Like the options to mark parent and spouse relationships as questionable, added is the option to mark child relationships as questionable. Edit a parent, go to "Walls", and check the checkbox next to a child's name.
It's the exact same result as going to the child, and checking his or her parents as questionable, except that you can check this for children of other people's branches.
Added at the bottom of each person's list of links are new links to places. These link to search results of this person's surname and each states or states and counties where he or she lives. This was inspired by FindAGrave.com, which has something similar.
After entering a new person I often want to see who else is living in the same place with the same name, to see who else they may be related to. This provides a quick way to get there.
An improvement in formatting -- the first picture of a person posted will now show at the top of the page next to their name. Nothing different needs to be done in adding photos -- in the attachments section, the first of type "person" will automatically be displayed at the top, followed by all others at the bottom.
Remember to use the type "person" only for pictures of individuals or couples. For anything else, use the other picture types. This keeps the top picture limited to only pictures of that person.
If you have multiple photos posted and want to change which one is at the top, edit the person in question, go to the "Attachments" tab, and drag & drop the desired photo to the top of the list.
When you need to link someone to an existing spouse, the process has changed a little -- First, you still choose the menu option "Link Existing Husband" or the corresponding hotkey. Then a small window will prompt you for the first and last name... then you will get the list of people to choose from. Having the name to search for keeps the search running quickly.
Linking a parent or child does not (yet) have this, as this is already populated with a last name.
FYI -- Added is an option to search for people up for adoption. At the end of the list of "selection options" is "up for adoption". Choose this, "Yes", and any additonal information you want, like searching by location or name. Then you can find some worthy ancestors in need of a good home.
Also, if you would like to help fill in missing birth dates and places for adoptable people, but don't want to claim them long-term, let me know and I can give you a group to research and update.
If you have a pending suggested update from another researcher, and it's older than 10 days, this will block you from being able to add or edit data. It will prompt you to go and either accept or decline the suggested information. Once these are cleared, then adding and editing will be opened back up for you. This is so that other hard-working researchers who submit suggestions may be more likely to get prompt responses. Hopefully?
From the homepage, or from the add/edit page when it prompts about the pending updates, and from there if you click through, it will point out where the suggested information is with a big yellow arrow. Just in case you don't see it, this should help.
On the location page for a city, cemetery, or other location, an option has been added to show a table of thumbnail pictures attached to people in this location. This is more applicable for cemeteries where there may be a larger number of attached pictures. Example here: http://www.gurganus.org/ourfamily/location.cfm/id/23173?id=23173&all=&view=thumb&type=&surname=¢ury=&pictype=&tab=4
A couple new features are now enabled. You can identify parents and spouses as either brick walls, or as questionable relationships. Let me know if you have any questios, or further ideas for improvement. For more informaiton on how these work...
The website is finally back up and running. Thank you for your patience. A brief explanation... There was a system error with one of the tables storing the data, and I needed to request that part of it be restored from a backup copy. This is relatively easy to do, it just took the website hosting company a few days to get to it.
Because we had to retreat to a backup copy, there may be about a day of work done on the site that was lost, but only between this past Saturday and Sunday morning. However, I do have a list of anything that was done during this time period, and will send to each of you what you changed during this period... and if needed I can work with you to restore these updates.
I will also be looking into other ways to add more redundancy to the existing backup capabilities to avoid potential issues in the future. Again, thank you for your patience.
Also, I did take advantage of the downtime and have been preparing some exciting new features to come soon, once I can get caught up with everything.
FYI, I corrected an error that was causing lines not to be drawn on the pedigree and descendant maps. Example here: http://www.gurganus.org/ourfamily/map_descend.cfm?fid=99416
This is accessed by going to a pedigree or descendant chart and clicking the globe icon in the upper right. Of course, this only works for people that have birthplaces, and coordinates for those places are identified.
More recent website addresses for sources should be validated to be correct when they are added. But in cases where they become invalid afterwards, or if you're continuing to use older sources with invalid websites.... I'll be hunting these down. Once identified, they'll no longer be selectable as a source, and on pages where they are already used, they will show up in red, with a public disclaimer:
Link is not correct or does not contain relevant information. Contact researcher to ask that it be corrected.
... hoping this will be enough to prompt you to clean it up. Thanks!
Added a couple new options for how your setup is configured. Under Account > My Account > What I See are two new options:
Branch Default: When searching, you can control which branch comes up as the default -- always your own, always all, or remembering to use the previous one you selected earlier.
Field Order: When entering names, choose here if you want the Title & Suffix fields to be skipped in tabbing order, focusing on only the First & Last name fields, or if you want all of them to tab through in the order they appear.
A new "country" has been added for "At Sea". Over 50 people here had been tagged as having been born or having died at sea, but without a way to make it official.
A new page is up for helping you find new connections. The existing "Finding New Connections" page is renamed to "#1", and this is "#2", both under the "Collaborate" menu.
This uses broader logic to connect people, where the previous page is a little more narrow. This lists anyone in your branch where you have 2 or more people with the same surname, in the same county, and no parents. Maybe they are siblings or cousins, and could use more research. For each in the list, it shows the count from your branch, the count from all branches with the same name in the same county, and the most recent date these were updated.
A new page is up -- under the "His" and "Her" menus is an option "Relationship List" which will show lists of aunts, uncles, and cousins for the current person. For each person listed is an image (hover the image to see the full size), name, birthdate, birthplace, spouses, and avatar for the researcher who posted.
As always, if you see blanks for the birthdate, birthplace, or spouses, go back and try to fill them in wherever possible.
I have tested many different cases, and they all look accurate to me. If you see any cases where it shows people it shoudn't, doesn't show people it should, or have other suggestions for improvement, let me know.
An update for entering and displaying unknown names -- if a first or last name is not known, don't enter "?", "Unknown", or other phrase to indicate the name is not known. Just leave it blank. The program will then display in place of the blank name "______" or potentially other variations. It's easier to take a blank and transform it, vs. other things you may enter.
If you have questions about this, or would prefer to see something different from "______", reply here.
I have updated the source logic to completely block websites at geni.com. I noticed someone using geni.com as a source, and even after creating a geni.com account for myself, I wasn't able to view the page. If a website source isn't viewable, it's not much good. Thanks!
I have put together an exciting new option that people can use for other websites, to extract and display information from this website. I have up two examples on other sites I maintain, here:
When they first come up, it shows random people for the location, but giving priority to those who have pictures attached. Then at the top are fields where you can search by first or last name. If the search results are more than will show on the page (currently 20), it has paging links at the top and bottom so you can continue on to more pages.
Any new information entered on Our Family Tree will automatically be accessible on these pages.
So this is another reason to be thorough as possible -- a person will only appear for a state or county if they are defined for that state or county.
The pedigree & descendant pages are updated, moving the options up to the button bar at the top of the page. This saves some space on the page, and adds counts for most of the options.
When editing someone, the button for accessing website links is now available. Note that this is not available when adding a new person, and when editing, it's based on the previously saved values. So if you edit someone's name, and access one of the linked pages, the data used to access the page will be what was last saved, not what was typed but not yet saved.
For any of the branches that are "up for adoption", is there anyone that would be willing to go through a branch and fill in birthdates & birthplaces where they are blank? If so, let me know and I can arrange it so that you can edit them but won't need to adopt any of the people (unless you want to).
I added a new Help page for "Completeness", listing out all the ways in which filling in birthdates and birthplaces is most helpful, and it'd be nice to get all this old data filled in.
If your branch has a lot of connections with other researchers, and you want to see who's who in the list of children for a couple, there's a new option added. Under Account > My Account > What I See, where you can select the fields you see for children, there's now an option for "avatar". This will show a smaller version of the image a researcher uploads to define him or herself. So then you can see which are yours, and which are from others.
You can update this page to tell it to show or not, and if shown, where in the list of fields it shows for you.
If you have not uploaded an avatar for yourself, upload one. If others have not uploaded theirs, they will be blank, but at least they'll show as different from yours.
To encourage you to keep on top of duplicates and feasibility errors, I have added a new restriction.... if your number of outstanding errors exceeds a certain amount, the system will no longer allow you to add new records. You will get a message saying this when you go to add. You can still edit existing records, but not add new ones. I will hold myself to the same restriction with my own data, so it's only fair. :)
When entering a source with a website address, it will now check to see that the website actually exists, and won't allow it if it doesn't. I've noticed a few people putting in invalid addresses, and this should prevent it.
Just put in some updates in how things are laid out. Some changes to make more space for existing content and functionality, and some to accomodate new things, and other things yet to come. All opiton are still there -- just perhaps in a different place. Updated documentation is not done yet, but will be soon.
In the meantime let me know if you have any questions, problems, or feedback.
Added a new option to navigate from one person to a sibling, without having to go up to the parents and back down. Between each person and the parents is a little triangle. Move the mouse over the triangle and you'll get a list of that person's siblings. Then click a sibling.
New: Directly on the page when you are viewing someone from your branch, you will see messages pointing out any feasibility errors, and highlighed in yellow will be the dates in question. This is for errors that already exist, and any new ones that you might create during data entry. This should more or less use the same logic as what's used when showing the full lists of feasibility errors.
This is only when viewing your own data. You won't see it for other people's errors, and they won't see it for yours.
View > Site Statistics -- this overall statistics for the site, including the total count, the percentage that have birthdates, birthplaces, deathdates, deathplaces, number by birthyear, average lifespan, average age at marriage
This is further filterable by state / country, name, and by your own data vs. the whole site.
Account > Albums -- this enables a way to upload a group of related photos that are not necessarily related to the same person. See the one that's there as an example. For cases where the same photo is linked both here and to an individual, there is a link below the photo.
With these menus getting rather long, some sort of re-organizing may be needed. Suggestions welcome.
On the Account > Places page is added a link to Wikipedia, searching the current place. So if you have a city without a country or state, this may help you locate it and fill in those blanks. And it's greatly appreciated if you can fill in what you can...
Added a new feature to make it easier to enter letters with accents and other special characters. With the cursor in any text field when editing a person, hit the F2 key. A small window will appear below the field showing a list of characters. Click one to insert it at the end of the field. (If you want it somewhere else, cut & paste it up). If there's anything missing from the list, let me know.
Titles will now appear in italics, to make it clear what's a title vs. a given name that may be confused with a title. In my family I have 2 named "Major Gurganus", where "Major" is the given name.
Added is the option to enter a second set of names for a person, to account for people who change their name or change the spelling of their name, or who are known by multiple names. For a more complete description....
The options under Account > My Account > Styles are revamped to be easier to use, and to add the option to choose grandient background colors. Just move the mouse over one of the pre-set style buttons and/or a gradient background, and the box on the left will update to show what you've selected. You can further edit the options on the left. Then save, and this will all take effect.
These are the fonts and colors that appear when anyone looks at your information.
This is expanded to add the options to attach images and text for each place. Tabs at the top of the page go to different sections for the different pieces of content for the place.
A couple of things not to do... 1) Don't post all of your vacation pictures here. A few are ok, but don't over do it. :) 2) Don't post pictures for specific ancestors -- pictures of people or their homes should be attached to person's record, not the place.
It looks like the new FamilySearch.org search is out of the "Beta" phase, so in the links at the bottom of a person's page, it's been renamed to FS1, and the other two renamed to FS2 and FS3.
Added is an option for you to upload an avatar for yourself, under Account > My Account. This will appear next to your name, and make it easier to recognize you. Any JPG or PNG image will work, but will be resized to 40 x 40 pixels regardless of what size you upload.
A new exciting development --- a new website feature that will allow administrators of other websites (in particular, state and county genealogy websites) to be able to extract and post information directly from Our Family Tree -- giving your information more exposure and their website more interest.
One of the first sites to be setup is Duval Co, Florida, here. http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fltttp/duval/ourfamilytree.htm
The information is coming directly out of what you maintain in Our Family Tree. So it's good to fill in those counties so you can be found. Several more counties are in progress.
If you manage another website where you would want to do this....
Fixed a bug in the duplicate check logic that was causing it to not report some that are now reported. So go and check your duplicates, and fix anything that needs fixing! When adding new information, and you're not sure if the information is already in someone else's branch or not, search first, and then add. Thanks.
FYI.... I found about a dozen sources defined with a page on this website as the source. For what I would think are obvious reasons, you shouldn't use this website as a source for information you're posting on this website -- it should always be another website. So I have added a check to prevent this, and blanked out those source website addreses found earlier.
I'm working on a new option to enable more documentation. The existing notes field is good for a few sentences up to a few paragraphs, but isn't helpful for larger amounts of content for a person.
See for example David Gurganus or Edward Gurgany. There's a book image with a link. This brings up a page that includes the picture attachments he already has, additional content (in the first case, the pension), and other general pages of information and external links related to the Gurganus name. Other related enhancements and expansions will be added in, but this much I wanted to get out there in case anyone has larger amounts of content to add.
You can add and edit this information for your people by clicking into a person, and then to the "Attachments" tab at the top.
The menu item "Add unrelated person" has been renamed to "Add unconnected person". This may be more logical, as a person you are adding may connected later, making the term "unrelated" misleading.
Added a field for type of picture, to further identify attached pictures as pictures of people, vs. pictures of graves, vs. images of documentation, vs. other types... mainly for use in searching and filtering by type. So when you attach something, be sure to pick the appropriate type. When you're adding multiple, it should remember the type from one to the next, so you don't have to keep re-selecting it.
For the existing ones, I will go back and select this in mass updates where I can determine what's what.
Updated the descendant outline tree so that branches of the tree continue to populate after the page first loads -- you should see spinning circles where the branch is still loading. This is instead of loading the entire tree all at one time, which can lead to the page timing out for larger trees.
Updated a few of the Google map pages to include the Google "Street View' option. So if you're looking at the map for a town, now you can zoom down and "walk" the streets. Or if you're looking for a cemetery, now you might be able to see what it looks like.
The setup of pictures and attached documents is changed so that the same one can be attached to multiple people without uploading multiple times. When choosing to add a picture or attached document, you have the option choosing a recently added attachment, or searching for an existing one to attach.
Besides saving diskspace, this helps with group pictures, tombstone pictures, or others that may relate to multiple people.
In the country, state, county, and location pages, added is an option to filter the type of event -- births, deaths, graves. So for example if you're focused on finding graves in a certain area, you can use this to find them.
Added a new link "BT" under "Links" to the search results at https://beta.familysearch.org -- this automatically fills in the first & last name of the current couple as search criteria.
A small update: I changed it so that when you click into edit an existing record, existing events will show a previously selected county or province, but will not populate the full list of options. This will then populate only when you move into that field... so hopefully this speeds up the time to load the page, and reduces load on the server if this list is loaded only as needed.
When entering places, the focus should stay on the county / province dropdown list until you move out. Previously, if you hit a letter, it chose the first match and immediately moved focus on to the next field.
In several different places, links may not have been functioning, apparently due to either feature or bug changes in recent versions. So if you've noticed a link that didn't do anything, try it again!
And in general, if you notice something either not working or not working like you would like it to work, let me know. Thanks.
A few shortcuts for saving typing when entering dates when entering dates in the form "26 OCT 2010":
Entering the day followed by F, S, O, N, or D will replace the letter with FEB, SEP, OCT, NOV, or DEC respectively. The other months do not have unique letters. Then you can continue on to the year.
Entering the day followed by a space and a number 1-9 will replace the last number with the corresponding month JAN - SEP. Then you can continue on to the year.
Added an option to score the completeness of your data, based on how many of your people have names, dates, and places filled in. This is then shown on the home dashboard page and under Account > Researcher Directory with gold stars . The hope is that this encourages you to fill in gaps in your current data. For more information and a detailed description of the calculation...
Added a new checkbox for marking a date as purely speculative, which then displays the date differently to make it very clear that it's a speculative date. Note that this is only intended for when the date is purely based on a guess, and not an approximate date that is based on actual sources.
The benefits are that when you return to the person, it's immediately apparent to you that the date is a guess, and when visitors browse, they are alerted that your guess is not a date based on sources.
If you have any existing speculated dates that are identified with a specific source, let me know and I can do a mass update to check this. -- Ray G.
Two new tutorial videos are up, demonstrating how to merge duplicates, and how to define and run a custom report. These can be found under View > Help, then clicking the corresponding topic with the green triangle next to it, and clicking the play button.
I have updated the "Researchers" section of each person's page, now renamed to "Access", to make it possible for anyone to give up for adoption anyone in their tree, and then for other researchers to adopt those people. We also have a few trees that are no longer active (in one case, the original researcher passed away, and in others they just have not returned in years). The people in these branches are all set to be "up for adoption". You should see a green Adopt button, which will add you as the moderator.
To give up someone for adoption, click into your moderator record under "Access" and check the appropriate boxes.
A page for any specific location is available from either the county page, clicking the name of the location on the right side, or from browsing an individual by clicking a place and then choosing "More on this location".
From this page is an option "List data within 25 miles of (Name of Location)". This gives a different view of the people and places, but within a radius of miles around the chosen location.
Viewing by radius can be helpful when you are searching multiple cities in an area, but not contained within one county, or multiple counties in an area but not contained within one state. The distance is editable, and the people and places shown are filterable by branch, century, and surname.
