Find A Grave Glitch, or was it?

My husband and I were on a mission to clean the gravestones of his paternal aunts and uncles. When I could not find a Find A Grave memorial for his aunt (in-law), I asked where she was buried. I knew when she died, a week after my first child’s birth and thus I didn’t go to the cemetery, but vaguely remember what cemetery it was. My husband, who has a terrible memory could not verify that was the correct cemetery.

Therefore, I went to the library where I knew there were cemetery indexes that were done by the local genealogical society. I found his aunt’s name and made note of the section and location of the grave.

My husband and I went to the cemetery, cleaned the stone and I photographed it so that I could create a Find A Grave memorial.  I added her memorial and did a little research and found out who her parents were from the 1930 US Census.  I added them to her memorial along with the link to her husband, my husband’s uncle.

Then I noticed that her parents had five children listed, besides my husband’s aunt-in-law. I reviewed the 1930 US Census to see if they were the same children. They were not, so I click on her father, and reviewed the 1920 US Census and saw more children.

My mission, was to find the children that were not linked to their parents and add the parents to their memorial pages. After I was done, I realized that one child, John was showing on the parents memorial pages but not on the siblings pages.

I went to a Facebook group for Find A Grave, there is more than one. I asked if they every seen this. One member quickly responded that on John’s memorial the parents were in the wrong position. WOW, I didn’t catch that. 

It should have the father on top and the mother listed below as follows:

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!

Family Book Creator - Formatting Notes in FTM

Another helpful hint when using Family Book Creator (FBC). This is a continuation of my learning the Family Book Creator software and how I input the data into my Family Tree Maker (FTM) tree.

I have started a new book project and decided I wanted to include some notes fields. FBC allows you to include or exclude notes and you can select which facts notes to include or exclude. Please note that there are four separate tabs controlling notes. The Primary person, this is the main person of a family section, the Partner who is the partner/spouse of the primary person. The child in the list of the children in the family section who have a main section (family section) later in the book and the child in the list of children who have no main section or will not have their own family section.

A little background about the project I am working on. I started by exporting a branch from my sister-in-law’s tree for her cousin. Then her cousin stated that she has been doing her tree using FamilySearch. For those of you who don’t know, FamilySearch is a collaborative tree, where once you get to the deceased members of your family, FS will look for a match in the collaborative tree and will want you to match your person up to an existing person in their collaborative tree (if it finds a match).  I informed the cousin, that I can download a branch of the tree, however none of the living people will be loaded into my tree.

Thus, when this happened, I got all kinds of notes and sources that really weren’t part of my research. . After I download that branch into a new tree with FTM, I merged that tree to the exported branch that I created for that cousin. Then I had to fix lots of stuff, such as place names, for consistency, and even merged a few people that the original merging of the two trees missed. Then I printed out an outline descendant report, starting at the first person, I am slowing working my way through the tree, verifying information, entering new information and so forth.

I started entering obituaries into the Death Notes field. Before I got to far with the tree, I decided to run a test book. I noticed that the death notes just blend into the previous sentence when I wanted this to print separately. Plus, I started to see notes from the tree that I merged from Family Search. Notes that I didn’t realize where there.

Thus, I decided to run the Notes Report within Family Tree maker. I saved the report as a PDF and brought it up on one monitor and FTM on the other monitor. Starting at the beginning of the report, I brought up each person. I noticed some person notes being printed in the book that I didn’t want; however, I already knew I had typed some person notes that I wanted in the book. The solution, privatize the notes that I didn’t want to be printed. To Privatize a note, click the lock icon.

FBC has controls for Person Notes and Research notes. Plus, Relationship notes for a spouse. Currently the defaults do not have the private notes printing, I would have to check the circle for that option. Research notes are typically private and thus they are excluded. I could have copied the person note to the research notes, because personally they seemed more like research notes, however, it was just easier to click on the lock and privatize the person notes to exclude them from the book.

Also, facts, such as name, birth, death have their own notes control and you can include, exclude, or include private notes. You will need to go into every fact and change each note preference (FBC) if you want to exclude any. However, I found it was easier to run my note report in FTM and click the private lock icon to privatize any note I want to exclude, rather than go into all the fact notes preferences in FBC and select exclude.

Anyway, back to my obituary note that I typed into FTM death note field. I decided to bold the first line or name for the obituary and then add a blank line before the bold text, so that it didn’t wrap into the previous sentence in the FBC book.  I italicized  the source and then added a blank line at the end of the obituary so that it left a blank line and allowed the proper formatting in the book.

Thus, I learned several lessons. Run a sample book, and see what it looks like. Then, stop and think about what you want in your book. Think about the easiest way to include or exclude that information in the book. Plus, proofing smaller sample sections of the book, is easier than trying to proof the entire book.

I decided by leaving the FBC defaults to print notes, then on future books, I won’t be missing any needed note, since my goal is to have FBC setup the same for all my books. I do print my sample test books without the graphical trees and without any pictures, so that I can concentrate on spelling errors, and formatting issues. Then when I am ready for my final proof of the book, I add the graphical tree and any picture option I might want. As in previous posts, I still might need to do some manual edit, but ultimately, you will want to enter the data into FTM in a way that requires the least number of manual edit after you generate your book with FBC.

Remember to have fun and Just do Genealogy!

Setting up a new computer for Genealogy

Even though I like the idea of getting a new computer, I don’t like the idea of setting up a new computer. My desktop computer is over ten years old. So, for the last six or so months, I have been half-heartly looking for a new computer.

First of all, I have some requirements and it makes purchasing a computer difficult. I also want to see the computer in person before buying. This really limits a person’s choices. Anyway, I know I what lots of RAM 12-16 GB. I also want a large hard drive, 1TB really looks good. I would also like a smaller CPU, the huge one under my desk is way too big.  I know I am old school, but I just thought I wanted a CD drive, however my son said “Good luck with that one”. Sadly, he is correctly, many computers just don’t offer CD drives.

So fast forward to Black Friday weekend, it’s Saturday and I find myself in a BestBuy store. I am nonchalantly walking around the laptops and desktops and I see an ALL-IN-ONE desktop.  The keyboard and mouse are wireless. Love the idea of less wires. Plus, since it is an All-In-One, no CPU, another bonus. The RAM is 12 GB and it comes with a Solid-State Drive of 1 TB, yahoo! Okay, now to my wish list, I want three monitors, my current set up is two, but I will have an extra monitor from my old desktop. My brilliant son looks at the back of the Monitor of the All-in-One and sees two HDMI ports. Okay, it’s on sale and it’s discounted $270 and thus will be shy of $800. I like that because I am also stingy, my dad would say it’s being thrifty but I know better.

Anyway, now comes the part I really, really hate, I have to get my stuff off my old computer and put it on my new computer. Yuck! Oh wait, that is really YUCK!

I set up my new computer on my desk next to my old computer. The first thing I do, after doing all the setup stuff that a new computer requires, I create an “Install” folder in my Download folder. This is where I store all my install programs and thus it is really easy to look at the folder on my old computer to know what one’s I need on my new computer.

I install my Dropbox drive onto the new computer which copies all the files within Dropbox to my computer. Yeah, that is done. Next, I install my iDrive on my new computer and sync the Cloud Drive formerly known as sync drive to my computer. Therefore, all those folders and files get copied onto my new computer. This was a very long process because I have a lot of folders in that drive. It is documents I want to access on both my Desktop and Laptop. This is where I store all my genealogy related files.

Next, I install my programs, my genealogy program (Family Tree Maker 2019), two plug-ins for that program (Charting Companion and Family Book Creator), my Office 2021 suite of programs. I install Google Chrome, my browser of choice. I install Zoom because several genealogy related groups use this for some of their meetings. I have some other programs that I needed to install too.

Next, I need to move my files from my old computer to my new computer. I use the folders labelled download, documents and pictures. I back them up onto an external hard drive. Then I create a folder on my new computer titled Old Computer Files located in my Documents folder. Then I copy the folders and files to my new computer. I don’t want to mess up my new computer with all my old folders and files, however I want those on my new computer. I hope to slowly go through these old folders and only move over those that I really need.

I think of my old folders like the contents of all the junk drawers from my old house, that I toss into a large box. The box is in my house, but I will need to sort through and remove each item individually and place them into neater, organized junk drawers in my new home. I will be honest, this will probably never happen, but a person can hope. Anyway, it will keep my new computer downloads, documents and pictures a lot more organized.  I have found several files that I didn’t need and I already deleted those. If I think I will need them, they are on that external hard drive.

After I am confident that I have everything off my old computer, I decided to reset it to factory defaults so that it will erase my old hard drive. Now if I want to donate it or even recycle it at the local BestBuy, my personal data is off the computer. Plus, since I have iDrive, everything that was on my old computer is backed up to cloud with iDrive, so I should be okay, incase some file is missing for some strange reason.

I unplug all the devices hooked up to my old CPU, the keyboard, mouse, two monitors, a different external hard drive. I move the CPU out of the way, I move one of my monitors to the right and slide my new All-in-One monitor to fit between the two monitors. I look at the back of  the All-in-one and YIKES, I really don’t have two HDMI ports, because one is an IN and another an OUT. The IN is for hooking a game console up to the All-In-One, so I really only have one port. Thus, I only have a two-monitor setup, just like my old computer setup. After stomping my feet like a two-year old I call my brilliant son. I am now using this term very sarcastically; in case you can’t tell. He says I need an adapter for my USB-Type C port.

Long story short, all USB-Type C ports are not created equally. Even the clerk at BestBuy lead me down the wrong path. If you have a USB Type-C SuperSpeed port and DisplayPort connector then their suggestion would have worked. I had the first one shown below, I needed either, the third or fourth one, perhaps even the last one would had worked.

My solution: I purchased from Amazon, an USB 3.0 to HDMI Adapter that came with a software driver that I installed and was able to use with one of my USB-Type A ports to extend to my third monitor. Now I am a very happy customer.

Lessons learned; 1) I love having an All-In-One computer because under my desk is free for me to stretch out my feet, plus, my heating vent is located there too. 2) Understand what the ports on your computer are and what can be done with them.(see image below for the ports on my new computer) 3) Not all store clerks at BestBuy appear to know or care to know what they are doing. I was able to return the two items I purchased that didn’t work. 4) Don’t sweat the small stuff. If I hadn’t been able to get the third monitor to work, I still had a wonderful new computer.

Remember to have fun and Just do Genealogy!

DNA may not lie, But it sure is confusing

Example 1: I was watching a TV program about a woman who was going to give up her child to her sister who is unable to bear children. This got me thinking about the child’s DNA and how we might end up interpreting them.

Let’s say the Child has their DNA tested and they are the oldest generation living. Thus, what assumptions might we come up with from his test. If the child didn’t know they were adopted, would they figure out they were adopted.

His legal/adopted mother is the sister of his biological mother. Thus, his DNA results on his mother’s side would appear to be the same and no real unexpected results because his maternal side is the same with either mother. However, it may appear that his legal/adopted mother had an affair because his legal/adopted father’s family would not be showing in his DNA results. Also, what if his biological mother did not have any more children, thus we would not know that his legal/adopted mother is not his biological mother since neither woman had any additional children to find half siblings or descendants of those half siblings. Even if his biological father had additional children, this would not make his maternal DNA any clearer.

Moral of the story, even though DNA doesn’t lie, it might not be so straight forward. We need to always remember these outlying relationships and not judge our ancestors so quickly.

Example 2: I had a former co-worker who adopted her 1^st cousin’s child. Again, I was thinking about the Child’s DNA and how we might end up interpreting them. Her 1^st cousin’s mother and her mother are sisters. Again, let’s say the Child has their DNA tested and they are the oldest generation living and they don’t know they were adopted.

Let’s look at his legal/adopted mother’s DNA compared to his biological mother’s DNA. Both women share one set of grandparents through their maternal side of their family. Thus using the Leeds Method, we may find that the tester’s maternal grandmother’s side of the family matches correctly, however he has three grandparents that are not matching any known relatives, his father’s side (his father's parents), and his maternal grandfather’s side.

Thus, why might this happen? Did his mother have him with another man than his father? Did his grandmother have his mother with another man? The test might show that one branch, his maternal grandfather’s side appears to be matching his grandmother’s brother-in-law’s family. Did grandmother have an affair with her brother-in-law? See how easy it is to jump to the wrong conclusions. We need to test our theories.

This is where testing closer known relatives come in handy. Did his legal/adopted mother have any siblings who had children? If so, do these matches appear further away than expected. Did his biological mother have any other children and did they happen to test and are showing up as half-siblings. Did his biological mother have siblings who have children. If these people didn't test, we may need to seek out these types of relatives and ask them to test.

Moral of this story, again, DNA isn’t always straight forward. We need to let the DNA tell the story. Testing as many close relatives as we can helps us develop a clearer picture. Not only our maternal first cousins (in this case), but maybe his mother’s first cousins or their children (his 2^nd cousins).

A wonderful website to help with our confusing DNA matches is DNAPainter. Their Shared cM Project 4.0 tool has a handy chart to show where matches should fall into. In my 2^nd example, who we think should be his first cousins (children of his adopted mother's siblings) are really his 2^nd cousins and the shared DNA between 1C’s and 2C’s is very different.

Good luck in your DNA research and explore all the relationship possiblites to help in your DNA research!

Is your tree built out enough for your DNA Matches.

 Do you have that strange match that seems to match relatives on both your parents’ sides of the family?

You know your parents aren’t related but there is another reason.

Here is an example:

My maternal 1^st cousin twice removed, Fred married Ella Gorr. My paternal first cousin also married a Gorr. Ella’s parents are Albert Gorr and Emily Damp. They had a son Alvin Gorr. Alvin had a son Richard Gorr. Richard’s son married my paternal first cousin.

Thus my first cousin’s children with the son of Richard are also related to the descendants of Fred and Ella Gorr.  Ella is my first cousin’s son 2^nd Great Aunt. Her children are first cousins twice removed to said son. Ella’s grandchildren are 2^nd cousins once removed, while her great grandchildren are 3^rd cousins with my first cousin’s son.

I am third cousins of Ella’s grandchildren and 3^rd cousins once removed to her great grandchildren. Thus when looking at shared matches with my Paternal first cousin’s son, some of Fred and Ella’s descendants could end up on our shared matches list along with my expected matches from my Paternal side.

Moral of story, even though people say “DNA never lies” it can be confusing. Keep in mind that if all your 3^rd cousins did test, you might only match 90 percent of them. It is how DNA is passed down, very random.

I figured this all out because I had entered the spouses’ parents of people who married into my family. I recognized this name, however, even if I didn’t, I do all my entering in Family Tree maker, and whenever I enter a new surname, I can quickly see if that surname already exists in my Index. From there, I can do some quick research to see if those people are related to each other. This also helps with duplicate people. If I notice the same name already in my file, I do some extra research and see if in fact these are two different individuals or the same person and thus they need to be merged.

Happy New Year

 

Well, another year is almost over. I like to reflect on my genealogy research from this past year and I must say, I didn’t do as well as I liked. However, it could have been worst. I started the year with no workable office. I purchased a new home in September of 2020 it took awhile before I was ready to do a refresh on the space.

