Family TreesΜύ permalink
Expert opinions required
This discussion has been closed.
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by Shamerocks (U14373609) on Wednesday, 14th September 2011
I have just been given FTM 2011 as a present and I am in the process of entering all the information I have collected over the years.
I want to ensure that I do everything to the required standard and know from personal experience how easy it is to fail to remember where a piece of information came from. So getting sources and citations entered correctly is bothering me. The questions at the moment are related to Census information, is the source purely the census year or a geographic area within that years census, in a large tree there could be many citations from the single source census year. Next in the citation do you record all the individuals recorded within the family at that address or create a separate citation for each individual. My initial thought is that by showing all family members in a single citation it confirms the relationships ie wife, son, daughter etc.
As an example
Source title 1881 Census
Citation detail
Public Records Office Reference RG11 4485/40 18. Census Place Hunslet, Yorks, England
Citation text
Dwelling 6 Brookfield St
Name Relation Marital Status Gender/Age/Birthplace Occupation Disability
Ann LEVITT Mother (Head) W Female 65 Selby, York Cap Maker (At Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ) (Hatter)
Mary Ann LEVITT Daur U Female 41 Selby, York
Robert W. LEVITT Son U Male 23 Selby, York Brewers Lab
Your thoughts and expert opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Although they say FTM 2011 includes templates for sources many of them seem to be specifically for the US market. -
Message 2
Posted by Pheno (U14601115) on Wednesday, 14th September 2011
Hi, I use FTM, albeit a much older version.
I'm afraid I don't go into that much detail though, my citation simply being:
1901 census.
I guess you could record the Piece/Folio/page No. but I have never yet failed to find the reference again should I need it.
I do record the actual address under each person as a Fact and if there is any reason why I think I might not find the entry again I record the oddity under Notes (for example if it has been mistranscribed or the dob is way out).
Pheno -
Message 3
Posted by Pheno (U14601115) on Wednesday, 14th September 2011
Perhaps what I should have started out by saying is that really I shouldn't have responded as you addressed your query to experts and I am not one by any stretch of the imaginiation - just a regular FTM user.
Pheno -
Message 4
Posted by Shamerocks (U14373609) on Wednesday, 14th September 2011
Pheno, although I said experts it is helpful to know how other people tackle sources and citations so thanks for the response. Perhaps I am going into too much detail but I want to be able to pass the tree on to future generations and want them to be able to see where and how the information was aquired.
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Message 5
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Wednesday, 14th September 2011
Different people on the board have different ways of recording their information, but we are all ordinary members of the public at home with our computers. We just speak from our own experience.
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Message 6
Posted by Shamerocks (U14373609) on Wednesday, 14th September 2011
Raundsgirl, I am a little puzzled by your response and not sure what you are trying to say. I agree, people do have different ways of recording information and that is what I was asking, also members of the public on their home computers can still be experts just because they don't do it as a profession doesn't mean they don't understand the subject.
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Message 7
Posted by clematised (U3233879) on Wednesday, 14th September 2011
I think that raundsgirl is just letting you know that none of us belong to the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ as we are provided with the board to help from our own computers, some people are wrongly of the idea that we are Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ employees.
I dont think a lot of the members have the latest FTM 2011 mine is 2006 but I dont really use it and have my tree on Tribal pages, but saying that I just add the census year as the source and give facts like adress and who was residing there as no two people record the same detail.
Edna -
Message 8
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Thursday, 15th September 2011
Edna is right; I was a little misled by the word 'expert' in your question. We do frequently get questions from people who assume that we are a 'team of experts' like Nick Barratt, employed by the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, and that we have access to limitless data. If only! Then we have to explain that this is not so, and we are actually such sad people that we are hooked on FH to the extent that as well as our own trees, we like to help with others'.
In this instance, I can't help you because I don't currently have an FH program on my computer. I started digging into my family's past, and got on quite well until I thought I might do a few transcriptions for FreeReg, just to help out. Now the time I would have spent on FH is devoted to poring over microfiches! -
Message 9
Posted by Bojalu (U2235641) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
I have just been given FTM 2011 as a present and I am in the process of entering all the information I have collected over the years.
I want to ensure that I do everything to the required standard and know from personal experience how easy it is to fail to remember where a piece of information came from. So getting sources and citations entered correctly is bothering me. The questions at the moment are related to Census information, is the source purely the census year or a geographic area within that years census, in a large tree there could be many citations from the single source census year. Next in the citation do you record all the individuals recorded within the family at that address or create a separate citation for each individual. My initial thought is that by showing all family members in a single citation it confirms the relationships ie wife, son, daughter etc.
As an example
Source title 1881 Census
Citation detail
Public Records Office Reference RG11 4485/40 18. Census Place Hunslet, Yorks, England
Citation text
Dwelling 6 Brookfield St
Name Relation Marital Status Gender/Age/Birthplace Occupation Disability
Ann LEVITT Mother (Head) W Female 65 Selby, York Cap Maker (At Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ) (Hatter)
Mary Ann LEVITT Daur U Female 41 Selby, York
Robert W. LEVITT Son U Male 23 Selby, York Brewers Lab
Your thoughts and expert opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Although they say FTM 2011 includes templates for sources many of them seem to be specifically for the US market.
Μύ Hi Shamerocks ,
I also use FTM (an older version,)
I agree you should use sources and citations.
In the FACT Section – For each Person
Census Section,
I enter year, along with Piece/ Folio/ Page
For Residence Section
I enter address for each year known by Birth/ Baptism Marriage /Death/ Census / Electoral Registers.
