Sneak Peak: Maps and Trip Planning in GenDetective

Posted on 21 May 2013 by

One of the powerful new features in GenDetective version 2.0 is ability to map your family (see blog here).  As genealogists, we work with many different place names, whether we find them in vital records, census records or newspaper articles.

Unless our family has lived in the exact same town or handful of towns for hundreds of years, we begin to accumulate a lot of different place names.  As our research broadens out to the aunts and uncles, and into the cousins, we add more place names.  Identifying the most important places our family lived in (those where the directs lived) can become difficult, especially as some family stayed behind in a location and others continued their migration.  Where exactly should we be searching for our ancestors?

The new mapping features in GenDetective will help answer this question.  We have all heard that famous quote, “a picture is worth a thousand words“.   Let me show you a few maps, all created by GenDetective, that can help you plan a research trip.  I am not planning to leave the United States, so we will start with a pair of US maps.  Instead of mapping events, which are a reflection of my research efforts, we are will map people.

Everyone in My Family

Everyone in My Family

My direct family in the US

My direct family in the US

This first map shows where every person in my family has lived. Interesting picture, but not much help in planning a research trip.  This second picture, my direct family in the US, helps narrow my choices.  If I rule out the states with only 1 direct ancestor I am left with:  Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, California, New York, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  I live in and research in Pennsylvania all of the time.  New Jersey is the state with the 2nd highest number of direct relatives, what does that state look like?

All My Family

All My Family

Direct Family in New Jersey

Direct Family in New Jersey

Looking at the map of all the relatives in New Jersey, they lived in almost every county of New Jersey. However, switching to a view of my direct relatives we can easily see there is a concentration in Burlington, Camden and Hunterdon counties. I know I have not researched in any courthouses in New Jersey, maybe it is time to visit each of these county courthouses.

My Direct Relatives in Burlington County
My Direct Relatives in Burlington County

Who would I research? By clicking on Burlington County, I am presented with a list of the relatives who lived there.  Note, this list is cropped to remove the living individuals who do not need their birth dates published for all to see :-)

I now have my list of relatives to research, one list for each county.  Now I need to investigate the sources available, print some additional reports and then visit a few courthouses to research!

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It’s Been A While

Posted on 14 May 2013 by

It seems like it has been a while since I have written.  I checked and it has!  I was on the road more in the month of April than I was home, attending three different genealogy conferences:

  • Fairfaix Genealogical Society Spring Conference
  • New England Regional Genealogy Conference
  • Ohio Genealogical Conference

While at all three conferences I met many new people, I also had a chance to spend a significant amount of time talking with many existing GenDetective customers.  We spent time looking at version 2.0 of GenDetective and the new features.  The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and I received several suggestions for features that are finding their way into the software.

Thank you to all the users who took the time to sit down with me and express an opinion.

In addition to the conferences I have recorded three different presentations.  The first was for the Central Bucks (Pa) Aging Task Force.  This was a presentation for seniors looking at genealogy and the broader area of family history, photo labeling and recording of oral histories and stories.

On Saturday we recorded the first two presentations on the new version of GenDetective.  The first presentation will be available on the internet shortly, Introduction to GenDetective.  It is a Power Point presentation, providing background on GenDetective and answering questions about what GenDetective is and is not.

The second presentation “My Family View” is the first in the planned series of videos on GenDetective version 2.  I will be presenting two more sessions (and maybe a third) on Saturday May 25th. If you are within driving distance of Bucks County, Pa and would like to attend email me at techsupp@rumblesoftinc.com.

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Aliasing (or Mapping) Events in GenDetective

Posted on 1 April 2013 by

Have you ever wanted to tell GenDetective that an event is “like another event”?  I have spoken with many genealogists who have created their own custom events.  Frequent areas for custom events include (but certainly not limited to):

  • Military service (WW1, WW2, WW1 Draft, Revolutionary War, ..)
  • Census records (NJ1865, MN1885, ..)
  • Personal appearance (height, weight, eye color ..)

Many times we  define custom events to more finely track events (service in different wars versus traditional non-wartime military service), where we find the standard generic definitions inadequate for our own style of research and genealogy.  I have several custom events related to my court-house research, one for each of the Pennsylvania death related court dockets:

    • Orphans Court
    • Inventory & Appraisement
    • Partition docket (court ordered division of a piece of real estate)
    • Executor’s Accounts
    • Auditor Accounts
    • Transfer Inheritance Taxes

These events are in addition to the standard Probate and Will events, and are a reflection of the complicated Probate process.  To track these different court dockets I use my own events and tell GenDetective that these events should be classified as a Will when looking at my personal research goals.

In the software world saying “this thing is like something else” is called Aliasing or Mapping depending on who you are speaking with.  Since the next version of GenDetective will include traditional maps (World, Country, State, …) lets use the term Aliasing.  Where might you use event aliasing in GenDetective?

To create an event Alias in GenDetective is easy and to do so you use the Analyzer.  For this example we will create an alias for the Orphans Court event.

Creating an event alias

Creating an event alias

  1. Launch the Analyzer
  2. Cancel out of the Wizard.
  3. Pick your family tree to load.
  4. Select the Event Definitions item (calendar) on the left.
  5. Locate your custom event GEDCOM tag (oc=Orphans Court).
  6. Change the drop down that says Event is unique, to Will.
  7. Press the Save Changes button.
  8. Exit the Analyzer.  Reload and run the Wizard as you normally would.

Good luck with your research.

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Getting More From My Census Records

Posted on 9 March 2013 by

Have you ever wanted to “get more” information from your census records?  Maybe while working with a specific census record, you noticed the religious preference recorded.  Did you ponder  “what other census records have I found that also included religion?”.   How did you identify which people might be in that same census where you didn’t record the information?  In genealogy, looking to see who had information that we forgot to record can be a daunting task.

GenDetective includes a series of 10 reports, that will help you identify where you missed recording information that was in a census record.  In the Reports By Task view, you will find these reports under:  How can I get more from my existing research? Each of these reports is based on a piece of information that could be recorded in any given census:

  • birth information: year, month & location
  • parents birth location: mother & father
  • number of children
  • occupation: men & women
  • property
  • religion
People Missing Religion

People Missing Religion

These 10 GenDetective reports are used to answer questions like: “Who have I found a census record for, where the census recorded religion, but I did not record the person’s religion?”  Each report is similar to the Religion report shown here and identifies each person who is missing {religion, birth year, birth month, etc.} along with each census record found that records {religion, birth year , etc.}.  Looking at the report, you will see that I have 3 Iowa Census records that report the religious preferences of 3rd cousin, Thomas Wesley Bell, the 1905, 1915 & 1925.  Even with being told 3 different times what his religious preferences were .. I failed to record the information for Thomas!

Men missing occupation

Men missing occupation

Do you have to know which census reports a specific piece of information?  No, GenDetective knows which censuses record which information and will identify the people missing {religion, occupation, birth year, etc.} across any census record that you have found that reports that information.

Now that I have rediscovered these census reports, I need to get back to my family tree.  I have some information to dig out of my census records!

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What is the GenDetective Analysis?

Posted on 18 February 2013 by

I was recently asked “Is the GenDetective Analysis that you talk about the same as what I heard about in this genealogy class I just took”? and thought we might discuss the answer today.  The answer is No, and a little bit yes.  Really.

In genealogy classes we are taught to examine the information we have gathered, to evaluate it in an attempt to determine if our information pertains to our ancestor.  To examine whether the information gathered, “makes sense” or, if there are discrepancies, can the discrepancies can be explained in a logical way, and do we have any additional evidence to support our conclusions.  We examine our sources, to determine if they are reliable, and identify any potential sources we should search for that may help support or disprove our current conclusions.  It is that last part, identifying additional sources, where there is overlap with GenDetective and its analysis.

GenDetective examines the data that you have assembled for each family member and identifies:

  1. Missing vital statistics (birth, death)
  2. Missing census records (state, national, census substitutes you have defined)
  3. Possible military service
  4. Missing marriage information
  5. Missing immigration information
  6. Generic locations for an event (California or Germany …)
  7. Missing sources

GenDetective also assembles the information on a geographic basis so that you can more easily:

  1. Plan a research trip (to hopefully find those missing records/facts/sources, information)
  2. Identify online records to search for
  3. Match a specific source (online, microfilm, book, etc) to the people in your family who lived in a specific area, by years

The difference?  The analysis taught in many genealogy classes teaches us to examine each piece of evidence we have found to determine if we have the right Michael Smith.  GenDetective will never be able to say: You have found the right Michael Smith.  It can say you have found a lot of very precise information for a Michael Smith.

Only you, the genealogist, can evaluate the content of the records you have gathered to determine if they all refer to the same Michael Smith and that it is your Michael Smith.  GenDetective can help you with the process of arranging of the data and the many different gathering phases of our investigation, but it can only interpret what you have recorded in your family tree, it can not interpret the content of the actual records.

Does that make sense?

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Research Progress Worksheet

Posted on 5 February 2013 by

A week ago I wrote about new functionality using maps and our family in GenDetective 2013.  None of the reports I wrote about were “new to me”.  I created them, and have been using them for my own research for a couple of months.  While writing about the maps and providing an initial peak at the Research Progress Worksheet I took another look at the report itself.

The strength of GenDetective lies in pinpointing the gaps, or missing information, in your  genealogy research.  For any given person, identifying research opportunities, albeit not by specific source, but instead missing pieces of information.  It is of course up to you, the researcher, to determine where to look for the missing data.  Nowhere in this new report was the missing information identified.  Yes, it includes the summary of progress, identifying my progress in different areas of research, but it did not tell me what I needed to find!

Now it does.  There are now several new sections in the report that occur between the research progress area and the timeline.   Take a look at each of the check box fields.  These include the major research areas for each person.  If this person never immigrated, the last two rows of check boxes will not appear.  If this person is living, the section of death related research will be omitted.  What do the color coding and check marks mean?  There are three possibilities for each demographic:

Research Progress Worksheet
Research Progress Worksheet
  1. Green text + check:  we found it!
  2. Black italic, no check: missing
  3. Blue italic, shaded: partial information

What do I mean by partial information?  An approximate date or a generic location (about 1856 or  Germany).  The next three sections in the report are optional:

  1. Missing census records
  2. Possible military service
  3. Marriages

These sections will only be included if they apply to this person.  If you have no recorded marriages for this person, the report will not include a marriages section.  The same applies to missing census records and possible military service.

The Research Progress worksheet finishes with the traditional timeline.  New to GenDetective 2013 is a third line for each event which includes the number of source citations, supporting media files and notation that a note is associated with the event.

I liked the original version of this report, but I like the new version of the Research Progress Worksheet even more.  What do you think?

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Sneak Peak: Maps in GenDetective 2013

Posted on 28 January 2013 by

Lately we have been very busy working on the next version of GenDetective.  The software is starting to come together with new features and a new look. We have combined the Analyzer and the Reporter into a single program and added graphics.  Lots of graphics: maps, charts and graphs!  Using these new tools, you can examine your family from many different perspectives and identify records to locate or people to research.

World Map of My Family

World Map of My Family

Today we are going to start with maps.  Back in early summer I wrote an article What would I use these reports for?  which discussed how you could take some of the GenDetective statistic reports and “map” your family.  GenDetective will now do that for you, automatically!  Click on the map to the left to see a full size view, and take a minute or two to study the map and read the notes.  Each map is accompanied by a chart which shows information that pertains to the map.  This particular chart shows the number of events, people and average number of events per person for each country for my direct relatives.

Map of my 2nd great grandparents
Map of my 2nd great grandparents

Lets look at what happens if I select a specific country.  To pick a country I can:

  1. Click on the country in the map
  2. Click on the country name in the chart below the map

As before, click on the map to see a larger version that will allow you to read the notes.

Map of direct relatives in Pennsylvania

Map of direct relatives in Pennsylvania

List of Relatives in Indiana County

Relatives in Indiana County

Continuing our exploration of GenDetective 2013, I clicked on the state of Pennsylvania.  The image at the right shows the results.  Once I reach the bottom level of a map, the chart below the graph will show the list of people who are included in the map.  In this case, the chart shows my current research progress for each direct relative who lived in Indiana County, Pa.

New GenDetective report

New GenDetective report

What happens if you click on a person in the chart?  You will see a report, automatically generated, for the person you clicked on.  Take a look at this new report.  It combines your personal research progress for this person, with the information found in a traditional timeline.

What are your thoughts on the new maps?  Is there anything you would like to see added to this new report?  Take a minute to post a comment on the blog or email us at techsupp@rumblesoftinc.com to share your thoughts.

Did you happen to notice, none of the maps include a legend?  Even software developers have to wait for bugs to be fixed .. things like legends not appearing where they are supposed too.

Posted in Genealogy software | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments