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November 30, 2006

New Scotland census indexes online for 1851 and 1861

More good news for Scotland researchers. Ancestry.com has just published indexes to the 1851 and 1861 censuses.

These records may contain information about the following: names, ages, occupations, relationships to head of the household, parish and county of birth (except foreign births, which give country only).

Access to the database is available to members with World Deluxe or UK Deluxe memberships. For more information, or to search these databases, click on the following links:

Search the 1851 Scotland census

Search the 1861 Scotland census

Search these censuses at ScotlandsPeople

These databases, and the linked images, are also available for a fee at ScotlandsPeople, the official government source of genealogical data for Scotland. For more information, or to search, click here.

Legacy's Research Guidance

Users of Legacy Family Tree Deluxe benefit from expert research guidance. Just click on the Research Guidance tab, select your goal, and Legacy will suggest sources to help you extend your pedigree. Guidance is available for Scottish researchers as well. In a future update, these two new census indexes will be included in the list of suggestions so you can automatically be linked to the indexes.

November 28, 2006

How to create a relationship report with more detail

Question from Ian:

In producing a relationship report is it possible to add their dates to the list of people? My problem is that if I produce a report of my relationships, thus:

Campbell, Colin . . . . . . . . . 2nd great-grandfather

Campbell, Colin . . . . . . . . . 3rd great-grandfather

It would be much better if I could produce:

Campbell, Colin (1817-1876) . . . 2nd great-grandfather

Campbell, Colin (1780-1850) . . . 3rd great-grandfather

Answer from Millennia:

Yours is a good question, Ian, and fortunately, Legacy's flexibility does allow such customization. But first, creating a Relationship Report produces a list of everyone's relationship to you. In order to use the report, you first must calculate the relationships. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. In the Family View, navigate to yourself, or the person to whom you want to calculate all the relationships.
  2. Click on the Tools menu, then click Set Relationships.

You'll notice now that above each person in the Family View the relationship is displayed. Now you are ready to create the report. To create the standard Relationship Report:

  1. Click on the Reports button in the main toolbar. Then click on the Books/Other tab, and click on the Relationships button. From here, choose your options, and Preview or Print the report.

Like Ian mentioned, this report only lists the name of the person, and the relationship of that person to the starting person. At the present, this report does not have the option to include the lifespans.

Create the report from the Name List

Creating a custom report from the Name List will create the report you desire. Follow these step-by-step instructions:

  1. Click on the Name List button in the main toolbar.
  2. Click on the Print button at the bottom.
  3. The Row 1 tab displays the fields that will print on the report. The Optional Fields at the bottom are customizable. Just click on the Customize button and select the Relationships field.
  4. Also select the Birth Date and Death Date fields.

You should end up with something similar to the following picture (click on it for a bigger picture). Finally, on the Options tab, change the title to something like "Relationships to your name."

Relation_2  

Now Print or Preview, and you have the customized relationship report.

November 27, 2006

Importing your genealogy into Legacy Family Tree

If your genealogy information is in another genealogy computer program, Legacy's Import feature makes it easy to transfer the information into Legacy Family Tree - you do not have to retype anything.

To import the information, it currently requires just two steps:

  1. Export the information from your old genealogy computer program into a GEDCOM file.
  2. Import the GEDCOM file into Legacy.

Step-by-step instructions for exporting your data.

Click here for simple step-by-step instructions for exporting your data from a number of genealogy computer programs. Once completed, you will have created a GEDCOM file, which can then be imported into Legacy.

Video - importing into Legacy.

Once you have created the GEDCOM file, the next step is to import it into Legacy. The Legacy for Beginners training video demonstrates how to import the GEDCOM. After clicking on the following link, click on the GEDCOM section. Click here for the video.

Tips and Tricks:

Did you know that the easiest way to import a GEDCOM file is to simply drag and drop it onto the Legacy icon which is on your desktop? When Legacy is closed, this will automatically launch the program and start the import process. This also works with PAF and Legacy files.

November 22, 2006

Behind the Name - the etymology and history of first names

Have you ever wondered what your ancestor's name meant, or where it came from? Maybe you are curious to learn about your own given name.

Mike Campbell has spent thousands of hours compiling information about more than 14,000 given names from almost 100 different cultures. His work is now available online for everyone to use.

The site is easy to use. I typed in the given name of one of my immigrant ancestors - Hans. Very quickly it explained that Hans is the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian short form of Johannes. My Hans did come from Denmark, and I was reminded to search for him using other forms of his name.

Behind the Name will also translate given names into other languages. It listed five translations for Hans, and again, gave me other ideas by which to search.

The site also contains namesakes, a glossary, name days, and message boards. Mike's list of sources is impressive and quite comprehensive. This site is one worth adding to your bookmarks.

Search for your names here.

November 20, 2006

See your ancestor in history

Do you have a "brick-wall" ancestor? Are you writing a history of an ancestral family? Do you want to know what was happening when your ancestor was alive? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Legacy Family Tree can help.

For years our family was stuck on Asa C. Brown's family. We knew that he moved from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, and eventually to Minnesota. It wasn't until we used Legacy's Chronology View that things started coming together.

Legacy's Chronology View arranges the known information about an ancestor into a timeline. The age is given for each event in the timeline. It suggested that Asa was married at the age of 39 and moved to Minnesota at the age of 64. Interesting, but not as exciting as the next part....

Historical Timelines

Legacy comes with a variety of historical timelines that can be automatically inserted/combined with an ancestor's timeline. We chose to include the Military timeline for Asa. This changed everything!

It showed that in 1812 the War of 1812 had begun. Asa's age was listed as 20 - a perfect age to have served. Just knowing this convinced us to begin looking for military records. We found a pension packet, which included actual letters that he wrote. He explained that the "C" in his middle name stood for Clark (his mother's maiden name) and that in 1848 his home was destroyed by fire. Now we knew why his family moved that year.

Looking at the historical timelines for his children, we saw that they were all of age to have served in the Civil War in America.

Writing your own biography?

These historical timelines bring life to our ancestors, but they can also help us write our own histories. One of the timelines included with Legacy shows all the major Inventions from the year 1023 to 1999. For instance, in 1868, J.P. Knight invented the traffic light. In 1929, Paul Galvin invented the car radio. Did you know that mobile phones were invented in 1947?

If you are stuck trying to come up with good ideas for your own history, simply select the Inventions timeline while viewing your information in Legacy's Chronology View. Legacy will display all the inventions that happened during your life. You might be surprised at how much has happened since your birth.

Download Legacy

If you do not yet have Legacy Family Tree, you can download the free, standard edition at http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com. However, the Chronology View is only available in the Deluxe edition.

Step-by-step instructions

Using Legacy's timeline feature is presented as a free video tip. Just click on the link below, and then click on the Timelines section. Click here for the video.

November 18, 2006

Moving Legacy Pictures from One Computer to Another

Making a multimedia backup and restoring it is the best way of moving multimedia files (pictures, sound and video files) attached to items in your family file from one computer to a second PC or laptop. Just backup your multimedia files on the first PC and restore them on the second.  In addition, if you send a Legacy family file or a GEDCOM file made for Legacy to another person, you will also need to send the pictures as a separate file and a multimedia backup is the recommended way to do this.

A regular family file backup does not include multimedia because Legacy does not embed multimedia files in the family file; rather it only links to where the original file is stored. These multimedia files must be backed up separately by clicking File on the menu bar and selecting Backup Multimedia Files from the file menu. You can backup to a writable CD, a jump drive or memory stick.  Alternately, when exiting Legacy, be sure to first backup your family file and then as a second step backup your multimedia files.  In addition, make sure that the multimedia backup file has a different name than your family file backup. If you use the same name the multimedia backup will overwrite your family file backup.

The Legacy program does not (yet) have a utility that will restore (unzip) a multimedia backup. As a result, multimedia backup file cannot be restored in Legacy the same way that a backed family file can.  However, if you have Windows XP or Vista, you only need to insert your backup disk or memory stick into the new or second pc and use the Extraction Wizard that comes with Windows or Vista.  Just browse to the backed up multimedia file and click on it with the RIGHT mouse button and then select Extract All from the popup menu.

