Added new option: Under Account > Link Checker is a page that goes through all of the websites listed in your sources, and checks each to see if they still exist. Each will be listed out on the screen with a green (it is found) or pink (there was a problem) code indicating the status of that address. You can click the link to the website to test it yourself. Also provided is a link to edit the source -- so that if you can find a corrected address, you can update it right there. An update does not appear immediately, but it is saved.
If the same address is quoted multiple times, it is only listed once here, but a number appears after the "edit" link showing how many times it is used.
Note that this doesn't guarantee that the website still contains relevant information, but just that it is still accessible. Cleaning up any bad addresses will help you to maintain your data and others as they browse your data. Please check your website sources when you can get to it, and check again at least every few months.
For those of you who have had Y-DNA tests, or are working with relatives and their test resutls, the data here can now be integrated into the groups coming from the results. This is intended to pull together people who are as yet unlinked in the family tree but who are associated with other people in the same test results grouping, with the goal of helping to find the linkages in those as yet unrelated people. For example, see this example results page for the name BEASLEY: http://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/beasley/results
Each color grouping would be defined as a separate grouping here, and anyone testing into that group could be assigned to that group.
So several updates to enable this functionality:
Editing person: There is a new "DNA" tab at the top of the editing page. Note that this only works for males, as this is currently only applicable to the Y-DNA test. Here, select an existing group or add a new group.
Searching: In the list of searchable fields is a "DNA Group" option, listing all people assigned to a group.
Browsing: At the bottom of the main browsing page is a new tab for "DNA" which opens up a corresponding section to show the group that someone is in.
DNA Group page: Clicking the group link in the browse page goes to a new page showing the full details about the group, and all members assigned to that group, linking back to those pages.
All Groups: At the top of the individual group page is a link to the overall Y-DNA surname page, showing all groups for that name. Here is an example that I have setup for the BEASLEY name: http://www.gurganus.org/ourfamily/dna/group.cfm?surname=Beasley
All of this will soon be integrated into the online Help, and more examples will be setup. For those of you who have Y-DNA results, give it a try, and reply if it is helpful or if you have suggestions for improving it further.
An update for the pedigree chart: It still all the options it did before -- varaible number of generations, pictures, indicating researchers, etc. -- but one major enhancement is added: When clicking the arrows on the right to go to earlier generations, it now shows those generations directly on the current page. You can click as many of the arrows as you want, and even arrows expanding the newly shown branch. Not all will be able to show on the screen at the same time, but at least it's all shown together.
With each branch added, clicking the X button in the upper left of that branch will close it if you no longer want to see it.
Obviously I have not tested it with every possible pedigree on the site... so if you find any anomolies, let me know. If you have any questions or suggestions for further improvement, let me know!
Added a new option under "Feasibility Checks" -- "Birth after Death". For any manual data entry there may not be any as this is checked at that time. But if you have had gedcom data imported, this was not checked after import. So check it and correct as needed. Thanks.
I just corrected a bug that may have been preventing you from selected sources. If you were experiencing this, try again!
And remember, if there's anything that is not working like you think it should, let me know! I use the myself, but don't always see what you see. Thanks.
In the main editing page, hotkeys have been added for the Title (T), First Name (F), Last Name (L), and Suffix (X) fields -- so if the cursor is not where you want it to be, this may help get it there, rather than resorting to the mouse. To access the hotkey, hold down the "modifier" key (ALT or ALT+SHIFT on Windows -- see this page, or OPTION on Mac), and then the letter in ( ). The cursor should move there.
The corresponding letter is also shown as underlined in each label on the screen.
A couple of updates for the logic for displaying source links: When a source is a general Rootsweb page linking to the index of someone's database, like this below:
then when this link shows as a source, the ancestor's name will be added to the URL, so that the Rootsweb page is positioned at or near that ancestor's name in the index list. Thus you don't need to specify a direct URL for each person, but the link will still at least get close to their name... At least easier than searching for the name.
Similarly, if you use the "reference" field to specify a link to Wikipedia, and also specify the general wikipedia.com address as a source, then the link that displays will go directly to the URL from the reference field, in addition to the reference link itlself.
After getting a new laptop with a smaller screen, I saw that I had to scroll up and down too much on the main editing page. So I squeezed things together a little more to save space.
Though the data entry for place names is somewhat automated, in that you don't have to type the names of the country, state, county, and often not the city, it can still be time-consuming if you are repeating the same information over and over for successive records.
To aid in this, you can define ALT-Key combinations for places. Once you have selected a state / county / city combination that you plan to re-use frequently in later entries, press hold down the ALT key, and then a number 0 through 9. (Note: For Firefox users, see this related note.)
Then this place displays at the bottom of the page next to the number typed. For later entries, with the data entry focused on a blank place, just press ALT+Number again, and the place is repopulated with just the one key combination. You can keep up to 10 different places for re-use. These last only as long as your current session, and then are cleaned out.
Added are the options for you to define your own sets of data that you want to appear on your home dashboard page, and for you to remove content from the page. For example, if you want to see who else on the site has recently added or update people with a particular surname, or people in a certain county, you can. Then you're always up-to-date on anything you want to see, without having to go and search for it. For instructions....
You now have the option of re-arranging and / or resizing any of the boxes on the home dashboard page. Click the "Edit Layout" button at the top. The page refreshes to show lines around each box.
Click and drag any of the right or bottom borders to make a box larger or smaller. Note that some boxes have minimum sizes so that they remain functional. Any information that overflows the size of the box will automatically enable a scrollbar.
Click and drag any space inside the box that is not already clickable, and it will move to where you drag it to. Note that if you click something that links to another page, you lose any layout edits you may have done.
Continue moving and resizing until the information shows like you want it to show, and click "Save" at the top. If it's really messed up and you want to get back to the default layout, click "Reset".
In addition to giving you a lot of flexibility now, this makes it possible to add new optional features (coming soon) that you will be able to choose to add to your dashboard, and where to add them.
If you have feedback or suggestions on what else you would like to see here, reply!
A small change in the searching functionality: In the search page under Actions > Index, or when you are linking a relative from existing people, if you change the branch to a different one, it will remember what you change it to. It will thereafter continue to use that one as long as your session is active. I have found myself constantly re-selecting the same one, and it will save time to have this already selected.
On the main entry page just below the events is a place where you can quote an outside source that has biographical or historical information, currently just Wikipedia. You just copy & paste the latter part of the URL (click "more" for an example). This then appears as a button on the person's page, linking to the website. This can be expanded to include others if needed.
Added a new data entry field for occupation to enable easier searching and categorization. It is just below the dates and places. As the cursor enters the field, and as you type, below the field will appear a dropdown list containing all occupations defined across the whole website -- not just yours. Where possible select one that already exists or if needed type a new occupation.
Try to limit the field to only the occupation itself, and only one occupation. Any other notes and commentary should move to the general notes.
The occupation has been added to the search page as an option to search on, and a summary page under View > By Occupation.
Next to "twin", added is an option for "triplet". For both, it's assumd that you would mark each person who is a twin or triplet, and it would be obvious from their birth dates who they are twins or triplets with. When viewing the list of children for a family, these are seen by either the twin or triplet icons.
You can search for either on the search page by choosing "Flags" and then the "Twin" or "Triplet" option.
Under Account > My Account > Styles, added are a list of options that make it easy for you to change the colors and fonts that you and everyone else sees for your data. Trying to promote some individuality! Included as the preset styles are: Default (what most of you see now), Patriotic, Natural, Blues, Holidays, Spring. Even with these, you are still free to customize any of the colors and fonts yourself, with the other options on the same page.
So feel free to try it out, and if you don't like it, either go in and customize what you want to change, or just click the "Default" to bring it back.
When quoting a large website like Rootsweb or FamilySearch as a source, the system will no longer accept a general website address like "www.familysearch.org" -- either when defining a new source, or when selecting an existing one. But you will not need to modfiy the sources for any existing people.
Instead, use a more specific URL for the section of the website, or the "index" page of a researcher's database... for example: wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=jweber .... But you don't need to go as far as quoting unique URL's for each ancestor.
There are several reasons for this:
If you go back to lookup the source later, you won't know where on the website it was.
If someone else reads your information and wants to find more, they won't know where to go.
When quoting other online family trees, it's good to reference the specific researcher, so that they get the credit for their work.
And it just looks better, rather than quoting only "www.familysearch.org" as a source.
Added is the option to label sources with their degree of verifiability or reliability. Wherever sources show up, a color-code corresponding to this option will also appear, giving you and your readers a quick glance at how verifiable the sources are. Here are descriptions of the options, and the corresponding color codes.
99% Verifiable; Primary or direct evidence -- Knowledge of your immediate family, census records, wills, certificates, etc.
Probable; Secondary evidence -- Published works
Shared from other researchers, but solid work -- Researchers who do excellent work, to distinguish them from all other researchers quoted
Shared from other researchers, all others
Speculation; Questionable
Unreliable
I assigned default values for most of the existing sources based on the type and descriptions, and trying to make good guesses as to where they fall in the list. But you may want to peruse your sources and adjust where needed.
Added is a new page "Find Current Connections" under Account. This lists all people from your branch who are the children, spouses, or parents of other people maintained by other researchers. Without a list, it can be difficult to hunt around your names to find where they connect to other branches. The previous page "Find Connections", which points out possible new connections to other branches, has been renamed "Find New Connections".
In response to a recent complaint (see my earlier message board post), I've made a couple updates...
I have globally marked as "Living-Private" anyone born after 1920, and no date of death. This takes these people out of public display, and they only show up for you.
There is a new checkbox "Living-Public". For anyone born after 1920, and no date of death, one of these two checkboxes must be checked. So this makes it an explicit decision on your part, rather than an oversight.
If you want to see who you have marked as "Living" (either category), go to Actions > Index, add the option "Flags", and then choose the desired option from the list.
In the main browsing page, when browsing a person for whom you are the moderator, you may see a red pin next to the place. If so, this indicates that attempts have been made to plot this place on a map or find it in a gazetteer, but efforts have not found it. So it would be good to research this place to see if the state or county or spelling is incorrect, or if it should be changed to something else. Some may be legitimate, in cases where the place has ceased to exist, or it is not easily found (like someone's farm), but other cases may point you to data errors that can be corrected. More
Added are 2 new options for viewing the total counts for ancestors and descendants of any person. Browse to the person in question, and choose the options on the "His" or "Her" menus. This came out of a recent inquiry from someone wanting to see the total number of people on the site she's related to, given that her branch connects into many others already here. These pages will get part of the way there.
Added a new page, under Account > Researcher Directory. This shows all researchers on the site who have 25 or more people in their branch. With each are shown the date when they were last online, and their most frequent surnames.
The recently added color in the pedigree & descendant charts indicating the researcher is now changeable. Under Account > My Account > Styles is a field for "My Researcher Color". Click it, and then in the color picker window on the right, select a new color.
You may choose any color you like for yourself, but it's most helpful to try to pick something that's distinct from others that you frequently connect to, so there'll be a difference seen.
Just added an option under Account > My Account where you can choose to add the "Flags" options to list of fields you see in the search results. This includes the icons that indicate if someone is adopted, had no children, died early, never married, a twin, or is marked as living / private.
You don't want to add too much information to the search results as it may get too cluttered, but there may be times when you would want to add this temporarily.
In both the pedigree and descendant charts, added an option to show an additional border color based on who the primary researcher is for each person -- so in a quick glance, you can see which parts belong to you, vs those that belong to someone else. The colors are currently assigned randomly, but will be editable at some point.
If you don't want to see this, just uncheck the "Researchers" checkbox.
See these pedigree and descendant examples and then check the checkbox. Feed back welcome.
We've had a few US Presidents to be added recently, and they can be found here by searching on the title.
You may be related and not know it! If you have enough of your own ancestry entered, remember that you can find relationships between people using the "Relationship With" function....
I have updated the "Finding Connections" page (on the menu, under Account), to try to speed it up a little. It may still sometimes be slow, but it should at least be faster than before. This lists people from your data who are candidates for being linked to data from other researchers, matching their names, dates, and birth places.
The information posted by another reseacher is up for adoption, here: Michele Montgomery. Her email address has been bouncing back to me for over 6 months, and she hasn't logged into the site in 1.5 years.
So that the information she had continues to be updated and expanded, I'm offering to assign branches of her tree over to other researchers. Look through it and let me know if anyone would like to adopt any of it as your own.
I'm working on setting up a much revised searching setup, containing everything that's there now, but with even more flexibility for options not yet possible. Below is a sample screenshot.
Is there anything that you have wanted to search on, but can't? If so, reply here and I can make sure it's added in when this is ready in another month or two.
I see that there have been several gedcoms sent to me in the past few days. However, I'm on an extended vacation through about mid-August, and then it'll take me a while to dig through my backlog. So I can't get to them until then. I'll re-connect with anyone who sends me a gedcom at that point.
On the positive side, while on vacation I've been rumaging around through graveyards all over eastern MA and a few in Maine, and taking pictures of any gravestones that I see that I think might be online here, or related to people online here. So once I get back and sort through everything, they'll be posted.
I will be on back to back vacations from July through mid-August, and won't have much time for support questions. If you're a new-comer and have questions, post them here. If you're an old-timer and see a question, answer it!
Also, if you have ancestors or other relatives buried in CT, RI, MA, ME, NH, VT, eastern TN, the Outer Banks of NC, or southern Spain, and would like tombstone pictures, let me know! If it's not too far out of the way, I'd be glad to take some pictures for you.
On all map pages (countries, regions, states, and counties), added the option of filtering the data by century, making it possible to see the progression from one century to the next. All are also filterable by surname and by whose data you're looking at.
I'm setting up a new page with a USA Map that shows all counties for all US states (except for a few that are not yet setup), showing the breakdown of people by county, and with the options to filter for all data on the site, only your own data, only other people's data, and by surname. Other functionality to be added too. This is one reason why it is good to include the county where possible, to include your family here.
Tip: If the map does not fit your screen, use the browser's Zoom options (Firefox 3+, Internet Explorer 7+, and others) to make it larger or smaller.
Added the county map for Maine, added it to its regional map, added map for Spain, and added map for Western Europe, broken down by country and province.
Updated a couple of things related to searching places: (1) When searching for "place = (not blank)", corrected one case of when blank results didn't come up, and (2) When searching for "state / country = (not blank)", enabled the choices for the county / province "(blank)" or "(not blank)" -- so you can search for all where a state is defined, but a county is not.
On the US State page, added is the ability to browse all data, or only your own data, by a whole region of the US, with each state still broken down by county. This gives a great view of where the people are for many states at one time. More functionality will be added here, and more areas mapped out as time allows.
Did some updates on the Account > Find Connections page to explain the information clearer -- helping you to find connections from your information to information posted by other researchers. If you have not checked it out, maybe now's a good time!
I did a global search & replace to update cemetery abbreviations "Cem" and "Cem." to "Cemetery". This is primarily to aid search engines and people using search engines -- someone searching for cemetery data will be more likely to find your data.
This does not add much to data entry as all place names should come up in the dropdown list -- so you can just choose what's there.
One of the regular feasibility checks finds people whose were less than 10 at the time of their marriage, helping you to find and correct errors in the dates and relationships. As there may be rare legitimate cases of this, there is now a checkbox under "flags" for "marriage bef age 10". Checking the box will remove the person from the feasibility check. But only check it if you believe the information is correct -- not to just get them off the feasibility report.
On anyone's page where it shows their place of birth, death, or burial, clicking the event brings up a "More on this location" for those that are already mapped. For those that are not, this now brings up a choice "Add more on this location". This then gives you the options of entering a website specifically for that location, or latitude & longitude coordinates. When coordinates are defined, the page will display with a map.
In preparation for future menu items, there are now "His" and "Her" menus when on a person's Browse page. Each has the pedigree and descendant links related to the man or to the woman of the current page.
Added an account setting for you to see all US states spelled out, if you prefer. So if you can't remember the difference between MA, ME, MI, MO, MN, MS, and MT, this is for you!
Go to Account > My Account > What I See > Spell Out US States. This covers most places where states are shown, and the remaining will come soon.
Added the option for you to customize the list of fields that appear for the children of a family. Go to Account > My Account > What I See, and there at the bottom are options to choose the fields you see, and to re-order them.
Added event types for "Engagement" (for couples, rather than individuals), and "Emigrate" for individuals.
Note: "emigrate" is defined as "to leave one country or region to settle in another", and "immigrate" as "to enter and settle in a country or region". I leave it to you to determine which to use when.
On the descendant tree page, in cases where either person in the top couple has multiple spouses, there is added a choice to switch the tree to show the husband's descendants or the wife's descendants. Previously it wasn't possible to show all of the wife's at one time, if she had multiple husbands.
The method in which place names are stored has been updated behind-the-scenes to be more efficient. This doesn't change much in what you see, though this should provide even more responsiveness... But if you do notice anything that needs correcting, let me know.
Added a column for the date modified to the Account > "Find Connections" page -- so after a batch of data entry, I can use this to identify any of my new records as potential relatives of people in other researchers' data.
Added 3 new tutorial videos, on changing your color and font choices, on moving around the main browsing page, and on entering records using keyboard hotkeys. Go to Help > Account, Help > Browsing, and Help > Editing.
Activated a much revised method for entering place names. This should be faster, easier, and less prone to error all at the same time. This has been online for newer website users for some time, and this enables it for everyone.
An updated video tutorial is in the help. See it here...
Setup these message forum pages, giving you the option of posting your replies to these "What's New" posts, posting suggest feature additions and updates, and posting your success stories and your own suggestions based on your use of the website. Feel free to share your ideas!
Just a reminder that you can change the colors of what you see. If yours is like mine and has many links into other people's data, it would be helpful if the color changes when you make that jump, and it may help to give yours your own personal touch!
Happy New Year! Added a new page under Account > Find Connections for helping you to locate potential connections (ancestors and descenants) from your branch to other branches online here.
Added a new page per place, listing people from that place, a map showing the place, and the option of an embedded webpage with more information. Example1Example2
Added an optional choice of displaying the grave location in search results, and sorting by grave location. If helpful, add this under My Account > What I See.
Combined the "Add Source" and "Pick Source" buttons, to encourage searching & picking an existing source, rather than adding a new one which may already be there.
When someone has multiple spouses, added to the dropdown list of spouses a > and a color change to indicate the current spouse, and added the number of children with each.
Added the option for you to change the color choices used when display maps the various state and county maps. Go to Account > My Account > What I See.
On the Browse page, below a person's dates, added an automatic calculation of the person's age at death - provided both the birth and death dates are defined, and don't contain "bef" or "aft", and don't contain a range of years.
Various updates, including adding a random map related to your data to your dashboard, linking to a larger views, which link into more detail; County maps for Georgia & Ohio
On the surname page, for names that have data in VA, clicking the state breaks it down further by county. Other county maps to be added as time allows.
On the surname page, for names that have data in NC,MD,DE, & DC, clicking the state breaks it down further by county. Other county maps to be added as time allows.
Added a general surname resources page for any surname. Choose "View > Surname Resources", or use the SN/Surname link at the bottom of any person's page.
Changed the behavior of the "Add a note for..." link under discussions. If you are already the moderator, this links to the page for editing the main notes for the person; otherwise, it opens the window for adding entry under "Discussions"
Under Account > My Account are more options for customizing the colors, fonts, and font sizes. Whatever is chosen here is what shows for you and anyone else browsing your data.
Made some corrections to duplicate check, enabling it to report a few more it didn't before; and corrected the monthly email list to remove some that shouldn't have been there. See your updated list at Account > Find Duplicates.
Happy New Year! Under your Account options, added the choice of enabling a WYSIWYG text editor for the notes fields, giving more options for colors, bold, italics, bullets, etc.
Added an automatic backup copy when a person is deleted. There is not currently an interface for accessing the backup data. This may be added later, but until then, contact the System Administrator.
Separated the main entry page into two tabs, moving the general Notes field and a new second notes field restricted to moderators and subscribers for a person, to a second entry tab. Feedback welcome!
Added an account setting (View > Account) where you can decide whether to display surnames in mixed or upper case. This applies to all records that you view -- not related to the preferences of the researcher maintaining the data. On the main viewing page, pedigrees, descendant charts, and others.
On the Browse page for any person or couple, there is now a "Timeline" button on the left. This shows a chronology of all events for the person or couple. More description under View > Help.
Under View > Reports, added an option to search for people living at the time of a census, but for whom a census is not recorded here. More information under View > Help.
An update for the tabs at the bottom of the Browse page - they will now each appear when clicked, rather than only one at a time; and it will remember what you have visible from page to page to page.
For those who have contributed records, added to the homepage a statistics chart showing visitors to your records. A more detailed description is under "Help".
Added link to county page on search results page, when searching by county. Added complete list of county links to "View County Map" page. On county pages, added link to county page at Wikipedia.
On the main search page, added an option to browse by last name. Mainly for search engines, so that they will be sure to find all of the people, but anyone can use it.
On the main browsing page, for each place that has been identified on a map, a pin will show to the left of the place, and will link to the map showing it.
I'm starting to add Google map links for cities and towns in England (and eventually other countries). If anyone would like to volunteer for a few counties, let me know and I'll send instructions. Knowledge of England geography is not needed - just the ability to read a map, copy, & paste.
For those of you entering your own family information, I added a semi-automated duplicate check found under Account > Find Duplicates. See the Help for more details.
I have updated the site to separate the genealogy data pages from the rest of the site, and added a lot of functionality to enable you as other researchers to be able to contribute directly to our common family tree. See Our Family for more information and to get started!
Our Family Tree
or triplet 
icons.
I'm working on setting up a much revised searching setup, containing everything that's there now, but with even more flexibility for options not yet possible. Below is a sample screenshot.
in the upper right which opens the page in a PDF document, which can then be saved offline or emailed to a friend.
button in the upper right.