Sources, Citations and Facts

When reading the FTM Companion Guide you need to separate Facts from facts.

"Fact" = those data that you have found about your relative and are entering into FTM.

"facts" = information about something.

So in FTM:

"Source" contains the information about where the Facts were found. (the Library, Book, Database, Records or archive). A Source entry in FTM includes the what, and where about that Source so others can find it again.

"Citations" contain the information to find the Fact data with in the source. Chapter, Page, Index, etc.

"Facts" are the data you have found about your ancestor. Date of Birth, location of death, etc. These can also include data about Events like Baptisms, Marriage, etc.

Other places group Source and Citation into "Sources" or "Source Citations" as a more general thing. However they still contain the information necessary to relocate the Facts again. FTM specifically records Sources separate from Citations creating a Hierarchy. A single Source can have multiple Citations linked to it. Citations can link to multiple different Facts about our ancestors.

 Saved Reports and Charts.

In FTM we can create, edit and refine charts and reports and then save them for later use (right most icon of the Options tool bar). They show up on the Publish > Collection Tab in the left panel under "Saved Publications". Those charts and reports can be reused and will update when opened so they reflect new data that may have been added to the tree.

So how do you get a Chart or Report outside of FTM so you can send it to a print shop or share with others? We must use the Print or Share Icons (upper right, just under the FamilySearch and Ancestry icons). Print allows selection of your various printers and Share allows selection of various output formats. There is also a Save Settings Icon (3rd from the right). This will save the settings of the current chart or report, making it the Preferred template The settings will then be available the next time you open that particular chart or report. If you've messed around with a chart or report format and would like to get back to the original, never fear, we have options. The "Use Saved Settings" (2nd Icon from the right) brings up three choices; Reset to Defaults, Preferred and Custom templates. Clicking on the Help button explains the differences. Reset to Default reloads the FTM standard settings.

BTW, did you know that FTM installed a group of custom designs for each Chart you can select from? They're the Custom Templates and have a .ftmt extension.

FTM Frame Size Controls.

Did you know that through-out FTM Workspaces, we users can control how much room is allocated to each panel and wither the panel is even displayed or not. In the shots below the circled controls are toggles which open or close the left and bottom panels. The second shot shows the panels closed. The third shot shows what the panel toggle controls look like on other workspaces like the Web Search Workspace.

The controls marked with the Oval in the forth shot are "row of dots" which allow dragging the frame of the center panel to change the size. Anywhere in FTM that these controls appear they perform the same function.

A practical strategy for Place Name consistency.

When I was working on a recently merged tree, made from several smaller and older files, the Place Names are a mess: incomplete entries, abbreviations, spelling errors, inconsistent use of county or USA versus United States, etc.

Instead of going straight to the Resolve Places tool, I have decided to work on getting the data as consistent as possible first. So I decided to work in the Flat List View in the Paces Workspace. Here I can see similar entries sorted near each other and pick-out those that need editing. First step was to determine if any entry is in the preferred format, if not pick one and edit it. I am speaking of the standard [city, county, state, country] format.

Next highlight an entry that needs work. Right Click and select "Replace With Other Place Name", then in the popup window, select the preferred format entry and click ok. Repeat for as many of the entries as are near by, then scan the listing for any others that need correcting. The idea here is to combine as many obvious entries as possible to make your data as consistent as you can first. Ignore any that have more info than the standard for now. Later you can go on to Resolve the remaining places, make decisions what needs to be in the description or be treated as a historical place and/or that need to be placed on the map.

This seems to be working for me, feeling more organized and less overwhelmed.

Oh, if you are not aware of Flat List View, see the screenshot. It toggles the list between Flat and Hierarchy.