Question: Cecile St. John sent in a question about syncing trees and changing trees names.  In short, she is wondering why if she changes the name on her Family Tree Maker 2012 tree and syncs it, why doesn’t it change on the Ancestry.com site.  And how does she change it?

Answer: In short, I don’t know why it doesn’t update. :-) But I do know how to change it! 

One of my trees has the odd name, “gilberts new tree” which now that I look at it seems kind of strange. 

I click on Tree Pages and then on Tree Settings:

Now I see:

I type something more meaningful into the box labeled Tree Name:

The message “The tree information has been updated” tells me I was successful.

This is also where you can change your Privacy Settings.

You can choose from a Public Tree, a Private Tree, or a Private Tree that is not indexed.  A Private Tree means others can find it, but have to ask (hopefully politely!) to look. 

Choosing the check box “Also prevent your tree from being found in searches” means no one will know that it is there.

Happy Searching!

— Ancestry Anne

Question: How do you configure FTM 2012 so that it does not show “USA” in the place names?

— Livestream Viewer

Answer: When you are in Family Tree Maker 2012, you start by selecting Tools and then Options

In the bottom right hand corner, you will see the Place Options section:

Make sure that you have a check next to “Check place authority when entering place names” and then select the country your ancestors are from.  I assume that all of my ancestors are mostly from the USA, so I don’t need to see that in every place.

Now when I look at places, I will see, for example, Virginia instead of Virginia, USA.  It’s a little bit shorter and easier to read.

Happy Searching!

— Ancestry Anne

Question: I found my family in the 1940 Census, but I’m not sure what to do now. Is there something else I should be looking for?

— Jo Anna Worthington

Answer:  Finding the record is only part of the game. The next step is to figure out how to use the information in it. I’ll use George J. Hickman’s family from the 1940 census as our example.

Step 1.  Learn everything you can from the record.

The 1940 census has a lot of information.  For now, we’ll look at

1.   Names, ages, birthplaces, and relationships
2. Residence in 1940 and 1935
3. Occupation

Get started by selecting “View image.”

Names, ages, birthplaces and relationships.

The image shows that George is living with his wife, Edna; four daughters, Doris, Deloris, Frances, and Betty Joyce; his son, George; and his Uncle William.  Everyone was born in Virginia except Edna, who was born in West Virginia.

Doris and Deloris are both 8.  Twins?

Uncle William is listed as single. He was likely never married; otherwise, he would probably be listed as divorced or widowed.

Where they lived in 1940 and 1935.

The Hickmans lived on Road #685 in Natural Bridge, Rockbridge County, Virginia.

Street names and addresses, when available, are listed vertically in column 1.

If the family lived in the same house in 1935, you’ll see “Same House” in column 17, or if they lived in the same town but a different house, you’ll see “Same Place.” The Hickmans have an “R” in column 17.  This R means rural and tells us they lived in another town with a population under 2,500.

What they did for a living.

Columns 28 and 29 tell us George was a tinner in the building industry, and Uncle William was a section hand for the railroad.

Step 2.  Write down what you learn.

Don’t tell yourself, “Oh, I’ll remember this.”  You won’t.  Save the record to your Ancestry.com family tree. If you don’t already have an Ancestry.com family tree, you’ll have the option to create one using this record.

Also, take notes about what you find on a record – even consider creating a notebook with a page or tab for everyone in the family. That way you’ll know where you found that key birth date or maiden name and you won’t have to dig through all of the records you’ve discovered to find that information again.

Step 3. Ask new questions.

Every time you learn something new about your ancestors, chances are you’ll end up with a few more questions, too. Here are some things we don’t know about the Hickmans:

1. Where exactly did they live in 1935?  Why did they move?
2. When did George and Edna marry?
   
3. When did Edna move to Virginia?
4. Why was Uncle William living with the family
5. Were Doris and Deloris twins?
6. What is a tinner? What did a section hand do? 
7. Who were their neighbors?  Did any other Hickmans live in the area?

Each of these questions are linked to another record collection.

Question 1 – where they lived in 1935 – may be answered by a city directory, which may also tell you George’s occupation. If it changed between 1935 and 1940, that may mean George took a new job with a new employer, which triggered the family’s move.

Question 2 could be answered by a marriage record.

Question 3 will require Edna’s maiden name, which can be found on that marriage record, which can then be used to find Edna with her parents in earlier census records, and so on.

Familiarizing yourself with all of the records available on Ancestry.com and the type of details contained in each will make your search for more answers simpler.

OK, this wasn’t a specific question, but inspired by reading the comments of my previous article: Are These The Same People? In that post, I built what I call a Family Census Table that I used to determine who was in the family and when.

Maybe it will be useful to do a few examples of what you might include, and also talk about what you can do with the information once you’ve collected it.

Let’s do our first example with my great great grandparents Jeremiah and Mary Gillespie.

I’ll build a table in Excel, but you can do it in word, on a piece of paper, or whatever makes sense.  In this first, example I’m going to work through, I’m not going to include place, but we will in later examples:

Now let’s find the 1880 census and record what we see.

Harriet was listed as a daughter, and George and Paul as sons.  There are big gaps between the children, so there very well may be other children.

On to 1870.

OK, there are some serious discrepancies here!  But let’s collect all four and then think about them.

And now for 1860:

No George.  And this is the first we’ve seen of Sarah. One more, let’s look at 1850:

OK.  Now what do we do with this somewhat confusing information?  Let’s start with a list of questions that we might have by looking at this family.

1. Are the Mary in 1880 and the Ann in 1870 the same person as the Mary E in 1860 and 1850?
2. Why is George listed as a son of Jeremiah in 1880, but not in the household in 1860?  He should have been 4.
3. What happened to Sarah?  She should have been about 10 in 1870, too young to be married.  Where is she?
4. Where are James and William in 1880?
5. Jeremiah and Mary are no where to be found in 1900, did they die between 1880 and 1900?
6. Can we find Harriet, James, William, George and Paul in 1900?

In the next post, I’ll talk about where you might want to go next with this research and how to get there.

If you put every family you are working on in a table like this, I guarantee that you will look at it and start asking questions. And that is the best way to get answers. :-)

I have worked diligently searching my family’s history for over ten years.  I joined Ancestry in 2006 and began a more serious search.  On my father’s side of the family his roots were in Milledgeville, Georgia.  I knew that there was woman who had four children by William Steele.  There were stories of her being Native American, a mulatto, or a slave.  We thought her name was Mandy.  I took a DNA test and found out that I have no Native American blood, so the next question was—was she a slave or was she free? By finding the four children I found her real name Sarah or Sallie Keen on the 1870 and 1880 census. 

The next mystery to tackle was whether she was a slave or a free person of color.  There on the 1860 census, listed as free people of color, was a family of Brooks.  All of the family’s first names matched, and there was an additional child that I never knew existed.  Where the name Brooks came from I do not know, but I guess after the Civil War they took on their father’s last name of Steele. 

For many African Americans looking for their ancestors it should be noted that the first name and middle name of all family members are very important. This can be the key to identifying the family in situations where there was a surname change, as was the case with my family.  I even found out that Sarah’s mother changed her last name three times. Jane Mitchell, Brooks or Gilbert was a free person of color—a washer woman that lived to be 116 years of age.  She had two newspaper articles written about her as the oldest person in the county! 

Theresa Steele Page