Tuesday's Tip - Using search functions with PDFs and Excel.
There has been lots of talk recently (hangouts, posts, videos in the Google+sphere) about Excel workbooks and Google Spreadsheets (and of course csv or comma separated value sheets - basically the generic version) with genealogy. Some have discussed how they download information from the various websites (FamilySearch, Ancestry, FindMyPast, FreeBMD, etc.) and put that data into a csv file of choice. I have a couple of examples on my YouTube channel as well as a video with 20 tips for Excel. And we know (or should know) that Legacy allows us to perform advanced searches and serve up our results in text, pdf and/or csv files.
Oftentimes if we are acquiring data and not quite ready to put it into our family database file, a csv file is a good place for it. I use Excel workbooks for my specialized research and add a column to the workbook for my Legacy RIN and/or MRIN. That way I have a method of keeping track of individuals. I know others (Julie Goucher, Jill Ball and JL Beeken) have various methods as well. So are you putting your data downloads into csv files and/or are you saving your Legacy searches in csv files for further research?
Whatever you do REMEMBER that Legacy does give you the ability to save your search results to make additional research use of them. If you are willing to play with Legacy, you will be surprised how versatile it is!
Good point and good to know!
ReplyDeleteI don't really use spreadsheets in my genealogy. Occasionally I'll print out a report as a csv file but right now I can't remember why.
ReplyDeleteHere is what's strange/odd/interesting I use spreadsheets daily at work to understand "things", trends etc. However, when it comes to my research a spreadsheet is the last thing I use. Odd. I need to use them more.
ReplyDeleteI tend to tag my searches and work directly from a search list that way. I don't know about downloading research data into a spreadsheet. Sounds complicated to me. I was just working on a line where I was pasting records into Research notes for later.
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