CHANGES IN INPUTTING: FOCUS ON TREES INSTEAD OF DATABASE

 

SUMMARY

As of today July 20, 2020, Dora has asked us to change how we collect the data. Finish your current recid the old way and then start the next family with the new instructions below. 

Dora now plans to get data from the GEDCOMS and not from the VCC database. Therefore, we will no longer use the obit screen on the VCC database to collect information.  The tree will provide the data.  We are most interested in the following bits of information for the grands and their parents:

 

·         Date of birth (Try to include a month with the year when possible)

·         Place of birth

·         Date of Death (Try to include a month with the year when possible)

·         Place of death

·         Gender

 

INSTRUCTIONS

 Step I: Updating Tree and VCC

·         Open VCC database and the GEDCOM/Tree

·         Put PID numbers as always on the tree for the following people:

o   Vet

o   Spouse of Vet

o   Parents of Vet?

o   Child of Vet

o   Spouse of Child

o   Grands

·         If the spouse of the child (parent of a grand) is not on the grid, add him/her to the grid

·         Make sure to update relations on VCC with the second parent for all the grands

·         Do not update or input on the obit screen for the child or his/her spouse

·         Be sure the tree has birth and death info for the child and his/her spouse (parents of grands only)

 

Step II:  Getting birth, death info

·         Look at hints for the first grand

·         If there is a record with all four bits of data (birth date and place/death date and place), attach the record and move on to the next grand

·         When you attach the record to the tree, make sure you click on the birth and death information so that it shows up under their names on the profile page.  

·         Do not look for death causes, but if the death cert is in the hints, attach it to the tree

·         If you must attach a record from Family Search, make sure the relevant information (birth and death info) is filled in on the tree.  The source does not have to be linked to every bit of data.

 

Step III: Update Log and Finish up

·         Enter the gender on the log in column H (Make sure you insert and label the new column first)

·         Enter an X, NF, L or E for birth date and death date as in the past and leave Death Cause blank

·         Hit complete on the VCC database when finished with the family

 

 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:

 

Q:  Should I add additional/new grands that are not on the tree to the log, the VCC grid, and to the tree?

A: Yes to all three. Make sure you also update relations on VCC to include both parents for the new grand.

 

Q: Can I go back to the grid to make sure the tree matches if my tree is missing lots of people?

A:  Yes, look at the grid, use the links if they work, or get them from the hints to make sure your tree matches the grid.

 

Q:  Do I need to mark my log where I began this new method?

A: No, we will be able to tell where the gender column is marked

 

Q: Should we type in death cause on the log if we see it?

A: No

 

Q: Should we still attach Social Security records and WWII draft cards to the tree?

A: No, you do not need to attach these records if you have already attached a record with the necessary birth and death information.

Inputting changes for the Grandchildren sample

Here are Sandy's notes from our meeting yesterday. We will be dividing the Grandchildren sample into parts A and B. We will be collecting less data in sample B to speed up our data collection. We must speed up our collection, so Dora can use our data to apply for a new grant. So we can all keep our jobs. Let me know if you have questions.

Here is Dora’s exact directive followed by notes from our meeting:

Greats would have to be a new grant, ditto linkage to 1930 and 1940 so I would favor:

·         Finishing up anything in progress done in the old way and calling it sample A

·         Have all necessary files downloaded as sample A and put up on Box as sample A.

·         Start sample B by skipping inputting 1930 and 1940 and the mothers of the greats.

Here is what we decided on the call:

Finish the OLD way for Sample A

1. Finish the Soldier and family that you are currently working on, continuing the way we’ve always done it (the OLD way). 

2. All of the soldiers we have done so far under grands will be packaged as Sample A and will include the following:

a.       1930 and 1940

b.      Obits for the mothers of the great grandsons in the male line

3. Make a note on your input log after you finish your current person to show Heather where the the OLD ends (Sample A) and the NEW begins (for Sample B). 

4. Send you Input Log and completed GEDCOMS to Heather.

The NEW Method for SAMPLE B

1. Do not do input any 1930 and 1940 info on the obit screens for anyone

2. Do not add mothers of the male line great grandsons to the grid or do obits for them

3. Do not enter any great grandsons on the tree by hand.  It is ok to attach them to the tree if they are mentioned and save automatically from a document you are attaching to the grand. 

