Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Genealogy Database Statistics Update - 1 January 2013

I last updated my Genea-Musings readers on the "numbers" in my genealogy database in Genealogy Database Statistics Update - July 2012 . I was curious to see how much progress I had made in the last six months.

Here are the "numbers" from 8 July 2012 in my RootsMagic database:

* 41,313 persons 
* 16,442 families 
* 112,948 events 
* 5,477 places  
* 780 sources 
* 28,890 citations 

*  140 Multi-media Items


Here are the "numbers" as of 1 January 2013 in my RootsMagic database (with increases from 8 July 2012):




* 41,498 persons (+185)
* 16,539 families  (+97)
* 117,599 events  (+4,651)
* 6,030 places  (+553)
* 832 sources (+52)
* 35,222 citations (+6,332)

*  371 Multi-media Items (+ 231)

*  1,199 Multimedia links

In the past six months, I've averaged adding 27 events and 36 source citations a day.  I've been trying to work at least an hour in the evening (since baseball season ended).  Consequently, I've  managed to improve my citations/person from 69.93% to 84.87%, and my Citations/Events from 25.58% to 29.95%.  Obviously, I don't have a citation for every event, and in some cases I have more than one citation for an event.  At that rate, to reach 100% in citations/events will take about six more years!  

I have added persons to my database, mainly in my son-in-law's Lincoln and Lowell lines.  I have deleted many persons in peripheral lines for whom I have no data - most of them living persons gleaned from GEDCOMs received from distant cousins long ago. I have also corrected some relationship errors found while working on the database.  The additions are the result of systematically "mining" online databases (notably Find-a-Grave, the Social Security Death Index, new Ancestry and FamilySearch databases, etc.) and intentionally finding additional information (dates, places) for persons in the database in the U.S. census records and American Ancestors database.

I still have my pile of "information to be entered" for entry to the database, and have made some progress on reducing that pile in the past six months, but there is lots more to add in terms of events and source citations.  

I updated my Ancestry Member Tree on Ancestry.com in August 2012 with the latest tree information, and will update it again in the near future.  I do not attach "shaky leaf Hints" to that Ancestry Member Tree because I know that it will be replaced eventually.  I do attach selected records to my RootsMagic database manually and those will upload to a new Ancestry Member Tree.  

My conclusion is:  I'm still actively improving my database in both quantity and quality, but still have a long way to go to have a "fully sourced and accurate" family tree.  It's better than it was, and can still be improved.  It is a lifelong task, I think!  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/01/genealogy-database-statistics-update-1.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Celia Lewis said...

Nice to see such clear improvements and advances in your tree, Randy! I'm impressed. This year, improving my sources & citations are my big goal for the year... maybe a few years, eh? Cheers for the new year.