Friday, April 20, 2012

Follow-Up Friday - This Week's Reader Comments and Questions

On Fridays, I'm trying to respond to reader comments on my blog posts, or in email, that may be helpful to my readers.

1)  In 1940 U.S. Census Source Citation in RootsMagic 5 - Census Image Source Template, RootsMagic (Bruce) noted:


"Make sure to watch our webinar on May 17th to learn a solution to that drawback you mentioned. ;-)"


My response:  The "drawback" is that, using the RootsMagic 5 Source Template for a specific census year and county, the user needs to create a source for every County and every Roll number in the County because that information goes into the Source field that is used for every Citation Detail. 

Bruce's comment implies that RootsMagic will tweak their source citation template so that the county and state information will go into the Citation Detail portion of the template, but the source elements will be in the correct Evidence! Explained order.  


2)  After posting my two posts - Surname Saturday - BARBER (England > Rhode Island) and Amanuensis Monday - Probate Records of Moses Barber (1652-1733) of South Kingstown, R.I., - Midge Frazel checked her files and provided some periodical images for Moses Barber.  She now has a transcription of the will of both Moses Barber and his wife, Susannah (West) Barber).  I am a  distant cousin with Midge and Becky Higgins through this line.  blogging works!


3)  My Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Latin Genealogy Sayings post generated some interesting sayings in Latin and English:


 My own were:


*  Venit mi, ut i tibi mea genealogia spelunca (Come, my dear, may I show you my genealogy cave?)
*  Ostende mihi si tibi ostendam tibi ahnentafel (I'll show you my ahnentafel if you show me yours)
*  Genealogia est non amatsuus an nimiam (Genealogy is not a hobby, it's an obsession)
*  Communio domus mea tergo insignia - quod rectum (My family coat of arms ties in the back - is that normal?)
*  Ego non adhæsitsum antecessor provocatus (I'm not stuck, I'm ancestor challenged)


Those of others (from blog comments):


< *  Dorene from Ohio offered:  Ego amare genealogia Conferentiae! (I love genealogy conferences!)


*  Andy Hatchett offered:  "Neque desideratum nec esse voluistis petere - et in futuro erit!" ("Your approval has been neither asked for nor desired - and such will be true in the future!")


*  Pam Beveridge offered [A man from Maine sees grapefruit for the first time when the A&P opens]:  Whoa! Non multa, ut duodecim, facite (Whoa, don't take many of them to make a dozen, do it!)  


*  Julie offered:  Hodie est cras anxius de heri (Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday)


*  www.HungatrianFamilyRecord.org offered:  Clamo, clamatis, omnes clamamus pro glace lactis (I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.)


*  Heather Rojo offered:  "Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes" (If you can read this you are over educated!)


There were also several blog posts.  Thank you all for playing.  


4)  In Genea-Musings is 6 Today!!, Kathy Reed asked:


"...can you tell me how I could access the stat counter you use? I'd be particularly interested in applying it to our genealogical society's blog."


My response:  I have three statistics counters on my blog.  Sitemeter (www.sitemeter.com) is the oldest, I've used it since 2006.  It's free, and useful.  StatCounter (www.statcounter.com) is another counter I use.  I used to use Google Analytics but don't any longer.  I also use Google Stats provided by Blogger.    They each provide different metrics, and I don't know which one is "best."


5)  In email, reader Andrea asked:  


"...how do you find someone if you don't know exactly where they live as you could do in the past?"


My response (in email):  You have to wait for the Indexes to appear for your state.  If you don't know a state, you have to wait until all states are completely indexed.  It should be about six months from now.  It may be that Ancestry, or MyHeritage, or FamilySearch, or another company, will have your state of interest indexed first, so keep looking for the states they have indexed.

The only easy way to find someone in the 1940 Census right now is if you think you know where the family lived - a town or city neighborhood or city address.  Then you can use the Steve Mores ED Finder Tool to determine the Enumeration District.  Once you know the ED, then you can search all of the pages in that ED for the family.  That's what I did in the Moe Howard search below, and for my own families in the 1940 census.  If you think you know the town or county where your family lived, then you could search all of the EDs for that town or county.  Searching two or three EDs doesn't take very long, but searching hundreds of EDs will take a long time.  I could do 3 in an hour if I tried, but doing 300 EDs in 100 hours is not an efficient use of my time.  I'll wait for the index!

When the 1940 US Census index becomes available in the months ahead, then you'll be able to search on Ancestry, or MyHeritage, or FamilySearch, or naother site, using names, locations, ages, etc. just like you do now for the 1790 to 1930 census records.


6)  In email, reader Jason said:

"I have searched your site for help on how to cite facebook & I could not find anything. I am using FTM 2012 and do not know what the best source template is to use for this. I just found out about a death of a distant cousin and would like to cite facebook as my source for the information."

My response (in email):  I found a model in EE.  The Discussion List model on page 788 (first edition).  A Facebook entry would be:

Randy Seaver, "I knew that I shoulda read the manual for FamilySearch Indexing...," Facebook, social network, 8 April 2012 (https://www.facebook.com/Geneaholic, accessed 9 April 2012).

That should work for Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.  Also Message Boards, Mailing Lists and Forums. Just substitute the correct information.  FTM 2012 has this template:  Publications -Periodicals, Broadcasts and Web Miscellenea > Broadcasts and Web Miscellenea > Discussion Forum or List.. 

I appreciate the comments on Genea-Musings and the questions or comments asked in email.  I'll try to respond within a week to everything I receive.


Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Kathy Reed said...

Randy,
Thanks so much for answering my question. I think I have now properly installed StatCounter to the three blogs I am responsible for, including the one for our genealogical society. I think this will give us some interesting information. In addition, I'm sort of a statistics geek and just love trying to figure out the significance. It might also help me explain freak incidents like 524 visits in and hour that do not match up with the other statistics.