Legacy LVUG Community

This week's Tuesday's Tip is a short video - welcome to all our new members. Everyone, please share your genealogy plans for 2016 - I know mine include learning and sharing even more about using Legacy! https://youtu.be/X-xBSskcBFQ

I trust that everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family. If you are like me, you can just about muster the energy to type a little. I am doing so to let you know that I did it! I published a website over the holiday. I had lots of help from my son-in-law on the technical side, but I have to say that putting my information together with Legacy was much easier than I thought it would be. Now I await results on my mother's mother, always a bit of a mystery.

I am a new user of Legacy Family Tree. I am using shared events to record a census. I am having trouble with changing the event role of the primary person that the event is shared from. I would like to change the event role of the primary individual to Head of household, but can't seem to find the right screen. Has anyone else had this same issue? I'm sure it is just a matter of finding the right screen, but the help file does not appear to be helpful in this matter.

I have a large amount of info on a surname family (same surname as mine and same near areas and not a common name) which I have never been able to connect to.  I would like to put this info in a Legacy program but separately from mine.  How should I do this?  And how to access without problems.  YTNX

To all members of The Legacy Virtual Users' Group Community, My thanks for all of the answered questions throughout the year and my best wishes to all for a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season. And, of course, I am ending the year with a question.  I have a large database where I store all of my "unrelated" people with the same surname.  I would like to take a portion of that database and move it to a new one.  And I don't remember how to do it.  The Help Index is not very helpful I think because my brain is not in gear.   Any suggestions are most appreciated> Elizabeth

Photo by Mourad Saadi on Unsplash It is the Tuesday before Christmas and I am sure most of us are busy decorating, cooking or baking, picking folks up at the airport or train station, dealing with the children out of school, working an extra schedule that is not ours so someone else can travel for the holidays, watching the television specials, listening to holiday music , going to see Star Wars, or - for the lucky few - you have found time to work on your family history and you have your Legacy software open today (wow, I'm impressed!). Christmas is a time to be thankful (and give you a challenge - so please read through this lengthy post) Let me start by saying a huge thank you (1) to all the LVUG Community members who jump in and ask or answer questions (that is how we learn), (2) to those of you who joined us in 2015 (it is great to have new members to help share the knowledge), and (3) especially to my co-moderators who are always on the look out to welcome...

Hi All, Firstly a happy Christmas to everyone. Secondly, does anyone know how to search for source details which have (or don't have) media files attached? Here's what I am trying to achieve > I am planning a trip to a Record Office over the holidays and so am busy preparing my research plan. One of my aims is to view original parish record sources and get photos for records where I only have transcriptions eg from FamilySearch records. One of the ways I thought I could identify whether I have viewed an original record is by checking whether there is a media file attached to the source. I can do this manually but it would be great if the collective wisdom out there could suggest any short cuts - or other methods to do this. I know in future I could use the 'verified' flag or another tag to identify when I have seen an original source, but this is one of those things I wish I knew before I had entered thousands of records! Ah well, another one chalked ...

I must decide between Legacy and RootsMagic and would appreciate the advice of those with Legacy experience. Why have you opted for Legacy over RM? Also, I posted a similar question on a RM site. Several said that Legacy is built on an obsolete infrastructure, which spooked me. Can anyone speak to that charge? I really want to make the best choice. Thanks!

Hello, My apologies if this topic is addressed already and I missed it. I am one of the FTM users impacted by Ancestry's decision to discontinue desktop software. My FTM file is 15 years of research. My FTM workflow was to assign sources to individuals and facts. I also have a lot of media in my FTM tree. Some media items are linked to source citations and other media items are linked to people.  Is there a guide to converting from FTM 2014 to Legacy? Is there an area with any FAQ for individuals like myself that are evaluating options? Some examples of how my data is assembled in FTM are shown in the links below. Will this get unraveled if I attempt to shift to Legacy? Will I need to do a lot of manual fixing? Thank you!

Hi! I just joined your group and am a new Legacy user. I was using FTM and I figure I have a year to double-check and transition my information. I want to work hard to get all of my citations correct. I got a lot of information from my uncle, but he didn't cite any of his sources. Luckily, I'm finding out he's been correct on everything so far. I live in St. Louis, MO. I have been working on my genealogy research for about 12-13 years. My daughter works in the History and Genealogy department of St. Louis County Library, so I'm fortunate to have a personal assistant at the library!

Hi. I just came across this group and joined it. I purchased Legacy on Wednesday when I learned of the demise of FTM. I have been watching a lot of tutorials but am wondering if someone can help me with a couple of questions.  I have been researching my genealogy for about 12 years or so, maybe longer.  Like many others, I didn't site my sources as I should have. I am taking this opportunity to start fresh, double-check everything, and then enter all of my data correctly. I was wondering what to do with my photos. I have digital scans of many photos. I understand how to get my pictures into Legacy, but I don't see a way to enter a source citation.  Do I just type it in manually? What do you do?   Along those same lines, I have some original documents (like my birth certificate). I obviously own the document. How do I enter and source that?  Do I just upload the item. Do I consider all photos and documents that I have in my possession to be "artifact...

I mentioned that the folks at Legacy might be posting something to assist FTM users after the Ancestry/FTM notice from yesterday. First everyone needs to calm down. Second if someone is interested in learning how to move their data from one program to another, this post from Legacy is a good step in understanding the process. NOTE - we are an unaffiliated user group of Legacy users here at LVUG Community and we don't advertise, but consider this a genealogy service. Hope this helps those who might need it. http://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2015/12/update-on-the-family-tree-maker-announcement.html

Tuesday's Tip - Wow, some big news today that Ancestry is discontinuing Family Tree Maker effective at year end. They will continue to support it for a time but this is something I did not see coming. Now you might ask - so what, we use Legacy Family Tree . I think it is interesting because FTM was a pretty big player in the field and Ancestry is making a point to force the issue on having online trees by claiming that software is not the future of a genealogy management program. I think they are wrong - what do you think? I think this will mean that there will be mass migration from FTM to other programs and hope that it is not a painful experience for FTM users. I also think we need to continue to have our genealogy (cause it is about more than trees!) offline on our computers and backed up externally (think external hard drives) as well as parts or the whole of it in the cloud. Never, ever depend on someone else ( read a company) to keep track of your genealogy for you. ...

Could someone please explain the difference between 'Unrelated' and 'Spouses and Inlaws'. In Detailed Search there's only one qualifier; Equal To. Relationship Equal To 'Spouses and Inlaws' should be different than Relationship Equal To 'Unrelated'. But, it isn't. When I search for 'Unrelated' I get Inlaws. When I search for 'Unrelated' minus 'Spouses and Inlaws' I still get Inlaws. When I search for 'Spouses and Inlaws' I just get Spouses.

Once you create your note in Evernote : 1. Right click on note in Evernote and click Copy Note Link. 2. Open the Media Gallery by clicking on the image icon below your person ( you can also open the Media Gallery from within an event). 3. Click on Add Media and then Internet Website. 4. Paste link in Website URL and add any thing else. 5. Click OK and then double click to open. Note : Legacy opens your browser first for you to log in to Evernote on the web and then opens the desktop version of Evernote with you note visible. I know it looks like a lot but it is really easy. In the Media Gallery you can also attach documents. I have saved information to PDFs and attached them as well but I don't have to do that step now since Legacy will open an Evernote note. YAY!!

So the topic I really need to discuss is the handling of tabular format data within the Legacy environment. As you can see in the following images I have attempted to transcribe some tabular information into Legacy. Firstly I attempted to do it directly into a Notes field but the lack of word processor and table controls made this painful. I then tried it using MS Word with its table features ( Fig 2). However the result in the Note (Fig 3) is not WYSIWYG which made final formatting difficult to judge (see fig 4). The next attempt was in MS Notepad (fig 5) using the TAB key to format the columns. This was reasonably successful in both the Note field (Fig 6) and when used to produce a Report (Fig 7). BUT when I tried to do the same thing with the web format it all turned to ….. custard. (Fig 8) In short tabular data seems to be really harder than it should be. Thus my question: Is there an easier way, am I missing something? ...

