Genealogy Trading Cards

Happy New Year everyone!

My Christmas Break is almost over and I decided to take some time to work on a project I’ve always thought would be fun.  Being a teacher, I’m always on the lookout for fun ideas to use with my students.  A web site I came across awhile back is called Big Huge Labs and they have free tools to make lots of fun things with photos you upload including calendars, photo cubes, magazine covers, etc. Today, I thought I’d play with the Trading Card option.  Being an algebra teacher, I’m not sure if I’ll ever come up with a good use for trading cards in class, but I’m really interested in the potential for Genealogy Trading Cards!

Here are the cards I created for my grandparents.

Imagine my surprise to see that when download,  this “trading card” is 7″ x10″! When I tried to scale the size down in Paint, it became very pixelated.  So I opened the file in Photoshop and changed the dimensions and also changed the dpi to 300 instead of 72.  That made quite a difference!

So I’m thinking of the possibilities and I’m picturing a set of cards, similar to these.  The background color could be different for each of my 4 grandparents’ lines.  Since I rarely research my Dad’s side of the family (my grandmother was the one who got me started in genealogy and has done a thorough job) I could decide to make my colors different for each of my maternal great-grandparents’ lines.

Would it be helpful to have a set of cards like this when I’m researching?  I like the idea of knowing at a glance which line an ancestor belongs to.  And I love the idea of laying the cards out in a tree patterns to help keep me on track.  But is it worth the time?

The cards would be a quick look at names and relationships, but not many details – unless I could add information on the back.  Would these be easier to carry than group sheets?  I guess that depends on where I am.  To have in my purse to pull out on a whim – yes.  But to have when I’m doing research – I’d probably prefer my group sheets.

I love the idea of pulling out the cards when I’m at a family gathering.  I think that could generate some interest in helping with my research among my family members. They could be great conversation starters to get the stories flowing. But would they be as effective if I didn’t have a picture for an individual?  I could have pictures of tombstones, or icons to show occupations if I didn’t have a picture.  Or a map of the location they are from.

Which made me think that I could have cards for different locations where the photo is a map and the information is all about that county or town. These cards could be helpful in spotting incorrect information.  For example, I often see group sheets which have a location for birth in a year before that county was formed.  Or if I see a town listed in a pension file, I can tell if it was in a certain county. Here’s an example I made for Russell County.

How about cemetery cards?  The card could remind me how to get to the cemetery or could have a list of ancestors buried in that cemetery.

Military Cards?  I have trouble remembering which military unit different ancestors were with during the Civil War.  Perhaps a card for each unit listing which ancestor served and what battles the unit participated in?

Well, now I’m really excited to imagine this pack of genealogy cards.  Would it be worth the time?  Time that could be spent actually researching? It could be a nice little ongoing project for when I just have a little bit of time.  One drawback to the web site is that you cannot save the cards – although it does save the photos that you upload, as long as you become a member (which is free). I also wish that I could change the font or make some parts bold or center all of the text.

So maybe I’ll start working on a Word template that could do the same thing. I can picture in my mind how it could work, and if I actually get it done, you can bet that I’ll post it here!

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Best Motivation EVER!

I love the “thrill of the hunt”.  Looking at a timeline and thinking, “I wonder if they….” and then looking for the record.  Finding new names in birth records and the “AHA!” of finding a connection in a probate record.

What I DON’T love is entering the data in my genealogy program!  To be more specific, entering the source citations.  I love seeing a “solid” group sheet print out – you know, a group sheet with little missing information.  Rarely am I thrilled to see how long my citations list is!  It SHOULD give me a feeling of accomplishment – a pat on the back for a job well done.  But for some reason, it just doesn’t.  I look at that list and feel weary knowing the work that went into it!

But NOW, I have a new “picture” to look at and to have a goal of seeing no blank spaces without flooding me with memories of typing in the information it took to get there.

I recently switched from FTM to RootsMagic 4 for 1 simple reason.  The CHORE of entering citations in FTM was a nightmare for me!  To figure out which category of citation would eventually trickle down to the correct format for what I was holding in my hand was torture – so I just didn’t do it!  I find RootsMagic much easier to use for the citations – thank you RootsMagic team!

But you know what motivates me more than anything?  Check marks.  That’s right, check marks!  When I double click a person’s name, I see a screen with a timeline of events that I’ve entered into the database along with 3 columns for check marks.  1 column tells me if I’ve added a note for that event.  (No check marks there yet, but they’ll be coming)  1 column tells me if I have a source entered and the last column tells me if I’ve uploaded a media file for that event.

Talk about motivation!  As soon as I see empty boxes in those columns, I’m on the search.  Where did I find that?  Have I scanned it yet?  If it came from the internet, do I have the address?  If the web site still exists, have a taken a screen shot of the information (along with any introductory information) in case the site disappears some day? If I can’t find a record, then where did I get that information?  Time to start looking for confirmation!

And how long can I make this list?  I see important dates that are missing as well as sources that are missing very easily.  Much better than THINKING my database is complete when there’s actually a stack of papers somewhere with information that needs to be added.

