Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Tech: Long Lived Ancestors or Computer Confusion?

 I use Family Tree Maker 2012. Every couple years I buy the newer version and in general, I like the program. Even though I've had it for years I still learn new things the program can do.

I was looking at the Publish/Collection/Calendar Report recently. The calendars generated show birthdays and anniversaries. When I looked closely at the calendars I saw many very long lived family members!



Mary Morris, 137; John Ritter, 126; Philip Heffelfinger, 136; Wilhelm Keck, 262; Sarah Brown Fortenberry, 130; Maria Ritter, 215; Emma Flory Mark, 136

What happens is this: There are many people whose death dates are unknown to me. There are also people who I just don’t know if they are living or not.  Family Tree Maker assumes they are living and keeps counting their birthdays. I must remember to type ‘Unknown’ in the field for date of death or the years keep adding up. Do you have another way to deal with this?

In more ways than one, Genealogy keeps people alive!


4 comments:

  1. I never thought to type UNKNOWN in the death date box. Good tip!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I try to enter "Bef 19xx" or whatever a realistic date might be. Especially if you have on obit or other record the calls the person "late" or "deceased", then I use the date of tht record as the "before" year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do use 'before' or 'after' at times if I have something that works with that. For example if I know someone is in the 1930 census I say after 1930.

      Delete

Thanks for stopping by my blog & for leaving a comment. It is always good to hear from visitors, cousins & fellow bloggers. Note that I do not publish anonymous comments.