The recording of today's MyHeritage webinar, "An Overview of Important Historical Record Collections” by Tal Erlichman is now available to view at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com for free for a limited time.

Webinar Description

View the Recording at FamilyTreeWebinars.com

If you could not make it to the live event or just want to watch it again, the 1 hour 32 minute recording of "An Overview of Important Historical Record Collections” is now available to view in our webinar library for free for a limited time. Or watch it at your convenience with an annual or monthly webinar membership. 

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Webinar Members get:

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Most people do not know who they are more than a few generations back. Some do know, others suspect, but for the majority of genealogists, it is a surprise when they discover Jewish ancestors. Many of these initial discoveries come from having done a DNA test. What resources are available to those who wish to pursue research in this "new" field? What are the essentials that will help researchers understand their ancestors? What historical events have led to migrations and distance from Jewish ancestry? We will discuss history, migration, essential clues (customs, food, terminology, languages), and much more.

Join us and Schelly Talalay Dardashti for the live webinar Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at 2pm Eastern U.S. Register today to reserve your virtual seat. Registration is free but space is limited to the first 1,000 people to join that day. When you join, if you receive a message that the webinar is full, you know we've reached the 1,000 limit, so we invite you to view the recording which should be published to the webinar archives within an hour or two of the event's conclusion. 

Or register for multiple webinars at once by clicking here.

Not sure if you already registered?

Login to view your registration status for this webinar (available for annual or monthly webinar subscribers).

Test Your Webinar Connection

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Can't make it to the live event?

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About the presenter

With our Google Calendar button, you will never forget our upcoming webinars. Simply click the button to add it to your calendar. You can then optionally embed the webinar events (and even turn them on and off) into your own personal calendar. If you have already added the calendar, you do not have to do it again - the new webinar events will automatically appear.

Webinar time

The webinar will be live on Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at:

• 2pm Eastern (U.S.)
• 1pm Central
• 12pm Mountain
• 11am Pacific

Or use this Time Zone Converter.

Here's how to attend:

1. Register at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com today. It's free!
2. You will receive a confirmation email containing a link to the webinar.
3. You will receive a reminder email both 1 day and 1 hour prior to the live webinar.
4. Calculate your time zone by clicking here.
5. Make sure you have the latest version of Java installed on your computer. Check at www.java.com.
6. Check your GoToWebinar connection here.
7. Click on the webinar link (found in confirmation and reminder emails) prior to the start of the webinar. Arrive early as the room size is limited to the first 1,000 arrivals that day.
8. Listen via headset (USB headsets work best), your computer speakers, or by phone.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.

Working in the Cloud (Advanced)

Several people have asked for information about how they can share their data file between two computers using cloud storage. We see this question all the time.  

Dropbox, OneDrive, and GoogleDrive are three of the most popular cloud servers. I use all three to give me more storage space and options. The way it works is there is a local cloud file folder on your hard drive that sync’s to the cloud server. You can see that I have a local Dropbox folder and a local OneDrive folder on my computer and each one has subfolders and files. You can't see the GoogleDrive folder in this screenshot because it is further down the list of things on my computer. The main folder is created and the sync is established when you download the installation file from the cloud server you want to use.

(click image to enlarge)

If you have more than one computer then the cloud server will keep the files on both computers sync’d. All three locations will have exactly the same files. For example, I have a desktop and I have a laptop. Both are sync’d to OneDrive  If I add a file to the OneDrive folder on my desktop, OneDrive will automatically upload that file to the OneDrive cloud server and in turn automatically download it to the OneDrive folder that is on my laptop so that all three places have the identical information.

In Legacy 8 and newer your data file is normally saved to the \Documents\Legacy Family Tree\Data folder. Instead of saving your data file there you will save it to your local Dropbox folder. Simply move your family files to this folder using the Windows cut and paste. Your family files will have .fdb extensions but you will also see a lot of "helper" files that go along with your family file that have various extensions. If you move just your family files it is not a big deal because Legacy will simply recreate the needed helper files in the new location.

