FamilySearch Worksheet Feature

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Martha Ray Croasmun said: Because so many records are now available, I'm revisiting a brick wall from 40 years ago - am making some progress. RootsMagic used to be my working database, but I have now moved to FamilySearch. I was a bit spooked recently to see that once I entered my best theory about the Flint family structure in 1800s central Maine, FS posted them with a green temple under "Recommended Tasks." The family members are a long way from being verified. Would it be possible to somehow create a FS worksheet feature for my kind of problem? My bizarre solution is to reserve the temple work for these iffy family members, keep them there until I either print FORs or unreserve and then delete them from my family. It is an awkward (maybe even heretical?) scheme to allow me to still continue to do the research. As a P.S.: When I try to sync RM data with FS, my Mac consistently freezes, complicating moving info.

Thanks for "listening."

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Tom Huber said: I think I would have kept using your Roots Magic and maintained it as your base so that when some well-meaning user comes along and creates a mess, you’ll have something to go back to.

I work from a local copy of Ancestral Quest for a couple of reasons, one of them being that base for the information I have gathered and proven. It serves as my worksheet and lets me work with more members of the family. This is crucial for me because I have three family lines that have lived in the same area for over two centuries and they tended to reuse the same given names over and over.

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Martha Ray Croasmun said: I still have my RM file and refer to it often - thought most messes could be cleaned up by referencing Sources on FS. Do you know if AQ syncs well with FS on Mac? RM has never been very congenial in that area; and since I have to turn off the computer whenever I try to use that feature, we're not the best of friends. I really do like the purity of having my own database, but the sync feature is hard to live without. Haven't used it in a very long time, butI is it true that GEDCOM is now completely trustworthy?

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Tom Huber said: My understanding is that the Mac and MS versions are identical in what they are able to do, including the interface with FamilySearch.

However, I really don't know. May Jeff (who is another AQ user) can provide some additional information on the Mac side of things.

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Tom Huber said: I played around with the GEDCOM export feature on AQ and it seemed to be something that worked well, but because I'm not working with other users and exchanging the database, I really don't know. I have used it to upload a modified tree to some of the DNA sites and didn't see any problems with the process.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Martha,

IMHO, GEDCOM is NEVER "completely trustworthy" anywhere. I am of the impression that it does not have the ability to effectively transfer sources or images (if it IS even possible). Using a syncing function between your PC/Mac and the FSFT is a far superior mechanism.

I do not understand why you may be having issues with RootsMagic in syncing with the FS FamilyTree. I am not real familiar with it, but there are others here on the Feedback Forum who use it and I've not heard any recent complaints about it. You might want to first check out the RootsMagic Customer support to see if they know of any obvious reasons that you are having an issue (before you try and change and then relearn a new application).

I do not know what macOS version you are using, but the last 3 major releases (High Sierra, Mohave, and Catalina) have each made major changes that can render earlier applications unusable. AQ is actually a Windows application that they have added a "wrapper" to in order for it to run on macOS.

AQ does sync very well on the Mac. Like PAF before it, I've been using that product since 1986 and have been pretty happy with it. Since the conversion of the nFS database into the FS FamilyTree database, I have changed how I use my AQ application. In general, I now do all my research and "family building" in FS and then I use AQ to basically "Back Up" all records that I consider to be reasonably complete. I put them on watch and if anything changes in the FSFT, I can quickly do a compare of everything I have on my Mac with whatever is in the FSFT records and see exactly what was done (since the change history feature on FS works so poorly). If the change were not appropriate, I make the corrections in FS and then sync them down to my AQ database on my Mac. If the changes are appropriate, I will just add then to my AQ database by syncing them down to my Mac. So basically, anytime I do a compare, it will show me what has changed since I last looked at the record and evaluated it as being in good shape.

Do again, I am using AQ primarily as a backup for the work I do in FS. Although I've frequently had to clean up merge messes in FSFT, Having my last view of those records to look back on has helped a lot. I've not yet gotten to a point where records were messed up so bad I couldn't undo them, but if I do, I reserve the right to sync chunks of my AQ database back up to FS to correct the damage.

(After all, that is being done all the time with things like bad GEDCOM files. At least all of my data has been vetted :-)

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ATP said: Thanks, Jeff, for explaining how to use AQ as a backup. It now should be easier for me to more quickly figure it out! I've saved it to have it handy!

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Jeff Wiseman said: Yea, basically everyone that I have worked on has been linked between my AQ and the FSFT, and has been put on my FT watch list. Note that since you can sync sources, I typically like to get the FS sources attached to the person profile and then sync them down to AQ. Also note, that if you use the custom sort and organize the sources in the FS source list a particular way (I find categorical sorting followed by chronological within each category works far better than the fully automatic chronological sort method), when you first sort all of the source to the AQ database, they will go into it in the same order that they are saved in the FSFT database. So if someone goes in and scrambles the order of the custom sort in FS, you have a list to help fix it (especially useful when you have 50-60 sources on a person)

And one other item, since AQ keeps time stamps on all most changes, there is a feature where you can run a tool against a part of your AQ database (or ALL of it as I usually do) and it will check all timestamps to see if anything has been touch on the FSFT after you last synced it. In other words, it is a backup type change tool that you can use like the watch list on FS. So when they break the watch list in FS, you can use the "Check for Changes" feature of AQ instead.

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Tom Huber said: Since I use my copy of AQ as my working copy (i.e., worksheet), I do not transfer sources between FSFT and AQ (either way).

The way I have sources set up in AQ, they are source-centric and not person-centric like they are in FSFT.

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Tom Huber said: The real value of having a local database (using any of the fully certified tree management systems) is that they are usually very flexible in how they can be used, but at the same time, if you do not use your local database as a worksheet (or working copy), then they are ideal as a backup.

And, if undecided which to use, the free copy of each product may be adequate for a person's needs.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Yea, I agree completely. The Source/Citation structure of AQ is far better than on FS and because of my desire to keep things organized, I would prefer to use it. The research tool in AQ is also far superior to the minimalistic To-Do list provided on FS.

However, I have discovered that with the way I have evolved into my FamilyHistory workflow, I am focused to a very large degree in using FS sources. If I actually have a document that isn't available elsewhere, I'll put it into memories and then create a source out of it. But normally all I need is just the ability to sync the sources on a FSFT record into my database for backup of what I think they should look like on FS.

So I (mostly) use the FSFT as my working copy. In doing so I'm stuck with the source structuring that FS uses. Since all the source data and notes will sync to my AQ database (although not in such a precise form that AQ supports) it is very easy to maintain and update. So that's the trade-off that I have accepted.

Besides, I can still use the research tool and the far superior chart generation of the AQ app. I also can use AQ for quickly navigating the FSFT. AQ has a name list of all persons in the AQ database. I can filter that list, modify all the attribute columns that are included, and sort it in various ways. Then when I have selected a person from that list, with a single mouse click I can open the FS record for that person. We frequently have folks coming onto the forum here requesting the capability to "search just their own part of the FSFT." Since the names list in my AQ database includes everyone "in my part of the FSFT", I already have that ability vi the AQ app.

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ATP said: Thanks for all the information here on this topic, especially the backup explanations. Very helpful!