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**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 07-09-08, 13:18

Adding basic bmd info; facts and sources

Adding the basic information about an individual is straightforward on a family screen but by recording details as facts and adding sources you can create reports, these will allow you to quickly and easily list such things as certificates you hold, baptism records you have, census returns, burial records etc and use them for reference and for sharing with contacts.

The following examples use a fictitious individual and family group, starting from scratch you can see how (by adding facts and sources) you can then create reports to illustrate your bmd, census and baptism details.

Adding notes to individuals allows you to add some life to your ancestors, include details about their life you have discovered, add the information from census returns, information about their occupation or the area they lived in, in fact anything you want to add which you can't record as a fact or source.

To compliment your facts, sources and notes you can add items to a scrapbook, these can be copies of census return images, cetificates, family photographs etc, or perhaps you could include images of the area relating to your ancestor, there are two scrapbooks available in any family screen, one is an individual's scrapbook, the other is a marriage scrapbook. Adding pictures for the church where a baptism or marriage occured is an ideal oppurtunity to use the Places of Worship project for images.

Screenshots to follow in following posts

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 07-09-08, 14:16

Adding basic information and a source

Adding the basic information on the family page is probably the easiest way, the example below shows the name, and places/dates added to the family screen. To start adding additional facts and sources click the "Edit" button, highlighted in the screenshot

At the moment we have two "facts" recorded, (they are the birth and death details entered earlier), adding a source for the birth fact is done as follows;

Left click on the birth fact, this will highlight the fact in blue (illustrated), then click on the "source" button (circled)

In the new dialogue box that opens you can add the title of your source, in this case the source is recorded as a GRO issued Birth Certificate, you can add whatever title best suits your needs.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 07-09-08, 14:26

Adding a baptism fact and source

To add a different type of fact to your individual click on the "add fact" button

The dialogue box allows you to select which type of fact to add, just click on the item required from the list to highlight it in blue, in this case select "baptism", you could of course add any fact you wish from the list

Add the details of the baptism in the relevant boxes and once completed click the "OK" button

You can even add a Customised Fact, ie one that is not in the list of available facts, click the "add fact" button and then enter a name for your fact in the "type" box, enter the details in the date and location boxes and click "OK", FTM will then ask if you want to save this type of fact and make it available in the dropdown list. You could add the names of witnesses to marriage information for example. or the name of the clergyman conducting a marriage ceremony

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 07-09-08, 14:35

Add your source

Add your baptism source in the same way you add any other source

Click on the fact to highlight it, then click on the source button

Now add your source, in this example it is recorded as an Extracted IGI entry, once you have entered the detail;s click the "OK" button to save the information

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 07-09-08, 14:42

Listing Facts in a report

Now we have added some facts it is easy to create a custom report to illustrate the facts and sources, either for easy reference or for sharing with someone else.

To create a report click on the report button and select custom report from the list

Now select the individuals to include and the items to include by clicking the boxes on the right of the screen

The items and individuals to include selections are made by selecting from the list on the left (click on an item) and then adding them to the list on the right by clicking the > button

If you want to remove an item from the list on the right then highlight it in blue by clicking it, then move it by clicking the < button.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 07-09-08, 15:28

Once you have made your selections for the individuals and items to include you can again use the buttons on the right of the screen to change font size and style, colour of text etc. One thing to consider, don't add too many items to a report, this can make a report run across two pages and it it more difficult to view and print

When you have made the selections you want you can preview the report, this allows you to check how everything fits on a page and amend anything as required, the example below highlights how the facts and sources are displayed.

By right clicking anywhere on the finalised report you can print the report or export the report to PDF format, a text document or spreadsheet.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 07-09-08, 15:31

Examples of other items you could add as facts and enter into custom reports;

Census Images held (this example shows which years images are held)

Burial Information, ie cemeteries and plot numbers

List BMD dates for names in your tree, handy for quick reference and gaps show where you may want to research next

**TrevorFranklin** · 07-09-08, 19:50

Glen

Great instructions for nubies
You should really think about turning all this into a web page on the Wikki and not just a list in a forum thread that will be forgotten very soon

Trev

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 08-09-08, 12:33

Adding Notes

Adding notes is a very simple job, first you have to go to the family page for the individual and click the "Edit" button.

Now select the "Notes" tab

The notes screen opens and you can then enter any notes you wish, you can also edit any previously entered notes, once you have completed adding to or editing your notes hit the "OK" button at the bottom of the notes section to save them.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 08-09-08, 12:35

Scrapbooks

By now we have added some facts, sources and notes about the people in the tree, now to add some pictures and images via a scrapbook. Again there are two scrapbooks, one for the individual and one for the marriage, adding images is the same process whichever scrapbook you are using, the screenshots show images being added to the individual's scrapbook. perhaps you might want to add a photograph of a church where a baptism took place or a marriage, many of these buildings have been photographed in the Family Tree Forum "Places Of Worship" project, check to see if the church or chapel you need has been added to the project by visiting

Places of Worship - Family Tree Forum

http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/index.php/Places_of_Worship

Go to the family screen and click on the scrapbook tab below the individual (the marriage scrapbook opens on a tab alongside the marriage details further down the screen, circled in the image below)

Click the "insert picture/object" tab at the top of the screen, from the dropdown menu select whether you are adding a picture from a CD, from your computer etc,

Now you have to locate the image and add it to the scrapbook, the illustration shows that it is possible to tweak an image, changing the brightness, contrast etc as well as flipping, rotating and cropping before it is added, once you are happy with any changes made (the image is previewed on the screen) click "OK" to save the image in the scrapbook.

To add a title click on the highlighted button, a screen appears where you can add a title to your image.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 09-09-08, 11:52

FTM homepages and websites are no longer hosted and supported, similiar facilities can be found with other site hosting suppliers.The information has been left online to illustrate linking a family history site to google and options for adding video etc

FTM offers a free website hosting service, the website can be used to display your fanily tree, notes, facts, sources etc as well as having options to add images, books created within FTM, links to other sites and even video clips.

Creating a page is done by a few mouse clicks and selecting the style/appearance. Adding a few lines of text to introduce your site is worth spending a few minutes doing, perhaps mentioning the surnames and areas of specific interest, you can select whether to have your e-mail address displayed or not.

To create a page first click on the "internet" tab on a family page and select "create a homepage"

You have to complete a registration form, type a text introduction and then you can select from the different colour, layout and styles from the available options.

Once you have made your selections (they can be changed at any time if you wish) your homepage will be created using the information from your FTM file.

Homepages are the main entry point to your site and link to the images, reports, books and trees that you can add separately as well as a list of surnames and individuals. My page is quite plain but the links to navigate the site can be clearly seen in the screenshot below (to avoid a duplicate site the following screenshots use my actual site and FTM file, not fictitious details).

Updating your page can be done at any time, adding images, reports, books, trees and related links can be done from the homepage without having to use FTM, though if you wish to add new names that you have added to your file you must use the "update" option from the internet tab on the family screen of FTM.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 09-09-08, 11:53

By adding your surname interests to a site such as Cyndislist your site can appear in google search results, the screenshot shows the google search and results for a name in my file, by adding images you can also get results via "image" searches too.

Towards the top of my homepage is a link to a PDF book i am working on, towards the bottom of my homepage i have added some links, one is to the FTF website, another demonstrates a video i have added,(video files have to be added as a link and hosted on a different server to your homepage, in this case i used photobucket). Click the link on my homepage (illustrated below) to see an example of some of the images that feature in the Places Of Worship project.

Illustration to show the links to the FTF website and the video of churches from the Places of Worship project.

Please note, my site is not online at present but the screengrabs used illustrate the links, reports and video options used at the time the site was live

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 11-09-08, 12:32

Files; Multiple file problems and file management tips

Arranging your files and keeping track of them can be confusing, FTM uses several different file icons and extensions, .FTW, .FBK, .FBC and Gedcom. Have a look at the following wiki guide for an explanation of the different file types and their uses;
Family Tree Maker - File Extensions and Icons - Family Tree Forum

There are times when you find that you have multiple files and this can cause problems trying to keep track of files and possibly deleting unwanted files or adding information to the wrong file in error. Multiple files are created when you open a gedcom file or open a backup file, to avoid creating duplicate/multiple files you should always try to open the main .FTW files and avoid the temptation to open a .GED or .FBK file.