You will also want to move your Media files there as well. If you have Legacy 8 or later this is easy because you can use the Gather Media tool and you will not lose your media links. You will also want to change the file paths in the Options menu so that Legacy knows where your files are. Go to Options > Customize > 6. Locations > Option 6.1 and 6.2. You will need to set Option 6.2 for each file you have and you must do it with that file open on your screen. Use the Change button to navigate to the local folder on your hard drive. I would also send your backup files to the same cloud server. To do that all you need to do is go to File > Backup File and change the file path on that screen. If you use the cloud server for other things you might want to be a little more organized and label your folders inside the cloud folder like this:

Legacy Data Files
Legacy Media Files
Legacy Backup Files

An alternative would be something like this:
Legacy Data Files
Jones Media Files
Smith Media Files
Legacy Backup Files

or however it makes sense to you.  Just make sure that you have the file paths correct in the Options menu.

For those Legacy users that know what the user files are, do NOT put your user files in the cloud storage folder because Legacy is programmed to look for those in the Legacy folders on your hard drive. If you put the user files in the cloud storage folder Legacy will not “see” them. Both your desktop and laptop work off of the user files on that specific computer and will simply recreate the files it needs. If you don’t know what user files are then you don’t need to worry about this at all. If you want both computers to have the exact same settings you can copy the user files from one computer to the other (\Documents\Legacy Family Tree\_AppData folder). 

Now that you have it set up you are ready to go. There is one VERY important thing you must remember. You cannot have the file open on both computers at the same time. Why? Because if the two versions are different, and both computers sync to Dropbox, you risk corrupting your file. You will start seeing files that say, "Conflicted Copy." The proper way is to have Legacy open on only one computer. When you are finished on that computer close Legacy. You will now need to wait until the file has completely sync’d which means it is has been uploaded to the cloud server and it has been downloaded to the second computer. This can take minutes or it can take hours depending on several factors; the size of your file, the speed of your ISP and the speed of the Dropbox servers at that moment. The cloud server will tell you when everything has been sync’d. There will be an icon in your Windows tray at the bottom of the screen.  If you hover over the icon you will get a pop up message that will tell you whether or not everything has been sync'd.

I just added a bunch of stuff to GoogleDrive and it hasn't finished syncing yet. This will give you an idea of what you will see when your file is NOT sync'd.

One added bit of advice. Your Legacy file will be undergoing more manipulation than normal so I highly recommend that you do regular check/repairs on your file and create frequent backups. My personal routine is to check for broken media links, do a check/repair, and then backup. I do this every time I am working in my file which is pretty much every day. If I am doing a lot of data entry then I might do it more than once in a day. I actually think this is important for everyone but even more so for those users working in the cloud.

As long as you remember the "rules" of cloud storage you will be able to share your file between multiple computers without a hitch.

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.

In this webinar, we will highlight new MyHeritage record collections. You will learn everything there is to know about the collections from the information they include to how to best leverage the records in your own family history research.

Join us, MyHeritage, and Tal Erlichman for the live webinar Tuesday, July 31, 2018 at 2pm Eastern U.S. Register today to reserve your virtual seat. Registration is free but space is limited to the first 1,000 people to join that day. When you join, if you receive a message that the webinar is full, you know we've reached the 1,000 limit, so we invite you to view the recording which should be published to the webinar archives within an hour or two of the event's conclusion. 

Or register for multiple webinars at once by clicking here.

Not sure if you already registered?

Login to view your registration status for this webinar (available for annual or monthly webinar subscribers).

Test Your Webinar Connection

To ensure that your webinar connection is ready to go, click here.

Can't make it to the live event?

No worries. Its recording will be available for a limited time. Webinar Subscribers have unlimited access to all webinar recordings for the duration of their membership.

About the presenter

With our Google Calendar button, you will never forget our upcoming webinars. Simply click the button to add it to your calendar. You can then optionally embed the webinar events (and even turn them on and off) into your own personal calendar. If you have already added the calendar, you do not have to do it again - the new webinar events will automatically appear.

Webinar time

The webinar will be live on Tuesday, July 31, 2018 at:

• 2pm Eastern (U.S.)
• 1pm Central
• 12pm Mountain
• 11am Pacific

Or use this Time Zone Converter.

Here's how to attend:

1. Register at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com today. It's free!
2. You will receive a confirmation email containing a link to the webinar.
3. You will receive a reminder email both 1 day and 1 hour prior to the live webinar.
4. Calculate your time zone by clicking here.
5. Make sure you have the latest version of Java installed on your computer. Check at www.java.com.
6. Check your GoToWebinar connection here.
7. Click on the webinar link (found in confirmation and reminder emails) prior to the start of the webinar. Arrive early as the room size is limited to the first 1,000 arrivals that day.
8. Listen via headset (USB headsets work best), your computer speakers, or by phone.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

This is the second in a series of three articles on data entry standards for genealogy in the United States. The first article covered Dates and now we are going to look at Locations. Please see the list of caveats at the top of the Dates article which also applies here. There is one specific to locations: Always record the location as it was at the time of the event. You can always add a note explaining that the location is"now Perry County"

The standard for US locations is four jurisdictional levels; town/city, county/parish/borough, state, country. The four jurisdictional fields are also the FamilySearch standard.  

Purvis, Lamar, Mississippi, United States

Legacy allows you to enter a "short location" for reports so that they don't sound so formal/wooden; for example,

Purvis, Lamar County, Mississippi

If you are using a different software program you can check your options to see if you have something similar. When you export your data you should be exporting it in the longer form so that the receiving person/website will be able to interpret the data correctly. 

What you shouldn't do, even in reports, is to over abbreviate. I would never put Purvis, Lamar Co, MS. You lose a lot of readability and you really won't be saving much space. If someone from another country reads your data they could easily get confused. 

If you are dealing with locations in other countries, each country has their own standard of the number of jurisdictional levels. For example, I use three jurisdictional levels for Germany but I use six for France. The most important thing is to be consistent from country to country.

One thing that throws people off are the independent cities in the US that aren't part of a county. For data entry purposes it is best to enter these with a comma place marker for the county.

Fairfax, , Virginia, United States

This will ensure that the data is interpreted correctly when you do a gedcom export/upload to a website.  Again, if your genealogy program has short locations you can make this look better for reports, Fairfax, Virginia. 

Another thing to look at are townships. Townships are different than towns (how different depends on the state) so I do put the word township as part of the town/city name.

Cedar Grove Township, Essex, New Jersey, United States

I wrote a much longer article on location data entry that was specific to Legacy. One thing I want to point out from that article is that some people like to put an address in the location field.

Harlem City Cemetery, 310 South Bell Street, Harlem, Columbia, Georgia, United States

The reason some people like to do this is they like how it reads out in reports but if you create a gedcom to send to someone or to upload to a website you risk the receiving program/website not interpreting the data correctly. If you are uploading to FamilySearch this would be flagged as non standard.

Colonial Locations

The biggest issue you will have with locations are those locations before the United States was formed. Unfortunately, there is no real standard for this and there is quite a bit of variation with how you will see these locations recorded. It can get very complicated because not only were the place names and the jurisdictional lines in the "colonies" changing, England/Great Britain was having its own jurisdictional issues. Sometimes colonies were called colonies and sometimes they were called provinces. Depending on the date, the official name of the controlling "country" was England or Great Britain. Other countries also had control of areas certain areas. Here is a short list to give you an example. Don't think this information is set in stone because different resources will give you slightly different information. All of these areas were settled prior to these dates but these are their official formations and when they came under jurisdictional rule.

