Spreadsheets help track Surnames

[Berlin-Bob]

I found this tip in the Ancestry Weekly Digest, 22 January 2005

SPREADSHEETS HELP TRACK SURNAMES
When I'm researching a surname that has probably been in one locality for more than one generation, I often make a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has headings for first and last name, maiden name, birth, marriage, and death dates and places, father's and mother's names, census addresses, and a column for sources. I then plug in every individual with my surname or a variant that I find for that town into the spreadsheet, regardless of whether I think they are directly linked to my current research family or not.

By doing this, I can do such useful things as sorting by parents names, sorting by birthplaces, etc. It's amazing the details you notice when all the facts are in a table, side by side. This is especially true when an individual's name has been altered, mistranscribed, or misspelled on various documents. In addition, while you may not believe that "John Smith" was related to your "Smith" ancestors, there is always the possibility that a new clue will emerge five years down the road. The spreadsheet gives you a quick reference to go back to when assessing new information.

Finally, I am a firm believer in helping other genealogists on their journeys of discovery. If someone searching a similar name in the same location contacts you, you may be able to save them some work or offer a breakthrough on an elusive ancestor.

Carli Francies
Southfield, Michigan

Simple, but effective !

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[Berlin-Bob]

Here's an idea to supplement this.

If you have all your paper work in ring binders, files, boxes, or whatever (floor ?) then label them clearly.

Add a column to your spreadsheet ('Archive' or similar) with the name of the ring binder, file, box, or wherever you store it and then you can find the original documents again quickly.

Quickly ?  well, hopefully quicker than saying "Now where did I put .... ??" 


Bob

ps.

Add another column 'Confirmed'.  Enter yes, no, or if you wish, a 'degree of certainty'
Using the filter function, you can then very quickly sort out who is a 'definite', and who is just a 'maybe'

pps.
Add more columns to suit: "certificate/documentary proof" (J/N), "to do", etc

[MarieC]

This is a great idea, Bob!!

I must put it on my to-do list, after I finish inputting stuff into my genealogy software program that I recently bought!

Thank you for sharing this with us!

MarieC

[suttontrust]

Most genealogy programmes give you the facility of calling up a list of names with dates attached.  Since I work on computers all day, I would always set up a database rather than a spreadsheet - you can always export a db table or query to a spreadsheet when you need to.  So if your genealogy software doesn't give you the flexibility you want, and you have MS Access or something similar, I would recommend using that rather than a spreadsheet.

[kerryb]

That's a point actually, I prefer databases to spreadsheets because I think they are more flexible and easy to use.  I use Open Office and I think there is a database facility there.

will have to go and investigate. 

Kerry

[Stumped!]

Bob
One of the problems with spreadsheets comes when you try to sort by date order. Microsoft doesn't like anything earlier than the 20th century.
I have overcome this on my spreadsheets by entering dates as yyyymmdd which solves the problem for me. If anybody knows a better way I'd like to know it.
Peter

[Berlin-Bob]

Peter,

Yes, that is a problem.
I usually solve that by defining two date columns, one as 'text' with a standard format dd.mm.year.  Then I can also add dates like "abt. 1900" or '"early 1870's" etc. 

For sorting, I use a second column, with your format.

And yes, if anybody knows a better method I would like to know it too.

Suttontrust,

I agree with you that a database solution is even better. 
However, I am guessing that many RootsChatter have, and can use, a text processing program, somewhat fewer have, and can use, spreadsheets, and even less have a database program, such as Access.

As Kerry says, there is a database in the newest OpenOffice (version 2) so cost is no problem (it's free !) but the learning curve for many will be steep.

Bob

[suttontrust]

I agree that using databases is a bit specialised, but well worth getting to grips with.  I too use OpenOffice 2, and its database facility isn't very sophisticated.  I'm lucky enough to have Lotus Approach as well (and MS Access at work).  The problem with spreadsheets was highlighted for me when someone sent me all the stuff he'd collected on a particular surname.  He hadn't entered info in the columns in a consistent way so it wasn't sortable. 

[hcoldron]

I usually solve that by defining two date columns, one as 'text' with a standard format dd.mm.year.  Then I can also add dates like "abt. 1900" or '"early 1870's" etc. 

I thought that this would be an issue when I began - so I have THREE columns in which to store the date!
Year, Month, Day - then I put the year as a 4 digit number (so far...) like 1754 and then Month as a number too (10 for October) and then the day - if I know all these. Anything without a Month/Day is approximate. Can't do ranges for b/m/d in quarters though...