Alway Learning - Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Do you like to pick up tips and tricks from other researchers? I know I do! I especially like those surveys or challenges that cause me to look at my data in a different way. That's one of the things I like about Randy Seaver's "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun" challenges. Not only does Randy challenge me to look at my data differently - but he often provides the instructions on how to do it.

That is especially true of last night's challenge.

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer, or an online family tree) and figure out how to Count how many surnames you have in your family tree database.

2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task.

3)  Tell us what the top 20  surnames are in your database and, if possible, how many entries.  How many different surnames are in your family tree?

4)  Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a status or comment on a Facebook post.

Since like Randy, I use RootsMagic 7 to manage my genealogy research, I simply have to follow his directions to figure out my top 20 surnames.

So within RootsMagic 7, I pulled down the REPORTS menu and clicked on LISTS for the type of report. Then I just scrolled down the right side of the window to locate the SURNAME STATISTICS LIST.

Online Trees

Is organization one of your 2020 goals? If so, have you been following the tips in The Genealogy Guys Blog? Today's post, 'Organizing Your Online Trees,' is a challenge for me.

It is a challenge since I never considered having to 'keep  them up to date.'

For years, I have shared my work with others either thru a website, thru my Ancestry tree or thru a gedcom file. Since having my DNA tested, I have used gedcom files to share my tree with the various sites where my DNA data has been uploaded.

Thanks to hosting site and software changes, some of my early attempts at sharing are no longer easily accessed. This would include my original website hosted on GeoCities. About the time GeoCities was being discontinued, I had transitioned to using The Master Genealogist for my genealogy research. Thus, I was able to take advantage of John Cardinal's software, Second Site and his hosting service to continue sharing my work online.

When support for The Master Genealogist was discontinued, I converted my data to RootsMagic. One of the 'selling' points for RootsMagic was the ability to publish my data online. Thus, I switched my online file from Second Site to RootsMagic's.

Since the release of RootsMagic's TreeShare, I have had my RootsMagic data connected to my Ancestry Tree. I've also been taking advantage of the ability to connect individuals in my RM data to Family Search.

Thus, my primary online trees include

• Heartland Genealogy on Ancestry
• FamilySearch tree
• RootsMagic Online data

For DNA purposes, I do have some of my data on the following sites:

• My Heritage
• FamilyTree DNA
• GedMatch

Since my GedCom has been shared in many ways, I don't have a complete list of where my data may be available online. Thus, the challenge!

Since most of my current research has not involved new DNA ancestors, I don't feel a lot of pressure to update my GedCom data on My Heritage, FamilyTree DNA or GedMatch.

In terms of updating online trees, my focus will be on my Ancestry tree, my ancestors on FamilySearch and my RootsMagic online data. Thank you 'The Genealogy Guys' for the challenge!

Timelines - Cluster Research

Do you use timelines in your genealogy research? I'm guessing that most people who have been searching their family history for some time have used some sort of timeline.

When I retired and starting spending more time researching my family tree, I created a spreadsheet for my Crawford family research.

In the spreadsheet, I was able to color code the people, locations and time periods. All of this information was copied from my RootsMagic data into the spreadsheet.

It wasn't until I read Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Make a Timeline Report blog that I seriously looked at the Timeline Report in RootsMagic. Thanks to his post, I started looking at the built-in timelines on Ancestry and within RootsMagic.

Media Issues

Have you seen DearMyrtle's challenge?

When I first saw the challenge, I thought I should be in pretty good shape. After all, I scanned the family photos and attached them in my The Master Genealogist software several years ago. Since I've worked my way thru 5 generations of data review, I figured I should be set.

That was until yesterday when I was verifying descendants for a thru-lines DNA match on Ancestry. As I was working with a known first cousin twice removed, I decided to check FamilySearch to see if there were any additional sources attached to this cousin.

To my surprise, I found a slightly different set of parents than expected. I expected to find John Frederick Mentzer and Anna Wells Mentzer as the parents of a family of 8 children, including Mildred Mabel Mentzer. Instead, I found Fred Mentzer and Anna Wells Mentzer as the parents of one child, Mildred Mentzer. After digging thru my Mentzer records to verify that John and Anna did have a daughter named Mildred and that said daughter was married to a VanValkenburg, I merged Mildred and the two sets of parents.

Knowing that someone could object to this merger and undo the merge, I wanted to add supporting documentation to support the merge. Thus, I (thought I) added an image of the obituary for Fred Mentzer. The obituary clearly indicated that Fred Mentzer was also known as John Frederick Mentzer. It also listed the children and their residency at the time of Fred's death. I also added a page from a Woodson County Historical Society publication that included a picture of the family when the children were young and a list of the children and their spouses.

Since my attempt to create an image of the obituary from a PDF file, did not include the entire obituary that attempt was a failure. Thankfully, I discovered the problem and have since uploaded an image showing the entire obituary.

Database and Colors

Do you think of your genealogy research as a tree or a database? I realize many people fall into the 'tree' group, but I am in the 'database' group.

Because I think of my data as a database, I want computer software to manage that data versus only using an online tree. I use RootsMagic to manage my database. You might say, 'but that's family tree software' and I would say you are correct. RootsMagic is great software to manage family tree based research.

