as my reference. Here are the results.

Family Tree Maker

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

RootsMagic

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 images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 17 September 2012); National Archives microfilm publication T625, roll 1390.

Legacy Family Tree

1920 U.S. census, Hamilton Co., Ohio, population schedule, Cincinnati, Ward 9, enumeration district (ED) 163, sheet 4A, p. 232 (stamped), dwelling 51, family 83, Ida T. Ulrich; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Oct 2012); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T625, roll 1390.

Citation based on Evidence Explained³

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 1 October 2012); citing National Archives microfilm publication T625, roll 1390.

Conclusion

RM and LFT provided individual fields for each piece of data contained in the details of the citation. Each field had help text to guide the user. The citation produced by RM was identical to the citation I constructed by hand. The LFT citation differed one small detail: sheet number was before page number instead of the other way around. Both RM and LFT produce a Reference Note and Source List (bibliography) form of the citation.

FTM did not give field-by-field data entry for the detailed information. It provided a single free-form text box for data entry along with help text enumerating the information to be entered. This method puts added burden on the user to enter all the correct data. In addition to being more prone to data entry errors, the resulting citation does not closely match the citation prescribed by Evidence Explained. FTM produces only a Reference Note citation and not a Source List (or bibliography) form.

Based on my experience, the winner in the census record source citation category is RootsMagic, followed closely by Legacy Family Tree. Family Tree Maker was a distant third as judged on ease of data entry and composition of the resulting citation.

¹Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Analysis: A Process Map; digital image at Historic Pathways (http://www.HistoricPathways.com : 10 October 2012.

²Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007), 42-43.

³Ibid, 240.

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

Posted on October 1, 2012 by bethbenko

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 Legacy Family Tree, I went to the Individual’s Information for my Grandma Ida and clicked next to the item I wanted to source (e.g. the date next to the “Born” label). Then I click the Source icon. It looks like three books standing up (circled in green below).

This brings up the “Assigned Sources” for this individual. From here, I clicked on the “Add a New Source” button.

I was brought to the “Add a New Master Source” screen, Step 1 within the SourceWriter wizard. From here I chose “Census records” as the type of source. I was prompted for country, type of census record, the year of the census and the medium.

I next went to Step 2 of the SourceWirter. I filled in the Source List Name. As the comment indicates, this is the name that will appear in the master list of sources. It does not appear in the citation itself. It should be descriptive and meaningful to the user. After all, the user will need it in the future as a clue fo<4>r which master source to select. I then filled in the remaining fields with the appropriate information.

Note that there is an “Output Preview” on the right hand side of this screen. There are three flavors of citation: Footnote/Endnote, Subsequent and Bibliography (or Source List). The preview allows the user to see the citations as they are built. There are additional tabs on this screen to allow one to add comments, repository information, attach an image or to override or customize the Bibliography entry.

I saved this Master Source entry and moved to Step 3, Add the Source Detail. On this screen, I entered the information in each of the individual fields. After entering the Dwelling number, I needed to scroll down in order to enter Family Number, ID of Person and Date Accessed. This is a minor inconvenience at best and results in an incomplete citation if the user fails to notice the scroll bar. (I missed it my first time through this process.)

I saved this citation and was returned to the Individual’s Information screen for Grandma Ida. The blue text on the label “Born” indicates that there is a source for this information.

The resulting citation is very close to that prescribed in Evidence Explained. Page number is after sheet number instead of the other way around. The words “enumeration district” are not capitalized. The Oct/October difference is due to my data entry. Garbage in / Garbage out!

LFT: 1920 U.S. census, Hamilton Co., Ohio, population schedule, Cincinnati, Ward 9, enumeration district (ED) 163, sheet 4A, p. 232 (stamped), dwelling 51, family 83, Ida T. Ulrich; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 Oct 2012); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T625, roll 1390.

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 1 October 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 3b: Citing a Census Source – FTM

Posted on September 20, 2012 by bethbenko

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The 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.