Note that all of this depends on the cities, towns, churches, and cemeteries each being coded with latitude and longitude. Many are already done, but many are not, especially churches and cemeteries. Feel free to help out with your places, under Account > Places. See its Help page for more information.
More options and information to be added to this page as needed.
Under the "Links" section at the bottom of a person's page, added is a link "FG" which does a search on the FIndAGrave.com website for this person. If it's a married woman, it searches for her first name + her married name. Otherwise it searches the full name of the person clicked.
If too many results are returned, go to their "Refine Last Search" option on the left and select a state.
Found under Account > Custom Reports, the new Custom Report module allows researchers to create, save, and run queries or reports based on the database. This gives you the options to select any fields you want to include, in the order that you want them, any combination of criteria, any order for outputing the records, and a few different ways to format the output. Only you will see the reports that you create.
Much more is planned for down the road -- adding more field choices, more output formats, etc. Feedback and suggestions welcome!
One small change for entering events -- each set of event fields is now collapsed by default, until an event type is chosen. Then remaining fields appear. This helps to shrink the amount of vertical space occupied until that space is needed.
I know the website has been up and down this weekend, apparently technical issues with the web host. If it continues to have issues, I'll push them for more to get it fixed. Sorry for any inconvenience.
There is now a new automatic email sent out daily, listing any updates related to your data, made by other people. This includes new parents, spouses, or children attached to your people, new pictures added, or if other people are granted permission to update your information, any updates that they make.
One goal is to bring back other researchers who have not been to the site in a while -- if you add onto their branch, they will be notified, and perhaps this will rekindle their activity.
Added are a couple of major additions to the timeline features. On a person's page, click the "Timelines" button on the left -- this gives you 3 options:
1) This page was there before, but has been enhanced with historical events 2) The second shows the family information but in a Gantt horizontal-style chart, and also includes historical events. Use the mouse to scroll to the left and right 3) The third shows the horizontal format but more broadly includes all people by surname or location.
In cases where you want to list someone as being "of" a place, there is now a separate checkbox for this. On the right side is the Questionable checkbox, and then the "of" checkbox... instead of typing this in the name of the place.
The main advantages are to simplify the list of places, so that there doesn't need to be an "of" variation for each place, and to bring the places together in statistics.
All existing cases have been changed over. This shows up as a red "of" at the end of the place.
If you forget which checkbox is which, hover the mouse over the column headings, and the corresponding checkboxes will highlight in yellow.
I have revamped the page under Account > Places -- most notably to add the link to an individual person when a place entry has only one person linked to it. The full list of place references is now the link with multiple lines: ≡≡ Anything to make it easier for everyone to stay on top of keeping their place lists clean!
Also updated is the corresponding Help page.
Much of what remains to be cleaned up has come from imported data.
I'm working on changing how some of the website addresses are setup, with the goal of improving the rank in search engine results. So for example, what was: www.gurganus.org/ourfamily/browse.cfm?pid=46065
will now be: www.gurganus.org/ourfamily/browse.cfm/Henry-VIII-King-of-England/p46065
but with the same results. The theory is having this information in the address improves ranking. But this should not affect anything you do. If the person's name changes, no worries -- everything still runs off of the ID at the end, not the name.
Added to the menu under "Search" are two new preset search options. Having them defined for you may mean that you'd be more likely to use them.... 1 - Orphans: Finds anyone in your branch who does not have any parents, spouses, or children. While these may be legitimate, they are often mistaken entries that can be deleted. 2 - Too Empty: Finds anyone in your branch who has neither a birthdate nor birthplace defined. At least an approximate birthdate can often be estimated based on the dates of spouses and children. Filling these in helps in finding duplicates, errors, and new connections to relatives.
Just added: When viewing thumbnail pictures, in an individual's "browse" page, in a pedigree chart, or in search results, hovering the mouse over a picture will show the full picture size right there on the page. Move the mouse off the thumbnail, and the fullsize will go away.
A small but helpful update for searching: If you do a search for something within a specific branch, and the search comes up with no results, it will automatically repeat the same search but over all branches on the site. So you might be more likely to find what you're looking for, and others might be more likely to find you.
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
are new links to places. These link to search results of this person's surname and each states or states and counties where he or she lives. This was inspired by FindAGrave.com, which has something similar.
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.