Category Archives: Legacy Family Tree

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

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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.

SelectMasterSourceNext, I filled in fields for the Master Source.

FamilyGroupMasterSourceAnd added details for the particular tree I was referencing.

FamilyGroupDetailThe 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.

SelectMasterSourceI 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. GenericMasterSource-FamilyTreeThere 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.GenericDetail-FamilyTreeThe “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?

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      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/

Copyright (c) 2013, Beth Weiland Benko

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

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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

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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 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.

Assigned Sources

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.

Add New Master Source

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.

Fill in Master Source 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.)

Enter Source DetailI 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 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