WEDDING WEDNESDAY with a TWIST ~ How many divorces have I recorded?

Instead of my usual Wedding Wednesday post, I thought I would shake it up a bit.

 

I record marriage details in my Legacy program.  These can include the following:

• Date of marriage
• Place of marriage
• Witnesses to marriage
• Married by – name of Pastor, Priest or Justice of the Peace who performed the ceremony
• Where they went for their honeymoon
• Status of the marriage – Divorced, husband or wife deceased, Common law etc.
• Date & detail of the divorce

Out of curiosity I wondered how many couples I have in my database who are listed as divorced?

I’ve never thought to review this statistic before.

I used Search>Find>Detailed Search and filled in the boxes as follows

With the click of a mouse the list was created.

My Legacy database contains 6287 individuals.  Of those there are 2424 that are married. 

 

HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD YOU GUESS ARE ON THE LIST?  

I had no idea.  And certainly, I am not privy to the status on all the marriages I’ve recorded.

 

There were 166 people on the list – making for 83 divorced couples.  Taking the number of individuals I have as married and dividing it into 166 people that are divorced, I get a total percentage of divorces of .0684.

Is that a lot or not too many?  Again, I have no idea.

I know my Dad divorced twice, my Mom once. My 3 lifelong friends all have divorced parents.

 

I think it’s much more common today, but it certainly wasn’t unheard of during our grandparents & great grandparent’s times.  As evidenced by my report.

Have you ever run this report for your own tree?  If so, I’d love to hear about it.  I know all you Legacy users out there can create the report and I expect the other programs have something similar.

 

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2019   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

WHERE DO YOU BEGIN AFTER YOU'VE TAKEN TIME OFF FROM YOUR RESEARCH?

My husband, Ron and I on the train from Fairbanks to Talkeetna

OUR VIEW OF DENALI FROM OUR HOTEL IN TALKEETNA - ABOUT AS GOOD AS IT GETS

Me getting ready to head out on our ATV adventure

My husband and I just returned from a two week vacation.  What with the preparation prior to the trip and being sick since we’ve returned home, I’ve been away from my research now for about 4 weeks.

That’s a long time for me.  Since I’m retired, I have the luxury of being able to set my own schedule (in other words, I can research pretty much as often as I want to).  Isn’t that what we all hope for?  Of course I still have other interests and activities, but I generally have time to sit down each day and do some sort of research.  Sometimes that’s just cleaning up images or reviewing what I’ve recently located.

Today’s question is, where do I begin?  Which line of the family do I want to focus on right now?  I keep copious research notes in my Legacy database. I enter the date I’ve done something and what that something was, what I located, where it was located etc.  This allows me to return to a particular ancestor and see exactly what I’ve done and when.

Legacy keeps track of the last 200 people I’ve viewed.  That will give me some idea of where I’ve been recently.

To view your History list in Legacy go to the View tab and select “History List.”  Because I use this list all the time, I have included it in My Toolbar, where it is readily available.

Here is where you will find the History List in your Legacy program.



As I viewed my History List today, I was able to go back to some of the people I was working on prior to vacation.  This helps bring back my train of thought at the time (well, at least I hope it does).

Another way I will decide who I might want to work on, is to go to my Ancestry tree and see what hints have popped up.  You know, the little shaky leaf.  When I first went onto Ancestry after my return there were 64 new hints.  As we know, new hints tend to generate as you work on people in your tree.  When I see a red number above the leaf I always check to see who the hints are for.  Is it someone I want to look at or a distant family connection or possibly someone I don’t want to work on right now?

NOTE:  I have turned off Member Tree hints.  This way, I am only seeing hints for record collections or media.  I can turn those Member Tree hints back on any time.

Another thing I did during our vacation, was to keep up with genealogy Facebook groups I belong to.  I learn a lot from those groups.  However, I don’t want to spend a lot of time online while on vacation.  When I came across something of interest I used the “save link” option in Facebook, which allows me to come back to that item.  Once I returned home I spent some time reviewing articles and tutorial videos.  One of the videos was a tutorial for using the Chronicling America newspaper site.  The tips I learned helped me to immediately find a death notice from 1838.  Definitely worthwhile.
 
With this said, now it’s time to decide where my next research adventure will begin.

I’d like to know what method you use to pick up your research when you’ve been away.  Maybe it was only a few weeks, perhaps months or even years.  Where do you begin?

Stay tuned for more posts about our family.  Hopefully I can connect with some new cousins or help others researching their own families.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2017  Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TUESDAY’S TIP–Using the Master Location List in Legacy 8

I use this feature in Legacy 8 a lot.  Today I was specifically looking for a list of all the people in my database who are buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.

There are differing viewpoints on how we should list our locations in the database.  I’m not going to talk about those options here today.  I will show you how I do my own locations and what works for me.

When I locate a burial place for an ancestor, I enter the information in that portion of the Individual’s Information screen.  Additionally, I will enter the address of the cemetery, if I have it, in the address field for “burial.”  This field is located when you click on the + sign to the right of the burial field.



I like to see the name of the cemetery in the actual burial field and not have to click on the address to find it, or look in Events, if it’s entered there.  Again, not everyone does it this way, but it works for me.
 
Therefore, when I want to locate everyone who is buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan, this is how I would go about it.

Locate the Master Location list in your Legacy program.  There are a couple of ways to do this. 

• You can go to the “View” tab and use the drop down list under “Master Lists”

• I have the Master Lists saved to My Toolbar, so I always have quick access to it.

Once you’ve opened your list you will be able to search for the location you are trying to find.  In this case I just typed in Elmwood.
 


If you want to see a map, in addition to the list you can select “show map” which is located on the right side of the list of names.  Here is the view with the map.  Note that you have a red balloon at the location and also the longitude and latitude.



Something else to note when you bring up the various lists are your List Options – located under the names and your Options – located on the right hand side of the names.

LIST OPTIONS
 
 OPTIONS


These location lists can be used whether your looking to write a blog post, like I am, or preparing to visit a particular location.  When I traveled back to Detroit I created lists of every person buried in each cemetery in Michigan.  Whether I save those lists digitally or print them out, they are of great value and save you a lot of time and effort in your genealogy trip.

Have you used these lists?

If so, how have they helped you?

To see ALL of my Legacy 8 tips please click on the tab of the same name at the top of my blog or click HERE

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2017   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

IT’S INAUGURATION DAY ~ How many Presidents were in office during my father’s lifetime? Let's use Legacy 8 to find out

It’s an amazing day in history. Every four years our country peacefully transfers power from one person to another (unless a President is chosen for a second term).  This process has been taking place since the election of George Washington, our first President.  It makes me very proud to be an American.

Today I asked myself – how many Presidents were elected/in office during the lifetime of my parents?  How about my grandparents?  Or me?  I’ll use my Dad as an example.

To find out, I used my Legacy 8 database.

Select the Chronology tab, then click on “Options” in the lower right corner.  You can customize your Chronology in many ways.  I will concentrate on the “Include” tab and choose “Select” under Other Options, as shown here.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)


Note, that you can even change the color of this display, by clicking on the “color” box above my red arrow.  This determines what color the item will show up as, in your timeline.  You can change all the colors in your timeline.

When you hit the “select” icon another screen comes up.  Note all your options on this screen.



Now let’s click on the “Add a Timeline File.”

There are 51 different historical items for you to choose from on this list.  When you highlight one of them, the description field at the bottom tells you about that event.



Here is a screen shot of my Dad’s timeline without any historical events.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)


Here is a screen shot of my Dad’s timeline with the historical event “U.S. Presidents” added.  I’ve marked the first 3.



You can see how valuable this display option can be for putting your ancestor in a place and time.  Want to know which wars went on during their lifetime, which amendments to the constitution were passed, which items were invented or any other of the 51 timeline options.

My Dad was born during the Presidency of William Howard Taft, the 27th President.  He died during the term of our 41st President, George H. W. Bush.

Which Presidents were in office during your lifetime or your parents?

Have you ever used the historical timeline in you genealogy software program?  If so, what did you discover?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2017   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TUESDAY'S TIP ~ Legacy 8 ~ How To Determine When You Last Modified a Record

A quick tip for today.

I was researching a particular line of my family, that I’d not looked at in quite a while.  I don’t have any general or research notes on this person, so I wondered when I had last looked at her. 

Here’s how to find out.

From the Family View – click in the very lower right hand corner, in the blank area, next to the M:1.

 (CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)

This is the screen you will see next.

Now I know that I have not looked at this ancestor since I entered her into my database on 1 Aug 2011.

HERE'S ADDITIONAL INFORMATION I RECEIVED AFTER I POSTED THIS - If you are reviewing a person in your database, but you haven't made any changes, if you click "save" it will change the modified date.  If you click "cancel" the modified date will remain the same.  I have a habit of clicking save every time I view anyone's record, but I think I will change that habit after learning this.  Sometimes, I'm just taking a look and I don't want the modified date to indicate changes were made.
 
It’s always kind of surprising when I see how long a time passes until I get back to a particular ancestor.  And, surprisingly, I don’t have a particularly large database, just 4796 people.  And, I research almost daily.

That your tip for today.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

LEGACY 8 - HOW TO CHANGE THE LABELS IN FAMILY VIEW

         

After the announcement by Ancestry, regarding the discontinuance of Family Tree Maker, many people have switched to Legacy. 
I thought I would post about a basic function in Legacy – the ability to customize the labels on your Family View.
 
Here is how my great grandparents, William & Elizabeth Lindsay look right now.  Notice their labels are: Born, Bapt., Died, Buried, DthCau.
                           (CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)

By clicking in the blank area just to the left of those labels you will bring up your customization screen.
You’ll notice those little ….. next to each field name.

Click on any of those boxes containing the dots and you will bring up a new screen.

Scroll through the selections until you find the one you want.  There are many choices.  Click on the “select” icon.  You will see that your new selection is in the “Field Name” now instead of whatever was there before.
 
You can either click on “Close” and go back to your Family View or you can use the “SAVE” icon in the lower right corner.  Should you decide to “Save” you will see this screen.

PLEASE NOTE:  I already have saved views in my screen.  The first time you see this screen all the numbers will be blank.  Simply enter what ever name you want to give the particular view (in the box below) and click on the “save” icon in the upper right corner.

You can save up to 10 different views.  Change every label or just one or two.  It’s up to you.  Then save it for when you need it again.



















TO CHOOSE A SAVED LABEL view, simply click in that blank area to the left of the labels on the Family View.  You will see up to 5 of your saved views displayed, or you can click on “customize” to change selections and save again or to “Load” an already saved view.

These flexible options come in very handy depending on what you are working on with your family.  Maybe you want to see display everyone’s age at death, or their primary spouse or their User ID field. 

I, personally start all my work from the Family View.  From there I might go to the Index or Chronology view, but only temporarily.

The Legacy Users Group on Facebook has been swamped with questions over the past several days.  If you are a testing Legacy or have decided to switch over, you will find many answers in that group.

I hope this post has been helpful.  If so, or if you have a question, please leave me a comment.  Please add me to your circles or follow my blog as I will have other posts about Legacy 8 and many other research items.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

LEGACY 8 - Census List - How Will I Use It To Search For My Family?

WORKDAY WEDNESDAY - Using Legacy 8 to Determine What My Ancestors Did for A Living

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TUESDAY’S TIP–How to Determine Which War Your Ancestor May Have Participated In

Military records can be one of the best resources we find for our ancestors.  Whether it’s a draft registration, a pension file or a service record, they can tell us a lot about that ancestor.

Here are some of the things you may find in a military record:

• Date of birth
• Names of parents
• Date of marriage, name of spouse & marital status
• Names and ages and/or date of births of children
• Places of residence
• Occupation
• Physical characteristics
• Names of other relations or acquaintances may be found in pension files
• Date & place of death
• Place of burial

That is only a partial list.  But, you can certainly see how important these records can be.

SO HOW CAN WE FIND OUT WHICH OF OUR ANCESTORS MIGHT HAVE PARTICIPATED IN WHICH WAR?

I use Legacy 8 as my software database and this is the method I used.  I’m sure other software programs have similar finding aids.

The first thing I referred to was a list that I located on Ancestry.com last year.  Here is a link to the post: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2014/04/23/what-war-did-my-ancestor-serve-in/

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)

My next step was to use the “Search” capabilities of Legacy 8 by beginning here: 



For a detailed, step by step lesson on how to create your search criteria, please see my post here - Legacy 8 - The Search Function - What Can You Find?

