General Chat

Greenfingers - how do you search the masses of information you have and make links with the results? Or don't you find the need to do that?

If you look at this thread I started here in General called "An Army connection but how?" you will see reams and reams of information. It has a hundred posts most of which contain names, dates, places. I want something that allows me to organise and search that information. I don't want the thread to be lost because the information that might not be useful now might be useful in two months time when something else pops up from somewhere that no one has thought of yet.

Thinking out loud again - I think I want a self-searching database !! Actually, this is what the GR Hot Matches thing does. I want to do it offline on my desktop.

Thank you Rollo. Heading over there now

rollo - OneNote looks tasty! Integration with Word I think, so what I put in Word I can link in one note and search and stuff.

One mystical thing I found. The http://www.4yourfamilystory.com/index.html blog is run by a lady surname Pointer - my great great grandfather's name is Pointer!

Police, spooks and advanced education are moving to large interactive whiteboards and technologies such as MS Surface table sized. They are ideal for family history but you need a bit of a wedge to buy one.

Even if you don't run to a digital whiteboard big screens are much better for FH. Tablets and smart phones are def not ideal.

I don't know why people go on using small screens eg 1440x900 and various 17in formats and even worse when it is now easy enough to get a 22in screen for under £ 150. A second hand 19in 1280x1024 screen can be found on eBay for under a tenner. All notebooks support a 2nd screen.

Hi Rose thanks for that, will have a go, have subscribed to Ancestry for several
years now and when I started there was only a couple of years delay in info, but
now a birth is 8 years ago, and that child can now be at primary school, its about
they brought things up to date, they charge enough.

F.

Hi Mick I save my family history in lots of different formats.
Tree on Ancestry (also backed up) and then also printed out ...and on the wall.

BMD certs. in folders for each family member,and with their info./pics. (as much as I can find) in separate folders.

Brothers Keeper programme that is great for having everything detailed in order and can be referenced or added to easily.

I have my own 'story' books for both sides of my family with snippets of interest/newspaper cuttings/ letters etc.etc.

Might not be everyone's way but it's mine and even though computers are great I still like to read my books and know they'll never crash :-D

Mick, if you want to keep the Army thread, copy and paste it into word.
It will be a lot of pages, but you could save it for ever, and print the pages off and compare/contrast different information :-)

maggie (who likes the info in her greasy paws!!)

When I drew out my tree by hand the wallpaper kept tearing. I bought a roll of good quality lining paper, (about £2.50), and found it much more durable.

Ancestry, Bright Solid etc cannot add updates for BMD from 2006 because the Registry Office has decided that it has no duty to provide the information to them.

As a result the only way to see GRO indexes from 2005 is to go to one of the centres which allows you to view the records.

Manchester City Library
Birmingham Central Library
Bridgend Reference and Information Library
Plymouth Central Library
City of Westminster Archives Centre
London Metropolitan Archives
The British Library*

It is not a funding issue as Ay and poss others have offered to pay to access the records. The likelihood of any change before 2016 is nil.

Thank you all for your kind input. I had a look at FTM but it seems it is a program for the presentation of all the data you have collected in an organised fashion. It might be useful when my tree is more or less complete where I do not have to search and find information that is scattered.

I might tinker with OneNote but the learning curve looks a bit steep.

This afternoon, using Word, I cut and paste all the records in GR, the posts in my two threads, and all the pm's I had with lots of info. I did no formatting or selection - just copied the lot. I have 42 pages of very raw data in Word and am messing around doing searches and updating my tree as I go.

It seems to be as good as I can get at the moment, with no time spent on learning how to use it. But you need to be very disciplined not to get sidetracked if you notice something else on the same screen. The only problem I can think of at the moment is all the info stays scattered. It never becomes organised in those pages. I am still wondering if Access is the answer but am aware each record is only as good as the info I put in.

Talking of screens - Rollo, I use a 24" and 22" monitor set up. I find it very useful when in Lightroom for photo editing. In GR I can have the tree on one monitor while perusing a census record on the other and enter the info I see without having to keep swapping back and forth. Very handy.