Re-Learning to Use Shared Events

Have you used 'shared events' in your genealogy software?

Michelle Simmons Lewis had a Facebook post today that is causing me to re-visit the concept of shared events. In her post, she indicated that she was using shared events to help with a one-name study in early South Carolina.

This post caught my attention today for two reasons:

• My Crawford research in Kentucky is similar to a limited one-name study;
• I could be using shared events to tie the various members of my Kentucky FAN club together.

Unfortunately, Michelle Simmons Lewis' post contained hints for Legacy Family Tree software and I use RootsMagic. Knowing that the software packages are similar, I looked for information on shared events in RootsMagic. I found a video by Bruce Buzbee explaining shared events in RootsMagic.

This video helped me think through a couple of ways I can use shared events to help pull together my Crawford research.

My first use was for the witness to a will. Since I already had George Doulgas, the witness to David Crawford's will, in my RootsMagic database, all I had to do was share the will event for David Crawford with George Douglas.

 This created a shared event on George Douglas' individual screen.

It also created a sentence for the event.

Knowing that George Douglas sold land to Rebekah Crawford, I would like to share the land transaction. I already had a 'Land-Purch' fact for Rebekah Crawford. 

Thus, I thought I could share the 'Land-Purch' event with George Douglas. Since he was the Grantor and not a witness, I edited the 'Land-Purch' fact type to add the role of Grantor.

When I shared Rebekah Douglas' Land-Purch fact with George Douglas, it created a sentence showing that George Douglas sold the land.

Unfortunately, the name 'Land-Purch' does not make sense in George's list since he is the seller of the land not the purchaser. Since the principal person in this event is purchasing land, I haven't figured out how to rename the fact so that I will know the principal person is purchasing land.

Now that I have shared two wills and a deed with George Douglas, I would like to be able to easily get from the event in his timeline to the principal person for the event. So far, I haven't figured out how to easily get to the other party in the event. 

Thank you Michelle Simmons Lewis for suggesting this use of shared events to help with one name and/or FAN club research! I still need to learn more about this feature of my software, but the ties created by the shared events will be very helpful.