In this case I used the following criteria for possible World War I veterans:



NOTE: Of course there were women who served during the wars.  Especially the later wars.  However, for now I wanted to concentrate on the primary possibilities, which are the men.

Now I actually have a list I can use for each of the wars.  I can check the list one by one and look for military records.  Rather than my usual method of remembering to do that as I’m researching a particular person.
 
I can indicate in my To-Do list in Legacy that I have completed this task.  Or, I could make a notation in the ancestor’s “research notes.”  Or you could keep track some other way.  Because some of the lists are multiple pages, I would not personally print them out.  You might choose to.  I did create a PDF version of each list, which you can do directly from the “Print” option at the bottom of the page of names.

Here is a sample of the first page of a list I converted to PDF format:



Here is a compilation of how many names appear on each list that I created.

REVOLUTIONARY WAR = 90
CIVIL WAR = 411
SPANISH AMERICAN WAR = 573
WAR OF 1812 = 118
WORLD WAR I = 421
WORLD WAR II = 554
KOREAN WAR = 243
VIETNAM WAR = 160

That’s a grand total of 2570 men who could possibly have military records.  I will be able to quickly eliminate from each list, those who died at birth, died as infants or before they were military age.  There could be several who overlap and could have served in more than one war.  My database contains 4719 individuals.

Now to determine where to start and how to proceed.  Do you think this is a valuable list?  Is it something you could use?  Please share your results with me if you choose to create such lists.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

Legacy 8 - CENSUS LIST - How Will I Use It To Search for My Family?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TUESDAY’S TIP–Street Guide included in City Directories –Have you used this handy resource?

If you read my recent post about William H. Thorpe, you know that I used the Detroit City Directories extensively.  It’s certainly not my first time using those directories.  I have used them over the years and find them incredibly helpful and full of information.  However, there was an area of the directory I only recently learned about and it proved to be incredibly helpful.

It’s called the STREET AND AVENUE GUIDE

Here is an explanation of what the guide contains

It’s a list of all the streets and their addresses with the occupant of each.
 
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT AND HELPFUL?

As an example:  When I was trying to locate the death record for William H. Thorpe, I found his widow, Kittie, in the 1916 Detroit directory, living at 154 Alger Ave.  Looking at the other Thorpe’s on the page, I found none of them at that same address.



Who was Kittie Thorpe boarding with?  

NOTE:  Many times you will see boarders on census records and in directories.  Those boarders often turn out to be family members.  It’s not how we think of boarders in our current time, but it was how they were frequently listed during our ancestor’s time.

I then went to the Street and Avenue Guide in the back of the directory and looked for 154 Alger Ave., to see whose name is listed for that address.

     Guess who I found listed at 154 Alger Ave?
** J. D. STANTON – son-in-law of Kittie Thorpe **



Kittie’s daughter Grace M. Thorpe married John Davies Stanton on 24 Jul 1907 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan.
 
This is good evidence that I have the correct Kittie in the 1916 city directory.

LEGACY 8 TIP – I CREATED MY OWN EVENT FOR CITY DIRECTORIES.  I WANTED THEM TO BE SPECIFICALLY LISTED AS “CITY DIRECTORY LISTING” AND NOT JUST AS A RESIDENCE.  THIS ALLOWS ME TO SEARCH FOR ANYONE WHO HAS A CITY DIRECTORY LISTING EVENT AND I’VE FOUND IT VERY USEFUL.

Here is an example from another one of my Thorp’s who has quite a few events.  You can see all the city directory listing’s.



I checked the 1909 Binghamton, New York city directory to see if they too included a Street Guide.  The answer is YES.  I found this one at the back of the directory, just like the Detroit guide.  I find them by browsing, as they don’t seem to be listed in the Table of Contents.

I don’t know if every directory in the United States has a street guide, but I would suggest checking for it in your particular directory.

I hope you’ve found this information helpful.  Please tell me how city directories have helped you in your research.
OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
CITY DIRECTORIES - A treasure trove of genealogical information
AN EXACT DEATH DATE in a City Directory
THOUGHTFUL THURSDAY - Why Don't I Have a Death Date or Record for William H. Thorpe? 

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

MAPPY MONDAY–Using Legacy 8 to Map Your Family

I thought I would look at the mapping feature in Legacy 8 today.

With this feature you can see the migration of your family from one country to another, or one city to another.
 
To use the “Map Family” feature you can go to the View tab and then click on Map Family.  I personally have the feature saved on “My Toolbar” so that I can quickly find it.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)


Let’s take a look at my maternal great grandfather, Andrew Charles Milne.  Here is the Family View for Andrew and his Individual Information screen.  You can see that I have several Events for him.  Because those events contain locations, those locations will show up on a map.

FAMILY VIEW

INDIVIDUAL VIEW

Andrew was born in Scotland, came over to North America via Quebec and moved to Detroit.  However, somewhere along the way he and his wife, Susan also lived in Ohio as one of their children died there.

When I click on the Map Family icon and zoom in just a bit this is what I see.



Now I will zoom into the locations in Michigan and Ohio.



As you can see when I hover over the red pins that are on the map Legacy tells me exactly what event occurred in that location.  In this case it was the death of a child, Margaret E. “Etta” Milne on 26 Jan 1890, in Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio.

If you have not taken advantage of this valuable feature in Legacy, why not give it a try?

PLEASE contact me if you think you might be related, even remotely, to anyone mentioned in this blog.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
Historical & Family History Societies - Great Resources for your Research
Adding a Record to Legacy from Ancestry - Step by Step Instructions

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

WORKDAY WEDNESDAY–What kind of work did your ancestors do?

I thought it would be fun to create a list of occupations from my Legacy database.

What kinds of various occupations did my ancestors engage in? 
In order for this to work you have to have entered “Occupation” under the Events for that individual.  Of course you could title it anyway you want to by customizing that field, but I use occupation.
 
It looks like I have 154 people in my database for which I have listed occupations.  That’s not very many in a database with 4621 individuals.
 
I suspect there are many more males than females with occupations listed on various documents.  Let’s check and see how many of these individuals are male, female, unknown?

Males = 2413        Females = 2181      Unknown = 27

The unknowns appear to be infants or children for whom I have no information.

TIP:  To locate your occupations list in Legacy click on the “Search” tab and then click on “Find.”  Select the following in the drop down lists: Individual, Event name, Equal to or Contains, Occupation.

Here is a link to a previous post detailing how to use the Legacy Search Function. http://www.michiganfamilytrails.com/2014/04/legacy-8the-search-functionwhat-can-you.html

My list contains 89 different occupations.  I lumped some of them together such as, Railroad Conductor, Railroad Brakeman and listed them as Railroad Employee.  I will create a more detailed list at a later time.

Here is a list of the occupations:

Agriculture laborer

Attorney

Auto dealer

Auto mechanic

Baggage handler

Bank clerk

Bartender

Beautician

Blacksmith

Bookkeeper

Box sawyer

Brass finisher

Broker

Carpenter

Census enumerator

Cigar manufacturer

City Clerk

Clergyman

Constable

Contractor

Court clerk

Dairyman

Deputy treasurer

Detective

Directory clerk

Driver

Electrician helper

Engineer

Farmer

Fireman

Foreman

Fuel dealer

Furniture dealer

General dealer

Glassblower

Hammersman

Hotel keeper

Housekeeper

Insurance Solicitor

Interior decorator

Joiner

Linen weaver

Linotypist

Machine Operator

Machinist

Marine engineer yard

Mason

Mechanical Engineer

Merchant at wood

Metal technician

Miller

Milliner

Millwright

Music teacher

Musician

Newspaper circulation manager

Organ builder

Painter

Peddler

Photographer

Physician

Police officer

Postmaster

Pressman

Printer

Printer's Devil

Private industry employee

Produce salesman

Production change analyst

Railroad employee

Realtor

Revenue Clerk

Saddler

Salesman

Saw Milling

Seaman

Secretary

Sign writer

Stationary Engineer

Stenographer

Superintendent

Tanner

Teacher

Tool crib operator

Truck driver

Wagon maker

Watchman

Wheel maker

What an interesting array of jobs.  I have created a spreadsheet for this list which will allow me to keep track and add, modify or delete items.

Most of my ancestors were blue collar.  Lots of farmers, machinists, laborers and of course housekeepers.  I’ve only found a handful of physicians, attorneys etc.
   
Have you ever created such a list?  If so, what did your list reveal?

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
 Occupation Files on Ancestry - 1600-1995 - What are they?  Have You Seen These?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION