Your mission this week, should you decide to accept it, is:
(1) If you have your family tree research in a genealogy management program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database. (Hint: The Help button is your friend!)
(2) Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook status or Google+ stream comment.
NOTE: We last did this in June 2016.
Even though Randy uses Roots Magic, I'm glad he was nice enough to include the instructions for other programs again, because I had already forgotten how to get the information in Family Tree Maker. And this time I remembered to make a screen capture of the little pop-up that FTM provided:
So the statistics this year for my family file are:
• Size: 6,940 kb
• Total number of individuals: 7,971
• Total number of marriages: 2,659
• Average lifespan: 57 years 7 months
• Earliest birth: 1540, Ebert Mack (from my adoptive Sellers line)
• Text records: 73,002 (I still don't know what this means)
• Total number of generations: 18
• Total number of different surnames: 2,003
For comparison, here's my post from last year.
During the past year I have added 87 individuals, 37 marriages (most gained from the release of the New York City marriage index, I think), and 33 surnames. The average lifespan has gone up by 3 months. The earliest birth and the number of generations have remained the same. The text records have increased by 1,237, but since I don't know what those are (notes, maybe?), I don't really know what to think about it. The file size increased by 105 kb.
I added some information this past year, but I have a lot more I haven't gotten to. I really need to find some free time!
I normally do genealogy in the rain. What I mean is that I buy a six month membership in Ancestry.com on the first day of rain in northern California (usually Halloween). And it runs til April.
ReplyDeleteI have not used a program, but have considered one. Naturally, I googled "best genealogy program" and Legacy 9 came up. I especially like the feature to compare two people side by side, to see if they are the same person.
Although am interested in who my ancestors are, I am more interested in meeting living people. I retire in 29 days, and plan on many driving trips in the west and midwest, as well as plane trips to the east coast.
Unless otherwise advised, I'll buy it soon.
Mike O'Dorney
I do recommend that a researcher have a family tree program installed on his computer, where he controls the data. A program also is much more powerful than an online tree, because it's a relational database and can manipulate the data in more ways and more effectively.
Delete"Best" is a relative term, because people have differing preferences about software. All the family tree programs do pretty much the same thinga. I'm pretty sure my FTM has the same feature to compare two individuals. One of the reasons Legacy is considered best by many is because the free version works great. I'm sure whichever program you choose will work fine.
Good job on adding more individuals to your database. Does that mean you have been doing more genealogy research? I tried searching for what "Text Records" mean in Family Tree Maker but didn't come up with anything. Do you have information in your notes section?
ReplyDeleteMy best guess for "Text Records" was Notes, but that would be another decrease in number from 2017 to 2021. I guess anothr question to ask MacKiev!
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