• Delaware Colony (England 1664 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of Pennsylvania (England 04 Mar 1681 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of New Jersey (England 08 Sep 1664 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of Georgia (Great Britain 21 Apr 1732 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Connecticut Colony (England 03 Mar 1636 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of Massachusetts Bay (England 14 May 1692 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of Maryland (England 20 Jun 1632 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of Carolina (England 30 Oct 1629 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 1712)
• Province of South Carolina (Great Britain 1712 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of New Hampshire (England 1629 - 30 Apr 1707,Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Colony of Virginia (England 14 May 1607 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of New York (England 1664 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Province of North Carolina (Great Britain 1712 - 04 Jul 1776)
• Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (England 1636 - 30 Apr 1707, Great Britain 01 May 1707 - 04 Jul 1776)
• New Netherland (Dutch Republic 1614-1674) contained the areas that would become New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut and parts of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Prior to the establishment of English rule in those colonies they would have been referred to as New Netherland

Believe me, when you are dealing with these pre-US locations your head will be spinning. Another thing that will throw you off are Districts vs. Counties (South Carolina) and Parishes vs. Counties (Georgia). These jurisdictions are not the same as counties so I do use the word District and the word Parish in the location. 

• Skidaway Island, Christ Church Parish, Province of Georgia, Great Britain
• Edgefield, Ninety-Six District, Province of South Carolina, Great Britain 

 Again, you will definitely see some variation with pre-US locations because no clear standard has been established.

 Another interesting location dilemma is when you have someone who was born, or who died, at sea.  Normally I record it this way:

USS North Carolina, Pacific Ocean, At Sea

There is no way to get this one to fit into the 4 jurisdiction convention. 

There is one last location term I want to mention and that is the word "of." "Of" is a very powerful word and I use it all the time. It is a recognized standard but I think it is underutilized. Here is an example from my own genealogical research. I have no idea where my 4th great-grandparents James Simmons and Ellenor Lee were born. I do know that two of their known sons were born in South Carolina in 1794 and in 1797. That is the earliest record I have for James and Ellenor so I record their place of birth as: 

, , of South Carolina, United States (in reports this would be simply, "of South Carolina")

Resource:

Slawson, Mary H. Getting It Right, The Definitive Guide to Recording Family History Accurately. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Malloy Lithographing Incorporated, 2002.

Though I don't agree with everything in the book, Mary has done a good job addressing some of the unusual situations you will come across. The book does needs to be updated but it still presents solid information.

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.

As I announced here, I'll be speaking at the MyHeritage LIVE conference in Oslo in November (you should come too!). While thinking of my travel plans, I wondered if I have any Norwegian ancestors.

I created this Origins Report using Legacy 9, and learned that, no, I don't even have one. Well, I haven't identified any yet.

But Scandinavia is definitely in my blood (44.8% in fact):

And so while I'm excited to participate in the conference, I'm also looking forward to my second trip to Norway. Over on the MyHeritage blog, we've published a list of destinations to visit. So if you're considering joining us at the conference, this article will give you some ideas of what there is to see while you're there.

Click here for the article and I hope to see some of you in Oslo!

Every Friday we're pleased to offer Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscribers a new bonus webinar just for them!   This Friday enjoy "Your Ancestors Didn't Leave a Paper Trail: Are You?" by Melissa Barker. If you're not a member, remember the webinar previews are always free.

Your Ancestors Didn't Leave a Paper Trail: Are You?

Many of us have ancestors that seeming didn't leave much of a paper trail or no paper trail at all. Using the records found in archives of your ancestors friends, associates and neighbors (F.A.N. Club) can help you find your ancestors. Also learn how to leave your own paper trail so your descendants can find you!

About the Presenter

The recording of Wednesday's webinar, "Photoshop: What you need to know as a photographer” by Jared Hodges is now available to view at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com for free for a limited time.

Webinar Description

View the Recording at FamilyTreeWebinars.com

If you could not make it to the live event or just want to watch it again, the 1 hour 27 minute recording of "Photoshop: What you need to know as a photographer” is now available to view in our webinar library for free for a limited time. Or watch it at your convenience with an annual or monthly webinar membership. 

Webinar Memberships/Subscriptions

Webinar Members get:

• On-demand access to the entire webinar archives (now 733 classes, 979 hours of genealogy education)
• On-demand access to the instructor handouts (now 3,270 pages)
• On-demand access to the live webinars' chat logs
• 5% off all products at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com (must be logged in at checkout)
• Access to all future recordings for the duration of their membership
• Chance for a members-only door prize during each live webinar
• Access to register for bonus members-only webinars
• Ability to view which webinars you are registered for
• Use of the playlist, resume watching, and jump-to features

Introductory pricing:

• Annual membership: $49.95/year
• Monthly membership: $9.95/month

Click here to subscribe.

Register for our upcoming webinars (free)

Print the 2018 webinar brochure here.

See you online!

The Legacy Family Tree Webinar website (https://familytreewebinars.com) is home to genealogy-themed webinars, some of which are free and available to the public and some of which are available only to subscribers.

Yesterday, July 24 2018, we detected an attempt to hack the website and stopped it in its tracks. Due to the architecture of the website, very little was compromised. The website doesn’t store any personal information other than email addresses. All other information about webinar subscribers including names, passwords and credit card information, is stored separately on a secure 3rd party e-commerce service, and it is safe. The hacker was attempting to pull one email address at a time, from a database table that stores which webinars were viewed by which registered users. We caught this and stopped the attack while it was occurring. That table contains 8,543 email addresses - a very small percentage of the overall user base of Legacy - so some of these 8,543 addresses have been exposed to the hacker (but nothing else). Once we spotted the attack we immediately took the website offline. We fixed the vulnerability that allowed the attack and brought the website back online in 24 hours. We will be emailing all 8,543 potentially affected users today to notify them about the incident.

The 8,543 potentially affected webinar users come mostly from the USA, Canada and Australia. People who viewed webinars anonymously without signing up or logging in were not affected. People using the Legacy Family Tree software (but not the webinars) were not affected. For the affected users, there is no need to change passwords because the passwords are stored elsewhere and are safe. There is no need to take any action, but please continue to exercise caution in all your online activities, because there are bad people out there. The website doesn’t store family trees or any other sensitive personal data. The website operates on a cloud environment that is completely isolated from any other services.

As data breaches go, this one is very minor. Fortunately, this incident did not affect sensitive personal data. Nonetheless, we apologize for any inconvenience. In the next few days we will make a change in the website so that it will cease to store even email addresses (account IDs will be used instead of email addresses to store webinar viewership history) and there will be no personal information to take from it. Long live genealogy!

Users who have questions or concerns about the breach are welcome to contact our Support team at [email protected]

Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.

Which Fields Have Sources? (Beginner)

When you are looking at a person's Individual's Information screen it is easy to see which custom events have sources because there will be a source icon over on the right but what about the vital events at the top of the screen? You can tell Legacy to change the label color if that field has a source. I have mine set to turn red.

(click image to enlarge)

It is easy to change the color. I am going to change mine to purple. In the Family View go to Options > Change Colors.  You will see a pink dialog box pop up. Select Click here to change other user-interface colors.

(click image to enlarge)

The Set Interface Colors dialog box will pop up. Make sure you are on the Other Colors tab and then you will see the Sources: option. In the screenshot you can see that mine is still set to red.

(click image to enlarge)

When I click the field next to Sources: I get a screen where I can choose a new color. Notice that there are Color Palettes over on the right if you want to design all your colors based on a certain theme.

(click image to enlarge)

Click Select this Color > Save > Close.  Now my label turns purple if I have a source. 

(click image to enlarge)

I love jazzing up my colors in Legacy. Every so often I will completely change my colors. It takes some time to get everything just right so make sure that you save your work. Remember the pink dialog popup box? Click Options > Save the current color scheme and you will see two options. You can save this as your User-Defaults or you can save it for future use.

(click image to enlarge)

You can save as many color schemes as you want and then flip flop back and forth between them. I will be doing a future article that goes more in depth with all of the different color options but I wanted to show you this one thing now that will make it easier for you to know which fields have sources attached to them.

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.