Negative Information

[fmlyhntr]

I've decided to devote my time for a few months on some of my dead ends--and was wondering how people keep records of sources that are NOT for your ancestor. I have an Absalom Frazier born about 1830--and there are 2 (maybe 3) others of the same time period that have more information than my guy. Sigh--my dead ends managed to avoid paper trails too. Its getting time consuming to keep looking at the same files over and over again when I search for the name say in ancestry.com.

At least that is an uncommon name...I also have a William Wilson.

Both these guys managed to avoid the Civil War.

Christina the stumped

[Barnbarroch]

Re: Negative Information

Well I tend to put "Not the John Smith who m. Joan at Melksham, 1734" in the Notes. But you could create a NOT notes window in which you put it instead!
Jamie.

[Bob White]

Re: Negative Information

I have two TextEdit docs that live on my desktop. One is phrases that I use repeatedly in Notes, so that I can quickly copy/paste and fill in the blanks. The second is a list of these pesky "nots" with just enough info for comparison to what I'm currently looking at.

[fmlyhntr]

Re: Negative Information

Well I tend to put "Not the John Smith who m. Joan at Melksham, 1734" in the Notes. But you could create a NOT notes window in which you put it instead!
Jamie.

I have done the "not the Absalom Frazier living in Kentucky" thing before, but hadn't thought of a "not note". I like this.

[Susan Freas Rogers]

Re: Negative Information

I have two TextEdit docs that live on my desktop. One is phrases that I use repeatedly in Notes, so that I can quickly copy/paste and fill in the blanks.

Bob, I'd love to see your list of phrases, if you wouldn't mind doing a Copy/Paste here. Thanks!

Susan
aka Always Looking for Good Ways to Be More Organized

[Bob White]

Re: Negative Information

Here's a few -- enough to give you the flavor....


Federal Census: Year: NNNN Place: aaa, aaa, aaa Roll: NNN Page: NNN District: NN Image: XXXX.

Marriage data per California Marriage Index 1961-1985.


aaaaa became a naturalized American citizen on DATE,, at the US District Court in city, state, under Petition Number NNNN. As part of the naturalization, she changed her name from aaaaaaaa to aaaaaaa.

The idea is fill in the blanks with the letters reminding me what kind of data. a for words, N for numeric and X for variable. Simple but saves time. (You must also understand that I don't use Reunion's source structure. All of my documentation is in Notes. Subject for another day.)

[RPalmer]

Re: Negative Information

Tell me more, please, on not using Reunion's Source Structured but rather using Notes as it sounds interesting.

[Terri Works]

Re: Negative Information

Tell me more, please, on not using Reunion's Source Structured but rather using Notes as it sounds interesting.

Yes, please share. I agree - I'm interested.
I want to say - as a newbie - I'm learning amazing stuff here!