Originally shared by Bob Thompson I haven't posted before so I hope this works. This question is not strictly about Legacy but about Google+. (Sorry Tessa) I wanted to look through all of the posts to see if the question I wanted to post had been asked and answered previously. And that's where I got stuck. How do you search through JUST the LVUG postings?

Tuesday's Tip - In answer to Elizabeth's question on putting a print date on reports - here are a few images to walk you through it. I think it is a good idea to include your publishing information - draft, unpublished, research, whatever, and include if you want to require permission to use. Be sure to click the box for including a print date (real helpful when you want to compare various versions). Hope that helps. (Google has changed the upload feature so hope this works right).

Hi Everyone! I am getting ready to re-issue some descendant reports and I am wondering if there is a way to put a print date somewhere.  I am starting to get confused about just when I last printed a report. Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Just for info. I submitted a trouble ticket recently that has now been confirmed as a bug and will be fixed in some future update. Merging or deleting individual records that share events with others can cause a record not found error and could crash with a run-time error - and continue to crash on reopening. It doesn't necessarily occur when the recipient of a shared event is merged or deleted - but it does when it's the primary person. Temporarily un-sharing is a workaround. In any event - back up your data before merging or deleting in these cases - not just a merge backup, but a full database backup and it's useful to check/repair and compact after the merge or delete. This may not occur every time - but you could be caught with an unworkable database if you aren't careful.

James Spencer I hope the screen shot makes it clear. Of the three smaller windows in the screenshot the bottom is the main reports window and in the bottom middle of the page you will see the Report Options button. Once you click on that you will get the middle window and clicking on Event Options will bring up the top one.

I submitted a trouble ticket several weeks ago and did not hear back, but maybe the problem is something I'm doing wrong. In Legacy, many events allow you to add information in addition to the standard sentence that is generated for a report.  For example, the immigration event for one person on a family tree I'm searching would generate this sentence based on the basic information I put into the fields for description, date and place: Richard immigrated on the S.S. Caledonia on 23 Apr 1911 to New York City. But I had more information, which I put in the Event Notes section, and I checked the "add events to the sentence"  which would append the following: The ship had departed Londonderry on 15 April 1911.  Richard was described as 26 years old, single, bricklayer, British.   The Events dialogue box shows the appended/combined sentence correctly, but none of the reports will include the Event Notes for any of the events (immigration, census, and many m...

I have 2 confessions to make: one is that I did not know that I could have my own website using Legacy - until I noticed that a site with an ancestor of mine in it was put together in Legacy. How did he do that, I wondered? I have since studied up on it, although I haven't actually created one yet. That brings me to Confession Two: the branch I want to put out there to help me solve a mystery is riddled with missing or partial sources! I have been working on getting things in order and some day...

And if any in our LVUG Community need another reason to join in the Great Thanksgiving Listen , watch this short video. I really wish I had my grandparents' voices on tape telling me any stories of their lives. How about you?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGCD1XR0WPk

Photo by Bewarekoof com official on Unsplash Tuesday's Tip - While it is important to get the names, dates and places, we all know it is about more than those bare facts. We have this passion for genealogy and family history because we want to learn more, share more, and leave more to our extended families . Whether you focus on your own immediate family, or have branched out to your extended family, or have taken a specialized study on board (a one-name study, a one-place study, a cemetery study or any one of the many other interesting and lesser-known studies) - it is all about asking questions, writing up those stories, and piecing together any one of those varied family puzzles. So how do you gather those stories? Where do you find those potential questions? When do you sit down with relatives and listen? Take advantage of the StoryCorps' Great Thanksgiving Listen (I love StoryCorps' mission and share it every year with our LVUG Community). StoryCorps rece...

This is directed to Shannon Thomas.  Shannon some time ago you wrote on here about having your Legacy program (I think you said) in Dropbox??  (It was one of those cloud storage things).  I'm wanting to do this too in the hope that I can send a link to my family so they can view only our family history.  How do I go about installing Legacy on Google Drive please?

