October 1st was the start date for the sample. In this meeting, we’ll discuss some screen changes, make clarifications and answer questions. Call if you have more questions or want to join in our Thursday after-the-call-with-Dora discussions.
Screen Changes:
• Giles will be making changes this week to screens, and updated instructions will be sent out afterword.
• One change will be to the 1930 and 1940 section and will include a new row for spouse. If Married is checked for the target person, a row will open to include the spouse’s (male or female) occupation, education and income. This will be only to include the couple’s information, not the parents or the head of household. This will include the spouse regardless of his/her place in the household. We will add the female spouse or the male spouse and their relevant information.
• Sources section will change slightly so that one panel of sources will be for birth record and the other panel of sources will be for the death information. Dora wants to know the source of birth information with records closer to the event being better. We’ll give a hierarchy of sources.
• Birth date inferred from a census will also be added as a last resort birth date.
Changes in inputting:
• Because Dora is interested in knowing where birth information comes from, it will now be necessary to look for a birth record (don’t forget Family Search) even if you already have the birth date from a death record. Sometimes the day on the birth index is off a day or two compared to all the other sources of birth date. It might be date the birth was recorded. Don’t worry too much over a discrepancy of a few days. The more important things are birth month and birth year. We’ll include rules to make sure it’s clear and how to deal with a preponderance of dates being different from the birth record. But again, birth month and year are most important.
• Try to put in one URL for a birth record if available and the other URL for best death source. Don’t spend too much time trying to decide which URLs to use or time going back to change the URL that you have already.
• Birth dates can be taken from sources other than birth and death, such as military draft cards or marriage records. There will even be a place for calculating the birth year from the census if that is the only place where age is found. Stay tuned for these instructions when the screens are updated. For now, if you can’t find a birth date from a record or public tree, leave it blank; do not include a birth year from the census, and mark NF on log under birth date.
Reminders:
• The death screen or obit screen as it has been called is not really a “death” screen anymore. Each grand should have at least his/her best name and gender marked. Thus when you finish a family, every purple row on the grid should have a green circle in the death column.
• If the grand is living, be sure to mark the little box that says living. Also include best name, gender and birth information.
• You do not have to enter a quality code on the death screen in order for the information to save. You will not have a quality code for death for a living grand.
• For living greats, add their names to the log in orange with a link to the source URL that shows them living. (Truepeoplesearch.com etc.)
• Don’t waste a lot of time searching 1930 and 1940. That is not really our goal. Scoop it up from hints or search briefly.
• Living greats really not our goal either so don’t spend too much time on them.
• The SSDI often does not have place of death, only last residence. Do not use last residence as place of death (even though when you save the record to the tree, the last residence shows up as place of death)
• Be sure the PID is in the tree.
• You can still mark X in the log for found birth date if you have a date but no place of death.
• The Spouse on the obit screen is the spouse at time of death, so this should only be filled in if you find the name of the spouse on a death record or from Find A Grave when you can tell they were still married when the first spouse died. (Names are on the same tombstone, or they are in the same plot for example).
• After saving the information on the obit screen, open it again to see if everything appears to have saved.
Questions and Answers:
Q: How closely should we look for living greats?
If you see a grand in the male line (MMM) who has sons born in the 1930’s or later, it would be good to look for them. Or if you find names of the sons with residences in an obituary as survivors of the grand. Also if you find that the grand died in the 1990s or later, you can check TruePeople and see if he has sons that are easy to identify. Don’t spend more than a few minutes on this.
Q: How much time should we be taking, including fixing problems and looking for greats?
The thing that take the longest sometimes is straightening up mistakes, duplicates, kids that are not grands and marked as grands, etc. Sometimes it takes a while, but just keep tracking time closely for now and doing what you’re doing, and we’ll try to get a good idea and an average and then work from there to lower the times.
Q: How much time should I spend looking for the death date of the spouse?
Don’t spend long. If it’s not in the tree, just a quick search or get it from public tree. If you think there might be a death cert (based on date of death and state), do a quick search.
Q: Should we mark 1930 and 1940 yellow for the grands if we do not find them in the census?
No, leave the grid as it is, black for them. Don’t worry about changing black dots either. Report NF on the log only.
Q: Should we go back and change quality codes on the grid if we find better sources?
In general, don’t go back to change quality codes on the grid.
Q: If the child of vet and his spouse are QC3, what QC should we make the kids (grands)?
We will continue to discuss this, make a decision and let you know. Coralee says from a data point of view we could do it either way. We just want to make sure we all do it the same way.
Q: What QC should I give to a birth date that comes off a record other than a birth record, such as from a Find A Grave or from a death cert?
The QC is for quality of the match, not the quality of the date. So the QC for the birth date can still be a QC 1 even if it doesn’t come from a birth record.
Q: Should we put a vague death cause such as “natural causes” or “lingering illness?”
Yes, enter what you see. We’ll figure out coding later. Lingering illnesses is coded to unspecified disease, as opposed to some type of accident. Enter it as either Y or N on the log, but it will count as a death cause in running reports because there is something written in the field.
Q: Should a death range be a NF on the log?
Yes. Or you can write “range.”
Q: If info is from a good public tree, is it ok to give it a QC3?
Public trees are always QC4 unless once you input the information on your tree, you then find additional sources to bump it up.
Q: If on a public tree, a story gives the birth or death info, what QC do you give it?
If you can tell by the way it’s written that it’s transcribed from a death cert or from an obituary, you can give it a higher QC. If it just seems anecdotal, it still has to be a QC4.
Q: Should Social Security Numbers be written with dashes?
Either way, just copy and paste whatever is there.
Q: Should I type in “long-term facility” or “at home” for place of death if that is what’s written?
Yes. Type what is written.
Q: How are we using the OTHER box under sources?
Think of Ancestry and Family Search as the websites where we get records, but the other items under Sources as the record type. Thus if you mark Ancestry or Family Search, you should also be marking another box. If the boxes don’t describe your record type, check OTHER and copy and paste the name of the record that you are relying on for info, such as “U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942.” [Do not mark OTHER for additional source information--the draft card for example--if you already got all the necessary information off the other sources listed and marked.]
After-call-clarification from Noelle: You do not have to use the OTHER field to give more information on the record types you have already marked. For example, if you mark obituary, you do not have to mark OTHER and type in the name of the newspaper where the obituary was found. Example 2: If you mark DEATH CERTIFICATE, you do not need to type in Missouri Digital Heritage as your source in the OTHER field.
Q: How many sources should I mark?
Mark as many as you have attached to the tree, but don’t worry about marking OTHER and adding all the other sources you have. Only mark OTHER if that source has unique information you input that no other source had.
Q: Should I use the URL from the image page or from the index?
Noelle does it from the image, but it shouldn’t matter.
Q: Should maiden name be used on the tree?
Yes, use maiden name and be sure the PID is on the tree.
Q: If we find more than one occupation listed on the obituary (and no death cert is found), should we put all of them in the occupation field? And should we put Retired in front of the occupation if we know the person was not still in that occupation?
Robin says anything that says RETIRED, gets coded as RETIRED and not coded as the occupation.
We will check with Dora in the update to see how she wants us to handle occupations.
The space in occupation is limited so do not use too many words. If there are too many words in the field, nothing on the page will save. Suggestion: If you are worried about the word length of an occupation, save the obit screen for what you have entered so far before the occupation field. Then reopen the obit screen and enter the occupation. Save and check to see if it saved before continuing to enter other data.
CHECK LIST TIPS:
It’s handy to have a check list to make sure you’ve completed everything. Here is Sandy’s check list if this helps:
For each Vet:
1. Put PIDS on tree (vet, his spouse, his kids)
2. Start with 1st child on log and add tree PIDS for his spouse and kids (the grands) from household view.
3. Update relations for that first child’s family (to include 2nd parent for the grands), looking at the tree.
4. Add death screen for the spouse of 1st child of vet.
5. Check the 1st child’s obit for death cause to see if you can find one.
6. Start with each grand (under the first child) in order of log. Enter E for 1930 and 1940 if on grid.
7. Search and enter death and birth info for each grand. Review, submit and reopen to see it saved.
8. Fill out log for that grand before moving to next grand.
9. After finishing grands from the first child on the log, go to 2nd child on log and back to step 2.
