Randy Seaver recently wrote about his procedure for handling Ancestry hints. As I read his blog, I thought that I also need to write out my procedure – for myself. I’m participating in the preview of RootsMagic 8 and realize that figuring out my procedure in RootsMagic 8 if I can document my RootsMagic 7 procedure.
I would suggest that other RootsMagic users think about and possible document how Ancestry Hints are handled. This documentation might include:
- Deciding whether to accept or ignore Hints in one’s Ancestry Tree
- Deciding whether TreeShare is one way or two way and if one way, which way (up to Ancestry or down from Ancestry)
- Deciding where media files are saved
- Deciding how media files are named
My TreeShare Goals
- RootsMagic is where I store my genealogy data
- I have one file for all of my data — including floating trees of families that I’ve researched
- I add source information for facts as I find the information. Thus, some of my sourcing is old and not up to today’s standards.
- I want control of the naming of the image files that I add to the RootsMagic gallery.
- I want control of where the media files are stored.
- I want to share my research with others. Thus, I have a public tree on Ancestry.
- I want my Ancestry tree to be sourced. I want others to see where the information in my tree came from.
Thus, my TreeShare is one way: from RootsMagic up to Ancestry.
When TreeShare was first released as a RootsMagic feature, I used TreeShare to create a new tree on Ancestry. This created a connection between my RootsMagic database and my Ancestry tree. I leave the Ancestry WebHints enabled. This places a light bulb icon by each person that turns yellow when there are Ancestry hints available.
Thus, my process of working with Ancestry hints begins with these yellow light bulbs. When I click on a light bulb, a window opens telling me how many hints that person has and whether any of them are ‘pending.’ The ‘pending’ hints are hints on Ancestry that I have not done anything with.
I can click on any of the underlined numbers to open up the ‘Ancestry WebHints’ window for that ancestor. The top portion of this window shows the hints. The ‘pending’ hints will be listed at the top with a blue question mark icon to the left. Accepted hints will have a green check mark icon to the left. The bottom half of the window shows my RootsMagic data on the left and data suggested by the hint on the right. In between the top and bottom portions of the window are various buttons.
This is where my desire for control takes over. I do not use the ‘Accept’, ‘Reject’ or ‘Undecided’ buttons on the right side of the screen. Instead I click on the ‘Show on Ancestry’ button. That opens up a tab on my browser for that ancestor.
I then click on the Hints to open that screen.
On the Ancestry page, I right click the Review button to open it in a new tab.
At this point, I evaluate the suggested source. If it is a source that I want to add, then I work in BOTH Ancestry and RootsMagic. In Ancestry, I will open any image in a new tab so that I can access the image while keeping the ‘record’ information open in its own tab.
Since the record shown is a marriage announcement for Paul Mentzer, the son of C. O Mentzer, my next step would be to open Paul Mentzer’s individual record and go to his marriage record to see whether I already have the suggested source. In this case I don’t already have the source.
It looks like I have a newspaper clipping citation that might be to the same newspaper article but not a citation for the newspaper, I need to add this as an additional source.
Hoping that I already have a source for this newspaper, I would click on ‘CITE EXISTING SOURCE’
Then, I would type N to go to the ‘Ns’ in my list of sources and scroll to the ‘News-KS’ section looking for a News-KS Neosho Falls Post’ source. My newspaper sources are named using the following pattern: News-ST newspaper title (location), where ST is the abbreviation for the state.
Since the source already exists, I select that source: News-KS Neosho Falls Post (Neosho Falls, KS) Newspapers.com EE.
Then I fill in the Source Details information.
Next, I click on the ‘Detail Text’ tab across the top. In the ‘Research Notes’ section of that tab, I transcribe the record or copy the suggested record information from Ancestry.
Next, I click on the MEDIA tab so that I can add an image to this source.
To get the image, I go back to the image on my browser. In this case that would be the newspaper article on Newspapers.com. On Newspapers.com, I click on the Print/Save button and then click on ‘Select Portion of Page’. This allows me to draw a box around the article. I then click ‘SAVE’
When I click on SAVE, I navigate to the folder where I want to save the image and make sure to name the file according to m established standard (yyyy-event-name-details).
Once I have the image saved, I then go to the MEDIA tab in RootsMagic and click on the ‘Add New Media’ Button. From that window, I click on the DISK icon and migrate to that same folder and file.
As I add the image, I create a caption similar to the file name.
With the Media added, I click ‘OK’ to finish adding the source to RootsMagic. When a source applies to multiple events or people, I will copy the source and then migrate to the other event/person and paste the source.
I then go back to Ancestry and click YES to accept the hint and then click Save to Your Tree
That will add the source to the list of sources and link it to the event on my Ancestry tree.
To finish the process, I can do TreeShare to upload my version of this source. When I go to TreeShare for this individual, Paul Mentzer, and look at the marriage fact, I can see that the sources are PINK in RootsMagic and Green in Ancestry. That difference in color indicates that RootsMagic has information that is different from Ancestry.
Clicking the box next to Marriage allows me to select, ‘Update existing event on Ancestry’
That will prompt me to put a click next to SOURCES, the one thing that is different for the Marriage record. When I click Accept Changes, RootsMagic will then upload that information to Ancestry for this one individual. (TreeShare is one person at a time.)
Hopefully, writing this will help me transition into RootsMagic 8.