4. Do not look for great grandsons or great grandsons’ death dates/living information. 

5. Do not put living great grandsons on your spreadsheet

6. Do not try to attach every available record to the tree

7. Look at hints and find the following:

a.       A good source for death

b.      A record with the social security number (be sure to input the number on the obit screen

c.       A record with a good birth date (Do not spend a lot time hunting for an actual birth record)

d.      Attach the WWII draft card to the tree if it is available.

8. For the CHILD of the vet, continue to update the OBIT as always by inputting the child’ name, gender, spouse, birth date and any new death cause you find. Do not spend more than a minute or two on this.

9. Continue to Input the obit for the spouse of the child.  Do not spend much time on this

10. Try to get keep the tree in order but do not be overly fussy (making all the last names spelled the same, making sure maiden names are always used, etc)

Notes from Inputters' Meeting

Here are Sandy's notes from yesterday's (October 30, 2019) meeting about the Grandchildren sample.

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.

Notes from census meeting - Day 2

Here are the notes from today's presentations by Irene & Janice.

UNCERTAIN MATCHES: Sometimes the challenge is not finding children, but determining if the match you found is good enough or if one possible match is better than another.

Look for clues that might strengthen a match or narrow down the number of possible matches

           

·         Birth month

·         Middle names and initials

·         Residence

·         Street names and addresses

·         Birthplace of parents

·         Race

·         Naming patterns -

·         Are children in census households named after the vet or anyone in his family?

·         Surnames -

·         Does anyone in their census household match the vet’s surname, his wife’s maiden surname or any other surnames seen in other family households?

·         Unique occupations -

·         Are they the same or similar to the vet’s or other family members?

·         Relatives on the same census page

·         Migration patterns -

·         Do they have the same migration pattern as other family members? ex: They lived in Giles, TN and moved to Rostraver, PA

Search for other records that might prove or disprove your possible matches.

WWI & WWII Draft Registration Cards -

·         They usually include a birthdate, birthplace (often the town or county), residence, occupation, nearest relative or other contact person with addresses

·         Can search with an exact birthdate

·         They can help sort out others with the same name.

·         They can help identify a son who moved to a different and unexpected location.

·         They can also be used to locate the vet’s daughter if you know her husband’s name.

PROJECT 2

Searching tips:

●     Use race/ nationality field with caution

            Indexed as Black, Negro, Colored, Mulatto and even Chinese

●     Extend birthdate range

●     Be open to surname name changes

●     As with all Southerners, First and middle names as well as nicknames were often used interchangeably.

Freedman Banking Records

●     Established in 1868

●     Failed in 1874

Cohabitation Records

            Alabama

            Georgia

            Kentucky

            Mississippi

            North Carolina

            Tennessee

            Virginia

            Just now being digitized so states better than others, currently Virginia records are the most complete.

Notes from the Census Inputters meeting February 10, 2016

Here are the notes from our recent meeting. Please read them and let us know if you have questions or concerns. Sorry, tables and images did not copy correctly. Please refer to the emailed notes for the missing images.

ANCESTRY ISSUES:

Family Tree:

·         You do not have to clear all your hints nor do you have to attach all the confirmed hints to your person.  Often numerous military records pop up in hints that we already have collected through the pension and military service collections.  You do not need to take the time to attach all these hints. ALWAYS attach confirmed WWI and WWII draft cards.

·         You do not have to click “Ignore” for all the bad hints either if you don’t want to.  You can leave them hanging.

Searching Notes:

·         Searching by Race: If you want to narrow your search to only black people and exclude whites, you will have to do separate searches for Negro, Black, Colored and Mulatto.  See the chart below for the predominant term used in each decade.  Typing in one of those will not find the others.

I have found if black is somehow added to the index in brackets (not parenthesis), then a person labeled originally as Negro will appear with a search of black/exact. However, if a Negro has black on the preview page in parenthesis (not brackets), that person will not be found with a search of black/exact.

If you put in black but don’t mark exact, you’ll get results that include whites, but all the black people will be listed first.

  

·         Searching with Family Members: Ancestry has changed the nature of searching with family relationships.  Previously, you could add children’s names without it being an exact search.  Be aware that now it is an exact search for whichever children’s names are listed despite the fact that there is no check box marked “Exact.” Hopefully Ancestry will fix this.

·         Searching by Street: You can search with street name on 1910, 1920 and 1940.  If you get some good finds using street names, send Sandy an email with the recid, the decade and the person found. 

Source Citation Changes

·         Page numbers aren’t showing up in the source citations anymore. We don’t know if this is temporary or not.  See the info under Page Numbers below to determine what to do for these cases.

INPUTTING ISSUES

Page Numbers

·         Sometimes there is more than one page number listed on pages in the 1850-1880 census manuscripts.  Sometimes you have to go the previous page.  Ideally, the page number on one of those two pages will match source citation.  However, occasionally there is a discrepancy.  And currently the source citation is not showing the page number.  Here are the rules for taking page numbers in 1850 – 1880: 

o   Use the page number from the source citation.  If there isn’t one, then…

o   Take the number that is stamped on the page. 

o   If the page is blank, take the number that is stamped on the previous page.

o   If there are two handwritten numbers, take the one that is NOT next to the words “Page Number___.”   You might have to turn to the previous page to find it.

o   If the only page number you can see on your manuscript page and the previous page is the one written in next to the words, “Page Number__,” then take that number.

Children on grid

·      

            Be sure to put dead children on your grid.  For unnamed dead infants in mil info, input them as:

o   Last name, (dead infant)

o   Mark not searched across the row

·         If it’s just a child with no birth or death info, you will have to input as Last Name, (Child), and mark him not searched in any decades prior to the vet’s marriage date and yellow for all other decades. 

·         Remember for Project 2, you can mark all children in 1850 and 1860 as not searched. 

·         Do not use the 1900 and 1910 census information for living and dead children as the sole source to add unknown children to the grid.

·         Use your best judgment and add children to grid if there is evidence of additional children even if you don’t have names or birth/death dates. 

·         FYI:  The 1898 family circular did not ask for dead children, but the 1915 circular did specifically ask for dead children. 

Adopted vs. foster or wards

·         Adopted children are 2 on manuscript with note in remarks that it is adopted child [Relation: adopted child].  Search for adopted children.

·         Foster and ward should be marked 5 (non-relative) in the screens and non-relative in update relations.  Do not search for foster children and wards (unless their status changes to adopted child or child)

Step Children

·         Search for step children if you determine that they lived with the veteran for a number of years during childhood, defined as years prior to age 15.  Be sure to calculate the age when they moved in with the veteran, not just the age they are when you find them in the census with the veteran.  (If you find a 17 year old step child with the vet in 1900, but you know he married his spouse in 1890, you can assume the step child has lived with him for 10 years since age 7 and that you therefore need to search for him in other decades)

·         If several step children live with the vet, still go by the age rule above.  For example if three step children move in with the vet at ages 17, 13 and 10, you would only have to look for the 13 and 10 year olds in subsequent decades and not the 17 year old.

·         Step children, if labeled step on the manuscript, are entered in screens as a “0.” However, be sure to input them on the update relations page as children of their birth parent, not as step children.

·         Remember you do not have to search for the mother of the vet’s step children if she doesn’t give birth to any children with the vet.

MilInf? Column

·         Mark this column for anyone you find in the census that is in mil info.  This includes parents, siblings and people listed in the “Living With” tab.

Death Ranges

·         Even if the dead by date is on the mil info, the death range in the obit still has to be a QC 3 (not a QC 1 for mil info death information) because all death ranges are QC3.

·         You do not need to make a note of the month when doing a death range from the dead by date in mil info.  (This date was the date of the family circular document.)

Out of Country

·         If there is evidence from the mil info that your vet has moved out of the country and does not return, you do not have to continue searching for him.  If he moves with his family out of the country, you do not have to look for his children, but do search for their death dates.  Mark them not searched for decades when they are living outside the US.

PROJECT 2 ISSUES

Here a few reasons that Project 2 is a more challenging sample than Project 1.

·         Veterans have lower quality codes to begin with, some 3’s and 4’s even.

·         Children aren’t always listed in the mil info

·         There are not as many exact birth dates in mil info and often no birth dates at all

·         When birth dates are in the mil info, they don't always seem very accurate.  Also, the ages given in the census aren't very accurate either.   

·         There are more children in mil info listed just as child with no names than there seemed to be in the white sample. 

·         Veterans may have more than one name, sometimes a slave name then a new name or another alias they go by.

·         Person searched for is often not  head of household but might be living with his spouse as servants in someone else's household which makes it harder to search using family relationships

·         Sometimes the married couple is not living together (living in separate households as servants or just living separately)

·         There are often blurred lines on marriage, living together, who’s the mother, over lapping spouse dates, multiple spouses. [Example: Married in 1886 but a couple of children born before that. (Fausky 9000107141); mil info says married in 1899 but found as single boarder in 1900 with the eventual spouse(Marshall, 9000107176)]

·         Very few hints are showing up because there aren’t many family trees for these families on Ancestry

  

·         Very few Find A Grave records

·         It’s harder to use 1900 and 1910 census info (from number of living children/number born) to determine estimated death ranges because it’s harder to trace the living children.    

Tips to keep in mind when doing Project 2:

·         Don’t forget to put in M1 or M2 in 1910 for the vet.

·          Even though we are not checking the previous work carefully, it’s OK to build your tree with the veteran’s censuses.

·         Understand that you will have a lot more yellow on your grid than you are used to.  That’s OK. 

·         You’re just not going to find a lot of them, so give up sooner.  If you don’t have enough to go on and you can’t find any records, it’s ok to give up.

·         Be cautious of taking a guy in 1870 because he’s the only guy that fits when you have 12 guys the next decade that fit.  Where were the other 11 in 1870?  They may just not have been enumerated.

·         Because birth dates tend to be less accurate, use at least a 5 year window  or even 10 for the birth age (or consider searching without age sometimes)

·         There is a wide variation in spelling and names, so be creative in your searches. 

·         Don’t get suckered in to thinking you’ve found marriage records for your families prior to 1860 in the south.  The names may match, but because race isn’t listed, you may have found others with similar names, likely white. There weren’t really any decent records in the south for blacks prior to 1865.

·         Quality codes for the vet are based on what is in the mil info.  You may find your vet with children not listed in the mil info and he’s only a QC3.  When you find those kids in their own households later on, then they can only be QC3.  We are using the QC to say how certain we are that these are the children of the actual soldier in the mil info, NOT how sure we are that they are children of the person we found in the census data which may or may not be the veteran. 

However, if you find a good death source that confirms your QC 3 guys is actually your guy…..(for example, there is a name of child not found on mil info but on a death cert that is living with your vet in the QC3 decade, and the death cert matches the death date on the mil info), then you can make the obit a QC1.  The decades still have to have QC’s based on mil info only, so it would remain a QC3.  Now that the obit positively confirms that the soldier from the QC3 decade is really our guy, you can use it (the obit info) to increase the quality codes for the children when you find them in their own households.   In other words, you can use other confirmed sources to bump up your QC for the children, but the vet’s QC has to go by mil info.

·         Don’t get discouraged!  If you need a break from Project 2 guys for a while, intersperse your Project 2 guys with some from Project 1.

Comments that came out of meeting:

·         Input what you see in the manuscript even if it’s wrong.  Make sure the Update Relations page reflects the accurate relationship.  (So if it says head, wife, son, wife, input what you see even though you know the 2^nd wife is really the wife of the son and not the wife of the head of household) 

·         However, keep the egregious error rule for sex and age.  (Example 1: If Maria Susana says male or a daughter who is male, then leave the sex blank and note in remarks that it says M but should be F. Example 2: If the census says the head of household, who is a farmer, is 4 years old, leave the age blank and make a note in remarks that the age listed was 4 and thus inaccurate.

·         If the supervisor’s district (or any other information) is crossed off, don’t input it.  It’s ok to be blank if there’s no information to replace what has been crossed out. 

·         For families split on two different pages, take the page number that links to the URL and the person you searched for. 

·         Sometimes two dates are listed on the page under date of enumeration, and you can see written in the margin where they started on the 2^nd day.  Traditionally we have taken the first day.   However, it is not wrong to take the second date.  You do not need to remark on it in you checks.

·         Make sure Heather gets all your completed trees and that they’re not getting lost.  The trees are important for what Chris is working on.  He is trying to adjust the screens and create a GEDCOM uploader that takes data from the trees to automatically fill the screens and save us time in inputting.

·         Shared trees will disappear from your shared list if the owner of the tree deletes them from Ancestry. You can delete trees yourself by going to Manage Trees, then Trees Shared With Me and clicking Remove from list

  

·         Don’t rule out white people when searching for Project 2 people.  Open the manuscript to look at it.  Occasionally we have found that Mulattos are indexed as W even though it clearly says M. Some WWI and WWII draft cards show blacks listed as white. 

·         Don’t spend a lot time doublechecking vet’s work in Project 2.  Make sure the right decades are chosen. No finds have been checked and re checked.   If you find someone better, by all means replace the old data. 

·         For obits if only the county is listed, and you’re positive what the state is, you can include the state. 

 

·         To get the source citation page number, click on “view record” to get to the preview page, not the manuscript image, and look for the source citation information in the fine print at the bottom.