The office space wasn’t set up for my needs. The previous home owner’s had a large kitchen counter top in an L-shape that appeared to be a good working surface, but without getting into too much detail, wasn’t mounted properly on the wall. The electric in the room needed to be updated, along with added a heat source since my home is located in Wisconsin and the small space heater that I had wasn’t working. The flooring was okay but didn’t extend all the way to the walls and thus I tore that up and laid new flooring. It had wonderful built in bookshelves that needed to be painted but the trim work was lacking. Therefore, after several months, of painting, laying floor, having my husband put trim work up, replacing an entrance door for more light, removing a poorly constructed storage space, updating the lighting, adding a Heat source with A/C, I was finally ready to move in.

Unpacking gave me a chance to sort and organize my piles of messes. I ended up buying a second office chair when the first one (pictured), just didn’t feel right. Buying office furniture was a little difficult during COVID, because everything had to be ordered. My desk came with a broken work surface and I waited a few more months for a replacement.

Therefore, I might not have done a lot of research; I did still manage to start a project with my sister-in-law on her mother’s maiden name line. A family member started a family tree about 20 years ago and she was given the task to update her branch and I talked her into doing all the branches.

Now I am looking towards my genealogy goals for next year, since I really didn’t set any for last year. I want to get back to many projects that have been sitting on the shelf. I also decided to start a “Bullet Journal” to keep me on track with not only my genealogy projects but the many other things that round out my life. Gardening, canning, crocheting, home improvements, golfing, exercise, TV watching, writing blog post so on.

Good luck with your Genealogy Research and Goals for 2022 and I will do my best to keep to all my Goals for 2022. See ya in the New Year. 

Look before you Leap!

 

I have found that on any topic in genealogy, you will find people with their own perspective. This is great because you can weigh the pros and cons of how they are doing something. Then decide on the best method for you!

Such as, I recently saw a Facebook post that asked about using ALL CAPS for surnames. Another post asked about how to input unknown names, whether first or last name.

My advice is to think about the pros and cons for you on how you are going to input your data into your genealogy software. Another thing, be consistent. Make some personal rules when it comes to your data.

On the subject for ALL CAPS for surnames, yes this was the standard when we only had paper forms. I still do this when using a paper form, because it is easier to see the surnames. However, before you just start keying in ALL CAPS, check out your software program, can it convert surnames to ALL CAPS when it generates reports? If so, then you may not want to do it while inputting your data. Reading ALL CAPS on a computer screen is much different than on paper.

However, I have heard of other ways people use ALL CAPS on surnames. For their direct line ancestors only. It makes it easier to see them in the list of index of individuals. Again, can your software handle this in a different way? My software program can color code all my direct ancestors and I can see that color in the list of index and thus I can see my direct ancestors. This comes in handy when the descendants of your direct ancestor have the same name as your direct ancestor. So you are not sure which John Smith is your direct ancestor.  However, if you like seeing your direct line ancestor in ALL CAPS on a descendant reports, then color coding might not help you. Thus you might need to put in ALL CAPS. However, are you going to be sharing your data in the future as a book and thus your direct line will be in ALL CAPS? While your direct line may not be the exact same line as say your distant cousin.

Some use ALL CAPS to show someone they haven’t proven, they put the entire name in as all CAPS and thus they know at a glance they need to do more work. Once they have cited some sources, they change the name. Again, my genealogy software program allows me to color code individuals and thus I could always flag them as RED or whatever color I choose. Some use all lowercase for the surname of women where they don’t know their maiden name and thus type in their married name as all lowercase.

This brings me to unknown names; I heard a funny story where someone typed in UKN for unknown names. Someone else came upon this tree and got excited because the surname was found and it appeared to be UKN. I use to put in parentheses the wife’s married name when I didn’t know the maiden name. Unfortunately, when I looked at the list of individuals, those unknown maiden names didn’t jump out at me.