Tuesday's Tip (on Wednesday) - Today is Veterans Day in the United States, and Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in many other countries. Today we honor and remember our veterans - those men and women who served or serve their country. This should not be a one-day thought and certainly not when we are actively engaged in war or conflicts.   While there are a number of ways to honor our veterans (listed below - and please share your ideas), shopping is not one them . Let's give this remembrance day the attention it deserves by: (1) attending services at cemeteries and memorials, (2) contacting your government representatives and reminding them that we owe a debt of honor for the contract entered into (they agreed to serve, we agreed to provide benefits) (3) photographing and transcribing a local memorial to add those names to an online database (4) visiting a veterans hospital and offering to provide assistance (there are many ways to help out - check out VAVS ...

How does everyone handle the information in wills and probate records?  Do you type the whole will in the source citation, the whole will in the details for the specific individual, or type it out and add it as a media attachment?

I guess Legacy does have its limits. It's being pulverized trying to import a 98MB Gedcom with 103,000 people in it.

Happy Halloween! Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash Hopefully you have had lots of trick or treaters visit your home, given out scads of candy, seen some great costumes, and had a great day. In addition to being Halloween, today is also the end of Family History Month in the USA.  This year we focused on how we do our genealogy, who we interact with, how we treat others online and in person, specific activities or tasks to spend 15 minutes (or more) and add to our Legacy family files. Hopefully you have added some information about yourself, your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and siblings to your Legacy family file. And it is not the cut and dried stuff (although those facts are important). I hope you got that interesting story, that fond memory, or that terrific family recipe. Adding that type of personal information now means it will be there for future generations. I hope you will take the time to record the voices of family members, get s sample of the...

Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash There is an old Yiddish proverb "Man plans and God laughs." No matter your belief system (god or gods, fate, karma, luck) yesterday I had the experience of plans going awry and I am sure someone was laughing. But first - a little background. I am a proud list maker . I learned this activity from watching my parents individually and collectively make lists. My father keeps his daily list in a small pocket notebook - he checks the items off as they are accomplished. My mother keeps hers on a clipboard with notebook paper where she keeps track of several things (cards to send, birthday calls to make, grocery shopping to do, bills to pay, social activities to calendar). I keep mine in a "bullet journal. "  My bright red journal has daily and weekly lists as well as my reading list, my ideas and  plans, quotes I find, reminders for projects due, expenses, sketches & room layouts (shopping), and random thoughts. 3 people, 3...

Photo by Hans Peter Gauster on Unsplash Are you a frustrated genealogist? There are some days when I feel like I am spinning my wheels. Perhaps it is that ancestor who refuses to be found (what is with that Peder?). Perhaps it is that  genealogy society I belong to that I only hear from when it is renewal time. Perhaps it is some of my genealogy friends online that take gentle digs at each other or constantly complain about everyone else but seem to think they are perfect. Perhaps it is tech glitch that fails to save the research summary I was working on  or won't let me into the webinar or hangout. Okay - you get the idea! On those days - and we all have them - what do you do? Well I focus on getting a little instant gratification from doing the tried and true things . (1) First take that breath and let that frustration roll off you back! Leave that renewal for another day and give some thought to not only want you get out of the organization but also what ...

I have just started a new tree in Legacy for a family member. I have noticed that things are not being sorted automatically by date. This includes events, marriages and sometimes children's birth order.  I have confirmed that all the boxes are ticked in the Global Settings/ 2.2 Data Entry options.  Any ideas?

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash Are you a healthy genealogist? I don't  know if you read the health news, but several articles have been written recently about the hours many of us spend sitting at our desks, working at our computers. Getting exercise every day is a good idea (and a 30 minute walk does wonders to clear your mind or work through a genealogy brick wall). Some additional tips: (1) Pay attention to the set-up of your work station - make sure your monitor and keyboard are at the correct height and viewing angle, and have a comfortable and supportive chair.  (2) Have enough lighting in the room (shades open and lighting that does not reflect at your monitor) and through your monitor  (I use f.lux to adjust my monitor). (3) Get up and MOVE - walk around, stretch, do some jumping jacks, do something else physical (get the mail, sort the laundry, yoga or meditation) - for a few minutes every single hour (take 5 every 55). (4) Give some th...

