TUESDAY’S TIP ~ Keeping Track of Your Blog Posts - Here's How I Do It - What's Your Method?

As we blog about our families, how do we keep track of what we’ve written about and what we haven’t?  Sure, we can use the search feature in Blogger (and whatever method Word Press uses), but is that the best way?

After about 7 years of blogging I began to realize that I ran the risk of duplicating a particular subject about an ancestor. I asked myself…..

• Have I already written about this couple in Wedding Wednesday?
• Have I already transcribed that particular will or probate record?
• How about that Civil War pension file I received?  Have I written about it yet?

Here is how I’m now keeping track.

Using my Legacy database I create an Event called “Blog Post – posted on Michigan Family Trails.”

To add a customized event in Legacy follow this group of screen shots.

(click on any image to enlarge it)
       

Now that you’ve created your new Event you can select it and add your blog post.  You can see that is what I’ve done here.  We have an Event/Fact (selected from our drop down menu), Description – the title from my blog post and Date – the date I published the post.



The next step is to add a link to your entry.  This link will take you directly to your blog post.  In the image above you can see a picture icon (third from the left next to the Event name).  Click on that icon.  NOTE:  It will be gray until you’ve added something to it, mine already has something attached so it is in color.

The next screen you see will be this one.  Follow the instructions in red.


The next screen you see will be this one.


Enter your website URL – I go to my blog post and select the exact post I want to link to and make sure that exact post is in the URL at the top of the web page.  Then I simply copy and past it. 

Next – I enter the title of the post in the Caption area and the date of the post.  I have never used the description field, but that would be up to you.  This is how it will look when your done.



And, here is how it looks after you’ve completed adding the URL.



One final step I take is to mark the blog post event as PRIVATE.  I’m not sure I want these blog post events to show up in a family book or report.  I can always change that option should I choose to.  But, I want to initially mark them private.  You also have the option to exclude the event from problem checking.



Now when I am viewing information on one of my ancestors I can clearly see if I have ever written a blog post about them specifically, their family or something else related to them.

Here is a sample from my grandfather’s list of events. 



This system is working well for me.  I still have a lot of catching up to do, in going back to my earlier posts and making sure they are recorded as events for each ancestor they apply to.

Another step I take is using the Hashtag feature in Legacy 9.  I’ve created a hashtag titled Blog post with the description that I have published a blog post featuring or mentioning a particular ancestor.
 
Do you keep track of your blog posts in some other way?  I tried using a spreadsheet, but found this method works better for me.  I’d love to hear from my fellow bloggers about this.

I have a tab on my blog devoted to Legacy Tips.  Click here to find it Legacy 8 & 9 Tips

Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2018   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS LIST IN LEGACY 8 ~ What problems did I find today?

It’s necessary with any database, to check for problems, errors etc.  Legacy 8 has a built-in feature for doing just that.  It’s called “Potential Problems” and can be found under your Tools tab.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)

 
Since I run this feature about once a month, my problems list is usually very small.  Of course, that wasn’t true the first time I ran it.  I can’t remember exactly how many I had, but I know it was dozens.  It took me a while to go through the list, but it was a worthwhile endeavor.

Today, I ran the list, and here’s what I got.



LET’S TALK ABOUT WHAT WE CAN DO WITH THIS LIST

• The name that is highlighted is Boggs, Virginia [3934].  I always have the RIN number listed after my individuals as it makes it very easy to find them quickly in the Index or write the numbers down, should I need to come back later.
• At the bottom of the screen, you can see that Legacy tells me exactly what the problem is.  In this case “The birth date for this individual is either after the mother’s death date or more than ten months after the death date of the father.”
• I can do several things directly from this list.

    1.  Print it
    2.  Mark as Not a Problem
    3.  Run the report in different ways
    4.  Report destination can be Screen, Text file or PDF file

I went to the family page for Virginia Boggs.  I can see that her birth date is listed as “Abt 1848.”  I have an 1850 census for her and her family which states that she is two years old.  The next census in 1860 lists her as 11.  So, the birth year of approximately 1848 is probably correct.

Now, let’s look at her father, Hamilton Boggs.  OH OH!  I have his death date as “Abt. 1842.”  Kind of tough for him to have been Virginia’s father if she was born 6 years later.  I don’t have a second marriage for her mother, and Virginia is the last child, of 6, listed for this family.

Hamilton Boggs is my 3rd great granduncle, and I can see that I have done very little thorough research on him.  I have one source listed and it’s an email from another descendant, that I received back in 2005.

My next step, as I sit here this morning, will be to go online and begin trying to piece together Hamilton’s life with more valid sources.  I’m sure there has been a lot of sources made available over the past 11 years.

Then I will move on to the other person listed on my Problems Report.

This report provides an excellent method for us to find the problems we might not have noticed and, in this case, to go back to a fairly close ancestor, and do more research.
 
Have you used the Potential Problems report?  What have you found?

Please visit the tab “Legacy 8 Tips” at the top of my blog for 12 other posts that are specific training tools for using Legacy 8.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TUESDAY TIPS–HOW TO CHANGE THE BACKGROUND COLORS IN LEGACY 7.5

 

HOW TO CHANGE THE BACKGROUND IMAGE IN LEGACY 7.5

THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO LEGACY 8

This may not be important to some users.  But, if you’re like me, you want the screen that you look at every single day to be set up just how you like it.  Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to change the background image in Legacy.

• Go to the file menu at the top of your Legacy screen and select Options – Customize
• Click on Colors tab then click on “Click here to change the user interface colors”
• Next - click on the text box that says "background" under the Colors column on the left.

This screen will pop up next

• Click on the Box on the far right, second one up, that says “set”

Now this screen pops up

• Look at the small box at the bottom with the “down” arrow.  Be sure to select your “C” drive, then Legacy, then Background
• Now you should click on one of the backgrounds in the list on the far left. I picked BERRIES2.bmp

The next screen will look like this

• Click OK at the bottom of that screen and the next screen will look like this

• Now click “SET” right next to the background we just selected, which you can see as the red berries on the bottom right.

Your next screen will look like this

• You can do one of two things next.  Either click "SAVE" in the right corner just underneath tags, and when prompted save the setup as anything you want such as “berries background” or
• You can just click on “Close” at the bottom left of the screen.

You will be taken back to this screen

• Click “SAVE” at the bottom left of your screen and now you have a new background.  Here is how it looks.

I used that particular sample because it shows up so well here.  However, I’m more of a subtle kind of background gal so here is what mine looks like with another background.
 


TIP:  You don’t have to use the backgrounds that come with Legacy.  I’ve gone online and found some very pretty backgrounds that I saved to my computer and commonly use for my own background.  I’ve found them just by using a search engine such as Google or Bing.  These were all on public sites with permission to use them granted.
 
    
Or you could use any one of your own pictures as a background.  Here are some I could use from our trip to Amsterdam or from a cemetery where my ancestors are buried, or just a scenic view.  You can decide for yourself what kind of background you might want.  Some of them may or may not look just right or show up very much. 
       

Another note:  If you want more Legacy tips from another blogger who is a member of the Legacy Technical support team, please visit http://ancestoring.blogspot.com/

Have fun playing around with your color scheme.
 
Bye for now,
Michigan Girl


 
 
Copyright © Diane Gould Hall 2013