Data Recovery Project

Data Recovery Project

My next data recovery project will be for the family of William David Henthorn and Susannah Parrott of Vermillion Co., IN. William David Henthorn was the son of James Henthorn II and Elizabeth Unknown.

Currently I do most of my genealogy using a file that I named "pafyoh." This file contains thousands of records. 

My goal is to copy all Henthorn(e) data from an older file "PAFBIG" to the newer "pafyoh" file. As part of this project edits must first be done to the older file records.

Edits such as:

• Correct place names from West Virginia to Virginia, if prior to 1863
• Add each person's name to the top of their Note field
• Add PARENTS: to the Note field of the children, if a child Note field exists
• Enter Find A Grave Memorial numbers, if possible
• Remove periods (.) that were used in the Note fields to leave blank lines been paragraphs when I used the Personal Ancestral File (PAF) for genealogy. [What a mess that made.]

Dick Henthorn

3 July 2020

Importance Of Learning GEDCOM

If you haven't learned how to export and import GEDCOM files with your genealogy program you are missing out on some of the fun.

A GEDCOM file is a "text" file format created by the genealogy programmers and the LDS genealogy staff that allows the various genealogy programs to exchange information. You don't have to know anything about the internal structure of a GEDCOM file to take advantage of its power.  My illustration for this post shows, for those who are curious, the first forty lines of a GEDCOM I created from Personal Ancestral File (PAF 2.31) and loaded into my current genealogy program RootsMagic 6. Notice that it's "text" that you can read, with data tags like "2 DATE" and "2 PLAC" on the left of each line in the file.

A GEDCOM file can be created (exported) and shared by attaching the file to an Email. They can also be staged on the Internet (uploaded) for sharing with others. I've found several on the Internet that were of interest.

If you get lucky enough to find another researcher who is working on the same families that you are you can use GEDCOM to exchange the information each of you have recorded.

When loading a GEDCOM from someone else into your genealogy program always create a "new" file with your genealogy program, with a "new" name before you load (import) the GEDCOM.  That way you can check the quality of the work of the other person.  For example, you can see if you both enter place names in the same way.  And, you can see whether there are duplicates in the file you are receiving.  It's never fun to remove duplicates once they are in your master genealogy file.

To learn more about GEDCOM you can practice creating a GEDCOM (exporting) and then adding it to a "new" file (importing) on your own computer.  Backup you own genealogy file first, just to be on the safe side. Just remember that when you load the GEDCOM into your genealogy program you want to create a "new" file with a "new" name.  You don't want to load your practice file into your main genealogy file.  That would create a mess because every record would be duplicated.

You don't have to include all the records in your file when you create a GEDCOM. You can tell your genealogy program which records to include in the GEDCOM.  For example, you may only want to share a branch of your tree rather than the entire file. Practice this also to see how it works.

Dick Henthorn
19 October 2014

Another Mess

Years ago I divided my own genealogy information into two files, one for my maternal line and one for my paternal line. I can't remember why I did this. I must have thought it was a good idea at the time. Now I think it wasn't such a good idea.  This is my the family of my grandmother, Augusta (Anderson) Carlson.

I have some backups. I'm not certain which backup is the latest version. The data was in Personal Ancestral File (PAF).  On my old computer I don't have a copy of my maternal line available to PAF. As a matter of fact I can't remember how long ago it was when I last looked at this information with PAF.

Yesterday, I found three backup floppies with the latest backup dated, 24 Aug 1998. Using the old computer I created a folder to house the files that make up my maternal line and I loaded the backup file into PAF.  It worked. I recovered a copy of the information that I can access with PAF.

Unfortunately moving the information from PAF to RootsMagic isn't a simple matter.  There are  edits that need to be accomplished to get ready. From past experience, with larger files, I know that this task can take several days, if not weeks.

• I want to add the county abbreviation, "Co.," to county names.  
• I want to expand cemetery names to eliminate truncation. 
• And, most important of all I need to edit the textual information in the Note fields so word wrap will work in RootsMagic.