I'm not sure if this is appropriate for the Legacy Users Group but here goes. If you locate a citation from a book that you don't have access to, look it up on Worldcat.  Find a library that has the book and email the librarian there requesting scanned copies.  I did that twice recently and both librarians scanned the images and sent them to me at no charge. I did send a small donation to those libraries. Good luck!

Are you a "continuing education" type of genealogist? Photo by element5 digital on Unsplash Well then, you will want to take a look at the "improved and revamped" Legacy Family Tree Webinar website .  Debuting today, Geoff Rasmussen has been hard at work re-imagining the website so that it is even more user-friendly and gives a fresh feel to the speakers' section, the topics' section and pretty much everything else. As you know our LVUG Community here on Google+ is an unaffiliated Legacy User Group (not owned or operated by Legacy or its employees). But we love Legacy (most of the time, when all that tech is working right) and we enjoy sharing our tips and tricks, asking and answering questions about how we use Legacy, and just all around sharing the knowledge and news. And the revamped Legacy Webinar website is a very nice improvement indeed . Personally I like seeing the tiles or cards for the speakers and being able to flip them to see what ...

This is the last week of Family History Month here in the USA. So what have you been doing to celebrate in October ? Photo by Chris Gilbert on Unsplash Have you been attending any webinars? Did you attend NARA's virtual genealogy fair last week (if you missed it live, you can watch the recordings at their YouTube Channel)? Have you taken on a project for the month - whether that is cleaning up something in your Legacy family file or volunteering at a genealogy or historical society ? Are you busy working on your personal family history or perhaps a one-name study or a one-place study? Have you been following along here in the LVUG Community this month with the (mostly) daily prompts?  Today it is your turn - share what you have been doing during Family History Month with the rest of us (comment below). We still have a week left so if you haven't done anything special yet, why not close out the month with an activity or two.

I would like to know if there is a way to access past hangouts.  If I need to refresh my recollections or view ones I have missed.  Thanks in advance.

Let's give a little love and attention to our grandparents! Photo by Sven Mieke on Unsplash Did you know your grandparents? Are they still living? Did you live near them when you were growing up or was a visit to their home a big deal? Could you see family resemblances from grandparents to parents to either yourself or your siblings? What types of jobs did your grandparents have? Did you learn to cook (or any other life skills) from any of your grandparents? Did you stay overnight or visit during the summer months? What are your parents' memories of your grandparents as parents AND is that different from your memories of them as parents? Have you shared any of that information in your Legacy family file? Why not take 15 minutes today and tomorrow and write up your memories of your grandparents on either side of the family . Do it now before those memories dull because you definitely want the next generation to learn about these VIPs (very important people). ...

We have all heard that slang saying " Who's Your Daddy ? " It was a song by Toby Keith, it is a meme with the Star Wars films, and for genealogists and family historians, it is a question we ask and answer about everyone in our Legacy family file ! Since we discussed moms yesterday, it seems only fair that we give equal time to the dads, daddys, fathers, papas, or whatever we call our fathers. Yet again I am trying to open your Legacy family file and click through to your father's entry - the family view and the individual view (oh if wishing made it so). What would I find? Since I can't see your Legacy family file, I took a look at my own father's entries in my Legacy file. I have his birth, baptism, surname meaning, education, occupation, employment, military service, marriage, children, religious affiliation, and memberships in church and professional organizations. What am I missing ? Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash Well for starter...

Today is all about mothers! Photo by Dakota Corbin on Unsplash Whether you call her mom, momma, mother, or mum - let's focus our 15 minutes on our mothers . If I were to open your Legacy family file and click through to your mother's individual or family view, what would I find? Would I be able to see your mother (have you included images)? Would I be able to follow the timeline that is her life (have you added events large and small)? Would I walk away from the exercise with some sense of who she was, where and how she lived, her background, education, interests and hobbies, strongly held beliefs, her remembrances of her parents and grandparents, and/or her thoughts on her life at various stages? Of course (or at least I hope so) when we enter information about anyone in our Legacy family file, we include "the facts." You have (I hope) your mother's full name and the basic information. If your mother is still living, you have the opportunity to in...

I am curious how everyone handles media that they want to attach to a source.  For example, you have a source for a book and want to attach the book cover and inside copyright page to the source.