For me, this is not work, this is completing a list – and being the type A personality that I am, that’s all I need to get me off my duff and into my files!

Yesterday, I read a post from Randy Seaver at Geneamusings in which he talked about cleaning up his database.  I have had a hard time getting back into the swing of research after my “nothing but school work” period, so I thought that cleaning up my database would be a good idea too.  I was amazed at the number of times people were entered twice (I know that has something to do with my merging gedcoms, so I’m not blaming the program) and I learned alot about how to take care of those duplications (after a bit of hair pulling, I must admit!)  But I also got into a very methodical method of going through the branches to look for the duplications and while I was working on an individual, I’ve also been updating those sources and media files.  I love it!

If you’re like me and you’ll make a “to do” list just so you can mark off a task you’ve just completed, then you’d love this too!

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Working It Wednesday – Linking Group Sheets

I have groups sheets written in Excel – which I love.  But I’ve moved more to group sheets written in Word because I love the ability write my citations easily and to keep them well organized.  But since my group sheets in Word are sized to fit in my planner, I do still use my Excel group sheets when I want to print a full sized version for my folders and binders.

My focus lately has been completely on my Stephens line.  I’ve been working on 4 generations of Stephens families who scattered near and far and I get so frustrated with the number of William’s in each family!  A man has a son named William and he and most of his siblings name a son William as well! They also tended to continue the tradition so before long, I’m looking at these different group sheets with Williams all over the place and I get confused on the relationships between them all.  I ended up taping my group sheets to the wall so that I can see them all to find how each William is related! How much easier it is to look at a group sheet, click on a name, and go directly to HIS group sheet without searching the wall!  Hyperlinks allow me to do this.  I can link to group sheets for any name on the group sheet – siblings, wives or parents.

This is convenient because the more group sheets I make in the Excel workbook, the more clicking I need to do to find the tab for the sheet I’d look to look at next.  I have 22 group sheets in this particular workbook and to quickly switch back and forth between two group sheets that don’t happen to be next to each other on my tabs can be a bit of a pain.  By hyperlinking my group sheets, I can switch quickly to any group sheet that I’d like.  Here are the steps for linking group sheets in the same Excel Workbook.

For my example, I will show my group sheet for Andrew J. Stephens and his wife, Lucy Stephens.

Let’s say that I want to make a link to Andrew’s son-in-law, William George.  First I will right-click on the cell with William’s name.

A list of options will appear.  I will click on “Hyperlink”.

A box of choices will appear.  Since I want to link to an Excel page within this workbook, I will be sure to choose the “Place in this document” selection on the left and then a list of my various groups sheets will appear in the larger box on the right.  I will find William George in my list and double click.

Now William’s name in the original group sheet is “hypertext blue” and I know that if I put my cursor over William’s name, the cursor will become a hand. When I click, I will go directly to his group sheet.  (If I want to edit the text in the box, as long as the cursor is not a hand, I can click on the cell and edit the text.) From William’s group sheet, I can then make a hyperlink for his wife, Elizabeth and it would bring me right back to the group sheet I started from.  I can hyperlink any name in my group sheet to move directly to their group sheet. Handy!

Next week, I’ll write about other ways that I use hyperlinking in my genealogy work.

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FTM Dreamin’

I’ve spent quite a bit of time with my new FTM 2010 software and as I work through my database, I’ve been thinking about things I love about the software and things I’d like to see improved.

I love that I can download my tree from Ancestry and all of the photos I’ve uploaded come along with it.
     I wish that the images of the census records were downloaded as well.  I don’t understand the reasoning behind allowing me to manually download them, but not do it automatically. 

I love that the source citations are automatically downloaded with the tree.
     I hate that I have to click every single census source to tell it not to include the citation text in the footnote.  Not only that, but there were no spaces put in the template when they created the citations, so I have to put those in manually.  (For example: Name:  Susan RumboBirth:  abt 1831KentuckyResidence:  1880White Oak, Adair, Kentucky, United States) For EVERY single census source!  I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of source citations!  I could probably tolerate the lack of spaces if only I could find the option that would allow me to unclick all of the “Include in Ref. Note” boxes at the same time, but if I’m going to be looking at every source to unclick the box, I might as well add the spaces so that when the tree moves into the next upgrade, they’ll be correct.

I love that the Sources screen shows me who the source is linked to.  I’ve found several sources that are linked to no one.  Makes me wonder how they got there in the first place, but they are easy to delete!

I wish there were an easy way to download any changes I’ve made on my Ancestry tree into my FTM software.  Unless I’m missing something, I’ll either have to manually enter the information (and I can’t seem to make my manually entered sources match the way the look coming directly from Ancestry) or I’d have to export a new GEDCOM and then merge it with my current FTM file.  Holding off on this because I’m sure there’s any easier way to do this!

I love the map feature with the Places menu!  In my ultimate dream, these maps would also have historic options so that I could see a map of current day places and then click a button to compare the same area at different time periods.  THAT would be heaven!  Even something simple like a combination of the current map with an overlay of the county boundary changes over time like the ones you can find on familyhistory101.com would be incredible.I’d also love to have a notes panel next to the map so that I could add historical information about the area and also the ability to add links to keep track of web sites about the area or other maps that I’ve found online.

