keeping information of people I cannot place

[Paul Reitz]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

in Reunion 12, you can use the "islands" feature to keep track of who's connected to who.

Thanks, Dennis, but that wouldn't work in this case.

The file in question is for like-surname immigrants to the U.S., and their descendants. The immigrants usually aren't linked to parents or a larger family, so each is an island. There are at least 100 large groups, and the inevitable slew of 1- and 2-person islands.

When it becomes necessary to temporarily place a new find, the commonly-known factoids are often just name and location. Thus location-based collectors, but I have other collector types, too.

-Paul

[Susan Freas Rogers]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

Yes, I use the 'unlinked' flag too. But with hundreds of them, among tens of thousands of people with similar names, listing by flag was too coarse.

My sub-par organizational skills often made me mutter "I know this family sounds familiar, but where'd I put them??" I was pleasantly surprised how well collectors by region work.

Yes, Paul, I agree the flags are clumsy and I actually haven't used them all that much in the past couple of years myself.

BUT, your Collector idea is fantastic and I've used it with great success. Simply by grouping stray people of the same surname and from the same place, I've been able to see that (for example) I have three people who look like siblings because of their birth years and all being born in the same place. When they were just in a long People sidebar of same-surname people, they were not close enough together to notice this (nor does that sidebar tell me that they are strays). But being grouped under the geo-based Collector, I believe I've found some sibling groups!

I do one thing differently I think -- I use "Collector" as the first name, then the location is after that. So, if I'm looking at McFaddens in the People sidebar, I'll see:
McFADDEN, Collector - Argyle, NY
McFADDEN, Collector - Fayette & Allegheny
McFADDEN, Collector - Kildrumsherdan or Cootehill

and so on, all colored yellow. I can see my Collectors all together in the People list this way rather than scattered throughout a long list of many McFaddens.

Many thanks again for this very useful idea.
Susan

[Paul Reitz]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

I do one thing differently I think -- I use "Collector" as the first name, then the location is after that. So, if I'm looking at McFaddens in the People sidebar, I'll see:
McFADDEN, Collector - Argyle, NY
McFADDEN, Collector - Fayette & Allegheny
McFADDEN, Collector - Kildrumsherdan or Cootehill

and so on, all colored yellow. I can see my Collectors all together in the People list this way rather than scattered throughout a long list of many McFaddens.

Many thanks again for this very useful idea.
Susan

I also use the term 'collector' in the first name; Reunion's people list makes it easy enough to find them. I add people to a region collector regardless of their surname, if I suspect an intermarriage with the main family in that region.

But – Aha!! Your collectors show in yellow, so you must be assigning them as unknown gender. Super idea!!

[mrstucci]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

Hi Susan-Would you mind posting a screenshot of your "Collector" idea? I am very interested in doing this but I like to see a visual of what you are talking about. I think I get it but I am a visual learner...

[Susan Freas Rogers]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

Would you mind posting a screenshot of your "Collector" idea?

It's actually Paul Reitz's idea, so kudos to him. I've found it very helpful.

See screen shot. This one is unusual in that I have two "Collector" parents (the others all have only one Collector "father"), but this particular shot shows a variety of benefits to using the Collector idea:

1. One line of McFaddens went to Argyle, NY but the other siblings all stayed in Kildrumsherdan. So, I put any stray individuals or family lines from either place under these "parents" to see if I can spot other connections.

2. Proximity of birth years can show potential sibling relationships. In this case, I might find from further analysis that Joseph b1798 and James possibly born around 1805 could well be brothers. Same for Henry possibly born 1852 and Hugh possibly born 1862.

3. Thomas Sharpe is in this McFadden group because his son John married a McFadden woman. So, like Paul Reitz commented, I'm also capturing related surnames.

Misc note: I use a question mark after a birth year if I'm just guessing at a birth year from other data: marriage date, parents' marriage date, known sibling's birth year, birth year of a child, etc. In the memo field, I write "guessing from X date." This is to help with grouping with potential siblings, such as shown here, AND because I got tired of clicking on a person's name (who has no known dates) in the right-hand People column to see if this is the person I want, only to find that I'm a hundred years off. A guessed-at date is better than none, IMHO. If I have a Source for an approximate birth year, THAT's when I use "abt 1805."

Hope this helps!

[mrstucci]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

Thank you, Susan!!!! And Paul Reitz!

[Paul Reitz]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

It's actually Paul Reitz's idea, so kudos to him. I've found it very helpful.

Thanks, good to know we can help each other!

2. Proximity of birth years can show potential sibling relationships. In this case, I might find from further analysis that Joseph b1798 and James possibly born around 1805 could well be brothers. Same for Henry possibly born 1852 and Hugh possibly born 1862.

Misc note: I use a question mark after a birth year if I'm just guessing at a birth year from other data: marriage date, parents' marriage date, known sibling's birth year, birth year of a child, etc. In the memo field, I write "guessing from X date." This is to help with grouping with potential siblings, such as shown here, AND because I got tired of clicking on a person's name (who has no known dates) in the right-hand People column to see if this is the person I want, only to find that I'm a hundred years off. A guessed-at date is better than none, IMHO. If I have a Source for an approximate birth year, THAT's when I use "abt 1805."

Hope this helps!

Susan, how exactly do you get those collectors to show in yellow in list views? Most of my collectors are at the top of the tree, and I don't know any simpler way to do it than to add a dummy parent and change the child gender via Children -> Batch Entry, then delete the parent. Is there a simpler way?

Absolutely agree with you on point #2 and the following note!! With many people of same first and last names, having a dob is essential to be able to separate them generationally, from the list, even if it's just an educated guess.

If there is data that provides a calculable year of birth, such as age in census, I use the term "ca." before the year, and have Reunion sort on that year and for source use a census year designator (i.e., 1900 census is source 1181 in my file.) I know them all by heart, now. ;>)

But if there's no data on which to base YOB, I use "est." and estimate a child's father's YOB as 25 years before the child's, or vice-versa. Usually use 22 years for the mother, unless there's a known string of children.

To differentiate likely families when looking at a list, having a location for everyone is very helpful. Even if an exact birth location isn't known, the census location works for a custom 'lived at' Fact, with the census year designator as the source.

[Susan Freas Rogers]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

Susan, how exactly do you get those collectors to show in yellow in list views? Most of my collectors are at the top of the tree, and I don't know any simpler way to do it than to add a dummy parent and change the child gender via Children -> Batch Entry, then delete the parent. Is there a simpler way?

Put your Collector "person" in Family View, as if it's the parent. Click on it as if you want to change the name, add a Source to the name, etc. You'll be on the Name tab (not Events or Facts, etc.) Look to the right of the First/Middle Name box, and you'll see Sex. Use the arrow to change it to Unknown. That should make it yellow after you hit "Done" and go back to Family View.

I agree with all your other comments about ensuring there is an approximate date so that generations can be spotted, and having a location. We are just using different abbreviations to show how we get the dates. :-)

[Paul Reitz]

Re: keeping information of people I cannot place

Put your Collector "person" in Family View, as if it's the parent. Click on it as if you want to change the name, add a Source to the name, etc. You'll be on the Name tab (not Events or Facts, etc.) Look to the right of the First/Middle Name box, and you'll see Sex. Use the arrow to change it to Unknown. That should make it yellow after you hit "Done" and go back to Family View.

Wow! Funny how I never noticed that... and so much easier than my method! Thanks!!