Legacy News

Review of Legacy 7.0 by The Guild of One-Name Studies

The Journal of One-Name Studies, published by The Guild of One-Name Studies, has just published a review of Legacy Family Tree 7.0 (Jul-Sep 2008 edition). They kindly gave us permission to republish a text-only edition below.

Legacy Family Tree 7.0 by Keith Bage

Legacy users have been waiting for the arrival of Legacy 7 for some time. Originally promised for late 2007 it’s been a while coming, with delays sometimes causing frustration in the Legacy community. Version 7 features were shrouded in secrecy (understandably so), but now the wait is over and the Guild is amongst the first to receive a copy for review. So, has the wait been worth it?

Background
Legacy comes in two versions, Standard and Deluxe. The Standard version is completely free and can be downloaded from the Legacy website. The Standard version is great for the casual genealogist or for those who don’t require some of the more advanced functionality. However I think it is the Deluxe version with its rich feature set that would appeal more to Guild members, so I will be focusing on what’s new in Legacy 7 Deluxe.

Mapping
The first of the new version 7 features is mapping. Essentially Legacy 7 now incorporates the Microsoft Virtual Earth™ tool into Legacy 7. In order to use the mapping feature the user must have Internet Explorer 7 installed on their computer. Users should note that whilst this is needed for the mapping features, users can continue to use other browsers such as Firefox or Opera for general internet use.

The master location list has been completely revamped to incorporate mapping (which can be turned on or off). With mapping turned on a map is displayed of any location selected in the master list. Vitual Earth will automatically determine a push pin for the location and place it on the map. If for some reason Virtual Earth has incorrectly positioned the pin you can right click to determine your own placement for the pin.
The Virtual Earth interface enables you to pan and zoom the map as you wish. In addition there are a range of “views” available, including 2D, 3D, Road, Aerial & Birds Eye, with each showing the map from a different perspective.

Another welcome addition to the master location list is the ability to see a list of the people associated with each location. Having all this information contained in one screen is great.

The second (and probably the best) use of mapping is the ability to select an individual and display a map of all the individuals events. As well as the typical birth, marriage & death events you can also map any other recorded events or facts that include a location such as census, residences, military events and so on. In addition to the individual's events you can also include events for parents and children, though these are limited to birth and death events only. This is an extremely useful feature and helps to understand and appreciate an individual's movements or migration path. It would have been nice to be able to map ALL locations in your database to visualise in one map, but this is probably asking a little too much.

Users wanting to see this mapping feature in action or any of the other new features in Legacy 7 can view the “What’s New in Legacy 7” video at http://www.legacyfamilytree.net/videos/new7/What'sNewInLegacy7.html

Charting
One of Legacy’s biggest shortcomings in recent years has been the lack of a good charting package. Whilst it has scored highly on narrative reporting and other more textual based reports, many users felt it necessary to either export data into other packages or purchase add-on packages such as Legacy Charting Companion or Treedraw. With the release of Legacy 7 Millennia has added their own charting tool called Legacy Charting. This is actually a separate program which seamlessly integrates with the main Legacy 7 program. Whilst Legacy Charting comes as part of your version 7 purchase I understand that Millennia intends to also offer this as a stand alone program to users of other applications. By default it can import data from GEDCOM, PAF, FTM & Roots Magic as well as Legacy.

A wide range of chart types are available within Legacy Charting. There are 5 ancestor type charts, 2  descendant type charts and 4 DNA related charts (two for male, including carriers only and two for female lines). There are a further 4 fan type charts as well as an hourglass and bow tie chart. All in all a pretty comprehensive list.

The interface for Legacy Charting is completely different to that of Legacy 7 itself and effectively imitates Microsoft’s Office 2007 ribbon type interface for those of you familiar with it. It’s a very clean looking interface with functions sorted into appropriate tabs. All of the expected functions are here, zooming, dragging by entire tree, entire line, generation, box etc. There’s also the ability to add comment boxes, pictures, backgrounds and titles. Somewhat more unusual is the ability to create and assign themes. These can contain a combination of fonts, colours, box styles and line styles. One of my favourite features is that you can update Legacy with information while working on a chart and the changes can immediately be reflected in Legacy Charting at the press of a button without the need to recreate the chart.