The Extraction Wizard will open. Click on the Next button in the Extraction Wizard window.  In the next screen type C:\ as the directory where the pictures will be extracted and then click the Next button.

When restoring your multimedia files, extract them only to C:\ , where C is the letter of the drive where your multimedia files are kept. This ensures that picture and sound and paths will be preserved so that Legacy can find your files. If you extract to another location, Legacy won't be able to find the files because the extraction location is relative to the folder you select as the starting location.

If you don’t have Windows XP or Vista, then you will need a program like WinZip to restore your backed up multimedia files. Please visit http://www.WinZip.com to download a free copy of this program.

Please note: The multimedia backup file will only contain those pictures, sound and video clips attached to items within your Legacy family file. If you have additional images, etc. that are not attached, these will not be included, even though they may be located within the Pictures, Sounds and Videos subfolders within the Legacy folder on your hard drive. In addition, if you have more than one family file with attached multimedia files, these will have to be backed up separately.

Most people don’t add pictures, etc. as often as they add new people and data. You need to backup your multimedia files only when you have attached new images, etc. to your family file.

Be sure to get Legacy Family Tree Video Training Series - Volume 2, which contains the training CD: Picturing your Legacy: A Video Guide to Working with Digital Pictures in Legacy by visiting http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/Store/enter.html?target=../en-us/dept_3.html.

Additional information on backing up and restoring files and working with pictures in Legacy can be found at http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/tipsBackups.asp and http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/tipsMedia-Menu.asp.

November 17, 2006

Legacy cruise to Hawaii - airfare is cheap right now

If you've been thinking about joining us on our Legacy Cruise to Hawaii next year (2007), now might be the time to sign up. Hawaiian Air's outbound flights are cheaper right now than we have seen before.

To get a quote, visit http://www.hawaiianair.com, and use October 1, 2007 as the outbound flight date (the day the cruise is over).

For more information on our Legacy Cruise to Hawaii, please visit http://legacyfamilytree.com/CruiseInfo_2007.asp. Hope to see you there!

November 16, 2006

Learn about Irish research

Those of us with Irish research have learned that extending your pedigree in Ireland can be challenging. Thanks to Mike O'Laughlin, founder of the Irish Genealogical Foundation, Irish research just got a little easier.

He recently published a series of podcasts about Irish research. Podcasts are like radio shows, but you listen to them online, and they are archived. Their first 'podcasts' were created on audio cassettes in 1984. With the opening of the Irish Roots Cafe they will have a great variety of topics and interviews.

Best of all, many of the podcasts are free for everyone. The following podcasts are now available:

  • How to begin
  • Research in Ireland
  • Final Steps
  • Family Names
  • Immigration
  • Finding Records

Listen to the podcasts at http://www.irishroots.com/podcast.php.

November 10, 2006

NewsBank Launches GenealogyBank.com and America's GenealogyBank

NAPLES, Fla./Monday, October 30, 2006 — NewsBank, inc., one of the world's premier information providers, announced today the launch of GenealogyBank.com, a direct-to-consumer service, and America's GenealogyBank, a subscription service for libraries. Both provide researchers with unprecedented Web-based access to millions of the United States' core genealogical records from the 17th to the 21st centuries.

Available now exclusively through NewsBank, these comprehensive resources make it easy for genealogists to search and browse digital facsimiles of genealogies, obituaries, marriage notices, birth announcements, local histories, casualty lists, military documents and other primary and secondary sources. Offering historical content published over hundreds of years and modern records from all 50 states, both GenealogyBank.com and America's GenealogyBank include five core collections:

  • Historical Newspapers, 1690 to 1977—articles, obituaries, marriage notices, birth announcements and other items from over 500,000 issues of more than 1,300 titles; updated monthly
  • America's Obituaries, 1977 to the Present—over 22 million modern obituaries from more than 800 newspaper titles across all 50 states; updated daily
  • Historical Books, 1652 to 1900—the complete text of over 17,000 genealogies, biographies, funeral sermons, local histories and more from books, pamphlets and other publications; updated monthly
  • Historical Documents, 1789 to 1980—government and military records, casualty lists, widows' claims, pension requests and other items from the complete American State Papers and over 81,000 selected reports (more than 40%) from the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1903); updated monthly, with plans to complete content through 1930 by December 2007 and through 1980 by 2009
  • Social Security Death Index, 1937 to the Present—over 78 million unique records with enhanced data (including exact age and city, county and state information), which genealogists can easily copy and save to their files; updated weekly