Are you an educated genealogist? Whether it is a seminar, a community college or university course, a conference, a podcast, an online course, a webinar, a hangout, an online or offline study group, a book, a journal, a worksheet or a handout - we genealogists have so many opportunities to learn and improve our skills . And in case you missed the news, we have a great opportunity to learn from our National Archives .  Over the next two days, our National Archives is hosting a virtual genealogy fair and you can join in and be part of the learning! Be sure to check out the sessions (streaming live and recorded for later viewing) and download the handouts . You can pick and choose what sessions work for you. It got started with an introduction to the two day event just over 45 minutes ago, so why not spend some quality time with our National Archives from the comfort of your home (or office or classroom)."  And be sure to check out our National Archives' website for a...

Photo by Pete Pedroza on Unsplash Are you a self-centered genealogist? Now I do recall that back on October 2nd I told you that it was all about you - but what I meant was that you need  to make sure to add all the pertinent information about yourself into your Legacy family file . Then the idea is to expand those rings of influence - to your parents, your siblings, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, and so on and so on! That should be enough to keep us all busy with our family history and our Legacy family file! And the same idea is true in the online genealogy community. Do you have a blog? Do you read others' blogs? Do you join Google+ communities, Facebook groups, Tweet about new finds, interesting activities, or great learning experiences? Do you attend webinars, on-line study groups, hangouts and the like? Are your activities online all about the genealogy community or are they all about you? I really enjoy reading about new tools and techno...

Are you an up-to-date genealogist? I know, I know - we are all busy. Sometimes that means we forget to update our browsers, our operating systems, our software or hardware, our apps, and our our calendars (just to name a few items). When we fail to update, we are often leaving ourselves open to security issues, or foregoing improvements or corrections.  In Legacy - it is a simple matter of going to the Home view and taking a look at Updates - you will quickly see if you are using the most recent version (or update to that version). The reasons for an update are varied - sometimes something has been fixed (yeah!), sometimes more research guidance has been added (double yeah!), and sometimes those Legacy folks sneak in something new! You can always find out why an update has been made and what is included by going to the Legacy website. For other software - check the About section, there is usually a "check for updates" tab. Microsoft puts out updates (you determine w...

Are you a safe genealogist? This is a follow-up to my post yesterday on people who join communities on Google+ or groups on Facebook.  We are all online sharing information with people that we know (sometimes we have met in "real" life and other times we know them from their blogs, vlogs, videos, meet-ups, hangouts and online courses). As always, we should exercise caution about who we chose to be friends with (or follow, or fan or what-have-you). Social media provides a way to get to know each other a bit better. Usually that is in the About section of your profile. Be sure to share your interests and research areas and perhaps some of the software you use. This is usually enough to help any of us determine that you are a genealogist or family historian. As to the folks I removed, I noticed that none of these people did anything but join and at some point post an advertisement or link. EVERYONE - make sure here in the LVUG Community and EVERYWHERE that you do not ...

Are you a participating genealogist? Today FindAGrave and Ancestry have teamed up for Community Day . Lots of genealogists will be out and about at cemeteries today - on their own, through meet-ups, as part of a planed genealogy or historical society event, or as part of a school or civic organization. What are we doing? We are gathering more photos and entries for FindAGrave's website . Last year on Community Day over 250,000 photos were added. Perhaps one of those photos helped you find an extended family member.  Whether you work on your own or as part of a group, why not "pay it forward" and add some photos to FindAGrave (or BillionGraves, or any other tombstone or cemetery website). We all benefit when we join together to add to these online databases. Today I am returning to my local cemetery to gather photos in the Guardian Angels section (all those infants). And I have certainly benefited from FindAGrave as I have 579 entries in my Legacy family file cou...

FYI - You may have noticed a slight decrease in our numbers recently. I went in this morning when I saw a few questionable posts (advertisements, links to websites) Most were caught by Google (thanks) but a few got through. I went in and removed the "members" from our LVUG community and their off topic posts. These individuals had nothing in their About section to indicate an interest in genealogy in general or Legacy in particular. We have this happen so rarely that we like to keep membership open to all (unless and until you prove to be a spammer or similar annoyance). Thanks

Has anyone else done the Ancestry DNA?  I did and I'm not sure what to do with some of the results.   The DNA test shows that I have 2 potential ancestors that are not in my family tree.  Locations are good and I have multiple DNA matches with their descendants - but I have never seen these names in my research. All advice is more than welcomed!