++++

The first thing to do to reconcile your files is to locate all your files on your pc, this can be done in two ways.
If you have more than four files (or are unsure how many you have) then use the windows search feature.
If you have no more than four files you can use FTM to display the most recently viewed files.

Use the windows search feature available;

XP Users (sorry no screenshot, the process is similiar to the Vista system though, illustrated below)

1.Click the Windows Start button (usually in the bottom left corner of your Windows desktop)
2.Click on Search from the Start menu
3.In the Search dialog box, click All files and folders in the left hand window pane (also known as the Search Companion)
4.In the All or Part of the File Name box, type part or all of the name of the file followed by the .FTW extension, or if you do not know the name use an asterisk * as a wildcard (e.g., Genealogy.FTW or *.FTW)
5.In the Look in box, click the drive or drives, folder, or network location that you want to search
6.Click Search

Vista Users

Basically as above,
1. Click the Windows Start Button (bottom left of illustration).
2. Enter the file extension (in the example it is .FTW, circled in red)
3. Files are then listed in the panel (circled in blue)

By placing your cursor over a file in the list the location will be shown, note the locations for your files making sure that you search for all the different filetypes.

Hopefully your files will be in a folder, opening the folder should show the contents, depending on your operating system and settings the appearance may differ from the illustration below.

This folder has three distinct files, each file has at least two formats, some have more, each file circled in red is connected to the other files circled in red, each one in blue connected to the others in blue, note that the names help to identify the connected files and the filetypes are listed. This makes it easier to distinguish files.

Displaying the most recently viewed files via FTM

FTM can display the four most recently viewed files for you, this may help to decide if a file is one you wish to keep or not.

Click on "file" at the top of the screen, then look down to the bottom of the dropdown screen to see the files listed.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 11-09-08, 13:18

Trying to identify which file is the latest or most up to date can be a little awkward, try using clues such as filenames if you have added them (giving a file a distinctive name makes the process easier and is recommended), after locating a file on your pc you can hover your cursor over the file and see when it was last modified (this will show when the file last opened, but may not be the last time you added or edited the file). Note that matching date and times displayed for .FTW and .FBK files should help to work out which files are "pairs",

in the example the two highlighted files are an .FTW and .FBK version of the "Meikle tree", the .FBK file is a backup file created when FTM was closed down, both files have the same contents but if the .FBK file is opened it will create another duplicate .FTW and .FBK file, for this reason you should avoid opening the .FBK files

You can open any of the .FTW files with FTM, without fear of creating another duplicate, you may well need to do this to explore the names and dates entered on the file and decide if the file should be kept or deleted.

The one thing this thread cannot tell you is which file(s) you may need to delete, you will have to make your own mind up about that one, but check what each file contains by opening the .FTW file, look for the items you remember adding recently, perhaps a new name or a date for example, maybe you added a census reference or a bmd reference. You may find that these duplicate files have different numbers of individuals, to quickly pull up the number of names in a file and other info that mat help decide how "complete" a file may be try using the "family file statistics" from the tools menu.

Click on "tools" as illustrated below;

Details about the number of individuals and the earliest event will be displayed, by clicking on the "calculate" tabs at the bottom right of the information panel you can also see the number of generations and surnames, by comparing the details from one file to another you may see one file is significantly different to another.

It is possible that you may have two or three "incomplete" files, this can happen if you have added info to one file and the next time you accessed a different file and added information. It is possible to merge incomplete files and avoid typing details in manually but it is best avoided if possible. The process means accessing the "incomplete" files and making them into another new file, but as the original problem is multiple files we don't want to create another file again!! It is better to try and identify the best file you have and use that as a base for your master file, renaming it if need be and then only adding details to this master file.

An illustration of how to rename a file and use that as your new master file is given in the next post

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 11-09-08, 14:11

After deciding which file is to be your master file find it on your pc, either in a folder or your desktop etc. Let's stick to renaming the new file as "master", then all references to master file will be to the newly named file.

Right click on the file (make sure it is an .FTW file)
and in the dropdown select he "rename" option. XP users may see a slightly different display, this screengrab is created using Vista,

Right click on the "rename" option...........

the old filename will go blue, use the backspace button to delete the highlighted text characters...............

Then type the new name in place. Once you have renamed the file simply left click your mouse to save the new filename............