Dick Henthorn
16 October 2014

AKA: or NAME-CONFLICT:

I'm working on a project to extract Nicknames from the Note fields in my Conger genealogy file. The goal is to add the Nicknames to the Nickname field that is defined by RootsMagic.  It's a slow process. When I was using Personal Ancestral File (PAF) I used the "data tag" AKA: in the Note field when I wanted to record a Nickname.  Using the search command of RootsMagic it's easy to find the Notes with the AKA: data tag.

I've discovered that I often used the AKA: data tag for information that was really pointing out a name conflict rather than an "also known as" name.

Much of the information in my Conger file came from the impressive two-volume work of Maxine -(Crowell) Leonard, The Conger Family of America.  I have probably written that, "Mrs. Leonard was consistently inconsistent in how she spelled people's names."  There is no guarantee that a name found in Volume Two is more accurate than the name found in Volume One.  I say this because sometimes she used two different spellings in Volume Two. Other researchers such as, Charles G.B. Conger, recorded spelling different from Mrs. Leonard.

As part of the project to extract the Nicknames I decided I would change the AKA: data tag in the Notes to use two other data tags, in combination, that I used in my PAF file, NAME-CONFLICT: when I'm recording that I noticed a "name" conflict between what various researchers reported, rather than a Nickname.

Dick Henthorn
6 September 2014

Marriage Notes

I discovered that some of the records I'm importing from a GEDCOM file have Marriage Notes. This field is new to me.  None of the records I created with Personal Ancestral File (PAF) have this field.

I discovered that the Marriage Notes print just below the marriage data in the RootsMagic descendant report. That's good. For readability in the descendant reports I like to see a blank line before and after the Marriage Notes.  To make this happened I needed to add two blank lines before and after each Marriage Note. I don't understand why two lines are necessary. It doesn't matter, once I figured out that I needed to insert the blank lines.

Dick Henthorn
27 August 2014

John Henthorn Family

Today I uploaded the John Henthorn family, using a GEDCOM file, to the RootsMagic5 genealogy program on my laptop computer.  Prior to today this file resided on my desktop computer in a RootsMagic3 file.

Henthorn researchers believe that the first two Henthorns to arrive in the British colonies were brothers, James and John. The John Henthorn family is the smaller of the two.

My genealogy files were originally created with the LDS program, Personal Ancestral File (PAF) version 2.31, on a computer running the DOS operating system. Getting from that point to today entailed years of work and many computer disasters. It's a relief to once again have the data at my finger tips.

A Descendant report created from this file, with place and every name indices is 508 pages.

Dick Henthorn
17 March 2013

Conger File Conversion

My John Belconger (Conger) file, consisting of 44,780 records and 16,989 families is now loaded to RootsMagic5 on my laptop computer.

Here's a example of the amount of information available, a descendant report, in the PDF format, for Job Conger, son of John Belconger, is 2,279 pages.

I used GBridge to move the Conger GEDCOM file from my desktop computer to my laptop computer.

This is a major achievement in my long-standing battle to convert my genealogy information from Personal Ancestral File (PAF) version 2.31 to RootsMagic and move the data to the laptop.

Dick Henthorn
5 August 2013

It's A Mess

It's A Mess

When computers fail, when you use more than one genealogy program, or you change from one genealogy program to another, It's A Mess.  I'm going to write at least two posts of my observations concerning some of the issues and problems I must deal with if I'm going to continue to record new genealogy information and if I want to be able to take advantage of the latest technology for sharing on the Internet.

My Genealogy Programs

I have two working computers, an old desktop with some issues and a relatively new Toshiba laptop. 

On the desktop computer I have three genealogy programs installed: 

1. Personal Ancestral File (PAF) version 2.31 a DOS genealogy program which I run in a Window
2. RootsMagic version 3 which I used to convert some of my files to the RootsMagic format and to create some new files
3. Personal Ancestral File (PAF) for Windows (version 5.2 I think) which I used for experimentation.

On the new laptop I have RootsMagic version 5 installed. I'm using this program to learn about the features of this version and to experiment with moving my files from the desktop to the laptop computer. I was never proficient with version 3. I'm aware that I continue to fall further behind and that the latest version of RootsMagic is version 6.

I own a copy of the book Getting The Most Out of RootsMagic version 4 even though I've never owned that version of the program. I've found the book to be quite helpful.

The LDS church has announced that as of July 15, 2013 they will discontinue support and downloads of Personal Ancestral File. Something tells me it might be useful to download and install their program one last time before the program is no longer available.

Dick Henthorn

27 June 2013

The Amos Tree - Revisited - 2nd Installment

More comments about the document, History and Descendants of Amos and Elizabeth (Sharp) Henthorn - 1816-1959 sometimes called The Amos Tree, by Roy Lee and Norma (Latham) Henthorn.

I think the quality of the 44-page document, The Amos Tree was quite good considering that it was created before the advent of personal computers and genealogy programs. I particularly like the four-page name index and all of the textual information. 

That said, there are some issues with readability. This is because the numbering system used is difficult to follow. Arabic numbers are used to designate more than one generation and the oldest person in a line doesn't have a number. 

For example:

THIS IS THE FIRST MEMBER IN A FAMILY
     1. THIS IS HIS SON (or daughter)
         1. THIS IS HIS GRANDSON  (or grand daughter) (sometimes this level doesn't use a number)
             1. THIS IS HIS GREAT GRANDSON (or daughter) (sometimes this level doesn't use a number)
           
This isn't too hard to follow on a single page but gets quite confusing when the family is large enough to cover several pages.  

Entering the information from an older genealogy report into a computer genealogy program improves clarity of the prior researcher's work and makes it much easier for readers to follow the family structure. The challenge, for the person doing the data entry, is to "get it right."  Success in the task depends on the ability of the person doing the data entry to read and interpret the numbering system used in the source document.

Years ago I entered the information from The Amos Tree into my DOS Personal Ancestral File (PAF version 2.31). In June 2013, as part of a project to learn how to use version 5 of RootsMagic, I keyed the data a second time.  I also extracted additional information from my own file and added it to my new file. 

I produced a 46-page PDF report with RootsMagic version five which is now available from the "Henthorn" page on the HenthornFamily Wiki. This four-generation report is for Robert and Mary (Nicholson) Henthorn, the parents of Amos Henthorn. It includes an every name index and a place name index. The report was limited to four generations. A report including additional generations is available, on request, to researchers who are known to me and who are willing to share their own research information.

Robert and Mary (Nicholson) Henthorn

Dick Henthorn
25 June 2013

The Amos Tree - Revisited - (1st Installment)

The Amos Tree - Revisited - (1st Installment)

In 1959, Roy Lee and Norma (Latham) Henthorn of Bethany, Oklahoma published, - History and Descendants of Amos and Elizabeth (Sharp) Henthorn - 1816-1959 sometimes called The Amos Tree.

In March 2013 Mrs. Lola May (Ivy) Senatro sent me some sheets of genealogy information prepared by her deceased sister, Margaret Grace (Ivy) Barnes.  

I needed a project to help me learn more about using version 5 of RootsMagic which is the genealogy program I have installed on my laptop computer. I decided to create a new file for the information of Mrs. Barnes. As I became familiar with the data shared by the Ivy family I realized that Mrs. Barnes and Mrs. Henthorn had shared information. I located my three-ring notebook with a paper copy of The Amos Tree. My review reminded me that although I'd keyed the information from The Amos Tree into a Personal Ancestral File (PAF) years ago I hadn't included all of the textual data. This realization inspired me to enlarge my RootsMagic project to include keying the data from The Amos Tree.

I'm planning to post several messages about my experiences with The Amos Tree project and the project to learn more about how to use RootsMagic version 5.

Dick Henthorn

24 June 2013