What is Your Editing Technique?

[gathompson56]

Although I started using Reunion ~3 years ago and have accumulated various records through Ancestry I am only now organizing the data. That organization includes building sources, adding events, confirming that the records I have ARE for my ancestors.

In a week or two I should finish my first round of data entry into Reunion for my initial ~250 family members. Once that is complete I need to edit what I have entered. I want to verify that I have transferred data correctly and completely but also identify holes or inconsistencies in my data.

My first thought is to print out some of the Reunion reports in order to review data against the sources.

What are your editing techniques? Which reports do you find of greatest benefit?

Thanks, Grant

[Frank Zwolinski]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

Although I started using Reunion ~3 years ago and have accumulated various records through Ancestry I am only now organizing the data. That organization includes building sources, adding events, confirming that the records I have ARE for my ancestors.

In a week or two I should finish my first round of data entry into Reunion for my initial ~250 family members. Once that is complete I need to edit what I have entered. I want to verify that I have transferred data correctly and completely but also identify holes or inconsistencies in my data.

My first thought is to print out some of the Reunion reports in order to review data against the sources.

What are your editing techniques? Which reports do you find of greatest benefit?

Thanks, Grant

Grant,
I would be happy to share what I do, but to save myself some keyboard time, would you like to call me? If so, 707-546-6903 in CA.
Frank

[gathompson56]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

Grant,
I would be happy to share what I do, but to save myself some keyboard time, would you like to call me?
Frank

Thanks for the offer Frank. But posting your steps on this forum might be of benefit to others, not just me.

grant

[Michael Talibard]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

Grant, this is going to sound unhelpful, but it’s not meant to be, and may possibly be useful going forward. I don’t have procedures for your situation, because I never allow myself to get into it. It seems your approach has been to enter 250 people unsourced, unchecked, some maybe unrelated, and then to reconsider them. My approach, and I would guess that goes for most of us, is to check and source everything as I go. Nothing I have doubts about gets into the file - or certainly not without the doubt being prominently flagged up, and everything is sourced as I go along. My advice (but I haven’t tried this) would be not to use reports, but to work in the file itself, having created a flag for ‘checked and sourced’ which you can apply as you go along. Or you could have an 'unchecked' flag which you apply to everyone and progressively remove. Bonne chance!

[jbastin]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

Grant, this is going to sound unhelpful, but it’s not meant to be, and may possibly be useful going forward. I don’t have procedures for your situation, because I never allow myself to get into it. It seems your approach has been to enter 250 people unsourced, unchecked, some maybe unrelated, and then to reconsider them. My approach, and I would guess that goes for most of us, is to check and source everything as I go. Nothing I have doubts about gets into the file - or certainly not without the doubt being prominently flagged up, and everything is sourced as I go along. My advice (but I haven’t tried this) would be not to use reports, but to work in the file itself, having created a flag for ‘checked and sourced’ which you can apply as you go along. Or you could have an 'unchecked' flag which you apply to everyone and progressively remove. Bonne chance!

I agree with Michael; from the beginning of my work in genealogy about 16 years ago, I have always included source citation information with any individual that got added to the database.

When the source information is doubtful (Family Trees on Ancestry are a good example) I go further and get more sources for the bits of information so that I know that all of the information in my family tree database in Reunion is as correct as I can make it.

With only about 250 family members in your database so far, you don't have an impossible task ahead, to find and record source information for the entries you have, but I certainly wouldn't wait any longer or add any more people until you do that. After you have acquired the source citation information for the people you have, from then on just include the source information as you go, it will make your work much more accurate (as far as I am concerned, finding and recording the sources is more than half the fun of my genealogy activities!).

Hope this helps.

[gathompson56]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

What probably was not available 16 years ago was the ease of downloading census and other data from Ancestry. Especially when you accept their "hints". It is so very easy to get carried away without pausing and checking authenticity. I would suggest I am not unique in this initial phase.

But after watching Ben Sayers videos I finally developed a system to organize and cite the collected data. I am almost at the completion of citing and organizing this original data. Then the lessons learned from this process will form the process I use for EACH new bit of data I add.

[Frank Zwolinski]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

Grant,
Sorry not to have gotten back to you earlier, but life tends to get in the way. I think others have done a better job than I in helping but here is what I do.

I generally do not enter undocumented data into my file however I did get one large GEDCOM from a family member and did add that. In that case I trusted my cousin's research but just to be safe I flagged each of those entries as "need to verify + his name." Now as I verify each piece, I just remove the flag which is clearly visible in the Family View. I could have just not entered the data until it was verified, but I felt this way I could get a better picture of the whole.

I hope this is helpful.

Frank

[gathompson56]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

Frank:

Thanks for the ideas on "flagging". I think I will put that to use.

I have just discovered that in Reports the Family Group Sheet has some very interesting possibilities. You can customize the questionnaire to show not just the data added for that person but also the missing data. This could be very valuable as well.

Grant

[Frank Zwolinski]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

Grant,
Just one more thing about flags. They are easily named and you may have any number of them. Once named, you only need a click to add them to a specific person.
F

[Bob White]

Re: What is Your Editing Technique?

Like Michael, I don't have the type of edit procedure that you are inquiring about. Unless I'm pretty sure about the data, it doesn't get entered. Further editing would be only if I later come up with more certain, better documented data. That happens but not real often. (See my response today in the Genealogy thread re: how should deal....with not sure matches.)