Analysis Tools

I created a family tree, with a tab for each of the names. Very handy for searching and trying to see where names might appear in more than one tab.

 

I only briefly looked at the Birthday Book as I was short of time. However I have learnt to record everything in Legacy as I go if I'm exploring possibilities. If the names are family related I don't even create a new tree as I got into a mess once with my Coopers by setting up a new tree and then I never knew which tree I'd updated the ones that proved to be family. So I merged the trees years ago and have never regretted it. Unconnected people or small groups do no harm. I've done some more work recently on the Coopers in the Sherborne area and been able to merge more individuals.

I don't always add a new individual. At the top of each branch of my tree I have a "person" named Research SURNAME who has the privacy setting "invisible". If I'm not sure where something fits, it goes there. If I stumble upon a person who may be related, for example because they share an unusual given name, I add an "Event" called Possible Relative.

I don't always add information to an event. If I'm not sure I've found the right person in a Census, instead of making a Census event for them, I put the details in their Research Notes.

However we all work differently. I once was deluged with family trees and family group sheets for one section of the family. It was only by carefully entering them into Legacy one by one that I became aware of discrepancies between them - different dates, children attached to different families etc. I couldn't have sorted them out without entering them into a database. But my friend in the same situation finds it difficult to enter things onto her computer until she's sorted it all out on paper. Where I end up with a mess that way, she ends up with clarity.

 

EVERNOTE: I've recently started using Evernote for other purposes. I wonder if it would be useful for family history for collecting and collating these bits and pieces? Does anyone use it? I'm really still experimenting and learning how it works. It's only this year that I've had a Smart Phone and being able to have something on different platforms automatically synced I thought should be useful.

 

When researching my family and in particular my one name study I simply enter every fact I come across into Family Tree Maker. It has a master index of every name in my tree, this makes it easier to see if at a later date I may actually have matching data. So for instance I enter a new marriage for an unknown Bisset male marrying a female, the certificate on Scotlands People will give him and her so I enter them along with marriage details. It will also give his parents with mother's maiden name and her parents with mothers maiden name so all that goes in and I have a small twig of 6 people as yet unconnected. I'll then either leave that and move on or do a little digging and try to find a relevant census to add children or find a marriage for the parents etc.

Often many months after adding a twig I find another snippet of info and expand that, occasionally the new information allows me to merge a couple of twigs into a bit more of a branch. These branches often then merge into more substantial branches. That said I still have plenty of unlinked individuals and twigs. I know a lot of them will be matches and indeed I have many candidate matches but as yet no proof. Its a bit like a big jigsaw puzzle adding extra little pieces of the puzzle you never know quite how they are going to fit but you note what you have and fit it later.

Leaving the data on bits of paper is the surest way to ensure you never match things up. One of the great things about having the data in a computer is that you can sort and search it so very easily. Something you just can't do if you have lots of bits of paper. However I do go a few stages further and have written a program to analyse my tree and do things like produce lists of things to search like a list of everyone in my tree alive on the 1881 census which I then look up and enter onto the Lost Cousins website and tag them as entered in my tree. The program also tracks who I've found on a census but haven't entered on the Lost Cousins site. So I have lists of people to enter on the site too. None of that would be possible without entering all the data I find onto the tree on my computer.

 

True. Things on pieces of paper are too easily lost or forgotten. Also, I found early on that it was easy to think that they said the same as another piece of paper until I came to enter them in the database.
Note that Legacy doesn't require you to write your own program search to find everyone on the 1881 census. It has a Census list search built in which can also omit people that you've already found.