Software for Managing Research Notes
Replies: 6
Re: Software for Managing Research Notes
 lhmatt2
(View posts)
|
Posted: 16 Jun 2008 7:17PM GMT |
Classification: Query
FTM v. 2006 (v. 16) and before have merge features too. I don't believe they "reintroduced" them in FTM 2008. Which version are you using?
I would caution you on using FTM merge functionality as it does not guarantee a match if you have minimal information in the record (i.e. a name and year only). It also doesn't guarantee duplicates will be found as a slight variation in entry (middle initial vs. middle name) will not even find a person that is actually duplicate. I don't know about Rootsweb but with FTM, you really don't have a whole lot of data for careful analysis to ensure you have the right record. I've gotten zinged with the merge process even when I've been very careful. I worked with FTM for 10 years.
FTM 2008 is really limited in its reports and tools. In fact, I purchased Legacy 7 Deluxe and am in the process of determining if I want to change from FTM v. 16. There are pros and cons of each.
Assuming you have FTM 2006 (v. 16) or earlier, I would suggest creating a separate database with unconnected individuals. If you wanted to create a research list of the contents of that database, you could create a custom report of all individuals with factual data, copy and paste it into Excel, do a little tweaking of date formatting in Excel and then make notes on the Excel spreadsheet as you manually compare individuals. If you are familiar with Excel, you can use the filtering capabilities. I use this methodology for creating various checklists. If you have FTM 2008, you are out of luck as they changed the custom report so that you don't have a single fact / single column format to the report.
By having two databases in the same software, you can open up and compare as you are working with your research list. Then you can import and merge specific records or manually transcribe the data into your main database.
I've been playing around with the custom report options in Legacy 7 Deluxe (under Name List). Although fewer columns seem to be allowed, you can choose parents, general and/or research notes to be in a columns which is something you can't do with FTM. Although the number of items to choose is limited to name + 8 items, you could always generate another custom report with different items and copy and paste into the original report. Kind of cool..so far. The more I explore, the more I like Legacy. Some things are more intuitive than FTM while other things need some investigation to dig out the real power of it.
If you do have FTM 2008, you can't get the Ancestry search and merge or some of the media management tools. Neither of those are important to me. Theoretically, they will add reports in the FTM 2009 and restore some of the previously available features so in the long run you may or may not see tools that are helpful for the unconnected situations.
I would caution you on using FTM merge functionality as it does not guarantee a match if you have minimal information in the record (i.e. a name and year only). It also doesn't guarantee duplicates will be found as a slight variation in entry (middle initial vs. middle name) will not even find a person that is actually duplicate. I don't know about Rootsweb but with FTM, you really don't have a whole lot of data for careful analysis to ensure you have the right record. I've gotten zinged with the merge process even when I've been very careful. I worked with FTM for 10 years.
FTM 2008 is really limited in its reports and tools. In fact, I purchased Legacy 7 Deluxe and am in the process of determining if I want to change from FTM v. 16. There are pros and cons of each.
Assuming you have FTM 2006 (v. 16) or earlier, I would suggest creating a separate database with unconnected individuals. If you wanted to create a research list of the contents of that database, you could create a custom report of all individuals with factual data, copy and paste it into Excel, do a little tweaking of date formatting in Excel and then make notes on the Excel spreadsheet as you manually compare individuals. If you are familiar with Excel, you can use the filtering capabilities. I use this methodology for creating various checklists. If you have FTM 2008, you are out of luck as they changed the custom report so that you don't have a single fact / single column format to the report.
By having two databases in the same software, you can open up and compare as you are working with your research list. Then you can import and merge specific records or manually transcribe the data into your main database.
I've been playing around with the custom report options in Legacy 7 Deluxe (under Name List). Although fewer columns seem to be allowed, you can choose parents, general and/or research notes to be in a columns which is something you can't do with FTM. Although the number of items to choose is limited to name + 8 items, you could always generate another custom report with different items and copy and paste into the original report. Kind of cool..so far. The more I explore, the more I like Legacy. Some things are more intuitive than FTM while other things need some investigation to dig out the real power of it.
If you do have FTM 2008, you can't get the Ancestry search and merge or some of the media management tools. Neither of those are important to me. Theoretically, they will add reports in the FTM 2009 and restore some of the previously available features so in the long run you may or may not see tools that are helpful for the unconnected situations.