ANCESTRY HINTS ~ Do you take advantage of this resource?

Maybe it’s only me, but sometimes I get in a rut with my research.  I sit down at my computer, look at my Legacy database, and try to decide who I’m going to work on today.  Or, maybe there was some note I wrote yesterday that’s on my desk that I need to go back to.

What would give me a fresh look and a new direction?  How about looking at my hints on Ancestry?

Do you look at your hints on Ancestry? 
Do you go through all of them?

Here’s what I am in the habit of doing.  I will see a new number up by the “shaky leaf” at the top right of the screen.  I’ll click on that to see what names pop up.  Generally, it’s people in a group I have recently worked on.  I may or may not look at the hint.  I rarely scroll through the hints list or use the other options available to us.  

My habit is to look at the hints, from the Facts page, for whichever ancestor I am currently working on. 

Here is what showed up for me today in the way of current hints.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)


I do see two people on that list that I was working with yesterday.  Mary Johnston and Addison Boggs.

Next, I clicked on “See all recent hints in” and selected my primary tree on Ancestry.

That brought up this screen.



WOW!  That’s 13,905 hints total. 
I have 3,535 people in this tree.  NOTE:  I use my Ancestry trees for connections & sharing with cousins, gathering hints and for my DNA.  My primary records are all in Legacy, on my computer.  Any record I find on Ancestry is downloaded to my computer, saved in the appropriate digital folder and added & sourced in my Legacy program.  Ancestry is simply a tool for me.
I have to admit that I don’t do a lot of fiddling with the hints page.  However, maybe I should.
 
You can sort by

• Most recent
• Last name
• First name

Or you can filter by name.

These are all very helpful ways of focusing on a particular ancestor.
 
I love working with and finding photos for my ancestors. I see from the hints page that I have 1730 PHOTO hints.  Let’s take a look at those.  I didn’t sort these in any order, however, you do have that option.

In looking at the first 10 pages of 87 pages of photo hints, most of them were familiar.  They were images that have been added by me and then saved to other trees, or added by cousins.  By the time I got to page 15 I was seeing some new items.
 
It was actually very difficult to not stop and take a look at those items instead of finishing this post.  Guess where I’ll be going back to when this is published?

What about STORIES?  I have 119 story hints.  Those might be interesting to take a look at.

I see lots of interesting items here.  Everything from abstracts of war pensions to lineage to divorce packets to an entry that says “attacked by Indians.”  Certainly many of those are worth looking at.
 
The bottom line is, I don’t take enough advantage of the options offered to us on this website.  Do you?

I’m off to investigate some of those stories and other hints right now.  Please share with me what your experience is and whether or not you use all the options on this website.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

OCCUPATION FILES ON ANCESTRY - 1600-1995 - What are they?  Have you seen these?

ADDING A RECORD TO LEGACY FROM ANCESTRY - A Step by Step Guide

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

ADDING A RECORD TO LEGACY FROM ANCESTRY–Step by step instructions

One of the members of a Facebook group (Technology for Genealogy) I belong to asked a question this morning.  I thought this would be a good topic to share with you.

This group member was switching from Family Tree Maker to Legacy. She asked how we would recommend she save things she found on Ancestry to the Legacy database so that she doesn't lose what she finds.  She has been used to Family Tree Maker and Ancestry syncing all the records. I have written this post in response to her question.  

My primary database is stored in Legacy.  I have a couple of trees on Ancestry.  The “working” tree is private and I use it to share with relatives and to glean any hints that Ancestry might come up with.  The other tree is public, but I don’t have any pictures attached to it.  I still get plenty of contact from new cousins this way.

Back to our topic.  ADDING A RECORD TO LEGACY

Today I have chosen to learn more about Charles Louis KING, the son of my great grandaunt.  At this point I don’t know very much about him or his wife.

Here is a screen shot of what I have at this point.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)



Our goal is to try and find every record we can from the time someone is born until their death, by using every method we have learned.

Here is the screen shot showing exactly what facts and events I currently have for Charles L. King.



Now, let’s take a look on Ancestry and see if there is anything new?  Are there any new hints?



NO HINTS!  I don’t let that deter me.  Now I will click on “Search Records” located just under his photo.

As I scroll through the first page of records that come up I see one that could be a match.



The names look like a match (closer than the other names I’ve seen on this list). 

I will click on that record and bring up the page on Ancestry. 



For this exercise, I will add this event to Charles L. King.  I need to find more evidence that this is, in fact, the same Charles L. and Emma M. King. I do know that Charles was widowed and living with his parents in Lexington, Fayette Kentucky in the 1930 census. 

Now I will go to Charles King’s Event/Fact page in Legacy and begin to add this event. (See the events/facts in the screen shot above for Individual’s Information)

1.  Click on the “Add” icon  



2.  In the Add/Edit Event screen use your drop down list to bring up the event/fact you want to record.  If there isn’t an event/fact in the list that meets your needs, then add your own.  If I remember correctly, I had to add the “City Directory Listing” event myself.  I wanted this to be very specific, not just residence or location.

3.  Now fill in the top portion with description, date & place.  Your event screen should now look like this.



4.  Back on the Ancestry page showing the details for this listing I highlight the pertinent data.  I don’t want everything on the page, only the detail.  I roll my mouse over the data from “Name” down to “1921” at the end of the listing.  Your data should now be highlighted as shown below.



5.  Now you can right click with your mouse and choose “copy” or use the shortcut Ctrl C.

6.  Go back to your event/fact screen in Legacy and in the NOTES area for the City Directory Listing, place your cursor and use “paste” or the shortcut Ctrl V.

Your Event will now look like this.



7.  Since there is an image available for this event, I will add that image.  I won’t go into detail here about adding images or sources to Legacy.  They have tutorials on their website and in their CD’s for that.  The image is added just like any other image, by clicking on the little picture frame icon at the top of the event screen.

8.  The next thing I would do is enter the source for this information. 

When you are finished your entry will look like this.



You have entered your event, sourced it and added an image.  This entire process takes less than 5 minutes.  

You perform these same steps for every event, whether it’s a census record, World War I or II registration card or obituary.
 
This creates your timeline for this individual and allows you to review it and see what you might be missing.  In Legacy you can click on “Chronology” and all of these events are listed.

I hope this post was helpful.  Now go add some events.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
ADDING SIBLING LINKS TO FINDAGRAVE 
ADDING SIBLING LINKS TO FINDAGRAVE - AN UPDATE 
LEGACY 8 - THE SEARCH FUNCTION - WHAT CAN YOU FIND?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2014   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION