Working It Wednesday – Comparing Others

Last time, I talked about how I was going to start comparing “others” who are mentioned in my ancestors’ records.  Specifically, the names that are mentioned in deed records.  Those names appear in the part of the deed that I tend to glance over without really reading because the handwriting is difficult to read and [...]

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Working It Wednesday – Image Effects

I’ve mentioned before that I like to add images to my notes that I keep using Word.  Usually, these are scaled down or cropped versions of census records or a birth record or a photo of a tombstone.  If I’m lucky, I have a picture of the person who is the focus of the notes. [...]

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Working It Wednesday – Adding an Image to a Document Part 1

Sometimes, when I read through my notes for an individual or family, I tend to forget that they were actual people and not data in a chart.  It helps if I can add their image to my notes. Other times, my notes are full of information, which may or may not be cited, but I [...]

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Timeline in Excel – Part 3

Adding Callouts Callouts are like thought balloons in a comic.  There are various designs for call-outs including starbursts, clouds and rectangles.  You can also add various effects to make them look three dimensional or tilted, etc.  The nice thing about callouts is that you can adjust the line coming out of the shape to point [...]

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Timeline in Excel – Part 2

Create a Location Bar I decided that above my Date Bar, I’d make a simple Location Bar to show which County/State my ancestor was living in through the years. Select a row for your Location Bar.  (Row 4)  It should be a row that is high enough to enter the information you’d like.  I wanted [...]

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Working It Wednesday – Timeline in Excel (Part 1)

As my school year gets closer to the end, my days become more and more hectic.  Students who are struggling are finally asking for help after school.  And my students have to pass the state test given at the end of the school year in order to graduate, so that means creating extra practice problems [...]

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Working It Wednesday – Using Excel Comments as Digital Post-Its!

This is something new I started using this week and I think it’s going to be a great asset in my research! Several years ago, I fell in love with a free program called Fototagger.  (http://www.fototagger.com/)  I used it to identify people in photos or to add information about locations and such.  I especially loved [...]

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Working It Wednesday – Using Word to Translate Foreign Documents

I took French in high school, but last summer, when I was researching one of my husband’s line from Alsace, I had access to an avalanche of records – none of which I could read!  Not only because of my incredibly rusty French skills, but also because of the “interesting” handwriting!  However, I found a [...]

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Working It Wednesday – Hyperlinking my notes

Last week, I showed how I use hyperlinking to help me quickly switch between the Group Sheets that I’ve created within Excel.  This week, I’ll show other uses for hyperlinking – this time in my notes that I write in Word. In a nutshell, hyperlinking allows me to see any record, map or web site [...]

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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 [...]

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