Saturday, October 10, 2015

FAMILY TREE: Correcting Relationships


Sometimes we will find a family that has one or more incorrect relationships in our pedigree, whether it be the wrong spouse, a wrong child,  or a wrong parent.  This can be a result of several kinds of mistakes, like incorrect merges or mistaken identities.

There are several ways to correct relationships.  There are good sources online that show several ways to fix the mistaken connections.  Here are some simple instructions that are on familysearch.org. 

Parent-Child Relationships:    Link to Instructions

Couple Relationships: Link to Instructions

You can find these and other helpful articles through “Get Help” on Familysearch.org or The Family History Guide website on this page:  Family History Guide Project 1

The important thing to remember is that you do not delete people, you delete the relationship.  Or you edit the relationship.   If you know who should be in the relationships, then you can change the relationship.  If you do not know who someone belongs to but you know they shouldn’t be in your pedigree, unattach them from your tree by deleting the relationship, but leave them in Family Tree for someone to find and connect with later.  Sources are key to keeping your tree correct. 

If you get stuck and have questions, give me a call.


Mary

MEMORIES: How to attach memory files to Family Tree

MEMORIES – FAMILY SEARCH.ORG FAMILY TREE

Here are instructions for adding memories to Family Tree in Familysearch.org:
Sign in to FamilySearch.org
PHOTOS and DOCUMENTS
Step 1 – ADD Your Photo                             
1.       Click Family Tree
2.       Find the person you want to upload a picture for.
3.       Copy the person’s ID number.  The ID number will be used to link the photo to the person.
4.       Open a new tab OR open another browser window by pressing ctrl + n. Go to familysearch.org and sign in.
5.       Hover over Memories and click Gallery

6.       Click the Upload button.  The first time you add a photo you will need to read and agree to the Submission Agreement.
7.       Upload a photo using
DRAG AND DROP – click the windows start button    to find the picture in “Pictures” or “Documents” or if it’s on your USB drive, look under “Computer.”  If it’s on your desktop you can make your window smaller so you can see the photograph file there.  Click on the photo file (press and hold down the left mouse botton) and drag the photo toward the green box with the white + sign on the upload page.  When the area turns green, let go of the left mouse button to drop the photo.
CLICK TO ADD - Click the green box with the white + sign.  A box will open.  Find where the photo is located on your computer.  Click on the photo file and then click “Open.”
8.       You will see an Uploading box which will change to Completed
Step 2 – TAG the Photo
1.       Click on the box that says Completed, or on a photo you have not tagged yet.  
2.       Click on the person’s face in the photo.  A circle within a box appears.
3.       Resize the circle by dragging any of the four corner boxes.  Adjust the circle around the face to make a portrait by clicking in the circle and dragging it to the right position.
Type the person’s name in the box that asks “Who is this?” as it is in Family Tree.  Use the maiden name for females.
                -If this is the first time you have tagged the person, click Add New.
                -If you have tagged a photo of this person before, click their name when it appears in the drop       down list.  It will be automatically linked to them.
4.       Add Title – Add a title above the picture, usually the name  and short description like a date.
5.       Add Description if you want.  You can explain what you know about the photograph such as when and where the picture was taken.
6.       Tag additional people in the picture by repeating steps 2 and 3.

Step 3 – LINK the Photo to Family Tree. 
1.       Click on the little arrow by the person’s name on the right of the page.  A menu will appear.
2.       Click Attach to Family Tree
3.       Put the ID number of the person in the ID field and click SelectOr search with their name and click Find.  Click Select by the person’s name when it appears.
4.       Click Attach under “Identify this person in Family Tree.”
5.       Repeat for each person in the photo that you have tagged that has a red circle by their name.

