General Chat

Folks,

I have come late to the Family History party. It was something I was saving for my old age then I realised this WAS my old age!! :-D

I have two threads bubbling away, one in here, and one over in Find Ancestors. The information that is being put up is breathtaking in its scope. It is comprehensive and there are a thousand dates and names. Leads go off this way and that way, never to be mentioned again buried in pages of posts. I have tried to keep up putting stuff on my tree but I have been unlucky. I am too slow.

So I thought I would like to be able to manage all this information with ease; type in a name, or a date (for a census for example) and everything on that term would be found. I would like to do it offline too because then I could focus on the tree without having to keep looking for a post in five pages of posts where I am sure I saw something two days before.

Here is a message I sent to someone this afternoon and they replied that I should post on here because there are a few real IT gurus (you were named but I shan't embarrass you).

"I have this fabulous thread with a mountain of information and it occurred to me I would like to keep it because there is far more information in it than appears on my tree despite my best efforts.

How is this usually done? I am planning on 1) cutting and pasting every post into Word - this will give me a search facility as well or 2) creating a database in Access (which I have never used) or - what? "

What do other people do? Is there a program already just for this kind of thing? Or is Word or Access the answer?

mick

In an ideal world I like to make notes in the family tree programme on my PC and back up onto a memory stick.

I use word to paste info to be used later or write things in a notebook to refer to at a later date..............or put on my to do list.

In reality.......I have bits of paper with randon information all carefully put into the various surname drawers or folders. I back everything up when my son-in-law reminds me to.



Certificates are all in folders and I go through them periodically to see if any informants or witnesses are now identified. :-) :-) :-)

Thank you KTC. It sounds like a mix of hard copy and soft copy. I want it all soft copy that can be searched. I have been overwhelmed with information and I don't have a process for remembering it all. It's what pooters were built for! But How?

Myself I don't bother about putting a Tree on the computer, what I do is make
a note of all the information and put it on the reverse of a roll of wallpaper and
is up on the wall of the spare bedroom, covers one wall, is instant info for all the
family to see, is so easy to make a mistake and click on the wrong thing and lose
info, also can see the whole lot in one go instead of bits & pieces.

F.

You are the second person today to mention wallpaper and family records

I have the tree in GR on the puter. It wouldn't print out as big as a wallpaper job I suppose.

It's searching for stuff that appears in these posts that I want to be able to do.

I have my own tree on a wedsite, I also have a box I keep scribbled notes with dates and names sometimes underline that make no sense the morning after , this includes a log of information I have found, new papers cuttings my certs .

Try looking at the new "outlook" (replaces Hotmail).

You can put all your information, including documents on a "cloud".

The cloud will always be there, even if your computer dies.



:-D

:-D ;-)

See Mick, I'm not the only one with the wallpaper :-) lol

When I have a lot of online information to sift through and organise first I copy and paste to a word doc then transfer the facts to a spread sheet where they can be listed by category - ie personal names in first column, followed by place column, birth reg etc. It is then easy to move people around with their personal data. I also colour code each potential head of household and follow through their family groups for each census.

I keep a diagramatic family tree like most people but to keep all details of an individual I put them on a database as soon as I discover them. Microsoft Excel Worksheet is ideal.

Column A: surname; B: Other names; C: year of birth; D: place of birth;
E: Occupation; F: all other information.

If information is not available put "unknown". This is an example:


A: Bloggs. B: Joseph Charles. C: 1750. D: Midsomer Norton. E: Unknown

F: 2nd child of Henry & Martha Bloggs. Married to Ann Smith, (1751), (nee Brown); Father of James (1772); Daisy (1774); Louisa (1777); Henry (1780). Died in Midsomer Parva in 1823.


Use the A-Z facility on the worksheet to keep all individuals listed in alphabetical order by surname. When you look at the family tree and need details of an ancestor, it is a simple matter to scan down the spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet is virtually endless and on one document you can store the essential information of thousands of individuals.

PS. Don't forget to update it to a memory stick every week in case you have computer malfunction.

There are two programs which are ideal for keeping all sorts of information organised.

"Evernote" is free and runs on pretty well any operating system including smart phones. It can be synched across one or more computers inc the "cloud".

Microsoft "OneNote" is better. It is a component of some versions of MS Office and can be bought stand alone. S/hand versions are about £ 20. There are free versions of OneNote for Apple iOS, Android and MS "Surface" tablet. OneNote will back up to a cloud drive.

Using FTM it is easy to keep a quality version of a tree on the desktop whether you have a sub to Ancestry or not. FTM is good with media and phots and can import/export GED files. It is very easy to get a new older version for £ 8-20 from Maplin, Tesco etc. Many people dislike the last two editions anyway.

If you are really skint it is also ez to find FTM in torrent land but remember that piratez don't give away warez for nowt and tend to include malware.

There are various free document scanning programs which run on smart phones and tablets. These can be very useful when visiting record offices etc.

good luck

After reading all this the mind is boggleing, after 10years

I've only just mastered the ON/OFF switch.

F

:-D Frederick,

Mick, Rollo mentions FTM ( Family Tree Maker) some of the newer versions can be picked up at a reasonable price which include a 6 month Premium sub to Ancestry, ( Premium will give you access to London records) you could take a look on Ebay .

reverse side of a roll of wallpaper &sticky post ems.

lots of memory sticks,

Acid Free paper is a must.


CDs do deteriate over time,they get brittle.

Thank you for all the suggestions folks. I have the Office suite so OneNote is a possibility as is Word, and/or Excel. FTM I hadn't heard of but it's a possibility - thank you Rollo - I am a fan of torrentz ;-)

Scozz - a useful thought. Hadn't occurred to me to cloud it all.

To Island and Staffyknot - I use Excel for statistics, accounting, etc. whilst not that expert with it, it did kind of occur to me that a cell can carry one piece of info or many pieces of info. Staffy thank you for the 'How to...' step by step is what I need!

Rose - there's that wallpaper again!!

I have tried all sorts of ways to save my details, including wallpaper. My most enjoyable and easy to read is one page of A4 in Word with the parents and their children with every bit of information about one family at a time. The heading always starts with the Surname and Year of the marriage of the couple and I keep them in chronological order. I find its the quickest way to find my family even though I can click onto a couple of tree online. Downside might be if there was a fire but then I would use the computer to retrieve the info......jl

My experience is that I have a pad and do a rough family tree which I work from then type up a written one starting with as far back as I have gone, then i run that off and use as a rough way of adding other info. You can put down jobs etc against the person. Really helps me

Ah the wallpaper again (Janet). I can see the attraction. Everything writ and stuck large on a wall with everything before you - a bit like Sherlock and police incident rooms. Everyone coming in can see it, whereas on a puter screen, only the user would (usually). And you can just stare at the wallpaper record and see connections and lines of enquiry that might not have occurred before.

It certainly has its place because even with computer storage and search like HOLMES, the sticky on the wall or whiteboard is still used.

Do you use Word as a search facility or just as a place to store family details on each A4 (or more) sheet?

I'm thinking out loud here - when the Yorkshire ripper was being hunted he had apparently been stopped by police nine times (or his name had been recorded nine times for this or that). Only afterwards was this realised, and several lives might have been saved if a system had been in place that showed these nine records for the same man.

Now think about a family history search. There are births,marriages, deaths, censuses, military records, and many other records, where a person is likely to appear (like the Yorkshire ripper in lots of different records). They may have a link with this person or that address or an occupation, or a district or town and so on. I want something where I can put in a town name and up pops anyone in my family tree who has lived there. I know this can be done, I just don't know how or with what software. Not at the moment :-)

try here

http://www.4yourfamilystory.com/1/post/2012/05/more-onenote-features-to-rock-your-researching-world.html

or here

http://familyhistoryresearchuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/mobile-monday-microsoft-onenote.html

unless you are into biros spare rolls of wallpaper fax machines carbon copies rolodex filofax and such

Another thing you will discover doing FH is that microfiche still exists. Strange but true.