Rule 18

One tool that I have found useful when posting Notes to my genealogy file is called, Rule 18.  It's free.

You can load as many as eighteen character strings into the Rule 18 application.  And, you can store more than one file of character strings.  The program runs in the background.  When you enter an appropriate CRTL+digit (1-9) or ALT+digit (1-9) the program loads the selected character string into the Windows clipboard.  Then you can use CTRL+v to paste the selected character string into your notes.

Here's the link to more information.
Link to Rule 18


Dick Henthorn
30 Aug 2016

Curly Brackets

From time to time someone has objected to the fact that I included information from the Social Security Death Index in the Note fields of my genealogy files.

One person pointed out that even though a family member was dead there was still someone in the family drawing Social Security benefits under the deceased person's Social Security number.

RootsMagic has an option that allows us to make parts of our Notes private. To do this you place curly brackets {private text} around any text in a Note that you may want to consider private.

There are three curly bracket options when you, print reports, export GEDCOM files or create websites.

• Remove the curly brackets and the text inside them
• Display the curly brackets and the text inside them
• Display the text inside the curly brackets without the brackets

I'm considering adding curly brackets around Social Security numbers in my largest genealogy file. This will give me the option of displaying the Social Security Death Index information with or without the Social Security Number.

To implement this idea, at this late date, won't be an easy task. There is no way to do a global search and replace.  While I can easily find each record that contains Social Security information it will be necessary to execute the find command thousands of times to find the Notes that need to be modified.

I've already tested this idea several times when I encountered Social Security data in the Note of records that I was updating.

Dick Henthorn

17 February 2015

Transcript: makes transcribing easier

JacobBoerema.nl: Transcript: makes transcribing easier:

Here's a link to the website for the program: Transcript.

I'm trying out the program to see if it will be useful for transcribing information from scanned images.  I like to include typed text from documents in the Notes of my genealogy files.

The program displays the scanned image in the top half of the screen and you type in the bottom half. You can Zoom in on an image and you can change the contrast.  Bold face, italics, underlining and so on are supported.

I tested the program by typing the information about a log cabin at Blue Springs, NE that I found on the Facebook.  I was pleased with my first experience. I shared what I typed on Facebook where I found the image and in my own family's Group.

Dick Henthorn
17 October 2014

'via Blog this'

I'll Be Brief

Using abbreviations in your genealogy file isn't a good idea. There's no guarantee that your readers will be able to understand your abbreviations. I've used the RootsMagic edit option to find and expand some abbreviations in the notes in my own files.

Contrary to what I'm writing, I chose to use the Postal Service two letter state abbreviation in the place names of my own work. I've read that this isn't recommended and sometimes worry about my choice.

Dick Henthorn
1 November 2013

Extracting Notes From Personal Ancestral File (PAF)

Extracting Notes from Personal Ancestral File (PAF)
Written: 2 Mar 1996 (Revised 15 Apr 2010)
by
Richard E. Henthorn

Have you ever wished that you could extract the "notes" you saved in Personal Ancestral File (PAF) version 2.31 so you could use them somewhere else?

It is not hard to do. Here are the steps you need to follow to create a text (ASCII) file of extracted notes. The note or notes you extract are selected using the Record Identification Numbers (RIN). You can select one note, a series of contiguous RINs or separated RINs.

Starting From the Pedigree Search menu, enter:

....... W - to sWitch menu
....... P - to Print
....... 1 - to Select Printing Option
....... 2 - to Print to Disk
....... On the "Disk for Print File" line enter the path to the sub-directory where you want to save the extracted notes

....... On the "Name of Print File" line enter the name of the file that will contain the extracted notes, default is, PRINT.DAT. I suggest changing the file extension from .DAT to .TXT.

....... F1 to Continue
....... 3 - Range Print
....... 4 - Notes for Individuals
....... Enter the RINs you want to extract
....... For individuals enter the numbers separated by a blank or comma
....... 1 3 5 7 (or) 1,3,5,7
....... For ranges of individuals enter two numbers separated by a hyphen
....... 1-7
....... F1 to Continue
....... 1 - Print All Notes (or for selective note extraction)
....... 2 - Print Family Group Notes
....... 3 - Print Tagged Notes
....... 0 - Return to Previous Menu
....... 0 - Return to Pedigree Search
....... x - to exit PAF

After the note or notes have been extracted start your word processor or text editor and look at the file you have created. You may want to removed page numbers or do other editing on the file that PAF created.

Data Tags

Here's a list of most of the Data Tags I used in the Note fields in my genealogy files.

ADOPTION:
AKA:
ANNIVERSARY:
APPEARANCE_TRAITS:
BIBLE:
BIOGRAPHY:
BIRTH:
BURIAL:
CEMETERY:
CENSUS:
CHILD:
CHILDREN:
CHRISTENING:
CHURCH_AFFILIATION:
COMMENT:
CONFLICT:
DEATH:
DIVORCE:
EDUCATION:
EMIGRATION:
FATHER:
HEALTH_HISTORY:
HISTORY:
HOBBIES:
ILLNESS:
IMMIGRATION:
LAND:
LEGAL_MATTER:
MARRIAGE:
MILITARY:
MOTHER:
NAME:
NEVER_MARRIED:
NO_ISSUE:
OBITUARY:
OCCUPATION:
ORGANIZATIONS:
PARENTS:
PROBATE:
PROBLEM:
PUBLIC_SERVICE:
QUESTION:
RECOLLECTIONS:
REFERENCE:
RELATIONSHIP:
RESEARCHER:
RESIDENCES:
SEX:
SIBLINGS:
SOURCE:
SPOUSE:
SSN:
TAX_LIST: