The Family History Neighborhood

Understanding:  FamilySearch, FamilyTree, 

Historical Records, Ancestry, 

Findagrave, and Personal Software 


Imagine FamilySearch as a house with several rooms.  FamilySearch  includes the whole house with many rooms, similar to a house floor plan.  Your personal tree and ancestor information is a room in our house entitled FamilyTree.  If you click the “search” tab you are able to search historical records, which is another room in the house.  The historical records and FamilyTree are two separate rooms in the same house. When you source a fact in FamilyTree from historical records, you are adding a door from your tree to the room with the historical records.   Photo’s is another room in FamilyTree.  When we tag a photo we add a door from the tree to our photographs.  So, a single ancestor in FamilyTree may have two doors—one door leading to sources and a second door leading to photo’s.  Other rooms in our FamilySearch house include the Catalog, WIKI, Learning, Indexing, and Books.  Not all of our rooms have names and dates in them.  For example, WIKI, has no names, but it leads to databases to look for your ancestors, and it has valuable information for research.




 





Ancestry.com is a separate house in our family history neighborhood.  Ancestry has databases and family trees.  It is   similar to the FamilyTree house as described above with many rooms and doors connecting the rooms.  Ancestry.com also has a learning center room with valuable information.








Fold3 is another separate house in our family history neighborhood.  The Fold3 house is different in that it does not have any family trees, but it contains valuable records.









Findagrave.com is another house in our family history neighborhood.  
It is similar to a one room home because it only contains one type of information:  burial.  There are photographs of headstones, or data obtained from cemetery records and personal family records on selected individuals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Enhancing the Neighborhood


Now, this neighborhood I have described above is an Internet tool.  They are all separate databases with unique and varied information, and there are many different databases on several of the sites.  They are all searchable and valuable for documenting, sources, and aiding in researching our ancestors. 
Next, I would like to introduce personal family history software.  Now this is different from the homes in our genealogy neighborhood.  Personal family history software is like adding a grocery store to the neighborhood.  It fits in, as a building, but it functions different from a home and it is used differently!   A store has different purposes than a home, and personal software has different uses than databases.  There are many different personal software programs:  RootsMagic, Legacy Family Tree, Ancestral Quest, Family Tree Maker, and PAF.  (note:  PAF is no longer updated or supported, but you can still use it).  (Here is a list of the different genealogy software programs on a comparison chart.) 
Personal software allows researchers to create useful reports and documents that can be used as a valuable research tool.  Personal software also allows a researcher to store information on living people without comprising their privacy.  It allows a researcher a place to store information before it is all solid and proved.
In addition, no one can come into your personal software program and change information unlike the way some public trees are set up, FamilyTree at FamilySearch for example.  If a cousin decides information in the FamilyTree is incorrect, he/she may come in and change the information.  Which then will change the "whole" FamilyTree.  This is one of the main reasons to keep a separate personal record.

Finally, More Buildings

Finally, there are other places to search for information besides the Internet!  Yes, really!  There are books, films, microfilms, newspapers, bibles, church records, court records, etc.  Some of these records are available in the above databases or in personal homes, but some of these records can only be found in the original depositories.  Researching in other depositories is like going down another road in the same town.  You don't do all of your shopping in one place and your searching should not only be done on one site or just on the internet.  Expand your researching and you are able to expand your sources and documentation!

 



Comments

  1. Adam RobertsAugust 31, 2013 at 5:31 PM

    Thanks, this is a great explanation! I use Family Tree Maker because it syncs with my online tree at Ancestry.com; that way my online changes are saved on my hard drive and I can back it up on a different hard drive.

    I know with that software you can split off parts of the tree and work on it separately, without syncing online. That way you can experiment and add things you haven't confirmed yet -- without uploading

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JanetSeptember 1, 2013 at 2:20 PM

      Thank you Adam, I wasn't aware that you can separate and synchronize on the same program. I'm sure it isn't as complicated as it sounds! I still find it helpful to manually add information to public trees, because it forces me to review where I am and if my information is correct. My RootsMagic will automatically add information to FamilyTree, but I prefer to add it manually and audit my software facts. It have found errors, looked at it from a different perspective and found new sources. I do find it a relief to have your information in more than one place so there is a back up on not only a different hard drive, but also in another program.

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