Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Dear Randy: Can you walk me through using FTM 2012 to input 1940 census data?

Reader Brian asked:

"Based on your posts - I'm planning to start 'sourcing' all my 1940 Census data based on your 13 April 2012 Census Source Citation post.  I'm used to bringing in (merging) the data from Ancestry.com into Family Tree Maker 2012 - I guess this brings in Ancestry.com's source format.


"Can you walk me (others) through the best steps within FTM 2012 to follow to input the 1940 Census data for each field, e.g. name, birth, residence, etc which incorporates the 1940 Census Source Citation format?"

My response to Brian was:

Since you will be capturing the 1940 US Census image in FTM 2012 by syncing with Ancestry.com, I recommend the following:

1)  The census image source citation provided by Ancestry.com will look something like this (from the census match summary page):

Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls.
Year: 1940; Census Place: Leominster, Worcester, Massachusetts; Roll: T627_1651; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 14-181.

2)  That is not, of course, Evidence! Explained quality.  You will want to note the elements of that citation that are useful to you (the place name, the ED, the page, the NARA film and roll numbers).

3)  In FTM 2012, copy the Ancestry.com citation to your clipboard.

4)  The Fact for the 1940 Census citation should be in the list for your specific person (ancestor?) [People workspace, Person Tab] - highlight that Fact and click on the Source tab (right-hand panel).  The Ancestry source should show below the Source tab.

5)  To create an EE-quality source for the Fact, click on the New button and the "Add Source citation" window should open.

6) In the "Add Source citation" window, click on the"New" button to the right of the top line - the"Add Source" window should open.

7)  Put your cursor in the top line and type "1940" and two templates titles should be seen - 1880 to 1940 Population Schedule by Census Year and Location; and by Census Year.  Your choice.  If you choose the first one, you will have to create many master source citations - one for each State/County/Roll Number, and the ED/page/etc goes in the Citation.  If you choose the second, then you will have to put the State/County/Roll Number and the other information in the citation.  I always choose the second one because I will end up with hundreds of citations for different counties/roll numbers and it's hard to find them in FTM 2012 when I want to use them again.

8)  After you fill in the Add Source template, click on OK and then add to the Add Source Citation Template.  Click on OK and you're done.  I usually paste the provided citation information in the "Citation Text" field so that I don't have to write it down, and can type the correct info into the "Citation Detail" field.  [Then I delete the "Citation Text" information]

One of my source citations using the FTM 2012 Census Year and Location template looks like this:

1940 U.S. census, population schedule, Massachusetts, Worcester, Leominster: Enumeration District 14-181, Sheet 9-A, Household #202, Frederick Seaver household, accessed 12 April 2012; NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 1651; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com).

The same source citation using the FTM 2012 census Year template looks like this:

1940 U.S. Census, Population Schedule; NARA Microfilm Publication T627 (Provo, Utah, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), 2012), Worcester County, Massachusetts, Leominster: Enumeration District 14-181, Sheet 9-A, Household #202, Frederick Seaver household, accessed 12 April 2012, Roll 1651.

Neither is exactly EE standard, but they are close enough (FTM 2012 doesn't produce "exact" EE source citations, as discussed previously).  The red part is in the Master Source fields, the blue part is in the Source Citation fields.

Here is a 1940 U.S. Census record source citation in Evidence! Explained format for comparison purposes (as best I can do!):

1940 United States Census, Worcester County, Massachusetts, population schedule, Leominster: Enumeration District 14-181, Sheet 9-A, Household #202, Frederick Seaver household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 April 2012), citing National Archives Microfilm Publication T627, Roll 1651.

9)  The next time you want to use the master source, just type "1940" into the"Add Source" window and choose the one you created previously.  Then you'll only have to fill in the Source citation fields.

10)  I would delete the Ancestry.com generated source citation for the 1940 Census Fact in order to keep my source citations consistent with EE standards.  You can do this by highlighting the Source citation that you want to delete (in the right-hand panel), then click on the "Unlink" icon on the Source tab icon row (don't click on "Delete" at the top right of the screen!), and say "Yes" to unlink it from the Fact and then "Yes" to remove it from the tree.

It's fairly laborious, but it works.  You might checkout Russ Worthington's Family Tree Maker User blog at http://ftmuser.blogspot.com - Russ has his own methods of doing this that may be better explained on his blog.  


Thank you to Brian for asking the question.  I hope that he has been successful at creating source citations in Family Tree Maker 2012.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/08/dear-randy-can-you-walk-me-through.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver


Updated:  3 p.m. Added the EE quality source citation for comparison purposes.

3 comments:

Louis Kessler said...

I'm curious Randy. How long (say in minutes), would the procedure take to do.

What if a person wanted to do 100 such entries for various people in their tree? Would it take 100 times as long, or are there shortcuts they could take that would save them time?

Cousin Russ said...

Randy,

As you may remember, I spent some time on this topic. Here is where I ended up:

Use of a Template

http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2012/04/use-of-template.html

The only difference in the Citation (Reference Note) using an FTM2012 Template and the Evidence Explained! (psge 248) is in two "fields" in the Reference Note.

FTM2012 has "Population Schedule" followed by the Jurisdiction, while Evidence Explained has the two reversed. The FTM2012 would look like this.

1940 U.S. census, population schedule, Kansas, Morton County, Rolla; enumeration district 65-6; sheet number 3-B; family number 57; Lines 47 - 49; Harold Figart Worthington household; NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 1248; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com).

Louis: The Time depends on 1) how you capture the Data, 2) do you have a Citation already (that would be a household citation, 3) Do you have that Source already in a Template and you are adding a Citation, 4) you have to create the Source, then add the citation.

So, can't really answer how much time 100 people would take.

Also, in FTM2012 we have a choice of Census Year or Census Year and Location (State and county). I chose the later. The probable average time per person (without doing a Web Merge (FTM2012 feature) would probably be a minute / person may be less. BUT the Citation is in the correct format.


Russ

Unknown said...

Randy (and Russ) thanks for your helpful steps in creating the 1940 Census source citations. On one of my family trees I have completed Census source citations from 1940 to 1900. Challenging part was learning how to 'copy' one family's citations to another - and just change the details and text.