A genealogy standard is to use five underscores, I personally use seven because when I print a report, it leaves just enough space for me to print a name or allow other’s to print a name, if they know it. I use the seven for all unknown first names and seven for all unknown last names. These unknown surnames will show up at the top of my list of individuals.

For inquiring minds, the software program I use is Family Tree Maker, however many packages offer similar features. So explore your existing program and see what it can do for you. As the saying goes, “Work smarter not harder”. What I love about software programs such as FTM, it offers features that allow me to customize it for how I want to record my data. My advice is to “Think before you leap”. Try a small experimental tree and turn on and off features, look at reports you might want, see if you can customize reports so you can get the data you want. 

Have fun researching!

 

Family Tree Maker People Workspace

I was reading an older edition of Genealogy Do-Over by Thomas MacEntee, check out his website at https://genealogybargains.com/genealogy-do-over-start-here/. Anyway, I was reading about preparing for research and do you have everything on your desk, notebook, pen, pencil, etc…

This got me thinking about my genealogy software package that I use, Family Tree Maker. Do you have their People workspace set up for you? Did you know you can customize the view?

The People workspace has four parts. The left part is the Index of people in your tree. The right part is the Editing Panel for individual person you are working on. The middle part has a top tree viewer and the bottom has a family group view, where your individual person could be one of the parents or one of the children.

Let’s start with the right part, the Editing Panel.

The default setup on new trees is as follows, with a place to input birth, death and marriage facts. I found that I like to enter a little more information without having to go into the Person tab, where additional facts can be viewed, entered and modified.

I found myself wanting more, such as burial facts along with a customize field that I created for entering Find a Grave memorial numbers. I also created a FamilySearch Individual ID, for when I am working using Family Search. Plus, I wanted divorce information below the marriage information. I also have a special DNA field that I did a previous blog about. Check out that blog here: https://simplygenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/04/tracking-my-dna-matches.html

I found that having to go to the Person tab was adding extra keystrokes and since these are fields I commonly use, I wanted them on my main People workspace. You of course can add whatever fields you find are common for you. At the bottom of the right section is a small “Customize View” button that you can click to add or remove fields on your Screen. This needs to be done for each tree you create individually.

The Middle part of the page has the Tree Viewer on top. You can change how many generations you want to view, by sliding the small scroll bar or clicking the + or – to add or remove generations. The lowest setting is two generations and the highest setting is five generations. The size of your screen might dictate how many you want to see. I leave it at max.

The lower view known as the Family Group View can be completely hidden to make the tree view bigger. You can also slide the view up or down to change the number of children your view has. Again, your screen size might dictate how big you want this lower section.  Please note, if you side this up too far, you will automatically reduce the number of generations in your tree view.

Another important feature of the family panel is the Blended families button. I come from a blended family, my mother’s first husband died and I am a product of the second family. I want to see all my siblings, I call them my siblings, not my half-siblings because I am the youngest and they have always been in my home when I was growing up. In the blended view, it will display a little man figure if the child is a descendant of the male and a little female figure if the child is a descendant of the female. Therefore, when I am viewing my parents, my six half-siblings only have a female figure and my two full sisters have both figures.

The left side is the index of individuals in your tree. You can modify this view so many ways. By default you see everyone by surname and then given name. On the top, you can add birthdate to this view, lifespan, hints and more. On bottom, you can filter your database to show only those you meet a certain criteria. Maybe only those living during a certain time frame, have military service, buried in a cemetery, etc.… Keep in mind, your database must have the data you want to filter. For example, I have used the filter to show me everyone who has a death date but no Find a Grave memorial number. Keep in mind that the Find a Grave field is something I created. I could had used a death date but no burial information.

I love experimenting with my view, so don’t be afraid to customize your Family Tree Maker to work for you. Refer to the FTM Companion Guide found through the Help Menu. Other helpful sites are https://ftmuser.blogspot.com/by Russ Worthington and on Facebook the group Family Tree Maker Users found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/FamilyTreeMakerUsers.