Occupation Section .
by all known dates/ Occupation.
More can be added to NOTES on FTM.
Storing your printed notes in a Ring folders, using this universal system.
Instead of referring to your Mothers Family and my Fathers Family,
Think in terms of your four Grandparents.
Have fours folders each with the family surname.
For marriages between a couple, the marriage certificate will need to be photocopied and entered into the other spouses folder.
If the couple are married , then census returns need to be printed twice , one for each folder .
You , your Spouse and your offspring will be in all four folders.
If researching your spouses family another four folders will be needed for their Grandparents.
Bo-Ja-Lu -
Message 10
Posted by Shamerocks (U14373609) on Sunday, 25th September 2011
Well it looks like nobody else is prepared to put their head above the parapet, so it's thanks to all those who replied. The last reply shared my own thoughts on the importance of recording sources. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned FTM but in my opinion the structure of sources and citations is important regardless of what software is being used and I was just trying to get a feel of what others were doing.
I possibly made the mistake of thinking the message board covered all aspects of family history, however looking back through the posts it seems that the main use is for board memebers to do look up's for memebers who don't have access to ancestry etc. The regular few who do these look ups should be commended for giving their time to help others in their research.
For my part I am making each Census year as a Source, for all the family in the house all the details of the household off the Census are input as the citation text, the RG reference, piece, folio, page and address are input as the citation detail. Any others in the house are recorded in notes. Perhaps over kill, but as they say the devil is in the detail. -
Message 11
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Sunday, 25th September 2011
The members who have subs to pay sites are always generous with their look-ups, but that isn't all we help with. All of us have been toiling away with our own family trees, and have learned all sorts of useful facts and sources of information along the way. Edna knows a lot about researching ancestors in India, and can advise on questions of adoption; MaryMog is a whizz at lateral thinking and digging out elusive rellies, SheronB has got Italian ancestors and now knows how to look for them. Sometimes we all put our three pennorth in!
I think as far as writing information goes, the more the better! What is really important is to note where details came from, then if you need to go back to source, it's easily done.
(And having said that, I will admit that mine is still on bits of paper. Well my excuse is that I got sidetracked into transcribing PRs! -
Message 12
Posted by clematised (U3233879) on Sunday, 25th September 2011
To be fair here, most of us are on a pension and the PPV sites and subscriptions are now out of reach for us but as we still enjoy the research and can add our input from free sites and our general FH knowledge we still help on the board.
Most people who come here for help are new to FH and just want to learn the basics and also need help going through the BMDs and Census as they dont usually know where to start.
They start with us after the airing of the WDYTYA program or Heirhunters and to most this is their first port of call from seeing the program.
We also like new input from other experienced researchers as we dont have a monopoly on this board and it is free to all users to chip in with their own subs and knowledge
Also we have been doing it for many years and done all the stuff available to us so a subscription is not needed so paying for a sub to do free look ups is not needed if others are willing to share their own subs and knowledge.
I can work my way around familysearch site and other free sites so help in my own way. and can find stuff on line for others to use.
Edna -
Message 13
Posted by writerlucy24 (U13905009) on Tuesday, 27th September 2011
Well it looks like nobody else is prepared to put their head above the parapet, so it's thanks to all those who replied. The last reply shared my own thoughts on the importance of recording sources. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned FTM but in my opinion the structure of sources and citations is important regardless of what software is being used and I was just trying to get a feel of what others were doing.
I possibly made the mistake of thinking the message board covered all aspects of family history, however looking back through the posts it seems that the main use is for board memebers to do look up's for memebers who don't have access to ancestry etc. The regular few who do these look ups should be commended for giving their time to help others in their research.
For my part I am making each Census year as a Source, for all the family in the house all the details of the household off the Census are input as the citation text, the RG reference, piece, folio, page and address are input as the citation detail. Any others in the house are recorded in notes. Perhaps over kill, but as they say the devil is in the detail.Μύ Apologies for being late reading this one.
Its always worth recording all of the information that you have or can get as from experience I can tell you its the smallest things that make the difference.
Some of the users of this message board will have been wondering why you were asking the question you asked about recording the cenus citation in full as a separate note in FTM. The reason for this is that many users of FTM use it in conjunction with an An***try subscription. When you use the attach or merge facilty in FTM in that case the Census citation is recorded in full on the person record with the copy of the relevant document.
I agree with you that FTM appears to be orientated towards the USA market , which it is. However for those of us who have family trees with people scattered over many countries in the world FTM sort of fits everything. -
Message 14
Posted by Jowin1 (U1940449) on Tuesday, 27th September 2011
I have to add my two penneth.
I have found that some people when starting their tree and were a little niaive when recording information and have not logged the source or citation. You would be surprised how many messages have the information but they can't remember where the information came from. So at least you are heading in the right direction. As previously stated more is better for back tracking, address, and ref number, especially if you haven't got the cert but just the index ref for siblings. It all helps.
I have FTM but an older version but I have printed information which was sent to me, and I have accumulated over the past 6 years which are in binders. Most of those pages come from the internet and so still have the source on them should I wish to retrace it. Web addresses are also a good way of logging where the source came from if it is not from the usual censuses, BMDs etc.
Jo -
Message 15
Posted by jc (U1902680) on Tuesday, 27th September 2011
Yes, do add as much as you can regarding source citation.
Census source details (as per the national archives source details) plus add if it was from online sources or record offices etc... If it was only a transcription or add the image... As time goes on, you realise the importance of such details.
I usually keep a copy of the URL of other info gleamed from online as well as making a copy, don't forget websites can and do expire
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