"For the first time, GenealogyBank resources have consolidated tens of millions of valuable genealogy records from 1652 to the present in a single database," said NewsBank's Director of Genealogy Products, Thomas Jay Kemp. "The wealth of historical and genealogical content NewsBank has microfilmed and digitized over the past 60 years—much of which was prepared in cooperation with the American Antiquarian Society—is now fully searchable online, with new content being added every day."

"[GenealogyBank's] constantly-expanding content is remarkably varied, immensely useful and delightfully out-of-the-ordinary," said Joy Rich, M.L.S., Editor of Dorot: The Journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society. "GenealogyBank clearly was created and structured with the needs of genealogists at all levels of research in mind."

Researchers can gain unlimited access to GenealogyBank.com for $19.95 per month. For details on library subscriptions to America's GenealogyBank, contact your NewsBank representative. Visit www.newsbank.com/genealogists for more information on GenealogyBank.com or America's GenealogyBank.

About NewsBank, inc.
NewsBank has been one of the world’s premier information providers for more than 35 years. NewsBank serves publishers, public libraries, colleges and universities, schools, government and military libraries, genealogists, professionals and researchers worldwide. Through partnerships with leading publishers globally, NewsBank provides Web-based access to more than 2,000 newspaper titles, as well as newswires, broadcast transcripts, journals, periodicals and other publications. NewsBank also offers authoritative digital collections of historical documents, curriculum resources covering all subject areas and extensive media services for publishers. For more information, visit www.newsbank.com.

November 09, 2006

Millennia Corporation Releases New Genealogy Software for Danish Researchers

Surprise, Arizona, November 9, 2006 – Millennia Corporation, a leader in family history software, today announced the release of the Danish language edition of Legacy Family Tree.

The software, used by beginners and professionals to record, plan, and share their  family trees, is now the premier choice for Danish researchers.

“Until now, the choice for many genealogists has been Brother’s Keeper or Family Tree Maker,” wrote Lars J. Helbo in Alt om DATA (Everything about Data magazine). “The first has a rich set of functions and a perfect localization, but the user interface is not up to date. The latter has a modern user interface, but lacks a number of vital functions. If that was the dilemma, Legacy has the solution. Legacy simply combines Brother’s Keeper’s and Family Tree Maker’s strengths without their weaknesses.”

Key Features

  • user interface, reports, help files – all in Danish
  • Danish census forms from 1769-1950
  • Timelines of Danish history
  • checklist of suggested sources for Danish research
  • same excellent features as the regular edition including over 100 reports, To Do List, calendars, expert tips/advice, statistics, web site searches, and much more...

Pricing and Availability
Legacy Family Tree 6.0 - Danish Edition, is now available at http://www.legacydansk.com for US $29.95.

Other Languages
Legacy is also currently available in the following languages: English (Australia), English (Canada), English (United Kingdom), and English (USA)

Translation is in progress for the following languages: Afrikaans, Deutsch (German), Eesti (Estonian), Español (Spanish), Français (French), Italiano (Italian), Nederlands (Dutch), Norsk - Bokmål (Norwegian), Norsk - Nynorsk (Norwegian), Português (Brasil), Suomi (Finnish), and Svenska (Swedish).

More information about the translations is available at http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/InternationalLegacyVersions.asp

About Millennia Corporation
Founded in 1984, Millennia Corporation publishes the award-winning Legacy Family Tree genealogy software program, with headquarters in Surprise, Arizona. More information can be found at www.LegacyFamilyTree.com.

*** For the Danish edition of this press release, please click here.

November 06, 2006

Deleting entire branches of a tree

Question from Laura:

. . . I need to know if there is a way to delete a whole line, as in choosing a patriarch born about 1500 and then deleting all of the related ancestors to both parents.

Answer:

Yes, Legacy Family Tree makes this easy to do. Follow these steps:

1) First, tag the individuals that you wish to delete. (See the help file, manual, tagging video, or this article on tagging tips.)

2) Click on Tools > Advanced Deleting. Select the appropriate tag level (that you did in step 1 above), and click Apply. We also recommend that you select "Confirm each deletion" so you have more control over who is being deleted.

Legacy will then proceed to delete all the individuals that you have marked to delete.

Caution:

Before deleting entire trees, keep the following in mind. Perhaps you disproved someone's parentage. In other words, you learned that the parents that are currently linked to an ancestor in Legacy are not the real parents. Yes, you would probably want to permanently remove these parents from your ancestor.

However, be cautious if you are going to delete these parents, plus all of their ancestors. Even though the parents might be wrong, their ancestors may interlink with the ancestry of one of your other lines. If you deleted the parents and their entire ancestry, you could be deleting people that you should not. So before deleting an entire ancestry, verify that part of the ancestry does not link to another family line.

You might want to "unlink" the incorrect parents instead of deleting them. By so doing, you will still have easy reference to them in the future when you need their information to distinguish between other individuals of similar names.

November 03, 2006

Legacy is free for Family History Centers

For the past seven years we have offered a free copy of the deluxe edition of Legacy Family Tree to all Family History Centers.

If your local FHC does not yet have Legacy, please notify the center's director. They can request their copy at http://legacyfamilytree.com/fhc.asp or by calling our customer service line at 1-800-753-3453.

The Family History Department issued a letter to us, giving us permission to offer Legacy to their centers. Answers to many frequently asked questions are available at http://legacyfamilytree.com/fhc.asp.

November 02, 2006

Create a shareable CD for your family using Legacy Family Tree

You've worked hard to collect and document your family history. With Legacy Family Tree's new Create CD feature, you can now easily share your precious findings with others.

With a few simple clicks, you have the choice to include your ancestors' photographs, video clips, and even your Legacy family file. Pick from a pre-designed layout, and the software can even create buttons for your email address and favorite web site.

Best of all - the Create CD feature is available FREE to all users of Legacy. Here is an example of the resulting CD menu:

Pefree

Instructions

1) To create your CD, first open Legacy. Then click on the Create CD button in the main toolbar. (Make sure you have installed Legacy's latest update.) If you have not yet downloaded our free Create CD software (which is a special, free edition of our add-on software, Passage Express), Legacy will prompt you to first download and install it.

2) Next, decide if you want to include the entire Legacy family file, or create a subset of it. If you are creating a CD for the wife's side of the family, then select the "Create a Subset" option where you can then specify to only include her side.

3) Follow the steps to give your project a title, an author, and decide what you want to include on the CD.

4) Once the CD is designed, click on the Test Project link to see what the CD will actually look like when your family member inserts it into their computer.

5) When you are satisfied, click on the Publish button.

Just like that, you've created a family heirloom!

If you want to really customize the CD and pick from other layouts and designs, the deluxe edition of the CD-creation software, Passage Express, is also available. Learn more about it here.

November 01, 2006

Learn about German place names

Researchers of German ancestry have long relied upon Erich Uetrecht's gazetteer, Meyers Geographical and Commercial Gazetteer of the German Empire (or Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-Lexikon des Deutschen Reichs). The gazetteer, compiled in 1912, contains information on more than 210,000 cities, towns, hamlets, villages, etc.

It may contain information about the following:

  • name of place
  • place type
  • name of state to which it belongs
  • government district
  • population
  • post office and other communications information
  • railroad information
  • courts
  • consulate
  • embassy
  • churches
  • schools
  • institutes
  • military
  • financial
  • business institutions
  • trades and industries
  • shipping traffic
  • local government services
  • dependent places

While the gazetteer provides valuable information about places, it can be difficult to use if German is not your first language. Fortunately, the Family History Library has published an excellent guide to working with the Meyers Gazetteer. Access their free guide here.

For years, the Meyers Gazetteer has only been available in book form. Ancestry recently published the series online. It can be viewed and searched here.

Legacy 7.0

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