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Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions

Passably Equipped: Conquering PIP Censuses with the PASSED Method

4 Comments / Censuses, Genohistory on Purpose, Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Organizing for optimal efficiency / By / 11 minutes of reading

This article may be republished in your genealogical society magazine or newsletter. Simply notify me by email with the name of your organization, name of the publication, and date it will be published. Also include this statement with the article: “Republished with permission of Donna Cox Baker at Genohistory.com.”

I felt reasonably smart as I began my genealogy education. Not MENSA smart, mind you, but at least a bit above average. My ego took a bashing though, when I first hit the infamous roadblock—the PIP censuses (often mislabeled “pre-1850”) that only name the head of household with a string of tally numbers. It mystified me that anyone found them useful. An old spreadsheet had bested me until the PASSED Method emerged, made viable by an alignment tool I call the 90-60 Census Workbook.

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You’re syncing, but are you backing up?

12 Comments / Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist, New developments in the field, Organizing for optimal efficiency, Zotero / By / 7 minutes of reading

Failing to understand the difference between syncing and backing up your precious research could cost you years of work. Take a minute to wrap your mind around the two. Make it a priority.

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Paperless genealogy: A commitment

12 Comments / Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist, Organizing for optimal efficiency, Zotero / By / 7 minutes of reading

Today, as I watch the Notre Dame Cathedral in flames, I know I cannot put this post off any longer. Our research is a fragile thing, if dependent upon paper files. It’s unsafe if dependent upon a single copy in any form. Not even two copies will save it in a disaster, if both are kept together. You’ve heard it all before. You need to commit to paperless genealogy. But today, please hear it and act.

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Instant citations: Zotero’s Magic Bullet

Leave a Comment / Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist, New developments in the field, Organizing for optimal efficiency, Zotero / By / 4 minutes of reading

Genealogy friends, if I told you a free product could capture source citation information instantly for most sources in online catalogs with one click of your mouse, would you believe me? Instant citations? It is bonafide, proven, and you can prove it to yourself this very day.

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RootsMagic’s TreeShare for Ancestry–hopeful solution for those API errors?

1 Comment / Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist, New developments in the field / By / 4 minutes of reading

UPDATE: The problem has been solved by the solutions presented here.

You’ve been waiting for me to make up my mind about the Big Three in my Desktop Dilemma Series, and I’ve been waiting for one last — and most important — evaluation: Can RootsMagic effectively sync with Ancestry.com? …

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High-powered hit-and-run data grabbing technique

6 Comments / Digging for genealogical gold, Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist, Organizing for optimal efficiency, Zotero / By / 9 minutes of reading

You’ve invested a day off and a tank of gas to have a precious four hours at an ancestral county courthouse, state archive, or local library. You want to make the most of every minute. Here’s my high-powered hit-and-run data grabbing technique to get home with maximum ancestral data in minimum time. …

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Embedding origin captions into your images

10 Comments / Every little thing in context, Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist / By / 6 minutes of reading

If you post your genealogy to online trees, you’ve undoubtedly had that jolting moment when you see a precious photo of your parent displayed on a  stranger’s page. You know they got it from your tree, but no one else does. Most are borrowing and forward-sharing without awareness of proper genealogical etiquette and protocols. The world is then losing its path back to the original image. Here’s a way to improve your chances that the desired information will travel with the image. …

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Descendants of slaveholders, we have a job to do

4 Comments / Digging for genealogical gold, Every little thing in context, Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist, Leaving it better than we found it, New developments in the field, Organizing for optimal efficiency / By / 6 minutes of reading

Some of you started long ago. I started six months ago. Perhaps some of you will start today. When it comes to the very difficult and incredibly rewarding challenge of documenting America’s enslaved populations, we who descend from slaveholders are the logical ones to do the work.  It makes sense at so many levels. Welcome, GEGs, to the Beyond Kin Project. …

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Research To-Do List in Zotero

3 Comments / Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist, Organizing for optimal efficiency, Zotero / By / 5 minutes of reading

Most genealogy software tools offer an embedded to-do list feature–useful, as far as they go. But for me, they don’t go far enough. Most are not accessible away from your computer. If you have to move or restore your data via GEDCOM, you will usually lose your to-do items. The tools aren’t designed to let you apply a single to-do item to multiple people. Zotero, on the other hand, provides the ideal research to-do list. It fully integrates with research notes, and it’s free.

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What’s in a name? Conflicting practicalities.

2 Comments / Every little thing in context, Go-anywhere, paper-free solutions, Golden Egg Genealogist, Leaving it better than we found it, Organizing for optimal efficiency / By / 17 minutes of reading

In genealogy,  a rose by any other name may not smell sweet. A feud broils over what is acceptable, when it comes to naming conventions. Do you use question marks for unknown portions of a name? Do you write helpful information in the suffix field? Congratulations, we’ll call you a Montague! Do you get annoyed when you see people doing the above, fearing trashy data transfers — a messed-up GEDCOM? You, friend, we’ll call a Capulet. In determining how to use the name fields in our software, we find ourselves having to choose the house of Montague or Capulet — expedient practicality or clean data sharing. Some want both, and we call ourselves GEGs. Starry-eyed GEG I may be, but with the right tools and rules, I think Romeo and Juliet can have a future together.

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