Nothing has been changed in the file, all the names and dates will remain just the same, we have simply made the file easy to identify by giving it a new and easy to remember name

To edit the file (add new names, dates etc) we need to open it first, it is quite likely that FTM will flag up a message to say it is unable to locate the file, this is because FTM uses what are called "filepaths" and this new filename doesn't yet have one.
The error message will look something like this;

To open the file (and create a new filepath so that FTM knows where to "look" next time) right click on the file from the folder/desktop location and then click "open", you may need to specify that FTM is the programme that windows should use. Close FTM down and the file will be saved and a backup created, from now on FTM will know where to locate this file, this file is your master copy, it should be the only file you access to add, edit or delete information about your tree.

A wise move at this point would be to create a backup copy of the master file to disc or other media (memory stick or floppy are alternatives but cd is more stable). Should you accidently access an old/duplicate file in error or delete the master file by mistake in the future you will at least have your master file available from the cd/stick.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 11-09-08, 15:05

So now we have a master file available, as said before, this is the only file we should now edit in any way, the process of adding any missing names and dates, bmd refs and census info etc can begin.

We also have some part complete files, some of the details from these files have to be added to the master file. It might be easier to rename these part files at this point, especially if you have several on your pc, perhaps name them as
partial 1 ,
partial 2 etc,

again the reason is so that we can identify each file easily.

It may be a long process but is safer than trying to merge files, especially if yiu have lots of names and possibly families that used naming patterns, the risk of merging "John Smith" to the wrong parents or wife is too great, it is better to take some time to go through the file and add details to each person if possible, yes it is laborious, and no it isn't much fun but it is better to get it right once and for all while you have the chance.

The ultimate aim is to take the bits from all the partly completed files and put everything into the master file. It may sound tedious but it is better to work with one incomplete file initially, start with partial 1 and transfer everything you want to transfer, (use copy and paste to quickly add lots of notes for example), when you are happy that you have transferred everything from a part complete file to your master file make a backup copy of your master file to cd,after making this back up copy of your master file you can delete the partial 1 from your pc altogether.

Continue through the partial files in the same way, complete one partial file and create a backup of your master file, delete the partial file you have transferred before going to the next partial file, yes it is tedious but it is methodical and the best way to make sure you transfer everything.
Once you have complete the process you will have deleted all the partial files and have one master file with everything in one place.

The trick as you have probably gathered is to avoid opening backup files and gedcom files unless needed, they just create duplicate files, and to give your files names that mean you can quickly identify them means you are far less likely to add to the wrong file in error.

You should only have one main file, the one file you always edit notes, people, dates and places to, calling this main file "Master" means you can never mistake it for anything else.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 06-01-09, 22:14

Marriage Reports.

Fed up of trawling through your list of individuals looking to see if you have a spouse for them or marriage details recorded?

Try using a marriage report and save hours of clicking from one family screen to another.

Simply click on the "reports" button and then click on the marriage option in the dropdown menu as highlighted below

That's all there is to it, you can change the font size and colour using the buttons on the right of the screen

If you want to quickly jump to a family screen for a particular person then left click the name to highlight it in black and then click the family view button (highlighted below)

This takes you directly to the family screen more easily.

To return to the report at any time just hit the back button (the green arrow at the top left of the screen below the woed "file").

Of course you can always print the report for later use if needed.

.

**Glen in Tinsel Knickers** · 07-01-09, 16:50

Documented Events

Another handy report to use is "Documented Events", provided you record the sources of your bmd records etc it's a viable alternative to the custom reports option in the first few posts of the thread.

Click on the reports option from and from the dropdown select the "documented events", the report will then appear as shown below.

Changing the font and text colour is possible by using the buttons to the right hand side of the screen, another option available is via the option button,

the format of the report can be changed to display entries which either include or exclude documented sources, the options are selected from the table illustrated below;

Using the options within a report is a useful way to check and ensure you know which records to locate and which you have recorded.

**Linda from Murton** · 05-02-09, 22:55

Glen - I just wanted to say that this is an absolutely brilliant post. Been using FTM 2005 since it came out and I didnt know half of what you have told us.

Just love the reports about marriages.

Cant thank you enough.

Safe surfing - Linda

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