I've lost where you can remove baptism/christening from the main data entry screen.  Help please!

Are you a prepared genealogist? This morning was another lovely crisp Autumn day in the Pacific Northwest and so I decided to visit the cemetery where my grandparents' graves are located. Today's visit was a bit different because I was hoping to speak with someone in the office and learn a bit more about the cemetery and what they might have available to visitors . Last week I went on their website and did a search for anyone with the surname Keough (with my spelling or Kehoe, Keogh or Kough). My search returned 27 hits. Thankfully the cemetery has a database with the names, burial dates, section, lot, and site. I entered the information in an Excel worksheet (I have mentioned how much I love Excel right?!) and then was able to group the burials by the named sections and lots. When you do that family connections just pop out. I jotted down a dozen questions on the back of the worksheet, brought a pen and my smarter-than-me phone and  set off on my morning walk (killing two...

I have a question related to shared events that arose in a different group's discussion.  I've been using these to share census residence events, baptism godparents, and funeral bereaved. But these, I've been told, are not captured by a Gedcom. I realize the Gedcom format is outdated and not keeping up with the times, but it is the only good way (that I know of) to transfer family files between people and programs.  What is your take on using shared events.  Am I shooting myself in the foot by using them.

Do you take advantage of the quality control built into Legacy? If you click on the Reports tab you can then click on Potential Problems Report . Whether you view the report on your screen or print it out to work with - you have a "fact checker" in Legacy. But as with any good automated fact checker, the user needs to provide the parameters before the fact checker can do its work . Legacy comes with some defaults built in but the user (that is YOU) can always change things up. You can work your way across the tabs in Potential Problems and choose what fits your situation AND choose the ages or numbers that work with your family. That is what I did (we have more than a few couples that started their families before they were married so that is one item I unchecked; we also have long-lived people so I bumped up the age for death to be a potential problem). Be sure to check out the various items and then run the report. I always run the report to my screen and then wor...

What do you do with personal stories and memories?  In a couple of my branches, I have very personal stories and reflections about people. Example:  "Opal was high strung, nervous and emotional.  The restrained and disciplined Eblen family culture and temperment would not have prepared Dad to understand such behavior."  This marriage ended in divorce.   Where do I record these things?  Even though the people are deceased, I somehow feel like I'm invading their privacy.   I know that there are people who would love to have these personal insights into someone in their tree - but I really don't know how to handle it. Help!

Photo by 2photo pots on Unsplash Are you having fun with your genealogy? For many of us our family history is a passion - it is the thing we turn to learn more about our families and extended families, it is an opportunity to figure out a puzzle, help someone else with their research, teach someone how to use a record set or research tool, or perhaps take a break from a demanding job or family! Hopefully we learn to pace ourselves so that we don't feel burdened or burn out on our research efforts. Are you enjoying yourself ? Great - keep at it! Are you beginning to feel overwhelmed or like what you are doing is a chore ? Then take a break! Guess what - those ancestors will still be there waiting for you after you have relaxed, recharged and are ready to reignite that fire. Personally I find that having a few different projects to work on keeps me from getting tunnel vision or getting burned out . I work on a one-name study (so if you have any Keoughs in your database...

Are you a contextual genealogist? Today is Columbus Day in the USA and for many generations it has been a holiday honoring Christopher Columbus for "discovering North America." It was always a big deal in the Italian-American community in the city where I grew up. In the more recent past, many have questioned how Columbus could have discovered something (a rather large continent) that had hundreds of different cultures thriving without the assistance of Europeans and had been visited by other explorers centuries before. Many native American cultures suffered greatly or were wiped out as a result of his "discovery." Whether you consider Columbus a mariner, an explorer, a national hero, or an imperialist depends on context (and perhaps your own background). As genealogists, we need to read and analyze the information we gather AND always keep in mind context . This includes peoples' beliefs and social structures, the laws and norms of the time, education, sci...