Tuesday’s Tip – Entering Notes (Beginner)
October 03, 2017
Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.
Entering Notes (Beginner)
Most Legacy users know about the five main notes fields, General, Research, Medical, Marriage and Event but are you taking advantage of all of the other notes fields Legacy has? Just in case you are not familiar with the Big 5 we will look at those first. I will tell you what I put in each field but this is totally up to you.
I use the General Notes to hold biographical information. I try to write a short bio on every person in my direct line and for the siblings of my direct line at the very least. Sometimes this is a paragraph and sometimes it is several pages.
I use the Research Notes to document my current theories and train of thought.
I use the Medical Notes to record all kinds of medical things I find.
And here is a Marriage Note.
Here is how I use the notes for an event. This happens to be a newspaper article so I have put the transcription in the notes.
Now we will look at some of the notes fields that people seem to overlook. I like to keep my notes with the fact they are describing. To get to the Birth, Baptism, Death and Burial Notes fields all you have to do is click the + (plus) sign to the right of the field. You will also see some other options listed for each of these fields.
Here are some examples of what I put in these 4 notes fields.
Ah but we are just getting started! Any attached Media can have notes.
You can have notes attached to locations.
You can have notes on addresses.
You can have notes for repositories.
To-Do Tasks have two tabs of notes, the Task Description and the Results. If you take the time to fill these out properly you will have a nice research log.
The Master Source and Citation Detail screens both have two fields for notes, Text and Comments.
Legacy 9 introduced the new Stories feature which gives you an unlimited number of additional notes with titles that you choose.
Each notes field can hold up to 1,000,000 characters which has always been plenty for me.
Find tech tips every day in the Facebook Legacy User Group. The group is free and is available to anyone with a Facebook account.
For video tech tips check out the Legacy Quick Tips page. These short videos will make it easy for you to learn all sort of fun and interesting ways to look at your genealogy research.
Michele Simmons Lewis, CG is part of the Legacy Family Tree team at MyHeritage. She handles the enhancement suggestions that come in from our users as well as writing for Legacy News. You can usually find her hanging out on the Legacy User Group Facebook page answering questions and posting tips.
Certified Genealogist is a registered trademark and the designation CG is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists®, used under license by Board certificants who meet competency standards.
Posted by Michele Lewis in Legacy Tips, Legacy tips: beginners, Tuesday Tip | Permalink
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Comments (13)
Thank you for your notes on notes. Very well done!
Now, a quick question. Where would you keep a detailed entry from the Old Bailey, giving full details of the trial and sentencing of of a man who was then transported to Australia for life?
Similarly, where should one keep digital copies of actual certificates of birth, death, marriage, etc?
Posted by: Peter J Bottrell | October 04, 2017 at 05:49 PM
I always attach the document to the event it pertains to (birth certificate to the birth, death certificate to the death, marriage certificate to the marriage).
With your Old Bailey example I would probably create a court event and put the transcription in the notes. I would then add another event for when he was exiled to Australia with the Old Bailey court case as the source.
There are different ways you can handle this so maybe some of our users will chime in with how they would handle it.
Posted by: Michele Lewis | October 05, 2017 at 05:20 AM
I have not been making use of all of these notes options. I will be using more of them. Some I hadn't realise were available.
If I enter Repositories for the To-Do List notes, can I get a report so that If I am visiting that repository I can have a list of things I need to do there?
Posted by: Jan Pennington | October 05, 2017 at 06:53 PM
Jan,
You most certainly can :) When you print the To-Do List, you can filter by the Repository so that you can print put just the things you need to do at the Georgia State Archives (for example).
Posted by: Michele Lewis | October 06, 2017 at 07:21 AM
I like the organization this offers. However I also like to have a hard copy for each person's files.
When printing out your Fields with Notes, is there a way to print as one continuous document, or is it necessary to print each one separately?
Posted by: Angela O'S | October 10, 2017 at 06:49 AM
Most reports have the option to print the vital event notes along with the general/research/medical notes. You can also opt to have the event notes print. If you add an index to your report the location index will allow you to add your location notes. You also have the option to print source notes. To include picture notes tell Legacy to print the "description" of the photo. You can include the repository notes when you print a to-do list.
There is a suggestion in our tracker for the programmers to consider adding a new report, a report where you can print all the notes attached to a single person.
Posted by: Michele Lewis | October 10, 2017 at 07:34 AM
To further the question by Angela O'S above -- can I choose which Note fields to go into that report. If I am going to a big facility like IL State Archives, I may not care about certain fields. I often take my "Notes - General & Research" with me instead of the FGR, especially if I am concentrating on just one of the family for some odd reason. When at a courthouse - where working space is often limited to room for a clipboard - It is important to condense, condense, etc.
Posted by: Grace (Cronin) Schmitt | October 10, 2017 at 07:38 AM
Yes, you can pick and choose which notes print in reports. There are some notes (like repository) that are only available in certain reports because they are very specific.
Posted by: Michele Lewis | October 10, 2017 at 07:44 AM
Will attached media (e.g. photos or other digital images) be included in reports when generated and printed?
Posted by: J. Schoonover | October 12, 2017 at 07:49 AM
J. Schoonover,
For the reports that allow photos, the rule is one photo per field. For example, you can have a photo in the birth field, death field, burial field and every custom event counts as a separate field so one photo per event. If you have multiple photos in fields and you want them all to print, or if you are using a report that doesn't allow photos, what you can do is use the Publishing Center. Your report will be the first "chapter" and then you can pull in a picture scrapbook as the second chapter which will include all of the photos. It will become a single cohesive report (table of contents, indexes, title page etc.)
Posted by: Michele Lewis | October 12, 2017 at 08:04 AM
Why not develop a note pad for all types of notes, arranged in tabs? Add to the three tabs "General", "Research" & "Medical" the other tabs for birth/death/burial notes and so forth. This should be programmed easily, and will help with organizing the notes and to get a better overview...
Posted by: Martin Weinand | October 13, 2017 at 04:44 AM
Martin,
You can send this idea in to the programmers for them to consider here
http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/Suggest.asp
Posted by: Michele Lewis | October 13, 2017 at 05:32 AM
Thanks Michele,
good idea, did so :)
Posted by: Martin Weinand | October 13, 2017 at 06:37 AM