Tuesday's Tip - June is marriage month - get your marriages cleaned up in Legacy.
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| Photo by Beatriz Perez Moya on Unsplash |
The month of June is the favorite month for marriages (at least in the United States). How many marriages do you have in your Legacy database? I have 2,168 marriages. Now how many of those marriages have all the necessary information (spouse's name, date of marriage, place of marriage, source for your information)? How would you go about finding out about missing information (hint - the search feature).
I am taking a look at my marriages, and right away I have 55 individuals with an unknown spouse - so I know the first bit of research I am going to focus on! I plan to use the month of June to clean up my "marriages" information in Legacy.
How is your database in regard to marriages - all clean and tidy or could it use a little clean up? Why not share your marriage stats and tell us how you keep track of any work to be done in regard to marriages.
I have 5,684 marriages.
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention this. It's exactly what I've been working on most recently. I use the Missing Information or the Missing Sources tabs under Search to create a search list. Then I use Search Internet to go to FamilySearch. Fortunately, there are tons of available marriages records from North Carolina and that covers my mother's side.
Great JL Beeken I am one of those people who need to work a project rather than just random research. It works for me to tidy up areas of my database. You have lots of marriages and it is good to hear how you go about putting together your list. Thanks for sharing the steps.
ReplyDeleteI need to make better use of "projects." I find myself jumping all over the place and that often leads to a lot of wasted time.
ReplyDeleteShannon Thomas The specific searches in Legacy are really good for narrowing things down. I also use the Focus Group search quite often to only work on the Descendants of a particular end-of-line ancestor.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER, and this is big, the potential for sidetracking is always there. The other night on the phone Cuz and I got carried away with one person for about an hour. He did turn up a few new gravestones on Find A Grave (after I got the spelling right) but there's always that ah, Sigh moment realizing he's only a drop in the ocean of ancestors and never-ending questions. Truly, we could jump in anywhere.
I did use it for Pennsylvania Death Certs on Ancestry and it has worked out great so far. I printed my list and I do a few at a time but that usually leads me to looking for something else on a person because their death cert gave me some new info...lol. I think I do better when I have a list. I do love my lists! :)
ReplyDeleteJust wondering-- how is everyone finding out how many marriages they have? There is usually more than one way to do something in Legacy and I would like to learn from each of you Shannon Thomas Tessa Keough JL Beeken
ReplyDeleteMonique Riley It's on the Home tab, top right, where it says Statistics. I figure Families is the same as marriages. Also, if you go to the Marriage List it gives the same number at the top of the screen. P.S. It also includes people who did not marry but had children and possibly people who are marked as partners with no children. I don't have an example of that so I don't know for sure.
ReplyDeleteWe have several in my database that are unmarried partners and it does show up with families. I tend to focus on a group at a time (otherwise I get distracted with all the records rather than a particular set). So I will use the search feature to find marriages in a particular State within a time-frame (covered by the record set OR no time-frame), then I will usually ask for either the male or female so I am working with a marriage. In my options I will run the report for individual, spouse, marriage date and place (I usually run it alphabetically so I can work through my searches in a database). That is ONE way to do it - let's hear some others.
ReplyDeleteI've started focusing on group at a time. I use to jump all over the place and that was really confusing sometimes. I really like the search feature in Legacy. I recently did a search for marriages in Pennsylvania and then tagged them with tag #9. Now when I get some time I will search for tag #9 and work on a few of them at a time.
ReplyDeleteBecause I like to keep the descendant charts on my website updated, and there are about 40 of them, it's more satisfying to work on one at a time. So I will usually work within a Focus Group and then use other Search options to search within that Search list. (Button that says Only search the Search List.) For instance, using the Missing Information or Missing Sources tabs. I use tagging a lot to keep track of what I'm doing.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think I've already searched everything I can but FamilySearch and Find A Grave are always staying one step ahead.
Thanks, Tessa Keough Shannon Thomas JL Beeken for sharing. I initially thought the marriages would be the same as the number of families on the home page, but wasn't exactly sure if that would be accurate. I have never used the Marriage List- so that was new to me. I also make heavy use of the Search feature to create a group and tag. Love that! Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteIf you are researching the area where you live, your Family History Center might have microfilm of marriage records for your local area. I know mine has records for the county where I live and for the neighboring county. Using microfilm is still sometimes necessary, not everything is online.
ReplyDeleteMarla Larson this is definitely true - the vast majority of things are not online. I did use MOMs though (as well as Minnesota Archives - for possible births and deaths information) online and then went to the Archives to find the microfilm of the actual certificates and the newspaper articles. Went to the Country historical associations to find the marriage records. This is a dance of online and offline research. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteJust trying to squeak in a marriage related question in June. Why is it that when I put in a marriage source, extra events (e.g.,did not marry, had no children) appear? All I want at that point is the one event, Marriage.
ReplyDeleteStacy Goddard not sure I follow - first are you using version 7.5 or 8.0 and you have entered an event (marriage) and sourced it and it brings up WHERE extra events? Are you seeing a list in the sources by person or ... Thanks
ReplyDeleteUsing version 8. It's all these events (except for Marriage) that I don't want to automatically show up when I add the source.
ReplyDeleteI don't see my screen capture, did it not arrive?
ReplyDeleteNot sure if this is what you are talking about, but when you enter a marriage there are two boxes that can be checked. One box is "This couple did not marry." This box would be checked if the couple had children, but never married. The Second box is "This couple had no children." This box would be checked if the couple married but had not children.
ReplyDeleteThese two boxes are very helpful if the couple meet either of the two criteria but would be ignored if the couple married and had children. Hope this explanation helps.
if you want to use a screen capture (image) Stacy Goddard you need to start a post (little thing I wish Google would change here in communities). Why don't you do that so we can see what you mean. Thanks. And Marla Larson I get what you are saying but I don't think that Stacy has clicked on either of the boxes (I could be wrong - we shall see).
ReplyDeleteBut on the Assigned Sources screen, down the left side there are events listed that I did not enter.
ReplyDeleteThose are just Source options. There are no sources entered next to them, right? Look at the other Assigned Sources screen for the Individual. Same thing.
ReplyDeleteStacy Goddard Look on the Assigned Sources screen 2/3 of the way to the right, and 2/3 of the way down. There are the words, "Show All Events" with a box next to it. UNCHECK the box to only see the events that have an assigned source. This is actually the way I prefer mine to be. I don't like seeing all the "empty extra" events cluttering up the screen. I just like to see the ones that I have a source for. Hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteExcellent Monique Riley - I think that was the problem.
ReplyDeleteYes, it was! Thank you. I never noticed that little box before. I would have replied sooner, but I was out celebrating Canada Day with our neighbours.
ReplyDelete