Legacy News

How to create a 2011 birthday / anniversary calendar using Legacy Family Tree

With the new year approaching, why not resolve to be a better relative by remembering family birthdays and anniversaries? Two features of Legacy Family Tree makes this easy to do:

• Legacy's birthday and anniversary reminders described here.
• Legacy's Calendar Creator.

Legacy can create a birthday calendar, an anniversary calendar, or a combination of the two. There are options to include a cover picture, picture pages above each calendar month, and complete control over color, layout, shadows, fonts, page size, and more. The calendars can be blank or include the birthdates and anniversaries of the people already entered in your family file.

That's right! Because the information (birthdays and anniversaries) is already in your Legacy family file, Legacy will automatically add this to the calendar pages. With the who to include options, you can customize the calendar so only certain family lines are included. You even have the option to skip the anniversaries of divorced couples.

Get Started

To begin, make sure that you have installed Legacy Family Tree Deluxe Edition available here. Then follow these steps:

1. With Legacy open, click on the Reports icon in the main toolbar.
2. Click on the Books/Other tab, and click on the Calendar Creator button.
3. Using the options on the six tabs, customize the calendar to your preferences.
4. Print, and enjoy being the person in your family that never misses a birthday or anniversary!

Click on the picture below for an example:

 

Sharing Genealogy Electronically - watch the recorded webinar

Yesterday's (Tuesday, October 19, 2010) advanced Legacy class and webinar was the most fun I have had in years. As you know, we wanted to test and push the boundaries of genealogy technology to broadcast the class to the rest of the world - and it worked!

In Youngtown, Arizona, I taught the 3rd class of a 4 week Advanced Legacy Course to a classroom of 20 students. We were also able to broadcast the class live - to all of you - via our new webinar technology. For me, the best part of the class was taking your calls. We had callers from all over the world - France, England, Ohio and more. I wish you could have all been there personally to see the expressions on the faces of the students when they heard our first caller say, "Good evening" (it was about 11am our time). We soon found out she was calling from France.

We made history yesterday - broadcasting a genealogy and Legacy Family Tree class to a group of students and to hundreds of others from around the world. Thanks everyone for participating. I predict that this "experiment" will change genealogy education forever. Thanks to the West Valley Genealogy Society for letting us broadcast one of their workshops.

Watch the recorded class

If you could not make the live session, we invite you to watch its recording. Go to www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp. The class will be available for at least 30 days.

Upcoming webinars

We've got a great webinar schedule. Head over to www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp and sign up for as many as you want. And be sure to forward the link to other family and friends who may be interested in learning a little about genealogy and technology.

Legacy Mapping tip

In our first webinar, Mapping for Genealogists, there were more than 500 questions you submitted. For some reason, we couldn't answer them all....One of the questions came in from Frank, a long-time Legacy Family Tree user about Legacy's Mapping tools:

"Could a global functionality be added to the Master Location List allowing all of the GPS coordinates to be added at the touch of a button?"

Great question Frank. Frank's question has some big implications. First, your Master Location List is a list of all locations you have entered into your Legacy family file. If a location has been "geo-coded", when clicking on it in the list, its map will instantly be displayed (as long as the "Show Map" button is checked and you are connected to the Internet). See what it looks like below.

 

To access the Master Location List go to View > Master Lists > Location. If you have not previously geo-coded each location in the list, when you click on a location, Legacy will attempt to geo-code it for you. Frank asked if Legacy could automatically geo-code every location in the list without having to click on each one manually. Yes! Here's what you need to do:

1. Make sure that the "Show Map" option is turned on. Then click on the Geo-code button in the upper right.
2. Click on the second option: "Geo-code all un-resolved locations..."

 

At the end of the process there will probably be some locations with a question mark (?) in the "L" column (just to the right of the name of the location). This means that Legacy was unable to automatically geo-code that location. In these cases, click once on the location and you may be presented with a list of possible matches. Select the appropriate one and verify that the place is correctly plotted on the map.

Advanced tip: if, for some reason, the place on the map was not correctly plotted, just right-click on the map where the place should be, and Legacy will update the geo-code information. The map will then correctly be displayed in the future.

