Thursday, July 17, 2008

Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 5: Adding a Source

I installed FamilyTreeMaker 2008 two weeks ago and uploaded a large database, as described in Post 1. I went exploring in FTM 2008 after uploading the database in Post 2. In Post 3, I described all of the Menu options (except for the [Person] [Place] [Media] [Sources] [Publish] and [Web Search], and in Post 4 I started a new tree and added some people to it.

In this post, I'm going to add a source to an event in my new family tree.

In the last post, I had added Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825), his parents and his spouse, Abigail Gates (1797-1867). I wanted to add source information to the birth, marriage and death information for Benjamin and Abigail to my database. In the [People] icon screen and the [Person] view [Facts] frame, I clicked on the "New" button in the [Source] tab in the right hand panel. An input box popped up and I entered the title of the source, "Vital Records of Westminster, Massachusetts to the End of Year 1849." and clicked the "Edit" button next to the information. A small box popped up over the input box asking "Create a new source?" and I checked the box "Edit source now?" The screen looks like this at this point.



When I checked "Edit screen now?" and clicked "OK," a second window input box opened to fill out with the rest of the source information - the Author/Originator, Publisher, Publisher location, Publish date, Source Repository, Call number, and Comments. I filled in what I knew about this source, including the Citation detail (such as the page number) in the first input box. For the Repository entry, I entered NEHGS and clicked the Edit button to add more repository information, as shown in the screen below (all three input screens are shown):


After I had filled in all the information, I clicked on OK in all open screen boxes and another screen box opened for input of the source rating for this source. I clicked the buttons for Source:Derivative (not Original); Clarity:Clear (not Marginal); Information: Primary (not Secondary); and Evidence:Direct (not Incorrect). The box appears in the screen below:



The source citation format used by the program also appears under the "Source" heading in the right-hand screen panel.

Under the "Source" heading, there are icons to create a New source, Copy this source citation, Edit this source citation, Unlink this citation, Rate this citation, or View the usage of this source citation.

If I am adding a Source citation to an unsourced Fact, I can click on the down arrow next to the New button and select from Add New Source Citation or Use Existing Source Citation. If I select Use Existing source citation, I get a list of previously entered source citations; these previously used source citations may be duplicated if there are different Citation details input for a given Source.

The Source entry process is fairly clear and easy to use. Editing a source is easy to do also. I really prefer this source entry capability over the source entry in earlier versions of FTM.

In the next post, I'll explore adding children to a family, their Facts and adding a Spouse to one of them.

Previous posts in this series:

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 1: Loading. Installing the program and uploading an existing database file.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 2: Exploring. Looking around the uploaded database file to see what the different views look like.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 3: The Menus. Most of the menus were itemized and described.

* Using FamilyTreeMaker 2008 - Post 4: Starting a New Tree. I started a new tree and added some people demonstrating the program options to do this.

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