Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Adding Amos Underhill's Land Deeds to RootsMagic 6

In Using New York Land Records, 1630-1975, on FamilySearch (posted 10 December 2012), I found two deeds for Amos Underhill (1772-1865) in Erie County, New York.

I wanted to add the information for these two deeds to my RootsMagic 6 database.  Here are the steps that I took:

1)  The "Edit Person" screen for Amos Underhill looks like this (I've already added the two Events for "Deeds" and created the Sources for them):


Note that I have already added the two Deed Events (before I decided to do this post!) and also created a Source Citation for each Event (the green checks in the Source column denote them).

2)  The Source Citation screen for the first Deed Event uses the "Digital Archive" source template model, and the "Edit source" screen is shown below:


The Footnote created by the source template, with my input into the Master Source and Source Details fields is:

"New York, Land Records, 1630-1975," Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : accessed 10 December 2012), digital image of clerk's copy, "Erie County, N.Y. Deeds, 1836, Volume 36-37," Volume 36, Page 175 (image 91), Amos Underhill to Loren Phillips, 19 February 1836; from FHL US/CAN Microfilm 590026, original records at Erie County, N.Y. courthouse, Buffalo, N.Y.

I chose the Source Quality as Original source (a record copy of the original deed), Primary Information (or is it Secondary, since it's a clerk's copy recorded several years later from the original deed?) and Direct Evidence (of the land transaction).

3)  I recalled that I had created a short To-Do list for Amos Underhill, so I edited that list for the Deeds ("ToDo" is a button on the "Edit Person" screen):


In the "ToDo" list, the item said "Search Grantee and Grantor deed indexes for Amos and Mary Underhill, then find and obtain deeds."  I marked this as "Complete" and clicked the button in the "Edit Task" screen to add the task to the Research Log for Amos Underhill.

4)  The "Research Log" (Lists > Research Manager) for Underhill Family Research was opened:


The Erie County Deeds entry in the Research Log was edited and saved:


The Erie County NY Deeds entry for the Research Log results said:


Found no references for Deeds of Amos Underhill in the Grantee index.  Found 3 references for Deeds of Amos Underhill in the Grantor Deed index:

*  Volume 36, page 175:  Amos Underhill to Loren Phillips, dated 19 February 1836.  Found it, and saved the image to Amos Underhill file folder.
*  Volume 196, Page 239, Amos Underhill to Deloss Underhill, dated 25 Match 1856.  Did not find this deed for some reason.
*  Volume 207, page 62: Amos Underhill to Delos Underhill, dated 3 April 1860.  Found it, saved the image to Amos Underhill file folder.


Note that I added the URL for the specific record collection to the Repository field.

5)  After naming the two Deeds using my naming convention (the 1836 deed file name was:
AmosUnderhill-1836-LandRecord-Grantor-LorenPhillips-ErieNY-V36P175-image91.jpg) and put it in the Amos Underhill + Mary Metcalf file folder in my Ancestor Files file folder, I went back to the "Edit Person" screen in RootsMagic and added the image to Amos Underhill, added a caption, and tagged the 1836 Deed in the "Media Properties" screen:


6)  I also added a Web Tag to Amos Underhill and the Source citation, using the "Web Tag" button on the menu line.  here's the "Edit Web Tag" window:


I added the citation name, picked the specific citation, named the record, and copied the URL for the specific image on FamilySearch (I hope they don't change this!): https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-32808-7683-52?cc=2078654&wc=M9M4-LWY:910325794

6)  All that's left to do now is to abstract or transcribe the two deed records into my Notes.  I will probably put the transcriptions into the Notes for the Person (on "Edit Person" window), although I could add it to the Note for the Deed Event (on "Edit Person" window with Event highlighted), and/or to the "Detail Text" field of the Source Citation (Source button > Edit > Detail Text).

As you can see, RootsMagic 6 offers a number of ways that a researcher can add meaningful information for a Person and Event(s), to the point that paper records are superfluous (as long as there is a digital image of them, and they are accessible to the researcher and his/her colleagues).

It would be interesting to see how other genealogy software programs perform all of these tasks.  I may try to do them in Legacy Family Tree 7.5 and in Family Tree Maker 2012 in future posts.

I'm still learning to do all of this in RootsMagic.  What steps did I miss or do poorly in the list above?  What else would you have done?

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/12/adding-amos-underhills-land-deeds-to.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

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