So, Frank, I hope this answers your question. We could probably do an hour webinar just on mapping....

Legacy Tip - Using the Advanced Set Living feature

"Intelli-Murder" was the name given to this new feature by our programmers. For some reason, they decided to rename it to "Advanced Set Living" before its release to the public. I can't imagine why....

Using Legacy Family Tree's Advanced Set Living feature will prevent problems like this (click on image to enlarge):

In Nathan Brown's pedigree chart, his 18th century parents are displayed as "Living". This happened for two reasons:

1. When these parents were typed into Legacy, they were entered without a birth or christening date, and without any death or burial information. Consequently, their Living Status was left as "Living". Normally, a person's living status is set when you type a new person's information. The process is automatic if their death or burial information is entered, or if their birth or christening date is more than 120 years ago. If no birth, christening, death, or burial information is entered, their status remains at the default Yes, if not changed to No.
2. Then, when I created this report, I turned on the option to "Suppress details for living people" and to "Change their name to 'Living'". This pedigree chart was displayed according to the options that I set.

It is an easy task to set the Living Status of a few individuals manually if you need to, but you may already have hundreds of individuals in your Legacy family file whose living status is marked as "yes" even though they lived hundreds of years ago.

This is where the "Advanced Set Living" feature comes in handy. This tool does an intelligent search through your entire family file looking for people that are older than the cutoff age, which is usually 120 years old. (This 120-year-parameter can be adjusted at Options > Customize > Data Entry tab > Presumed Dead section.) When someone of this age is found, it is assumed that all of their ancestors are older than that and that they are all dead. Legacy then sets their Living status to No as far back as the line goes from there, regardless of whether or not they have birth or christening dates.

Do you see now why the programmers wanted to call this feature Intelli-Murder?

To use the Advanced Set Living tool:

1. Go to Tools > Advanced Set Living.
2. Set the cutoff age at the desired level by either typing in the number or by using the up and down arrows.
3. Click Start. Legacy goes through your entire family file setting the Living status to No when it is determined that they are older than the age you specified. When finished, Legacy asks if you would like to see a list of all the people who had their Living status changed to No. You might be surprised by all the people you "killed" off.

So now it is your turn. Use this feature and then report back to us using the comments section below.

(No ancestors were killed, murdered, or otherwise harmed during the writing of this article.)

Legacy tip - using the Research Notes

Thanks to my use of Legacy Family Tree's Research Notes, today I had another Genealogy Happy Dance.

As you know, clicking on a person's Notes icon opens their Notes screen where three different tabs appear: General, Research, and Medical.

So what goes where and why? Many researchers use the General tab to record the biography of the ancestor. Others use it to build a person's timeline. Others just record random thoughts.

The Medical Notes is where the cause of death can be recorded, as well as any medical history for the individual.

The Research Notes, if used correctly, can be one of your greatest research tools. Let me explain.

I've researched Nathan R. Brown's family for a good number of years. But for some reason I've never been able to locate him in the 1870 U.S. census. Looking at Nathan's To Do List / Research Log, it looks like I first started searching for him in this census back in September 2000. I did locate a few Nathan Browns in Minnesota, where, according to his Chronology View, he should have been living. There was one particular entry of a Nathan Brown in Dakota County which looked promising, but ten years ago I did not have enough information to determine if this was the correct family.

So years went by, and every now and then I would perform new searches in the online indexes. This morning, as I searched for him again, I noticed that his Research Notes had a comment about a possible entry in the 1870 census. I must have written this comment almost ten years ago, but had not paid attention to it until today. Knowing what I know today about this family, the comment made a lot more sense. The entry in Dakota County sounded like it was the right family. However, searching the Ancestry.com's indexes provided no Nathan Brown entries in Dakota county. I switched over to the FamilySearch census records (no subscription required) and quickly found the family (another big thanks to the FamilySearch Indexing volunteers - the indexes always seem to be more accurate than others).

So...a seemingly random comment in his Research Notes helped me find the elusive record. Now on to more important uses of the Research Notes....

