Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 27: Doing a Web Search - Case 1 - Source Citations

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See all posts in this series at Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 Compendium.

I have not done many Web Searches from within genealogy management program software, mainly because I am past "family trees" and "census records" for most of my research, and have sourced the records myself and captured the images to my computer files (but not attached them to persons or Facts in my database).

A user can do a Web Search from within FTM 2012 in Ancestry.com (and Rootsweb.com and Genealogy.com) and add the Fact, Source and Media for a record to their FTM 2012 database.

In Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 25: Doing a Web Search -Case 1, I started a Web Search for William Knapp (1775-1856), and in Post 26 I attached an 1850 census record image and source to him.

In email, Russ Worthington told me that there was a Death record in New Jersey State records, and wondered if I had seen it, and asked how I would source that record.  I love challenges, and have spent 90 minutes trying to make useful sources (I know, I'm probably a bit eccentric with this obsession). 

1)  I did a Family Tree Maker 2012 Web Search in Ancestry.com on William Knapp (using only birth and death years) and easily found the Ancestry.com item easily:

2)  I clicked on the "View Record" link and saw:

3)  This was the right one, so I clicked on the "Merge" button:

4)  After selecting the Name and Death date to be included in the Facts, along with their Sources, I clicked on "OK"

5)  The screen above showed me the information that would be added to my Facts for William Knapp.  I clicked "Merge Now"

The Fact and the Source were added to my Fact List for William Knapp.  I double-clicked on the Source citation and saw the "Edit Source citation for ..." window:

The source citation that was imported with the Fact was:

Ancestry.com, New Jersey, Deaths and Burials Index, 1798-1971 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011), www.ancestry.com, Database online.

I thought that it would be useful to see how the FTM 2012 program would create this source citation for this specific Fact.  However, it was difficult to find an appropriate source template for a Death record in an online database (I addressed this in Post 18).  I again chose the "Archives and Artifacts > Archived Material > Digital Archive" source template and came up with:

"New Jersey Deaths and Burials Index, 1798-1971," online database, Ancestry.com, entry for William Knapp, 16 June 1856.

Is that good enough?  It's the source that I used.  If you carefully read the Ancestry.com source information, you see that the Ancestry.com database came from a FamilySearch indexed database created from New Jersey manuscript records that are on a series of FHL microfilms.

I created this source citation based on all of the above information:

"New Jersey, Deaths and Burials Index, 1798-1971," online database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 November 2011), entry for William Knapp, 16 June 1856, Newton, New Jersey.  Indexed data from "New Jersey Deaths and Burials, 1720–1971," FamilySearch (Salt Lake City, Utah, 2009, 2010); Index entries derived from digital copies of original and compiled records, extracted from more than 1 million death and burial records from New Jersey.

However, I actually obtained the microfilm and extracted information for this specific record back in 1992, and thus can legitimately create this source citation:

New Jersey State Library, "Records of births, marriages, and deaths of New Jersey, 1848-1900," Volume AF, 1848-1867 (Sussex County)., page 655, William Knapp entry, FHL Microfilm 0,584,582.

That is as close to Evidence! Explained quality as I can get, using the section 10.18 model for Deeds and Probates on microfilm (I found no examples for Vital Records in State/County records on microfilms - I figured that Deeds and Probates were the same type of record).  

One of the major principles of source citations is to "cite the source you see" so that you, or another researcher, can access that source, and perhaps be able to find the "source of the source" until you get to the original source (there has to be one, right?). In this case, there are at least five levels of sources here:

*  the original source is the handwritten manuscript in the county record book now at the State Library; 
*  an image copy of the original source is the FHL microfilm;
*  a derivative source is the extraction of information from the record in my notes dated 18 January 1992.
*  a derivative source is the FamilySearch index database obtained by extracting information from the FHL microfilm;
*  a derivative source is the Ancestry.com index database obtained (apparently directly) from FamilySearch. I've looked at all five of them for this particular record! 

Is my extract of the information on the microfilm correct? I don't know because I did not make a photocopy of the page on the microfilm. 

In this age of digital archives on free and commercial websites, by far the easiest source to find for this record is FamilySearch (and it's free), followed by Ancestry.com.  As noted above, these are derivative sources, and should lead the researcher to the original source (either at the repository that holds it or on a microfilm at another repository) so that the Fact is correct.

Amanuensis Monday - the Obituary of Lyman Dwight Smith (1807-1889)

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Genea-blogger John Newmark (who writes the excellent TransylvanianDutch blog) started a Monday blog theme many months ago called Amanuensis Monday. What does "amanuensis" mean? John offers this definition:

"A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another."

The subject today is the obituary of Lyman Dwight Smith (1807-1889), who died in Dodge County, Wisconsin.  The obituary was published in the Dodge County Citizen newspaper (Volume 33, number 4, page 3) dated 22 August 1889 (accessed on microfilm at the Beaver Dam (Wis.) Public Library. It reads:

"SMITH -- At his home at Burnett, Wis., Aug. 12, 1889, of old age. Mr. LYMAN D. SMITH aged 82 years 3 months and 21 days.

"Lyman Dwight Smith died at his residence at Burnett Corners, at one o'clock of Monday morning, Aug. 12th. He was born in Rome, Oneida County, N.Y., Feb. 21, 1807. He removed from Smithville, Jefferson Co., New York, to Wisconsin, in May 1843. Removed to Rolling Prairie, this county, in 1845, and to Burnett in 1846. He was married to Lydia N. Griggs, at Smithville, N.Y., Dec. 27, 1837, making nearly 52 years of married life.

"During his 43 years of his life at Burnett, he served as Postmaster, and was undoubtedly the oldest Postmaster in the United States who served without a break, in so populous and wealthy community. Such was the confidence of his fellow citizens in his uprightness and integrity, that for a long period of time, year after year in succession, he was elected Town Treasurer. In him, one of the oldest and best known citizens of this section of the country has served his day and generation and departed this life.

"He was an affectionate husband, a kind father, a true neighbor, and a very honorable man. He leaves a wife, two daughters and one son, to mourn his death.

"He was buried from his own residence. A very large concourse of people assembled. The rooms were adorned with evergreens and flowers, and the casket was covered with the more beautiful. Rev. E.D. Lewis was called to officiate at the funeral."

According to the Old World Wisconsin report (see Finding the nuggets that solve the puzzle for details), Lyman Smith was the brother of Ranslow Smith (Devier Smith's adoptive father) and George Smith.  Before finding this obituary, I did not know Lyman Smith's birth date/place, nor his wife's maiden name, or their marriage date/place. 

From this information, I was able to identify their children in the U.S. census records:  Augusta Ann Smith (born 1840), Emmer Jane Smith (1842), Delia F. Smith (1847), Willis D. Smith (1852).  Perhaps one of their descendants will see this post and learn something more about their ancestry.

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 13 to 19 November 2011

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Hundreds of genealogy and family history bloggers write thousands of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interests. I appreciate each one of them and their efforts.

My criteria for "Best of ..." are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy and family history, address current genealogy issues, provide personal family history, are funny or are poignant. I don't list posts destined for the genealogy carnivals, or other meme submissions (but I do include summaries of them), or my own posts.

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week:

* The Paper vs. Computer Dilemma by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog.  James recounts his experiences at the FHC trying to help patrons - sad, but typical, I think.

*  Reviewing Civil War Compiled Military Service Records by Nancy on the My Ancestors and Me blog.  Nancy transcribed the two page file - I found it interesting and useful!

*  “Survey Says?!” Top 3 answers to “Why Should I Be Actively Involved In a Gen Society?” by Chris Staats on the Staats Place blog.  Every society should highlight Chris's post.

*  Why do I blog? Why do you blog? by Michael Hait on the Planting the Seeds blog.  Michael tells us his reasons, and wants to know yours.  Tell him!

*  The Paperless Research Trip Was Successful by Linda McCauley on the Documenting the Details blog.  Linda went on a research trip and brought back no paper.  She recorded everything using her Android tablet, Android Phone (with camera) and Wand Scanner.  Is this our future?

*  8 Ways to Get Involved in the Online Genealogy Community by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog.  Lynn has suggestions for researchers diving into the online genealogy community pool. 

*  Flip-Pal Project #2 -  by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on the Nutfield Genealogy blog.  Heather shows some of her Flip-Pal projects, and also discusses publishing electronic books on Blurb and Shutterfly.

*  Social Security Administration extends FOIA restriction to 100 years by Megan Smolenyak on Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak's Roots World blog.  Megan broke this news - it's a shame to lose this superb resource for many persons.

*  Genealogy is Unfair by Amy Coffin on the We Tree Genealogy Blog.  Amy has ancestors who left few records, and her husband has ancestors with lots of records.  Yep, it's unfair, but challenging and fun!

*  What Will You Do With Your Genealogy Research?  by Lorine Massey Schulze on the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog.  Lorine is working on saving her genealogy work - she has great ideas. 

*  Fun Stuff You Can Do with Weebly by Greta Koehl on Greta's Genealogy Blog blog.  Greta has been busy making a family history webpage on Weebly (a FREE site).  Nice work.

*  Saturday's Family History Scrapbooking Stars by Jennifer Shoer on The Scrappy Genealogist blog.  Jennifer has a summary post of some of the scrapbooking projects for the past week.
Several genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts and news summary posts this week, including:
*  Monday Morning Mentions by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog.

*  Monday's Link Roundup by Dan Curtis on the Dan Curtis ~ Professional Personal Historiam blog.

*  Ruth's Recommendations by Ruth Blair on The Passionate Genealogist blog.

*  Monday Recap for November 14, 2011 by Amanda on the Geni Blog.

*  Genealogy Round Up, November 17 by Megan Smolenyak on Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak's Roots World blog.

*  Friday Finds - 11/18/11 by Julie Cahill Tarr on the GenBlog blog. 

*  Follow Friday: This Week’s Favorite Finds by Jen on the Climbing My Family Tree blog.

*  Follow Friday Gems - 11-18-11 by Deb Ruth on the Adventures in Genealogy blog.

*  Week In Review by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog.

I encourage readers to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blogs to your Favorites, Google Reader, RSS feed or email if you like what you read. Please make a comment to them also - all bloggers appreciate feedback on what they write.

Did I miss a great genealogy blog post? Tell me! I am currently reading posts from over 1060 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Thanksgiving Edition

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Hey genea-philes ... it's SATURDAY NIGHT again - time for more GENEALOGY FUN!!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Think about the answers to these questions:

a.  Which ancestor are you most thankful for, and why?

b.  Which author (book, periodical, website, etc.) are you most thankful for, and why?

c.  Which historical record set (paper or website) are you most thankful for, and why?

2)  Tell us about it in a blog post of your own; in a comment to this blog post; in a Facebook status line or a Google Plus stream post.

Here's mine:

a.  The ancestor that I'm most thankful for my great-grandmother, Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944) because she saved all of the Smith and Carringer papers and photographs for several generations, including her own scrapbook with wonderful playbills, articles, calling cards, etc.  My grandfather, Lyle L. Carringer, and my mother, Betty (Carringer) Seaver, kept them also, but Della is the one who created many of them and kept them through travels across the country to San Diego.

b.  The author that I'm most thankful for is Elizabeth Shown Mills, who has not only written and edited "Bibles" and periodicals of the genealogy industry, makes wonderful presentations, and  encourages and educates many researchers through email and mailing lists. 

c.  The historical record set that I am most thankful for is the Revolutionary War Pension Files (National Archives files, images on Fold3.com) because they provide significant detail about several ancestral families and the soldier's service; many of the facts would not be known without these files. 

Surname Saturday - FLETCHER (England > Massachusetts)

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It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week. I am up to number 293, who is Elizabeth FLETCHER (1698-1775), one of my 6th-great-grandparents. [Note: The 6th great-grandfathers have been covered in earlier posts]

My ancestral line back through four generations of FLETCHER  families (ancestors in blue) is:

1. Randall J. Seaver

2. Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983)
3. Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)

4. Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942)
5. Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962)

8. Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922)
9. Hattie Louise Hildreth (1857-1920)

18. Edward Hildreth (1831-1899)
19. Sophia Newton (1834-1923)

36. Zachariah Hildreth (1783-1857)
37. Hannah Sawtell (1789-1857)

72. Zachariah Hildreth (1754-1828)
73. Elizabeth Keyes (1759-1793)

146.  Jonathan Keyes (1722-1781)
147.  Elizabeth Fletcher (1720-1761)

292.  Joseph Keyes, born 01 May 1698 in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 11 July 1744 in Westford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 584. Joseph Keyes and 585. Joanna Cleaveland.  He married 28 February 1720 in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
293.  Elizabeth Fletcher, born 10 June 1698 in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 03 September 1775 in Westford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States. 

Children of Joseph Keyes and Elizabeth Fletcher are: Elizabeth Keyes (1720-????); Jonathan Keyes (1722-1781); Sarah Keyes (1723-????); Lydia Keyes (1724-????); David Keyes (1726-????).

 586.  Joshua Fletcher, born 10 March 1644 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 21 November 1713 in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.   He married 18 July 1682 in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
 587.  Sarah Woolley, born before 08 May 1650 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States. She was the daughter of 1174. Christopher Woolley and 1175. Ursula Wodell.

Children of Joshua Fletcher and Sarah Woolley are:  Rachel Fletcher (1683-1743); Timothy Fletcher (1685-1705); John Fletcher (1687-1760); Joseph Fletcher (1689-1772); Sarah Fletcher (1691-1737);  Jonathan Fletcher (1693-????); Jonas Fletcher (1694-1777); Elizabeth Fletcher (1698-1775).

 1172.  William Fletcher, born about 1622 in England; died 06 November 1677 in Chelmsford, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He married before 1643 in probably Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
 1173.  Rachel, died before 1645 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.

Child of William Fletcher and Rachel is: Joshua Fletcher (1644-1713).

2344.  Robert Fletcher, born about 1592 in England; died 03 April 1677 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He married before 1618 in England.
2345.  Sarah
Children of Robert Fletcher and Sarah are:  Grissel Fletcher (1618-1699); Francis Fletcher (1620-1704); William Fletcher (1622-1677); Luke Fletcher (1625-1655); Samuel Fletcher (1632-1697).

The family and biography of Robert Fletcher has been extensively researched by:

* Winifred Lovering Holman, Robert Fletcher of Concord, Mass. Bay, 1637 (the author, 1930), accessed on FHL Microfilm 0,015,506 Item 11.

*  Edward H. Fletcher, The Descendants of Robert Fletcher of Concord, Mass. (Boston, Mass.: Rand, Avery & Co., 1881).

*  Joan S. Guilford, The Ancestry of Dr. J.P. Guilford (Sheridan Psychological Services, Inc., 1990), Volume 1, page 284. (One line)

*  Dean Crawford Smith, The Ancestry of Eva Belle Kempton (1878-1908); Part IV: The Ancestry of Linda Anna Powers (1839-1879) (Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2000)  (One line).

Follow-Up Friday - Free-form sources in Family Tree Maker 2012

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In Follow-up Friday posts, I like to highlight comments from readers that pertain to previous blog posts that clarify or expand knowledge about issues raised in the original blog post.

Reader Jason emailed me, saying:

"I have been reading with great interest your blog postings regarding source citations in FTM 2012. I saw a mention of the fact that FTM 2012 has no true "free form" citation template. I don't think this is entirely true. Couldn't you just forgo the entire template / title system and simply type your full custom source citation into the "citation detail" box? This appears to work when trying to use Mills' EE citation formats. Am I missing something? What are your thoughts on this?"

My email response to Jason was:

"My thoughts are that you are correct!  I tried it, and that's exactly what I could do.  It is not [called] a 'free-form template' of course, just a 'Source Title' that works like a free-form template.

"The field in the template that the 'free-form source' you create appears in is 'Source Title.'  That field would have the author, title, and publication information for a book.  The page number in the book would go in the 'citation detail' field on the template.  Since almost all of mine came across through GEDCOM and were 'free-form' in RootsMagic, they all are in the 'Source Title' field.

"I don't see any drawbacks in using this free-form method in FTM 2012 - other than it's hard to find the source again when you want to use it later, as I wrote about today.  With 700 sources, I struggle to find the one I want.  But it's hard with a lot of sources created from templates too."

Jason also asked me:

"What about FTM2011 vs. 2012? Is there any functionality difference aside from the sync feature? Are most of the source and source citation functions the same as far as you know?"

My response was:

"The only real addition [of consequence] to FTM 2011 was the sync feature.  There were a few other [additions] listed, but they aren't overly significant IMHO."

Further comments:

I believe that the source creation and source citation features were not significantly changed from FTM 2011. 

The list of changes from FTM 2011 in FTM 2012 are in What’s new in Family Tree Maker 2012.

Thank you, Jason, for reading and for the comments, and helping me understand that there is a way to create "free-form" source citatins in FTM 2012.

My Interview with The Passionate Genealogist

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One of the really fun times at the 2011 Federation of Genealogy Societies Conference in Springfield, Illinois (see The Seaver Family History Mystery Tour Compendium for daily accounts) was meeting many more genealogy bloggers in person and talking with them.

Ruth Blair, who writes The Passionate Genealogist blog, asked if she could do an audio interview with me, and we sat down in the Blogger Lounge, on the comfortable couches provided by FamilySearch, and she asked me a series of questions about my genealogy journey.  The 16 minute interview can be heard on Ruth's blog post, Interview with Randy Seaver, posted today.

The questions posed by Ruth included:

1)  When did you first start recording your Family History?

2)  What was the catalyst that got you started?

3)  What countries are your ancestors from?

4)  What is your favorite part of family history research?

5)  What was the most surprising discovery in your family history?

6)  What is your most frustrating research problem?

7)  What is the most satisfying research problem?

8)  How do you organize your family data and ephemera?

9)  What would be your best tip for someone starting out in genealogy?

Please listen to the interview to hear my answers!!  Ruth did an excellent job of keeping the ball rolling here, and I was my typical prolix self genea-babbling away.

Thank you to Ruth Blair for taking the time to sit with me, ask interesting questions and for posting the interview.  I enjoyed meeting Ruth and her colleague, Louise St. Denis at their National Institute of Genealogical Studies booth at the FGS Conference.

Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 26: Doing a Web Search - Case 1 - Attaching an Image

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See all posts in this series at Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 Compendium.

I have not done many Web Searches from within genealogy management program software, mainly because I am past "family trees" and "census records" for most of my research, and have sourced the records myself and captured the images to my computer files (but not attached them to persons or Facts in my database).

A user can do a Web Search from within FTM 2012 in Ancestry.com (and Rootsweb.com and Genealogy.com) and add the Fact, Source and Media for a record to their FTM 2012 database. 

In Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 25: Doing a Web Search -Case 1, I started a Web Search , but because I used the default information from my database (name, birth date and place, death date and place, and spouse's name) without changing it, I obtained only Ancestry Member Tree matches. 

In this post, I'm going to change the search criteria, and see if I can find some records for my William Knapp (1775-1856).  If I do, I'll add the record information, source and image to my database.

1)  With William Knapp my subject, in the "Web Search" Workspace, I edited the search fields to include only the name, the birth date (with a +/- 2 year range), and the birthplace (New York USA); I made them all "exact matches:"

2)  I scrolled down in the upper panel to find the orange "Search" button (why can't they put it at the top of the panel?) and clicked on it.  I received 36 matches:

There were two Census matches (1850), one vital Record match (New Jersey Deaths), 1 Private Member Story, 25 Public Member Trees and 5 Private Member Trees entries, and 2 records from a Family Data Collection database. 

3)  I clicked on the 1850 U.S. Census item in the Match list, and saw:

The William Knapp in Newton, New Jersey is highlighted in the screen above, and the information for William Knapp is added to the right-hand area of the lower panel above.

4)  That's certainly my guy, so I clicked on the "View Record" link and the Ancestry.com summary page for William Knapp appeared:

There are four persons in this family residing in Newton, Sussex, New Jersey - William Knapp (age 75, born NY), Sarah Knapp (age 66, born NJ), Catherine Knapp (age 40, born NJ), and Elsey Knapp (age 19, born NJ).  If I view the record image, I can obtain more information, including the Fact that William is a Shoemaker.

5)  I want to capture this census Fact, Source and Image, so I clicked on the "Merge" button in the "Search result detail" (right side of the lower panel), and saw the "Web Merge Wizard" window:

The screen above lists three items for this record - the Name, the Birth information (calculated year and place), and the Residence information.  It shows these for the information in My Tree and in the selected  Search record.  I can choose which one I want to be the "Preferred" Fact, can make one or the other an "Alternate" Fact, or I can "Discard" the Web Search Fact (dropdown menus).  I can also cancel the Merge if this is not a Match.

6)  I kept my data "Preferred" but I want to capture the Source and Image, so I kept the check box for "Keep Sources" below each Web Search Fact.  I clicked on the "Next" button and saw the "Summary" window in the "Web Search Wizard:"

The Summary window tells me what will be added to my Tree, and includes only the Alternate Information, the Media Item (the census page image) and the Source citation information.  I can Rename the Media item here instead of using the FTM created Media file name.

7)  At this point I clicked the "Merge Now" button and a small window popped up that said "Success" and "Merge complete." 

8)  I clicked "OK" on that small window, and I was back to the William Knapp Person page in the "People" Workspace:

The "Residence" Fact for 1850 was added to the Fact List and the Media item was added to the "Media" tab in the right-hand panel with the "Residence" Fact highlighted.  The Media item is attached to the "Residence" Fact.  The Media item was captioned as "William Knapp - 1850 United States Federal Census."  The Source Citation created by Ancestry.com for this Fact reads:

"Ancestry.com, 1850 United States Federal Census (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009), www.ancestry.com, Database online. Year: 1850; Census Place: Newton, Sussex, New Jersey; Roll: M432_464; Page: 137B; Image:."

We've discussed source citations created by Ancestry.com previously, so I won't comment further on it. 

The "Merging" of historical records on Ancestry.com with an FTM 2012 database works very well as long as the user creates a useful Search by editing the search fields and selects Default settings or Exact Matches.  The lessons learned for me in this exercise include:

*  When you start the Web Search for a Person, the Facts for that person (Name, Birth year and place, Death year and place, and Spouse's Name) are automatically put into the Search fields.  This limits the Matches, usually only to Ancestry Member Trees.

*  The user has to edit the Search fields to do an effective web search for historical records.  I recommend adding a year range to the Birth Year, changing the Birthplace to only a State or Country (rather than a City or County), eliminating the Death year and place, and eliminating the spouse's and parents names.  That will reflect a typical search for a person on Ancestry.com.  If the user decides on the "Default Settings" for the name, birth year and birth place, they will get many more matches than if they "Restrict to Exact" the name, birth year and birth place. 

*  For a census record, the Media item is attached to the "Residence" Fact, and the Fact has a date and place from the historical record.  The Fact also has the Source Citation attached to it.

*  The Media files are named by FTM 2012 in a sequential order of some sort, and is stored in the Media file folder for the specific FTM 2012 database. The user can change the file name before completing the Merge.  The Media items are captioned with the name of the person and the historical collection name.

*  This system is very easy to use, and a researcher can quickly add historical records to their FTM 2012 database.   It is also very seductive, so be careful what you merge!

Note:  Russ Worthington has been doing similar searches for my William Knapp on his FTMUser blog (http://FTMUser.blogspot.com).  He is an expert user of Family Tree Maker, and knows many "best practices" and shortcuts for doing all of these tasks I've been struggling with - read his blog regularly!  I greatly appreciate Russ's efforts to help me understand this program.

Follow Friday - More Weekend Genealogy Fun

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Yes, you should have some Genealogy Fun this weekend. I recommend:

1) Listen to Geneabloggers Radio tonight (Friday night, 9 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. CT, 7 p.m. MT and 6 p.m. PT) hosted by Thomas MacEntee. This week's topic is "Celebrate Your Family in Film."  The special guests include:

* David Adelman, founder of Reel Tributes and Rebecca Whitman Koford, Director of Genealogy at Reel Tributes, who will tell us how their company can help you create a documentary film starring your family!
*  Lorine McGinnis Schulze of the Olive Tree Genealogy website will discuss her recent project involving conversion of old home movies and videos to digital formats.
*  Paula Hinkel of the Southern California Genealogical Society will give us a “sneak preview” of the SCGS Jamboree in June 2012 with the theme “Lights, Cameras, Ancestors!”

2) Listen to the FGS Radio - My Society show on Saturday (2 p.m. ET, 1 p.m. CT, 12 noon MT, 11 a.m. PT) hosted by Thomas MacEntee.  This radio show is on hiatus until 3 December.  You can tune in and hear past shows from the Archives.

3) Check out the recent FREE Webinars on: 

*  Creating a Shareable CD with Legacy and Passage Express software, by Jefferson Shupe (Legacy Family Tree)
* It Is Well With My Soul: Finding Ancestors Amid the Rubble of Disaster and Misfortune, by Thomas MacEntee (Legacy Family Tree, free until 21 November)
* FamilyRoots Organizer System, by Mary Hill (Legacy Family Tree, free until 14 November 2011)
* Exploring FamilyLink.com and WorldVitalRecords.com by their founder, Paul Allen. (Legacy Family Tree)
* "Newspapers for Genealogists: Using GenealogyBank.com to document every day of your ancestors' lives" with Tom Kemp. (Legacy Family Tree)
* "Organizng for Success" with Karen Clifford (Legacy Family Tree)
* "The Power of DNA in Unlocking Family Relationships," with Ugo Perugo (Legacy Family Tree)

* RootsMagic Webinars (all free) available at http://www.rootsmagic.com/Webinars/

* National Genealogical Society (NGS) Videos (some are free to view) at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/videos_online

* Thomas MacEntee's Explorinars, including:

** Easy Website Creation (free to view).
** Evernote - Easy Note Taking UPDATED (free to view)
** Facebook Pages vs. Facebook Groups (free to view)

* Ancestry.com's YouTube Channel has 110 items on it now, including (free to view):

** Ancestry.com LIVE: Search with Ancestry Anne with Anne Mitchell
** Ancestry.com LIVE: One Question with the Barefoot Genealogist with Crista Cowan
** Ancestry.com LIVE: Lorraine's 5 Tips for Online Grave Digging with Lorraine Bourne
** Ancestry.com LIVE: How do I use newspapers on Ancestry.com to find out more about my ancestors? with Crista Cowan
** Ancestry.com LIVE: How Do I Find My Ancestors Before 1850? with Crista Cowan.
** Ancestry.com LIVE: How to dress up your family tree ...for the holidays!  with Anne Mitchell.
**  Ancestry.com LIVE: How to Find Your Civil War Roots on Ancestry.com  with Anne Mitchell.
** Emigration & Immigration Records Online with Crista Cowan @ Ancestry Day San Francisco
** Find Them Fast: Secrets to Searching Ancestry.com with Laura Dansbury @ Ancestry Day San Francisco
** Five Tips for Digging Up Answers at Ancestry.com with Jeanie Croasmun @ Ancestry Day San Francisco

4) Respond to my Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, posted on www.geneamusings.com soon after 12 noon Pacific time (that's 1900 GMT for those who understand time zones).

5) Go to a local genealogical society program. I'm going to the Computer Genealogiy Society of San Diego meeting on Saturday featuring "Memories of Gettysburg." You might want to check out what's offered in your area.

6) Go to a local or close repository with genealogy and family history material. Do some research in traditional resources or order FamilySearch microfilms online with original source records.

7) Do some online research in the latest record collections at:

* FamilySearch (free, https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/list),
* Ancestry ($$, http://www.ancestry.com/cs/reccol/default),
* Fold3 ($$, www.fold3.com),
* WorldVitalRecords ($$, www.WorldVitalRecords.com),
* American Ancestors ($$, www.AmericanAncestors.org),
* GenealogyBank ($$, www.GenealogyBank.com),
* Archives ($$, www.Archives.com)

8) Add content (names, dates, places, notes, images, sources, etc.) to your genealogy software program. I still have two inches of paper collected from my vacation, and more from before that, and will try to enter some of it into my database this weekend.

9) Spend time with your family doing fun things. My wife's on vacation in Cabo San Lucas, the grandkids are busy with their parents, and I have to spend the weekend doing genealogy. Your turn!

10) Go to a local cemetery and clean stones, take gravestone pictures, or transcribe epitaphs for your local society, for Find-a-Grave, or a similar online service.
11)  Participate in Miriam Robbins' Scanfest on Sunday (2 p.m. EST, 11 a.m. PST) on the Ancestories: The Stories of My Ancestors blog.  I plan to be there for part of that, scanning more documents and chatting online with other participants.

Whatever you decide, please tell us about your genealogy endeavors on a social network or in a blog post. You never know when your experiences may stimulate or encourage others to do useful genealogy work.

Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 - Post 25: Doing a Web Search -Case 1

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See all posts in this series at Exploring Family Tree Maker 2012 Compendium.

I have not done many Web Searches from within genealogy management program software, mainly because I'm past "family trees" and "census records" for most of my research.  A user can do a Web Search from within FTM 2012 in Ancestry.com and add the Fact, Source and Media for a record to their FTM 2012 database. 

I'm going to do several posts about this feature, using persons in my FTM 2012 database. 

For Case 1, I'm going to pick one of my "brick wall ancestors."  William Knapp (born 1775 in Dutchess County NY, died 1856 in Newton, Sussex, NJ), who married Sarah Cutter in about 1804 and had 11 children.

With William Knapp (1775-1856) highlighted in the "People" Workspace, I clicked on the "Web Search" Workspace button in the top menu on the FTM 2012 screen:

On the screen above, there is a list of six web sites to use in a Web Search in the left-hand panel (Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com, Genealogy.com, Google.com, Yahoo.com and Bing.com).  Ancestry.com is the default choice the first time a user clicks on Web Search.

In the screen above, the top panel has the information for William Knapp (1775-1856) from my database already entered into the fields, including (with all fields checked Exact):

Name:  William Knapp
Birth:  1775 +/- 0 years, Dutchess, New York, United States
Death: 1856 +/- 0 years, Newton, Sussex, New Jersey, United States
Spouse:  Sarah Cutter
Gender:  Male

The bottom panel has two sections - the one on the left with my information for William Knapp, and the one on the right is blank.

I didn't edit any of the entries in the search fields in the top panel, and scrolled down and clicked on the "Search" button:

The screen shows only two databases with matches for the specified information:

*  Public Member Trees (3)
*  Private Member Trees (1)

I clicked on the "Public Member Trees" link and saw:

With one of the matches selected, the right-hand side of the bottom panel shows the information in the matched record for comparison to my information in the left-hand side of the bottom panel.  The information for William Knapp is the same for the name, birth year, birth place, death year, death place, spouse, and 11 children (the match lists one more child).  However, the match provides parents names of Shubel Knapp and Rebecca Mead.  These parents are listed in the book Nicholas Knapp Genealogy by Alfred Averill Knapp, but the book says their son was born in 1786.  I have not accepted those parents as the parents of my William Knapp because all other records say he was born in about 1775.  The Ancestry Member Tree with the matched record has used those parents in his tree. 

There are two other matches from this Web search - one is my own AMT, and the other is an Ancestry Private Tree with the same information as above.

Are those the only records available on Ancestry.com for my William Knapp?

I don't think so, so I went back and edited the search fields to widen the search for records.  I eliminated the Death Year and Death Place, and also the spouse's name.  Here's the Search screen:

Note that the last Search results are in the right-hand side of the bottom panel.  I scrolled down and clicked on the "Search" button:

There are matches from the Public Member Tree (6) and the Private Member Tree (1).  Here is the list of matches for the "Public Member Tree" database:

This search found more trees, including three that didn't have a death place listed.  Two of those listed in the "Public Member Trees" matches say that the data is Private.  Why are they in the Public Member Trees?

Now I could have dona a Non-Exact Match search for everything and probably would have received many more matches.  I unchecked the "Exact Matches" box and there were 299,095 matches for the "automatic" filled in fields (with Default settings).  With only the Name (exact), Birth Year (exact, +- 2 years) and "New York" as a Birthplace (exact), there were 47 matches, which is manageable.

I'll investigate that search in the next post, and determine how to Merge Facts, Sources and Media into the FTM 2012 database.