Documents
1.        
2.    Documents that are in a pdf format will automatically be marked as a document.  If it is a jpeg file or similar file because the document was scanned, you can click on "Details" and there's a box you can check by "Document" to indicate that it's a document.  Now you can tag it with a rectangular tag field rather than the round one.
Click on the document.  A square and rectangle tag box appears.
Resize the square by dragging any of the four corner boxes.
Position the square over the person’s name .
Type the full name in the box as it appears in Family Tree.  Females use their maiden name. 
Click Add New if this is the first time you have tagged this person OR
If you have tagged them before, click on their name as it appears in the drop-down list.
Add Title – add a descriptive title for the document at the top of the document.  Save.
Description – you can add more information about it in the description box.  Add to save it.
Attach to Family Tree the same way you attach photos.
Details – you can view the original, rotate left or rotate right using Details
6.       
Stories
The size limit of a story is about 100 pages of text
1.        In the Gallery, click on the "Add a Memory" green plus icon. 
2.       Click "Create a Story,"  which is under the little book in the middle of the page.  You will be reminded of the Submission Agreement.
3.       You can add one photo that you have previously uploaded to Memories.  Click Attach Photo.  You will see all your photos and documents.  Click on the circle of the photo or document you want to add.  Click Add at the bottom of the page.
4.       Click in the title field and type in a title.
5.       Type your story in the Story field OR copy and paste it from a digital text document such as Word, WordPerfect, Notepad, etc.  You cannot use a .pdf document here.  You also cannot use a scan of a printed story unless you convert it to text using OCR (Optical Character Recognition).  You can Click Edit Story to edit the story if you contributed it.
6.       Who Is In This Story? Identify who is in the story in the right hand column.
If you have tagged the person before, click on their name when it appears in the drop-down list.  If you have not entered their name in any memory before, type their full name in the field as it appears in Family Tree.  Click Attach to Family Tree to attach the story to the person following the instructions given in photos or documents.

Audio
The Memories Audio Player page is similar to the other Memory pages. These include: Add/Upload, add and edit Titles and Descriptions, Tagging, Attach, People, Albums, Details, and Report Abuse (which includes copyright infringement).
• Audio files can be attached to ancestors as well as living individuals. You can only listen to those files for living individuals that you have authorization to access. (Those you can see on your tree)
• Audio files must be either in an .m4a or .mp3 file format and no larger than 15 MB (about 15 minutes).  It is recommended that you keep recordings under 5 minutes.
To access Audio files:
Do either A or B:
        A. In the Gallery menu line, click the Audio microphone icon, go to Step 1.
        OR
        B. On a person’s details page, click Memories. Scroll down to Audio, go to Step 1.
Adding Audio files in Memories
1. Click Memories then Gallery and then Audio, or go to a persons details page.
2. Check the “I have read and agree to the Submission Agreement” box.
3. Click the Upload button - a window will open allowing you to choose where you have
saved your audio recording
OR
Drag and Drop your audio file into the upload screen from your desk top or from your computer files.
4. At the right, on the Memories Audio Player Page, find WHO IS IN THIS AUDIO? and the People in this memory box - do either of the following:
• If you have previously tagged this person, as you start typing the person’s name in the field, a drop-down list will appear. Click on the person’s name.
OR
• If you have NOT previously tagged this person, enter the person’s full name in the field as it is in Family Tree. (For females, use their maiden name.) Click on Add New.
5. If there is someone in the People in this memory list with a red circle icon, click on the person’s name to link it. Click Attach to Family Tree. Follow the instructions given for photos.


Friday, September 18, 2015

THE FAMILY HISTORY GUIDE

The Family History Guide is a new website.


It looks like it will be a great resource for becoming familiar with FamilySearch Family Tree.
There are step by step instructions, handouts, videos, to help you learn how to use FamilySearch effectively.

Go to the very short overview by clicking HERE and see what you think.  I will be exploring it in the next few days.

Mary

FamilySearch: What Are All Those Tools under "SEARCH" ???

FamilySearch:  Hover over the word SEARCH or click on it to go to the SEARCH home page.


Click on each word to explore

RECORDS - This gives you  a blank search form to search indexed records.  Or you can "Browse All Published Collections" and search for records by area or topic.  You can view unindexed records also.

GENEALOGIES - Remember when you submitted pedigrees and family group records years ago?  This is where you can access genealogies people have submitted in past years. Sometimes they have sources listed. They are the old Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource File records.

CATALOG - The Family History Library Catalog is searchable by place, topic, author, film #, subject....  It is great to see what book and microfilms the Library has before you go to Salt Lake.  Sometimes a book or film will also be at BYU and you can find that out here.  Also some books are digitized and are available to read on your computer.  Which takes us to ....

BOOKS - These are books that have been digitized.  Search for surnames, topics, places, etc. to see what you can find available from your computer at home.

WIKI - This is a huge resource to help you learn about researching places, topics, record collections, and just general how-to's.  There are articles, links to records, links to outside websites, videos, and more.

Your assignment is to explore all these resources.  Have fun!

Then go and explore what's under the SEARCH button on Ancestry.com  




RecordSeek.com: a handy tool for sourcing

RecordSeek is a bookmarklet that you simply click on to create a record of a source you find on sites other than the one you are using to save sources.  It works to connect your source to FamilyTree or to Ancestry.

To get the bookmarklet - Go to RecordSeek.com

Follow the simple instructions to drag and drop their button to your Favorites Bar on your browser page.
(Browser = Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.)


Here are detailed instructions attach a source you have found to FamilyTree and to Ancestry.


Mary Pletsch




Thursday, September 17, 2015

Webinars: A Great Way to Learn About Family History

I like to learn more about websites and records by listening to webinars.  One of the places I go to find webinars is Legacy Family Tree.  Right now I'm just watching those with the "Free" label on them.  Anyone can sign up for upcoming webinars and listen to them live on your computer.  I tend to sign up and forget or get too busy, but they will give you a link if you missed it so you can watch it free for a few days after the webinar airs live.  Then there are some webinars that they keep free.  Right now I'm trying to catch up on the free ones and I listened to one today that was EXCELLENT.  It was by Tom Kemp and it was on Genealogy Bank.  Click on this link to watch it:

Genealogy Bank Webinar

 Genealogy Bank is a website that is a paid subscription website because every time they let you see a newspaper page, they pay a royalty to that paper.  They do have an agreement with FamilySearch to allow access to the index of obituaries they have, so you will see them mentioned as a partner site on FamilySearch.  You need to be in a Family History Library Center (like BYU or the Family History Library) to see the images, or pay to have a subscription.

The value in this webinar is that it shows what you can find in newspaper articles to add to the stories of your ancestors.  There are free newspaper websites that you can try searching on using the tips he tells you about.

Here are two:

ChroniclingAmerica

Utah newspapers only:  Utah Newspapers

You have to play with names in searching newspapers.  They will only pick up the name exactly as it is written in the newspaper.

Have fun browsing webinars.  It's a great way to learn.

Mary Pletsch

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Find Cousins: Descendancy Research

When we have a tree that many people have worked on through the years, we often have a hard time finding more ancestors.

Descendancy research helps us to find "cousins" that do not have complete family informations or who are not even in our trees.

There are links on the right of the blog to tools we can use for descendancy research, in addition to descendancy view in FamilyTree on familysearch.org.  Puzzilla and Virtual Pedigree are just two of many available.

Here is more information about it.  One is a video from FamilyTree.  One is the handout I gave in class.

Happy sleuthing!

Mary Pletsch

(Click on the description below)

 Descendancy Video Here

Finding Cousins Handout doc Here




Sunday, August 30, 2015

Working with Ancestry.com

Today In Class (direct questions to Brother Farrell)
  • Surname facts
  • Using Ancestry.com
  • Hints ( leaves)
  • Attaching records
  • Linking individuals to FamilySearch
  • Member Connect (we didn't have time for this)

Homework for this Week
  • Ancestry Account - If you haven't already set up an account on Ancestry.com, you can set up a regular account which normally carries a monthly membership for free via FamilySearch through the following link: http://familysearch.org/partneraccess.  Make sure that you use this link so that you get a full access account instead of a limited-time trial account.
  • Once you have an ancestry account, import your tree from FamilySearch.