I can’t imagine doing my genealogy research without Family Tree Maker and and I look forward to seeing what the future holds – I just hope that I can learn all of the new features with 2010 before another update comes out!

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When software THINKS it knows what I want…

I began my attempt to begin a new tree without actually starting from scratch in order to fix my source citations.  (My hat’s off to Amy at WeTree!  I wish I had the determination to do it the way she is!)

My plan was to install my new FTM 2010 software and to download my tree from Ancestry to build onto.  I thought that if I downloaded my online information, a great number of things would have sources automatically entered (all census records and many birth, death and marriage records) and then I could go back and enter sources from on site research, books, articles and correspondance on my own.  I thought that would save me a ton of time in entering names in addition to giving me a great head start on sources.

I was surprised to see that when I installed the new software, it automatically converted my FTM 2009 files into 2010 files, so immediately, I had the exact same tree with the exact same mistakes and jumbled sources.  I’m sure that the objective of the software designers was to do what I would want it to do in the most efficient manner. 

Not only did it automatically convert all of my trees, but somehow, a great number of names were duplicated due to different sources.  For example, I could have John Smith b. approx. 1830 based on an 1850 census and a John M. Smith b. March 1831 based on a death certificate.  So apparently, conflicting sources created multiple people.  Alot of my families now had double the number of children.  I tried to look at my “old” 2009 tree to see if it had been that way before, but since everything was converted to 2010 format, I couldn’t tell.

I thought that I would uninstall 2010 and then delete all of my 2009 trees.  I felt confident that my tree was backed up on my external drive, but not confident enough to empty my recycle bin!  Since I was away from home, I didn’t take that final step.  I re-installed 2010, but there must have been files in other folders on my computer, or 2010 found the files in the recycle bin.  I had the same result as before.

I tried to begin a new tree with a different name by downloading my Ancestry tree, but I was unsuccessful at that.  That may have been because the internet connection at my Mom’s is sporadic and tends to disconnect without notice.  By that time, I was not willing to spend more time on the project, so I concentrated on merging duplicate names – which removed a few hundred names from my database, but got me nowhere on correcting my sources.  I do need to try downloading my tree from Ancestry again – perhaps tomorrow. 

Not quite giving up on my plan yet, but starting to wonder if I’m spending more time than it’s worth to try to make this happen!

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Scrambled Sources

I’ve been doing genealogy research for a long time and I’ve learned a lot about what NOT to do and sometimes I have an overwhelming desire to start over!  When I first started researching my family, I documented nothing.  How could I possibly forget the joy of finding that piece of information?  SURELY, I didn’t need to write that down!  Eventually, I saw how wrong that was and I did start adding sources.  But it was a simple “1880 Census” or “Death Certificate”.  Later, I started adding page numbers or ED numbers for census records etc.  But the same source might be listed 1 way for 1 fact and a totally different way for another fact.

Then there were better explanations of proper source citations so I started trying to add details to my sources as I was seeing in the examples.  In the meantime, I had updated my software several times and the source templates were different every time, so I now have the same sources listed several different ways and the perfectionist in me is very frustrated.  I truly want my research to be complete and as professional as possible.  And I feel like I’m at a cross-road of sorts because I’m ready to upgrade my software once again to Family Tree Maker 2010.

One part of me wants to transfer my tree to the new software and then wipe out ALL of the sources and re-enter them one at a time so I can “do it right”.  But that’s crazy!  I don’t have time for that!!!  This is one of those types of things where I put it off and put it off because if I can’t do it right, I won’t do it at all.  (Much like I put off learning my 2008 software because the format was soooo different from what I was used to!) 

Maybe it would be a bit of a time saver to download my GEDCOM from Ancestry for my new software and at least have those sources automatically entered for me and then go back and add the sources that are missing.  I probably have more people on my Ancestry tree than I do in my FTM database anyway and the time I could save just by not having to enter source data for every census record would be substantial.

I’ve never had the desire to have thousands of individuals in my tree.  I really want to feel like I KNOW the people I am researching.  Bottom line, that means that I usually add children’s name that aren’t my direct line and perhaps even their spouses, but I don’t usually go beyond that.  I’m not the type to click on the “Add this family to your tree” button on Ancestry and I don’t intend to start that now.  So my tree has fewer than 2000 people in it (wow, that actually seems pretty big to me now that I see that in print!) but that includes my side as well as my husband’s side.

Admittedly, I haven’t opened my FTM 2010 yet, so my idea may not even work, but that certainly seems like a better way to go than the “start from scratch” method.  And it’s not like doing it that way would wipe out my FTM 2009 database.  Plus, I’m working with each family to create my research logs a little at a time, so that would be a good time to confirm sources and fill in blanks, right?  Perhaps the new software has a “fix the sources” button kind of like the “Resolve Place Names” button in the 2009 version?  If not, maybe that’s a suggestion for the next upgrade!!

Thoughts?  I’m certainly open to suggestions!

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