Source Writer
I’ve always found Legacy to be pretty good at sourcing in previous versions however Millennia has seen fit to implement a new sourcing tool into the program called SourceWriter. SourceWriter walks you through a wizard to create both master sources and source detail. The wizard uses templates based around the Elizabeth Shown Mills book, Evidence Explained. The first step is to create a master source using one of the templates. There’s a good range of templates covering a host of areas including the more awkward ones such as e-mail and online resources. The only disappointment here is that the templates are a little too US centric and don’t include specific templates for UK census or civil registration. [Note from Millennia: the next update will include templates for UK civil registration and census records. :) ] You can get by on the more generic templates without too much trouble though and there are indications that further templates will be developed, though I would have preferred to see an option to create my own.
Once you have chosen the template to use you move onto step two which shows a raft of fields to complete based upon the chosen template. For instance choosing the e-mail template gives me sixteen possible entry fields from subject line, e-mail address & recorded date to writers & recipients cities. As you type data into each of the fields the source citation is built up on screen in real time showing differing previews for Footnote/Endnote, Subsequent citation & Bibliography. This makes it incredibly easy to see exactly how your source citation is going to look when output. The user can also add multimedia content, comments and citation overrides amongst other things.

Interview Center
Another new feature is the Interview Center. This is a tool to help you build an interview questionnaire and has hundreds of interview questions to choose from. Questions are displayed in a “file browser” type window grouped by topic with a checkbox besides each question. The user simply checks the required questions and outputs the report. This formulates the chosen questions into a structured output to be used when carrying out interviews with relatives.

Other Features
There are a number of smaller improvements in Legacy 7 which the scope of this review can’t cover. These include a relationship calculator which can calculate the relationship between any two people and not only those connected through blood lines. Work has also been done to incorporate married names into the names index and reporting. This automatically adds an entry for all married females and reduces the need to create AKA’s. In addition, searching is now more powerful with the ability to search for individuals with missing data such as incomplete names, or missing births, deaths or sources. You can now also attach any kind of document including PDF’s, Word documents etc.

Conclusion
The addition of Legacy Charting makes Legacy a more complete package than before and I really struggle to think of any feature that other packages have that Legacy doesn’t. Millennia continue to impress me with their innovation with features such as the new integrated mapping. With such a rich feature set this software represents outstanding value at just $29.95.

Dreaming about genealogy

Last night I had a dream about genealogy. In this dream I learned that my great-grandfather was actually adopted. I never heard this before, and was anxious to research it further. He told me who his biological father was. I was excited to know the real name.

Somehow I knew that I was dreaming, and so I repeated the name over and over and over so when I woke up, I would remember it so I could further research it. I don't usually wake up in the middle of the night, but last night I did - several times. I'd wake up, repeat the biological father's name in my head several times, then go back to sleep.

Now that I'm awake and writing this article, I have no idea what the name was....My senses have also returned to me, and I know that he was not adopted. But what if he really was....

I also have a recurring dream of a family bible that I know contains the answers I've been searching for. As I bring the bible closer to my eyes so I can read the information on the "Births" page, all of the text goes blurry and I cannot read a thing. Oh how frustrating these dreams can be.

The solution. It is usually in the middle of the night when I am laying in bed thinking about how to solve a genealogy problem that an idea comes to me. Sometimes even in dreams. To ensure that you do not forget these potentially "inspired" ideas, make sure that your laptop is always on your nightstand, turned on, with Legacy's To Do List open. Simply create a new To Do task, enter the "inspired" information, click Save, and go back to sleep. You'll never forget that great idea when you wake up!

Does this only happen to me?

New Searching Tools in Legacy 7.0

With all of the excitement about the new SourceWriter, Wall Charting, and Mapping, I completely forgot about the new searching tools in Legacy 7.0. On our mailing list this morning, Mary L. reminded me when she wrote:

The beefed up search options are one of my favorite and most used new features. Far more robust than V6.

She's right. One of the "smaller" new additions in Legacy 7.0 is one of the more powerful new features.

First, to access the Searching tool, just click on the Search icon in the main toolbar. There are two new tabs: Missing Sources and Missing Information.

Search for Missing Sources
Using the new Missing Sources tab, Legacy will present you with a list of persons who do not have a source for a specific event. For example, if you wanted a list of everyone that does not have a source for their birth, just choose the "Birth Date and Place" option, then click on Create List. See the image below for other ways of searching for missing sources. Then, use Legacy 7.0's new SourceWriter to enter your citations according to the Evidence Explained standards.

Search for Missing Information
If you want a list of everyone for whom you do not yet have a death date, click on the new Missing Information tab, select "Death Date" and click Create List. The resulting list will display all persons who are missing a death date. There are lots of other choices on the Missing Information tab:

Detailed Search
Long-time Legacy users will love the fact that in the Where to Look column of the Detailed Search tab, we've added several new fields that can now be searched:

• Source - Citation
• Source - Master Source
• Child's surname
• Child's given name
• Spouse's surname
• Spouse's given name
• Mother's surname
• Mother's given name
• Father's surname
• Father's given name

We've also added a Contains parameter in the How To Look column for all date fields. In the past, if you wanted to create a list of all persons who were born in 1850, you had to use two conditions:

birth date - after - 1849

birth date - before - 1851

The new Contains parameter now eliminates the need for two conditions. You can now use:

birth date - contains - 1850

Happy Searching from everyone on the Legacy 7.0 development team!

Everton's Genealogical Helper - New Online Edition

LOGAN, Utah, June 12, 2008. Genealogy Online, Inc., publisher of Everton’s Genealogical Helper, today, announced the publication of the Genealogical Helper in an Online Edition. The Online Edition is an identical copy of the 176-page paper edition – complete with hotlinks to the hundreds of website addresses found therein.

Launch Date – The new Online Edition will launch on July 1 – simultaneous with the home delivery and newsstand date of the paper edition of the July-August issue.

Free Access – Subscribers to the traditional Genealogical Helper will have 100% FREE online access to the magazine – with no extra fees whatsoever. See http://www.everton.com for sign-up information.

Online Edition subscriptions – Everton’s Genealogical Helper, Online Edition, will sell for just $12.00 per year! That is only $2 per issue!  And it’s only $10.00 for subscriptions made before July 1 at http://www.everton.com or phone 1-800-443-6325.

Net Family History – An important feature of Everton’s Genealogical Helper is the magazine within a magazine entitled Net Family History. New information specific to using the Internet for genealogy is always found in this portion of the bimonthly publication. Extensive website reviews are always located here, as well as articles dealing with Internet-related activities.

Why an online edition? – Every issue of Everton’s Genealogical Helper now contains hundreds of website addresses. The Internet is where some of the most exciting genealogical resource advances are taking place, so it’s required that information about these resources be disseminated to the Helper’s thousands of readers in every issue. Everton’s Genealogical Helper, Online Edition, will allow readers to go from their paper edition to the hotlinked Online Edition and access any of the websites with just a keystroke or two – no more typing in those lengthy website addresses! The Online Edition offers more than just the links found in the magazine – it is the entire magazine itself!

Format & hosting – Everton’s Genealogical Helper, Online Edition, will be in pdf format, readable by anyone, with any computer running an Adobe Acrobat Reader (Available at Adobe.com as a FREE download.) The Online Edition will be hosted by FamilyLink.com, Inc.

Why subscribe to the Genealogical Helper? – Subscribe to have access to the Helper’s how-to & historical articles, Net Family History (see above), genealogical sharing, extensive book and CD-ROM reviews & announcements, queries, the most complete event calendar available anywhere, and hundreds of ads detailing new products and services.  In addition to these day-to-day features, you will also have access to the NEW updated, hotlinked Directory of Genealogical and Historical Societies – to be published in the Sept/Oct and Nov-Dec issues! Edited by Leland K. Meitzler, the Helper is guaranteed to help you extend your lines and fill in those blanks in your family tree.

WHAT A DEAL! – Your cost for a full subscription (the paper magazine & online access both) is less than 3 cents per page – delivered to your home, and now accessible online. Subscribe to the Online Edition alone for just over a penny a page! Subscribe by July 1 and it’s less than a penny per page!

Subscribe NOW at: http://www.everton.com or phone 800-443-6325.

Pocket Genealogist adds support for Legacy Family Tree 7.0

Pocket Genealogist is the award winning leader in genealogy software for Windows Mobile based devices. Its latest update supports synchronization with Legacy Family Tree 7.0.

If you already have Pocket Genealogist, click here to download the latest update.

For more information on Pocket Genealogist, click here.

Legacy Charting - important update instructions

This message is important to read only if you at any time installed the pre-release edition of Legacy Charting AND you installed Legacy 7.

Important Update Instructions:

As you may know, Legacy Charting's Pre-Release Edition will expire on June 15, 2008. When you installed Legacy 7.0 Deluxe edition, Legacy was supposed to "override" the Pre-Release edition of Legacy Charting with the Deluxe edition of Legacy Charting. Well...it didn't. We've identified the small glitch and have corrected it.

Therefore, if you installed both the Pre-Release Edition of Legacy Charting AND you installed Legacy 7.0 Deluxe Edition, you will need to download a special update.

Before June 15

If you do this before June 15, all you need to do is open Legacy Charting, click on the Tips & Updates tab, and click on the button in the Updates section to download and install the new update.

June 15 or after

If you do this on or after June 15, when you try to run Legacy Charting, you will receive a message that directs you to the Legacy Charting website. There you will find a link to download the update.

Evidence Explained - PDF version - now available from the Legacy online store

Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence Explained is the definitive guide to the citation and analysis of historical sources, and is the perfect companion to Legacy Family Tree 7.0's new SourceWriter™. Now, for the first time, the electronic (PDF) version is available for purchase in the Legacy Online Store for just $24.95.

Its 885 pages:

• Covers all contemporary and electronic sources not discussed in traditional style manuals, including digital, audio, and video sources
• Explains citation principals and includes more than 1,000 citation models for virtually every source type
• Shows readers where to go to find their sources and how to describe them and evaluate them
• Teaches readers to separate facts from assertions and theory from proof in the evaluation of evidence

Most importantly Evidence Explained discusses source citations for every known class of records, including microfilm and microfiche, and records created by the new digital media:

• Websites
• Digital books and journals
• DVDs
• CDs
• Audio files
• Podcasts
• E-zines

BONUS OFFER: receive 20% off on a Footnote.com subscription with your purchase of Evidence Explained.

With Evidence Explained and Legacy 7's SourceWriter™, documenting your findings has never been more fun!

Legacy 7's Release - An Update

We want to update all of you on the status of Legacy 7's release. I, personally, finally have a few minutes to sit down and write this brief post. Like Ken mentioned in our last article, we've never had such an enormous response to the release of a new version of Legacy. The volume of orders required us to purchase many new computers and workstations, and hire about a dozen new people to help with order processing, email responses, telephone calls, and shipping. They've even needed my help!

Each morning I arrived at the office, at least 4 others had been there all night. They would continue to work throughout the next day, until we convinced them to at least take a nap. I'll just say that we've all experienced something we haven't experienced in a long time - the beautiful Arizona sunrise. Like Ken wrote, we thank all of you so much for supporting Millennia and our new Legacy 7.

Now, because of this success, we have been behind in responding to your emails and telephone calls. Here's where we are:

• All free upgrade orders have either been mailed or emailed. If you qualified for the free upgrade, and you have not yet received the email with the installation/unlock instructions, the first place to check is in your email program's spam/junk folder. The majority of the customers we have communicated with eventually found the email there. If you have not yet done it, please add CustomerService@LegacyFamilyTree.com to your email program's approved list.
• We are finally caught up with the voice mails you have left us. Thank you for your patience as we have worked down the list to call everyone back.
• New orders are now back to our usual same/next day processing and shipping. Most are mailed via USPS priority mail.
• We are not yet caught up with all of the emails. Last night we set up another workstation to help us get caught up. We hope to be caught up within the next few days.
• Finally, make sure that when you place your order, that you double-check your email address. In numerous cases, the reason the customer has not received the email from us is because the email address we have on file is off by a letter or two.

If for some reason you feel that you haven't yet received a response to us, please send us an email to CustomerService@LegacyFamilyTree.com or give us a call at 1-800-753-3453 or 1-623-444-8918 (outside the USA). If we don't answer, please leave a message and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

We thank you again for everyone's patience and for the great feedback we've had with Legacy 7. Yes, we've learned a lot along the way, and know we still have room for improvement. We will continue to do our best to bring you great genealogy software.

Thank you from Millennia

To All of you Awesome Legacy Users,

We would like to give thanks for everyone's support and patience as we worked to get Legacy released. We did have a plan which we felt was a great plan. However, even with all the extra people that we hired to help we have been totally overwhelmed. We have had very successful releases in the past and so we thought we knew what was coming. Boy did we underestimate things by a long, long ways. In the first 48 hours we have had 10 times more orders than with any other release. We have had a couple sales days that blow away anything we could have ever dreamed of. We have so many orders that we can't even process them. Things are fairly automated and can usually be done very quickly but we have so many orders coming in that they are stacking up everywhere. We have never seen anything like this before in our company's 25+ years of being in business. We have several people working the phones and several doing email all day long (literally 24 hours a day). All we can say is THANK YOU!!! Thanks to all of you for your purchases you have made! We really hope each of you enjoy the new features we have worked so hard to add to Legacy. You deserve the best and we hope we can continue to earn your support for many years to come.

Last night and this morning I was working on scrounging up computers from everywhere I could find and working on getting them added to our network and ordering system so we could add additional people to help out right now with all the extra orders. We hate to ask but if you don't have your order yet if you could be patient for a couple more days before calling. That might help us get things done a little quicker because we can have people working on getting the orders out instead of individually answering phone calls and emails.

Thanks for helping us experience such an overwhelmingly successful release of Legacy 7.0. All of you are so awesome with all you are doing to help each other out. Keep up the good work and we'll work hard to get your orders out to you quickly.

Wow! I had better get back to work :)

Thank you!

Ken McGinnis

Legacy Family Tree 7.0 Now Available

Millennia Corporation Releases New Genealogy Software - Legacy Family Tree 7.0

New version 7 Continues 10-Years of Innovation and Quality; Now Offers Wall Charts, Automated Mapping, SourceWriter and a Host of New Features

SURPRISE, Arizona, June 4, 2008. Millennia Corporation, a leader in family history software, today announced the release of Legacy Family Tree 7.0. The new release contains dozens of significant new features and enhancements, including the first-ever SourceWriter, automated family mapping, and brilliant wall charts.

In one software package, Legacy Family Tree 7.0 provides tools to help users record their family’s history, organize their pictures, perform their research, and share their findings.

“Legacy Family Tree 7.0 is truly the next generation of family history software,” said David Berdan, president of Millennia Corporation. “Its new SourceWriter, interactive satellite maps, and especially the incredible wall charting capabilities keep Legacy as the favorite for beginners and professionals alike.”

The following new and updated features add to Legacy’s list of robust capabilities:

• Mapping – Use Microsoft Virtual Earth to automatically pinpoint and plot important locations in ancestors’ lives from within Legacy. See 3-D, satellite and bird’s eye images of where your ancestors lived. Now it is easy to track your ancestor’s migration.
• Wall Charts – Experience the enjoyment of showing off your family tree by producing stunning full-color wall charts – ancestor, descendant, fan, hourglass, bow tie, and even DNA charts. Use them for your next family reunion or for a deserving wall in your home.
• SourceWriter – Cite your sources easily and correctly with the new SourceWriter. SourceWriter makes it simple for you to select the correct input screen so that you enter all the pieces needed to correctly cite any source of information in the thousands of formats that exist for them.  The information you enter is correctly and precisely formatted to match the genealogy industry standards for source citations when printing footnotes, endnotes, and bibliographies.  Multiple citations for an event can be combined into one paragraph, thus avoiding a long string of superscripted numbers within the report body.
• Interview Reports – Choose from over 1,200 carefully pre-written interview questions and memory triggers to help you capture your family’s memories before it is too late.
• Guided Setup Wizard – Getting started with Legacy is even easier now. The new guided setup wizard takes you by the hand and guides you through the setup process in an easy-to-understand way.
• New Relationship Calculator - See how any two people are connected, not only through direct blood relationships but also by marriage.  A person might be the "great-grandfather of the wife of your 2nd great-grandnephew.  You can also specify how many of these non-blood relationships you want to see.
• More Powerful Searching – Searching your Legacy data is easier than ever before. You can now search for individuals that are missing parts of names, birth or death information, marriage information and much more.  You can also search for missing source citations as you document your family files.
• Now Attach Any Document to Individuals and Marriages - Along with attaching pictures, sounds, and video to individuals, events, locations, and sources, you can now also attach any other kind of document (PDFs, Word files, etc.).
• Enhanced Backups - Legacy can now backup your family file and multimedia files at the same time, making it easier to transfer everything to another computer.
• Edit Records from the "Used By" Lists - All of the master lists in Legacy have an option to view the individuals who use the items in the list.  You can now edit those individuals right from the list instead of having to exit the list and edit them separately.
• Standardization Tips – New alerts will appear if something questionable has been entered in the Individual's Information screen. This helps users keep their data standardized.
• Privacy – enhanced privacy options ensure that only the information you want to share will be visible to others
• Best Fit Child Columns - The new Best Fit option in the Family View expands or contracts the child list columns to fit the number of children for the current couple.  No more trying to guess the optimum number of child columns.  Legacy does it for you.

Watch the What’s New Video at http://www.legacyfamilytree.net/videos/new7/What'sNewInLegacy7.html.

Pricing and Availability

Legacy 7.0 is now available at www.LegacyFamilyTree.com, for just US $29.95 for the download-only version or US $39.95 version which includes the 336-page printed user’s guide, installation CD, and beginner’s training video. Upgrade pricing is also available for current Legacy 6.0 Deluxe users. The free, Standard edition can also be downloaded from www.LegacyFamilyTree.com. Or call 1-800-753-3453. Legacy 7.0 is also set to be released in select retail stores this summer.

About Millennia Corporation

Millennia Corporation is located in Surprise, Arizona. The company strives to provide top-quality genealogy software so people can record and track their family history. It is also the publisher of Legacy News, an online newsletter bringing genealogists tips and tricks about genealogy (http://www.legacynews.typepad.com). For additional information on Millennia or the products they offer visit http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com.

Basic Handwriting Tip: The Long S

Deciphering old and faded handwriting is a common challenge for genealogists, especially for those just beginning their quest. Certain letters seem to have their twin counterparts, such as the capital S and L, the small t and c, or of the captial W and M.

The letter S is its own challenge, especially when there are two of the letter in a row. For example, to the untrained eye, the surname below looks like Crofs. The surname is actually Cross.

This is a typical example of the old style S, also known as the long S, the double S, or the long-tailed S. From Kip Sperry's Reading Early American Handwriting we learn that "the first s, or what is known as the leading s, was usually followed by a more regular looking or modern s." This style is seen in records through the middle of the nineteenth century.

When I was a beginner, I struggled to understand where Asa Clark Brown actually lived in 1840. The census seemed to show that he lived in Scrubgrafs Township:

This is another example of the leading s. Some other examples are:

Maps = Mass [Massachusetts]

Mifsouri = Missouri

Sufsana = Sussana

Additional helpful resources

• Deciphering old handwriting in genealogy
• Palaeography: reading old handwriting 1500-1800
• Palaeography - reading early writing
• Sperry, Kip. Reading Early American Handwriting. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1998

Why couldn't they have just used a computer in the 1500s? Sure would make our research a lot easier. :)

New records online for Germany, Mexico, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia

FamilySearch's Record Search is the hottest new thing in genealogy. Nearly every week new records are being made available at their pilot site for free searching.  Recently added or updated collections include:

Germany

• Baptisms 1700-1900
• Marriages 1700-1900

Mexico

• Baptisms 1700-1900
• Marriages 1700-1900

United States

• 1860 census
• 1880 census
• 1900 census
• Civil War Pension Index Cards
• Michigan Births 1867-1902
• Michigan Deaths 1867-1897
• Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates 1803-1915
• West Virginia Births 1853-1930
• West Virginia Deaths 1853-1970
• West Virginia Marriages 1853-1970

The availability of these records is possible in large part thanks to the efforts of volunteer indexers from around the world participating in the FamilySearchIndexing.com's project. FamilySearch recently announced that over 140,000 volunteers have signed up to participate. They are indexing records at a rate of nearly 400,000 new names per day. For more information, or to participate, visit www.FamilySearchIndexing.com.

