Genealogy Chat

Ooh Merry ... don't get me started on the ''censi'' debate .... there's no such word in my English dictionary, or even in my Latin dictionary!! The Latin plural of census is census. The English plural of census is censuses. ''censi'' is schoolboy (or schoolgirl!) Latin - it just doesn't exist as a word!! Richard

doffs cap to Merry :~)

Richard is much more technically-minded that I am, but we have rounghly the same number of saved census sheets (847 in my case!!) I have then in folders on my hard drive under the different census titles...1841, 1851 etc etc............ I wish I had thought of using the census numbering system for the file names.....all mine are titled as the name of the head of the household. Not that I often view them via the folders, as they are all attached to the relevent files on my family history program...... I have never had a problem finding anything and have never printed out a census page, unless it was to give to someone without a computer! Merry (Paul, censi and censuses are both acceptable! In fact my dictionary only includes censuses!!)

Hi everyone Richard – your tip to add a hyperlink is fantastic, only wish I’d read about it a few months ago! I knew there was an easier way to reference documents but I couldn't see it myself. I’ve got everything on Excel, so I’ll just have to spend the next few days renaming files and adding hyperlinks. It will be so much easier to find my information and then the family might really believe that I know what I’m doing. This tips board is so useful. Thanks Sue

i have over 400 census images saved,but haven't worked out a system that can give me easy peasy access. Each family had been saved under the name of the head,then as the children left they had a folder of their own,but i then found it easier to save the images for each individual,so George born in 1850 now has his own folder with all his images,his siblings also have the same treatment,it just means that some images are duplicated. If i could ever get to work out how to do more than surf the net and save images then i would have a go at Richards method. I think i have a lot more images to save as yet (i only have mothers line partly worked out so far) I struggle with Word so Excel is way beyond me. Glen

Thanks for the compliment Alter - I had been working with computers for many years prior to getting interested in family history, which I guess gave me an advantage! In fact - it was Mum & Dad who were doing the history but they got stuck and are fairly computer-illiterate. I started helping them by looking up stuff online for them, and ended up hopelessly hooked myself! Phoenix - the page number (the one that's printed on the original page, not Ancestry's ''page'' number) is an important part of the reference - the folio consists of two pages (front and back) and therefore each folio has two images to save. If you just put series/piece/folio you could end up with two images with the same name (eg if a family ran over two pages). True the page number repeats itself at the end of each enumerators book, but since the folio number is unique for any piece, then the combination of the three will always give you a unique reference, referring to a single page on any given census. The 1841 referencing system is slightly different - for that you also need the book number. Richard

NB The page number, however, is of no earthly use to anyone but Ancestry, as it is THEIR page number. The actual sheets have no number lower than 5. There are a great many useful sheets that Ancestry does not appear to have digitised and put on line, largely statistical ones.

Richard's notion of putting the exact reference into the title is an excellent one (as well as that of sticking to his system!) The piece number and the folio will enable you to find the image again, whether you are looking at Ancestry or microfilm (and hopefully cds, Origins etc). It also means that you can view Ancestry's index for the folio, even if you no longer subscribe.

After reading Richards post,I feel a bit of a lightweight-Im exhausted from what Ive done so far and feel burnt out- having looked at Richards stats I think I would have been one of those spontaneous human combustion cases where just a singed slipper was found amongst some ashes... Thanks for all your input.....computers are my achilles heel....all I know is from trial and error in the last 2 years- I should have taken a computer course to grasp the basics in an ordered logical way instead of the muddled haphazard clumsy understanding that befalls me....a consequence of an innate arrogance .

MY G** Richard, You're damned organised!! Hats off! You've also enlightened me as to what a 'hyperlink' is. That sounds really good. I may give that a go. Alter, I do much the same as everyone, I save the census image to Folders I created, 16 folders (so far)headed by surnames. then the files/records themselves are headed with the year/name/notes ie 1851 SPANTON Francis H-with Lucy. HTH Sarah :-)

I've been doing descendant trees for each of my ggg-grandparents - that's 16 couples, so literally thousands of descendants (crazy, I know!). So far I have 854 census images saved, plus a few USA and Canadian ones. Obviously, with that amount of information then I had to devise (and stick to!) a fairly rigid documentation system, or I'd have been hopelessly lost and would never be able to find anything. Also, there's no way in the world that I'm going to print out all those pages, so they're all stored on my PC (with appropriate back-up system in place, of course!). What I do is save each image using the Series/Piece/Folio/Page numbering system (e.g. RG13_Pc-3795_Fo-139_Pg-33.jpg). All of these files are in a single directory called (amazingly) ''Census''. I have then transcribed the details for each family member onto an Excel spreadsheet - one sheet for each census year. In the first column, I enter the filename of the image. I then use the Excel ''Insert hyperlink'' to create a hyperlink between this filename in the Excel file and the actual image. That means that when I click on the filename in Excel, the image opens. I also have a master sheet in the Excel file, where each individual is listed with their birth, marriage, death dates and also their age that they were on each census. Each BMD date is hyperlinked to a scanned image of the certificate (where I have it), and each census age is hyperlinked to the relevant transcription of that census entry in the Excel file. I had to set up a macro to manage all the hyperlinking - one click and all the hyperlinks are refreshed automatically. Richard

Hi Ae I have saved mine ,over 200 of them. Click on Save Image, top rhs. Save to your computer comes up.. ok it. Save As box comes up. find My Documents from drop down box . create a new folder and call it census images. double click on the new folder. at the bottom of box type in what you want to call it, say 1881 Smith, Robert, Bradford. save. If you keep to the above format , date,surname, given name, place or whatever it is easier to view them. You can save them all in there for the time being. On the button bar choose 'list' you will find it easier to view the folder that way better than thumbnails. then you can make sub folders later to group the families together. I have put a red 'dot' against the name on each census sheet so I can quickly identify them, I open all my files in Photopaint, and its easy to add the 'dot' in that programme. If you want me to explain that mail me. good luck!! Kat did you know you can't write d o t unless like this or in quotes. just had to go back and redo it. Elly.. I have never had to save it with any other file name than the one I choose to put in myself.

The way my research has gone-Ive tended to home in on a family of particular interest -eg Joseph davies and his 21 children-thats a neat projectof its own-the mother comes from Ireland-havent bothered branching off in her direction.Another group involves 200 years of the same surname in one village-again i have gone for the direct bloodline families-so no branching off. My tree has just over a hundred in it-but I could probably double that if I was bothered -instead I have gone full boar on a couple of direct lines trying to get back as far as possible. As it stands- 9 generations on pure male paternal bloodline >1693 Another one that is similar mmmffmmmmmm-11 generations>>1604.

Alter Family groups work till you get a marriage - then where do you put them - with His family or Her's !! lol Elly

cheers....have printed quite a lot off before but Im running out of time and there are papers strewn all round the room-it looks like a mad professors study- its tidy in my head-i can rattle off dates locations bloodlines etc off the top of my head but the paper ifo isnt ordered yet -saving all te stuff in family groups might enable me to systematically record details.

Hi Alter I used my free trial with Ancestry to check some original images. You have to save images to your hard drive. If you merely save to My Ancestry, you cannot subsequently view the image. Like others, I have created folders for surnames. I have to say that I lost the will to live long before I'd saved every image!

Alter I've had problems saving images from the web before. I suggest you create a folder for them (maybe one for each family name) Save into the correct folder - but DO NOT change the file name until after you have saved it. Then copy the file to a CD if you can as a back up - that's what I've done. Elly

How satisfying to see somebody using the correct grammar for a change. ;-)

Hi Alter, mine runs out soon too. What I have done is printed them all off and will look again later, probanly missed something but don't plan to join again till 2012 for the next census. Chris

can someone tell me the best way to do this- ie can i just save them then move them about at a later date>?