Genealogy Chat

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I accidently merged my GR tree with my FTM tree,now i have 'lost' all my internet results on my FTM. The thing is with FTM 2005 the sources are only listing where the info comes from,to make a better looking site and home page would it be better to enter notes like '1841 census image held' and keep those in the scrapbook (or keep them on file for potential contacts). To me personally a list of 200+ similiar notes stating the source is ancestry or whatever doesn't do anything for the site. While the tree is still manageable i want to get on top of this and keep it up to scratch. Plus FTM 2005 web results don't allow soundex and corrections to mistranscriptions,a problem for me on several individuals. Glen

Yes I find that a pain Glen, who wants half a page of ancestry claiming their reference every time you merge a record.

Glen, Can't teach an old dog new tricks 'n all that BUT If you write your whole message in the first box then highlight the bulk of it left click & 'cut' post your title with just 'see below' reply to your thread immediately and use left click & 'paste' then we won't all be holding our breath with anticipation of another gem from Turnip Pants... lol Sarah :-) (not that I'm insinuating that you're either a dog OR old by the way!!!) UPDATE: LOL You got there before me tho' What do you mean 'merging GR & FTM'?? me no comprendo

Hi Heather, I only realised when i lost them,the remaining sources are references to birth certs etc that i added to notes,it struck me to enter them as 'birth certificate held' after viewing your home page.It's a much neater way of doing things,and i want to do justice to the trawling for the 200+ census images that i have. Glen

I uploaded a gedcom from GR,and instead of saving it i accidently added it to my FTM programme,increasing my tree but overwriting the duplicated individuals,and the sources etc. I had different details on the two trees (some baptisms etc on FTM but not on GR,really i did the merge the wrong way round,but was actually trying to back up my GR version just in case. Glen

Having read several diff. threads about how to and best way to save info. I think I am going to do a spreadsheet to record all the info. such as BMD cert. held, Record Office Reference, page no. etc etc and just transfer basic info. on the FMT pages to avoid losing all that in 1 hit - as and when I get clever enough to fill all info. in! Can anyone recommend best way for spreadsheet, I'm thinking a tab for each family name, listing each individual in order so can easily find siblings of each head of the family, I plan to hold the census copies for everyone under files named 41,51, 61 or whatever and name each showing the head of the house - seemed to work for the records office all these years! and possibly copy the census to each person along with their BMD records and anything else I come across along the way - how does this sound?? Gill

By siblings I mean children of each head of house! Gill

Gill Small correction - siblings are your brothers and sisters, not your children. I have an offline database which not only has my proven tree in it but all the unproven speculative stuff too, including any mention of names that I have come across even if they are completely unrelated - you never know, after all. I did this not as a spread sheet (although that basically is what it is) but as individual forms which I designed myself, to cope with the information I want to record. Lots of my information is things like 'Joe Bloggs, alive and adult in 1875 paying rates at 23 Blogg Street' and doesnt fit on a standard commercial tree. This can be viewed of course as a spreadsheet but I very rarely do that. Each persons individual record sheet has parents (where applicable) and children, which gives me leads both backwards and forwards if you see what I mean. I number my sources on the first card and use those, although it is very easy to duplicate sources without having to type them in full every time. Its a bit Heath Robinson but it works very well for me. Olde Crone

thanks for comments Old Crone - I think that's exactly what I plan to do - I hadn't thought of doing an index but that would make a lot of sense, e.g. using the tab to record family name, and having a separate line for each member of family, know exactly what you mean by going forwards and backwards, especially with the duplicate first names, also you can refer to other sheet for marriages etc. Also I have found a couple of remarriages throughout one line on my Dad's side, so assume same could happen with the other families, which means some of my rellies were brought up as step-children so the name on the census didn't always make sense! - I did realise about siblings, but in my larger question/comment I had put head of the house and siblings, but of course I meant the children of the head of the house - before I start does anyone have any other suggestions? thanks Gill

I am not sure if this is exactly what you had in mind,,(,if not excuse me having a senior moment,,) I have been told that You can download spread sheets from http://censustools(.)com/ and these can then be placed in the scrapbook in FTM in place of Images .I understand this will help prevent slowing your program down,, Kate :)))

Census tools site looks quite useful,i will have a proper look later.Thanks Glen

I also had a looks at the census site - there are a couple of ones that I found interesting but you do have to give this guy in US your email address he does say he doesn't pass onto anyone and you can opt to NOT receive anymore letters at any time - so as doing a spreadsheet would be good to do one that makes sense to you - I have had a look all several options that you can download, I'm quite good at Excel so am going to rouch up one myself from a couple of different sheets on there - as it is quite easy to read - you can then make up ones that suits you! Have had a go at starting I think I will fill in a few names to see how I go before copying over loads of sheets for other family names - I will come back and let everyone know how I got on ..... Gill

I'm just a bit surprised to hear that merging files on FTM has caused you to loose data. This is certainly not my experience at all. I have merged a number of files from time to time and ALL the information from both files has been retained. As far as recording your supplementary information is concenred, what you do need to do though is to work out in advance how best to do this as there are a number of ways. My approach is to set up Facts where I record Census information, one fact for Address, another for Occupation etc For BMD I use the notes page, recording the district, date and reference. Marriages go on the marriage notes page, biths and deaths on the individual pages. There are obviously different ways of doing this so decide on something that suits you.

Thanks all for your input. The main items i lost were the results of web searches,which on the face of it is not a major problem,a couple of typos in the GR tree also caused hiccups but now sorted. I'm still pondering how best to present my census images,after all the time spent getting them warrants their inclusion somehow. My imagination outpaces my abilities unfortunately. Glen