I apologize for this post -- I am assuming there has been conversation about this topic before, but I am unable to find the threads using the search tools on the board. I hope you're willing to offer your suggestions again!
I am interested in your practices around US Federal Census records. I am using FTM 2012 as well as AMT.
I use the "hint" feature of FTM/AMT, which sometimes is a link to a census record. I follow the link to review the hint and make appropriate selections to save the "fact" to the person in my tree. I also save the media file to my hard drive. It seems that the "default" for FTM and AMT is add this information as a "residence" fact. The file naming "default" for the media files is "YEAR United States Federal Census-#" (where the # is the next number in the sequence of files for that particular year's census files). Likewise, FTM/AMT have defaults for the source references for this data.
Here are my questions and wonderings:
1. Do you use these "defaults" from FTM/AMT?
2. Do you use Census data as a "Residence" fact, or manually configure the fact category to "Census" or some other fact category?
3. Do you make the date of the Census data specific to the date the data was collected (e.g. "14 Apr 1930") or more general to the year of the Census (e.g. "1930")?
4. Do you save the media (the image of the Census page) according to the year as defaulted in FTM/AMT, or do you identify the image with the name of the family documented in the image (e.g. "Smith, John H - 1930 US Federal Census" with John H Smith as the head of household)? Or do you have some other way of naming these media files?
5. Do you use the Source reference information as saved by FTM/AMT, or do you customize the Source information in some way?
I guess the general question would be: How do you process and utilize the Census information that ancestry.com makes available and how do you save that information in your digital filing system?
Again, I apologize if these are redundant questions. I am hoping to develop good practices now (I'm only about a year into documenting with FTM) rather than having to correct thousands of entries later. So I am hoping to learn from your best practices as I continue to develop my own. Thanks for your help!
--Jeff
I am interested in your practices around US Federal Census records. I am using FTM 2012 as well as AMT.
I use the "hint" feature of FTM/AMT, which sometimes is a link to a census record. I follow the link to review the hint and make appropriate selections to save the "fact" to the person in my tree. I also save the media file to my hard drive. It seems that the "default" for FTM and AMT is add this information as a "residence" fact. The file naming "default" for the media files is "YEAR United States Federal Census-#" (where the # is the next number in the sequence of files for that particular year's census files). Likewise, FTM/AMT have defaults for the source references for this data.
Here are my questions and wonderings:
1. Do you use these "defaults" from FTM/AMT?
2. Do you use Census data as a "Residence" fact, or manually configure the fact category to "Census" or some other fact category?
3. Do you make the date of the Census data specific to the date the data was collected (e.g. "14 Apr 1930") or more general to the year of the Census (e.g. "1930")?
4. Do you save the media (the image of the Census page) according to the year as defaulted in FTM/AMT, or do you identify the image with the name of the family documented in the image (e.g. "Smith, John H - 1930 US Federal Census" with John H Smith as the head of household)? Or do you have some other way of naming these media files?
5. Do you use the Source reference information as saved by FTM/AMT, or do you customize the Source information in some way?
I guess the general question would be: How do you process and utilize the Census information that ancestry.com makes available and how do you save that information in your digital filing system?
Again, I apologize if these are redundant questions. I am hoping to develop good practices now (I'm only about a year into documenting with FTM) rather than having to correct thousands of entries later. So I am hoping to learn from your best practices as I continue to develop my own. Thanks for your help!
--Jeff