YOUR DAY 3 GOAL IS TO GATHER AS MUCH INFORMATION ON THOSE FIRST 4 GENERATIONS FROM OTHER WEBSITES AS YOU CAN. RECORD THEM, PLACE THEM IN THE TREE.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Adding A Source That Is Found on Websites.
YOUR DAY 3 GOAL IS TO GATHER AS MUCH INFORMATION ON THOSE FIRST 4 GENERATIONS FROM OTHER WEBSITES AS YOU CAN. RECORD THEM, PLACE THEM IN THE TREE.
The Rome Italy Temple Will Have Copies Of The Original Christus and 12 Apostles
This was accidently posted before Sunday as planned, but had so many hits I am letting it go up early. Sunday is usually a spiritual song or video. Enjoy.
The 4 Search Websites That Do The Most Good In Research
Yes, these are the four main places to start searching. I suggest you go to http://findagrave.com/ after you have searched on http://familysearch.org/ . Ancestry.com is really good, but has a monthly fee. The way around that is to go to a nearby LDS FamilySearch Family History library where they have a contract with Ancestry.com and you can search under our license. There are advantages to having your own membership such as you can contact people who have made entries. Using Google and Google Images to search often deliver suprising new finds. There are advanced Google Searches one can learn such as Boolean entries. Click here for an article on that.
So your assignment for day 3 is to use all of these sites to research. Keep track of your searches so you don't duplicate your work.
I am attaching above, an example of how I color code (with highligher pen) to keep track of what I have found. I also add a black ink T when I attach the source to the tree. In this example the red is when I find them on findagrave.com the yellow is birth sourced, the green marriage, and the orange is when I find them on a census by writing in the year.
Thoughts on Personal Records Management Software
This topic is a difficult topic in our training zone. For many years the focus of the zone has been to teach new missionaries how to research and document, placing the sourcing of that research into the Free software PAF.
There are commercial products such as Roots Magic, Legacy, Family Tree Maker, but we have been teaching PAF to not be endorsing a commercial product. After years of using and teaching PAF the Church leaders are asking us to stop teaching to document to PAF, shift to FamilySearch Family Tree.
The trainers here struggle with this transition. The main reasons are that they know PAF so well, they know what is in PAF is accurate and not corrupted by someone elses actions, and that the reporting options are so good. Family Tree has no printing or reporting options at the current time (such as pedigree charts), and may never have them.
I might point out here that all of these desktop programs have ways to syncronize with new.familysearch.org and will likely be soon syncronizing with Family Tree. There is a danger in this if you bring down information to your desktop software that you have possibly corrupted the data you thought was accurate, as you put it in. We do not teach how to sync to your PAF for this reason. To me that point dismisses one of the reasons people buy these programs.
In the training zone, we have almost 10 days with new missionaries. What do we teach is the question? We are being asked to document to Family Tree. Do we document twice, to the Tree and to PAF? Some say yes. I've decided no is the right answer. Certainly we can educate people to the benefits of a personal records management desktop software but we have limited time.
Family Tree is not built to make everyone into accredited genealogists. Most who participate will have limited time, similar to ours in the training zone. They are likely to be like the missionary I recently heard about. His trainer was having him do sourcing into both PAF and Family Tree. After a while the trainee said this is grueling, lets just do it once. Believing in PAF, he said OK, and they only sourced to PAF.
That decison defeats the purpose of Family Tree, and diminishes the huge investment the church has made in building Family Tree. Those who use Family Tree, participate in the discussion parts of the Tree, add documents, photos, stories to the Tree, and provide sources are becoming collaborators with each othe in building the facts and stories of our ancestors.
To me the answer is that we should make people aware of the options they have, but with limited time recognize that the priorities are in using our time to work on the tree and to become the best researchers we can be.
Moving PAF from the primary curriculum to a conversation is difficult, but for many with an interest in gathering new information and skills vs allocating our time to double entry sourcing the Tree may turn out to be the best solution. Time will tell if I change my attitude.
What If Your Tree Is Blank At The Start
That fact gets many people off to a fast start. The problem with this is that much of the information in the Tree is incorrect. In their entusiasm many were sloppy in what they did. Many weren't concerned about doing careful research or documentation of what they put in the Tree. Many depended on family legends rather than research. Some came upon the mistakes and asked the Church to fix things in new.familysearch.org and some did not. This caused a great burdon on the Church missionary force, creating a need for several hundred support missionaries.
Family Tree allows one to fix the mistakes on their own, but please follow the concept of being careful and methodical. When you fix something provide the documentation to the Tree that proves your decision.
Now, if you find that your Family Tree is blank, that might be a blessing for the reasons above. You are in a position to do it right from the beginning. However, as you start going out several generations you are likely to connect to work that is in the Tree by a distant cousin. Follow the same process of verifying and documenting the facts you find.
The process of the software is to input details of the ancestor you are entering, letting Family Tree search to see if that ancestor is in the system - accepting that is the right person - or, adding that person as your ancestor.
These videos do a good job of showing the process of adding a person or adding information about that person.
Click here to add a person not yet in your tree.
Click here to learn how to add to the vital information
To access the entire training site, click here.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Navigating The Family Tree
Navigation in FamilySearch Family Tree is very intuitive, but this short video is worth viewing before you get going.Click Here
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Summary of Day 2 In 10 Days To Becoming A Pretty Good Genealogist
This day has started by having you searching, sourcing, and attaching sources to ancestors in your Family Tree.
Remember cousin, it's not your grandfather, but our grandfather. In the FamilySearch Family Tree we are all collaborating together to document mankind.
You have probably experienced this important part of finding information and adding from FamilySearch to Family Tree.
Tomorrow we expand outside of FamilySearch. There are 3 more major websites we will work with on Day 3. Adding those sources to the ancestor is just a little more difficult, not much more however.
Be Familier With Adding To The Source Box
Review of adding sources to your source box.
As a big part of todays assignment you are to
connect those sources in your source box to the ancestor that source relates to.
THE VIDEO DOESN'T EMPHASIZE THE POINT
THAT YOU START THE ATTACHING THE SOURCE TO THE ANCESTOR IN THE TREE BY FIRST GOING TO THE ANCESTOR IN THE TREE,
THEN GO TO THE SOURCE BOX,
THEN ATTACH THE SOURCE TO THE ANCESTOR.
FOLLOWING THIS PATH MAKES SURE YOU CONNECT THE SOURCE TO THE RIGHT ANCESTOR.
Lets Get Going On Day 2
Our focus today will be in starting to work in FamilySearch Family Tree. Gaining access was a day 1 assignment. You will have logged in or signed up and logged in to http://FamilySearch.org/ If the Family Tree isn't turned on (you would see it in the upper part of the screen).
Yesterday you also were to search on family search for records of people in your pedigree chart.
You then added them to the source box.
You will waste a lot of time if you don't keep track of the searches you made on each website.
Don't act like a rookie, take the time to do it.
Now lets go to the tree and see what your Family Tree looks like. It might be blank. In that case you will need to start inputting names and details about your ancestor. It might be filled in. In that case you will need to start verifying and even documenting those that are delivered as your family. It is likely to have errors. No problem, they are easy to correct now.
So lets look at the options. If there are no names in your tree you can input them, and all sorts of information about them. Here is a good video explaining how to add information to your tree.
C:\Users\FHUNIV24\Desktop\ft1.png takes you to the video below.
Your next assignment for today
is to make sure your family, your parents, and your grandparents
are entered into the tree.
It's ok to spend a few hours on this exercise.
After that, go out to http://familysearch.org/ and see how many sources you find on this website about those ancestors and put those sources in your source box.
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