However, I don't just research my tree, I research their FAN club (Friends Associates and Neighbors) as well as potential lines. And all of this research ultimately ends up in my RootsMagic file. Since this is one fairly large database, I have to have a way to visually keep track of the various lines in my research.

That's where the color coding feature in RootsMagic comes in handy. I started by assigning different colors to various lines of my research.

Besides assigning a color to ancestors along a line, I've also assigned that same color to the descendants on that line. (Note: Living descendants are colored LIME so that I can quickly identify living people.)

Working with Land Records

Have you discovered all of the resources available on the FamilySearch website? If so, then you know how they can provide that little 'nugget' of information that leads to major breakthroughs in one's genealogical research. If not, then you are missing out on some very valuable resources.

My favorite group of sources is the land records. As a U.S. researcher whose various family lines moved across the country, these records help me place someone in a specific time and place and sometimes help me connect family members.

When I login to FamilySearch (accounts are free), the menu gives me several options. The Wiki is a fantastic resource to learn about records available in a community. I often use the Wiki, but the Catalog is my 'go to' resource.

On the CATALOG screen, I type in the name of the county and then select the one I wish to work with from the suggested list.

Cleaning up Bad Citations

Do you ever have to do a 'clean-up' in your genealogy database? Whether you do or not, I know I do. I recently figured out that some of my citations did not 'convert' well when I moved my data from The Master Genealogist to Roots Magic. Thus, I have some 'bad' citations to clean up.

Even though I knew these bad citations existed in my database, I had no clue how to go about finding all of them. Thus, I posted a query in the RootsMagic Users Group on Facebook.

Although, it isn't possible to create a report listing these citations, a kind user posted some steps to try and locate those hints.

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.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), answer the question:

1)  Have you done a good job of citing your sources in your genealogy management program or online family tree?  How are you doing?  How many source citations do you have, and how many people are in your tree?  What is the sources to persons ratio?

2)  Which master source (e.g., 1900 U.S. census, Find A Grave, specific book, etc.) do you have the most citations for?  How many?  How did you figure this out?

3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook.

Randy Seaver provides another interesting challenge thru his 'Saturday Night Genealogy Fun' to look at my genealogy data in a different way.

Since I use RootsMagic, I thought I'd show how I'm getting the answers to these questions as well as answer them.

A Look Back

Thanks to other geneabloggers, I have recorded statistics for both my RootsMagic tree and my Ancestry tree over the past year.

Roots Magic Tree

Heartland Genealogy Tree on Ancestry

The numbers are 'nice' but for me to understand whether I have made progress, I have to compare them to where I was on January 1, 2018.

Narrative Reports

Do you ever take the 'easy way' to do something? Well, I do all of the time when it comes to writing about an ancestor. For quite a few years, I've been letting my genealogy software compose the narrative.

I first learned to take advantage of turning the events into sentences and thus into a narrative while using The Master Genealogist. Second Site software would take my genealogy data in TMG and turn it into a narrated web site.

Source Templates

This morning, I watched part of the Wacky Wednesday episode: The Source Is Gone and hope to finish it watching it later today. During this presentation, Cousin Russ discusses how he is rethinking how he cites memorials on Find A Grave.

During the presentation, Cousin Russ compared the suggested citation for a Find a Grave memorial to how he was citing the memorial in his software. This made me curious about my own citations and how they compare.

Below is the suggested citation for the memorial of my second great grandfather, Washington Marion Crawford.



When I looked at the footnote for the Find a Grave source in my software (RootsMagic), I found that the footnote was similar to the suggested footnote.



My footnote is 'created' using a template to enter the information.



The above template is a 'custom' template that I created. I often copy a built-in template and then customize the copy. I like using templates. They make it easy for me to remember to include the important elements in a citation. However, I had heard that templates don't work well when data is exported - particularly via GedCom. This issue is discussed on the RootsMagic forum: 'Templated Sources in GEDCOM and Data Exchange' and 'Extreme Source Splitting and RM's Source Templates'.

To date, I have ignored the issue around how GEDCOM handles my sources created with the templates. Today, I decided to investigate what is happening to my sources when they are exported. One of the ways I export data on a regular basis is by uploading events and sources to Ancestry via RM's TreeShare. Looking at the same citation on Ancestry, I discovered that whatever I put in Source Details is split from whatever is in the Master Source section of my template.



I also noticed that the words 'created by' or 'photographed by' were dropped. These words were not entered by me in the source details section of the template but part of the citation template.



Wondering how the citation would transfer using GEDCOM, I created a small GEDCOM file. I then imported that GEDCOM file into a different genealogy program: Legacy. Once I figured out how to view the source, I found that words 'created by' and 'photographed by' were also dropped.



After comparing the citation from the other software program to the citations from Find a Grave and from RootsMagic, I discovered that the order of the Source Details text in the Legacy footnote was in order entered in my template (top to bottom).

From this study of my citations and what happens during the export, I believe there are some things that I can do to improve the exported citations:

• enter 'created by' and 'photographed by' in the Source Details instead of using the footnote template to add that text


• change the order of the Source Details components in my Source Template to match the order that I would like the text to appear in a footnote

If I attempt either of the above changes, every individual in my RM program with a Find A Grave citation would be marked as 'changed' for TreeShare. Thus, I need to be willing to spend considerable time to make these changes and work thru the TreeShare list. At this point, I'm not going to make the changes to existing citations. However, I will likely create a new template to use for any new citations.