Access the records by clicking here.

Beginner's Tip: How To Set A Quick-Bookmark

If you have ever clicked more than once to try to navigate back to your own screen, this tip is for you. Whether you are in the Family, Pedigree, Descendant, Chronology, or Index View, it should never take more than one click to return to yourself.

Here's a scenario. You're in the Family View, looking at your 9th great-grandfather. To navigate back to yourself, either you 1) click on his child enough times until you're finally back to yourself or 2) you switch to the Index View, locate yourself, and then go back to the Family View. If this sounds familiar, you will be happy to know there is a quicker way.

All you have to do is first navigate to yourself, then set a Quick-Bookmark.

To set the quick-bookmark, simply right-click in the blank area in the lower left of the screen (see image below). Just to the right of the small "1" numeral is a blank space. Right-clicking in this blank space will set a quick-bookmark for the currently highlighted person.

Once this is set, you can be viewing your 13th cousin, 4 times removed, and all you have to do to navigate back to yourself, is left-click once on your name in the quick-bookmark section.

 

In fact, you can set up to three quick-bookmarks. Just navigate to the desired person, then right-click in any of the three quick-bookmark sections. Then, to jump to a quick-bookmarked person, just click on their name.

To clear a quick-bookmark, while holding down the Ctrl key, right-click in the box you want to clear. The name disappears.

FamilySearch Teams with Footnote.com to Publish Historic Civil War Era Records

from FamilySearch.org 14 May 2008:

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—FamilySearch announced today its records access agreement with Footnote.com to publish two significant Civil War Era databases online—the 1860 U.S. Census and Civil War Pensions Index. The two relevant collections will provide free online access to millions of names of individuals from the 1860 to 1865 period in the United States. The completed databases will expand FamilySearch’s growing, free U.S. Census collection online and Footnote’s Civil War Collection.

The censuses and Civil War pension files are the most used collections of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The 1860 census provides a snapshot of families living during the Civil War Era. The index to the Civil War pension applications allows searchers to quickly see if a Civil War veteran or his widow applied for a pension—which can lead to rich family history information contained in the original pension document.

Under the agreement, FamilySearch will provide the digital images of the original documents for the 1860 U.S. Census, and Footnote.com will provide the indexes to both the 1860 U.S. Census and Civil War Pensions. FamilySearch plans to publish the indexes for both of these collections for free this year at FamilySearch.org. The images of the original documents will also be viewable at Footnote.com or accessed for free through the 4,500 FamilySearch family history centers located worldwide.

As segments of the collections are completed, users will be able to search them at http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch.

Civil War Pensions Index
Ten percent (3 million) of the U.S. population served or fought in the U.S. Civil War, and 2 percent (620,000) died—more American casualties than The American Revolutionary War, World War I, World War II, The War against Mexico, The War of 1812, and the Vietnam War combined. If soldiers or their families applied for a pension from the government, an index card for the pension application should exist.

The index also extends beyond the Civil War to include veterans who served between 1861 to 1917 in the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Boxer Rebellion, and the regular establishment.

Each card usually lists the soldier's full name, rank, company and regiment, when he enlisted and discharged, and provides a certificate number required to order a copy of the original pension application from NARA. The completed index will allow users to search on a name, or browse by state, arm of service (infantry, cavalry, militia, etc.), regiment, and company to locate individual records.

1860 U.S. Census
The 1860 U.S. Census index will allow users to quickly search the names of 31 million people captured on the census. Additional information includes the age, sex, color, place of birth, and marriage status. Slave schedules show the name of the slave owner, number of slaves owned, number of freed slaves, and the age, color, and gender of the slaves. The names of the slaves were not included in the 1860 Census.

“These record collections provide a valuable view of America during a critical time in its history,” said Russ Wilding, CEO of Footnote.com. “Together with the other Civil War documents on Footnote.com, visitors are able to piece together a picture of our history that few have seen before.”

Ransom Love, director of Strategic Relationships for FamilySearch, added, “Footnote is targeting U.S. historical records and building their Civil War Collection. FamilySearch wants to provide free indexes to all of the U.S. Censuses online. This joint project helps bring both companies closer to their respective goals.”

FamilySearch Engages FamilyLink.com to Add Features to Popular Online Family History Library Catalog

from FamilySearch.org 14 May 2008:

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—FamilySearch has teamed with FamilyLink.com, Inc. to improve the user experience of the Family History Library Catalog for millions of people worldwide by adding new Web 2.0 functionality and enhancements. The improvements will also enable users to spend research time more efficiently by directing them to the information that will generate the quickest results.

FamilyLink.com’s improvements to the catalog will make it searchable by major online search engines and allow users to annotate item descriptions—increasing their accuracy and enriching the content.

FamilySearch’s Family History Library Catalog is used extensively by genealogy enthusiasts. It is a window to the vast collection of genealogical resources amassed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the past 100 years—millions of microfilms, fiche, and books from 110+ countries throughout the world.

Genealogists use the popular online catalog to see if FamilySearch has any material that can help them in their research. Materials are then requested through one of FamilySearch’s 4,500 local family history centers worldwide.

“The enhancements FamilyLink.com will help make to the Family History Library Catalog will increase its usability and exposure. Beginners will find it particularly easier to navigate, and searching and browsing will be more rewarding,” said Paul Nauta, Manager of Public Affairs, FamilySearch.

Improved Searching
Upgrades to the Family History Library Catalog will allow it to be combed by the major Web search engines. That means Web searches done by millions of family history enthusiasts who may not have been familiar with the rich content of the Family History Library Catalog will now discover exciting new sources to assist them in their genealogy pursuits.

In a typical search of the Family History Library Catalog, users first identify known facts about a family and then go through a step-by-step process to locate records. Newly integrated FamilyLink.com tools will help users better identify information. Guided searches will help users decide what they want to learn about their families, point them to relevant records, help them obtain and search the records, provide clues to more information, and assist them with the application of the new information.

As part of the enhancement, FamilyLink.com will make searches more useful by allowing the user to browse, sort (by popularity, relevance, most used, etc.), and perform multiple searches. A new “probability engine” feature will calculate the likelihood that a particular source contains the desired item. It will also be able to search across someone’s entire family tree to determine which ancestry lines have the highest likelihood of success based on known sources.

“We are excited to work with FamilySearch and to add this extensive catalog to our database collections,” said Paul Allen, CEO, FamilyLink.com, Inc. “We have looked at doing this collaboration for quite a while. We will enhance the catalog by connecting it with new innovative tools, along with the best resources of our WorldVitalRecords.com databases, the FamilyLink.com social networking site, and our We’re Related application in Facebook. Putting all of these resources together will dramatically change the meaning of ‘search’ in genealogy.”

Social Networking
FamilyLink.com will also add an annotation feature that will encourage user contributions and make the catalog much more dynamic and current. Users will be able to add or suggest a new source, enhance an existing source by adding a place (location) or a time period, and rate and review a source based on its usefulness.

Another enhancement to the Family History Library Catalog will be its increased interactivity. Every entry in the catalog will link to an online or digital source, if available. The user will then be able to link directly to the publisher, buy the book, or search for the nearest copy.

“FamilySearch is excited to work with FamilyLink.com to enhance the Family History Library Catalog. They are leaders in the Social Networking space and will greatly enhance and extend the catalog and its usefulness to millions of people,” said Ransom Love, FamilySearch Director of Strategic Relations. “We hope this is the first of many other possible opportunities for FamilySearch to outsource key infrastructure components to innovative companies like FamilyLink.com. They will receive access to key resources to help them grow much quicker and FamilySearch’s assets will be upgraded and extended in return.”

“We know that search traffic will increase on both the FamilyLink services and FamilySearch’s site when users discover the new guided search tools,” said FamilyLink.com President David Lifferth. “Last month we had over 700,000 unique visitors and 8.5 million page views. We are predicting that these numbers will more than double after the first quarter of use.”