Have any of you ever been stuck on a research problem and asked someone else for help? What is the first thing your "consultant" asks of you? Usually they ask, "what records have you already looked at?" If you use the To Do List and the Research Notes, then it is easy for you to 1) provide a list of which records you have consulted (positive or negative findings), 2) explain what you learned from what you found and did not find, and 3) explain your conclusions. Your consultant then has a better idea of what to suggest. Maybe you overlooked a record, or made a wrong inference from a record. If you use the Research Notes to explain what you are researching, others are more well-equipped to assist your efforts.

Have you ever stepped away from your genealogy for more than a day? It's sad, but sometimes this happens to some of us. Sometimes we even neglect our research for months, even years. Or maybe you'll have so much fun on this year's Legacy Genealogy Cruise that when you return, you have no idea where you left off. If you use the Research Notes to explain what you are researching, then you, or anyone else can pick up where you left off.

In the example below, I typed what I wanted to learn in bold lettering. I wanted to know if Asa Brown had other siblings. Then, as I begin my research to answer the question, I explain what records I am looking at and what I learn from them. As other thoughts come to mind during the process, I write them down so I do not forget. In this case, I did prove that he had other siblings. If anyone questions my findings, I can quickly open his Research Notes for the explanation.

 
So...do not worry about not having used the Research Notes in the past. Start today. Pick an ancestor that you want to work on. At the top of their Research Notes, type your goal (Find John Smith's parents.) Then, record your progress. When you are stuck, copy/paste what you have into an email and send it to a friend to see if they have any ideas. When you find a person's parents, record here how you did it. Using a combination of the Research Notes, the To Do List, Legacy's Research Guidance, and especially Legacy's Chronology View will make you a better, more successful researcher.

Why do I have so many ancestors without sources?

Since "genealogy without documentation is mythology", or hearsay, why then do I have so many ancestors without sources?

I admit, when I was brand new in researching my ancestors, I was excited to find anything. I did not really care where it came from, nor did I record the citations. There's probably just a few of you that can relate. :)

It is simple to know when I have not recorded a source for a person. In Legacy Family Tree's Family View (see image below), just take a look at the Source icon. If it is black and white, there are no sources recorded for that person. If it is colorful, then you have added the source.

Legacy's Missing Sources tool makes it even easier for you to locate persons for whom you have not recorded the source. Access this tool by going to Search > Find > Missing Sources tab. Below is what the screen looks like (click to enlarge). In this example, I selected:

• Name
• Birth Date and Place
• Death Date and Place
• Burial Date and Place
• Marriage Date and Place
• and the option that "ALL of the selected fields must be missing sources for a match"

In other words, this will show me a list of persons where I am missing a source for each of these events.

After clicking on the Create List button, Legacy displayed a list of names that met these criteria. I then took a couple of anti-depressant pills.

Some of the people in the resulting Search List were my 13th cousins, five times removed. While I'm sure they were good people, I really wanted to see a list of my direct ancestors who did not have sources. To do this requires a couple of steps.

1) First create a list of your direct ancestors (great grandparents, great-great grandparents, etc.)

• Click on the Miscellaneous tab (just to the left of the Missing Sources tab) and click on the "View / Select Focus Group" button.
• Click on "Add an Individual and Ancestors", make sure that you are the selected person, and click OK. Click OK again.
• Click on the "Create List" button.

2) Now that you have filtered your list, let's just search these names for those without sources.

• With the Search List still open, click on the Search button, and click on Find.
• On the Missing Sources tab, make your selections.
• Before clicking on the Create List button, in the lower left, select "Only search the Search List".

 
The resulting Search list displays a list of your direct ancestors with no sources. Yikes! Hopefully you do not have too many in this list. If you do, you now know what you will be working on for the next few months. At any time this list can be printed, or better yet, you can "tag" everyone in this list for quick reference later on. (Watch a video on tagging here.)

Thankfully, none of my "Brown" family showed up in the list....

Legacy tip - How many of your relatives died in the Influenza Epidemic of 1918?

This morning I located the obituary for Herbert S. Harper who died in January 1919. The obituary stated that he died from influenza. His death was one of nearly 50 million who died as a result of the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 that swept the world.

I wondered how many others of my 23,017 person Legacy family file died in the same year. Using Legacy's Search tools, this was simple to learn.

Go to Search > Find > Detailed Search and enter the following conditions (click on image to enlarge). Then click the Create List button.

Legacy found 16 individuals that also died in the year 1919. Since the influenza epidemic began in 1918, I then searched for those in my family file who died in 1918 and added them to the list.

Go back to Search > Find > Detailed Search, change the year to 1918. Then in the lower left, change the option to "Add results to existing List".

After clicking on the Create List button, my Search Results grew to 46 (combination of persons who died in 1918 or 1919). About a quarter of those died under the age of 20. I don't know that all of these died from the flu, but now I have a nice list that I can print for further research.

How many of your relatives died in 1918 or 1919? Follow the steps above to find out.

For more about the 1918 Influenza Epidemic, including documents and photos, click here.
 

Technology Video Tip - how to add a citation to a digital image

At our local genealogy society, I get to teach a four-week beginner's course on using Legacy. At the beginning of each class I present some kind of technology tip. This week I demonstrated how to add a citation to a digital image.

In the video below (a partial recording of yesterday's class), I demonstrated first how to create the perfect citation (using Legacy's SourceWriter and the Source Clipboard) and then how to paste it into the digital image.

Watch the video here.

We previously wrote about this here with step-by-step instructions.

After viewing the video, does anyone else have other suggestions on how to preserve the source of a digital image? Comment below....

Legacy Tip - how to add a second set of parents (adopted, etc.)

Question from Tim:

"Can I use Legacy to trace more than one set of parents without creating two different family files?"

Our answer:

Yes Tim. Here's how...

First, notice in the image below (click to enlarge), that John Brown's parents are Charles and Sally Carter Brown. Let's assume that these are his biological parents.

To add a second set of parents (such as adding his adoptive parents) follow these steps:

 1) Click on John's "Parents" icon.

The "Parents of John Brown" screen appears. In the "Relationship to Father" and "Relationship to Mother" fields, you should enter how John is related to each parent.

2) Click on the "Add New Parents" button.

This adds the second set of parents (displayed as "Unknown & Unknown):

3) Click on "Unknown & Unknown", and then click on the "Add Father" button.
 
 

Add the information for the father and click Save. Do the same with the "Add Mother" button. Add her information and click Save.

4) Enter how John is related to the second set of parents in the "Relationship to Father/Mother" fields.

Done!

When you click on the Select button to return to the Family View, you'll notice that John's second set of parents appear above him, and John's Parents icon now has the number 2 next to it, indicating that he has two sets of parents. When you want to navigate between the parents, just click on this icon and select the other set of parents.

I think this should answer your question Tim. Do others have experience in researching/recording two sets of parents? Do you have other suggestions?
 

New Legacy-FamilySearch seminar now online

Those of you with access to "New FamilySearch" will want to view a seminar we presented last week in Mesa, Arizona. We recorded the seminar and published it online for you to view. The syllabus pages are also available for you to download.

The seminar, entitled "An Overview of Legacy Family Tree and its New FamilySearch Tools" was taught by Legacy's Geoff Rasmussen (that's me...) and was presented as a training session for LDS Family History Center consultants. It contains both an overview of working with Legacy and working with Legacy's new FamilySearch features.

We've also made the seminar's handouts available to download. The handouts are entitled:

• Legacy and New FamilySearch: an Overview
• Improving Your Use of FamilySearch: Data Cleanup Strategies

The seminar and handouts can be used for personal training or as a teaching tool for your next Family History Center training meeting.

To view the seminar, visit our Legacy-FamilySearch web page at http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/fs.asp and click on the 4th video in the "Video Tutorials" section.

By the way...this weekend we released an update to Legacy which added several Legacy-FS features and corrected various bugs that you've reported to us. We haven't made the "official" announcement yet though. Visit http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/RevisionHistory7.asp for the revision history or http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/DownloadUpdate.asp to download the update.