Friday, October 26, 2012

Follow-Up Friday - Helpful and Interesting Reader Comments

It's Friday, so I'm highlighting helpful and interesting reader comments on Genea-Musings post made in the last week:

1)  On Follow-Up Friday - Useful Reader Comments (19 October 2012):

*  Michael Hait offered an improved source citation for my Daniel Spangler probate record:  "With digital images, there are two approaches. You can either cite the original record first, then describe the format; or you can cite the image as a digital publication. I prefer the first option, because digital images--like microfilm--are to be generally treated like the original.

"Here is how I would cite the record you describe:

Mercer County, Pennsylvania, Orphans Court Docket D, page 93, Petition of Carringer and Robinson, 15 Sep 1851; digital image, "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994," *FamilySearch* (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 15 October 2012); source not identified but likely FHL microfilm no. 878,977.

"The FHL source microfilm is relatively easy to find using the Catalog. Including this in the citation is recommended because FamilySearch did not scan the original records--they scanned the FHL microfilm. It is not always easy to determine the source, but if you can, you should include it."


My comment:  Thank you, Michael!  I think you're right about the microfilm, and will modify my citation to include it.  I like the "Petition of ..." part too.  


*  Lineagekeeper (Lee Drew) noted:  "I use a similar system but name records by surname first name middle name so they automatically sort by surname saving me from needing to remember the first name of a person to start the search."

*  OneRhodeIslandFamily (Diane Beumenot) said:  "...adding the generation to the beginning if the file folder name, to sort them in order from most recent to farthest back, is really clever."

*  Jackie Corrigan offered:  "I have a similar system, only with fewer folders. For example, I have one folder with my father's surname. Within that folder, all documents and pictures relating to his ancestors are named this way "Smith Tom b1880 marriage1907". No matter what I am looking for, the files are sorted with all items relating to that person in one place."

*  Lisa Suzanne Gorrell commented:  "My system is very close to yours. However I numbered my generations in the opposite order and then when I found an ancestor further back I had no more numbers to use except 00! I think I will reverse the numbering like you did and then I have room for more generations. I didn't see any census records under Betty Carringer. How do you handle records with multiple people in them?"

*  J. Paul Hawthorne asked:  "I have a question, what do you do with all the cousins from each generation. Let's say you have documents, headstone pictures, etc. for Henry Carringer & Sarah Feather's other children, and then their children. Do you make a folder 'Other children'?"

*  Nancy asked:  "My system for photos is somewhat similar to yours but yours is more streamlined -- and I think I will adopt it. I think it will make things simpler for me.

"Do you file women's photos (and documents) under their married or maiden names? Maiden names before marriage, married names after? Or...?

"When you have a family group photo in which there are people with several surnames, how do you save it? Do you have a system for including the names of all the people in the photo?"


My comments:  I'm glad that I could offer something to help people out.  We all seem to do this a little different, and it's helpful to see the different ideas.  To each their own!  To address some of the comments and questions:

*  I use given names first in order to easily find a person with the givenname-surname.  A long list of file names with surname-givenname is more difficult for me.  

*  I file records and photos of children in their parents file folder until they get married, then their files go into their married couple folder.

*  Unmarried children are usually with their parents in census records, so I don't need a separate document for them unless they are not with their parents.  In the case when they are not with their parents, I save the census record with the child's name.  

*  Records with multiple persons are a problem.  For something like a census record, I usually use the head of household name in the file name.  For photos with a number of persons, I add more detail in the file name with plus signs, like these:

**  Carringer+Smith+Crouch-Families-1916-SandiegoCA-Christmas-1.jpg
**  DellaCarringer+AbbieSmith+HattieLoucks-1910-SanDiegoCA-1.jpg

*  For families that are not my ancestral families, I put them in the "Other [Surname] Families" file folder under the [Surname] file folder.  So for a sibling of my great-grandfather, I would put the documents and pictures of that family in the Other Family folder with an appropriate file folder name (e.g., "Harry C Seaver + Rose Noel") in the "Other Seaver Families" file folder in the "Seaver" file folder.  I do put married female families in their maiden Surname file folder (e.g., a file folder for "George Taylor + Emily Richmond" would go in the "Other Richmond Families" in the "Richmond" file folder).  

*  If a photo includes persons in an ancestral family, I put it in the ancestral family.  I might copy it to the Other family folder too.

Your file folder system may vary - whatever works for you is recommended!  But once you've set it up, and you have linked the media to persons in your family tree, you create a big problem for yourself by changing the file folder system structure or the file names.

3)  On Ancestry.com Chart and Report Print Options (25 October 2012):

*  Barbara Mathews, CG noted:  "Ancestry World Tree would let me choose a Register-style printout. This gave me details on multiple generations. I really miss that.

"Now, to get such useful printouts, I have to export from Ancestry and import into my genealogy program. Then I have to put up with the horrid version of footnotes that Ancestry exports."


My comment:  The Ancestry World Trees seem to be gone from the Ancestry record collections.  When did that happen?  Ancestry Member Trees always were the same as the Rootsweb WorldConnect trees, just on a different platform.

If the tree in question is still online in the Rootsweb WorldConnect family tree (http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com), you can still make the useful printouts of ancestor and descendant reports, and usually can download a GEDCOM file if you want (I don't...).  I use and recommend WorldConnect all of the time, and it's the largest free set of online family trees.  It doesn't have ALL of the Ancestry Member Trees, of course.

The horrid Ancestry.com source citations are another issue addressed several times on this blog.

4)  I got a lot of spam comments on my post Amanuensis Monday - Will of Solomon Keyes (1631-1702) of Chelmsford, Mass. (24 September 2012) for some reason, including this one:

"What a stuff of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious knowledge on the topic of unexpected feelings. Look into my page ..."

My comment:  Hmmm.  Somehow this person was able to overcome the dratted Captcha, but the Spam filter caught it.  

5)  Thank you to all of my readers who commented on my blog posts - I know the Captcha is a PITA for everyone, it is for me also on other blogs.


Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Geolover said...

Randy, you said " The Ancestry World Trees seem to be gone from the Ancestry record collections."

No, they are still there. Here is a link to the list of trees on the site:

http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=0&db=dbatitles&ctx=%2fMercury%2fPages%2fCardCatListBoolean.aspx&hco=100&f21=42&_F0003A49=1&_F0003A49-int=1#ccat=hc%3D25%26dbSort%3D1%26filter%3D0*42%26

--or go to the Card Catalog and put just Trees in the title for searching.

It is the AWTs (discontinued for entries about 5 years ago) that were automatically entered in WorldConnect on Rootsweb.com, not current public Ancestry Member Trees. The WorldConnect trees include many others than just the AWTs, which you can detect because the ones originating with the old AWT software show submitter names as numbers ending in a colon in search results.

Ancestry.com stopped supporting the software for AWTs some years ago. I do not know if special report printing from them is still possible.