Frederick County, Maryland
Family Tree Maker Tips
This is for those of you who are using Family Tree Maker software. I have been asked several times - "How do I copy my data from FTM into an email or other word processor program?". So for those of you who want to know but haven't asked yet - First you must have the view of the family you want and the person's name should be highlighted (cursor in that person's field) for whose descendant report you want. From the picture menu bar above (holding mouse over buttons will describe their function), click on "Outline Descendant Tree". You MUST be in this view to access the buttons you need as you will see another menu bar pop up on the right side of your screen. Normally, the Tree will print a default setting, a certain number of generations and ONLY the birth and death (year only). But, you can modify that and put in whatever data you want. On the menu bar on the right side, click the second button down "Items to Include", you can choose from the left side of the box and "arrow" them to the right side as the right side is what's included. You can reverse from right to left the items you don't want and by clicking on the field in the right box, you can move it up on down in the order you want. I like to include the full date and location of birth, marriage and death. Many times I also add the occupation and burial fields. One I use is the namesake field as that is where I place "d/o so and so" since the wife's parents won't show up in this report. There is also a Note field that can be used. One word of caution - there is a space limit to how much you can include and it varies by the amount of generations you are including and how many people are included. Usually, I can put in the full date and location of birth, marriage and deaths plus two other fields. Each time you select a field, a box will pop up for you to choose if you want to use the label (burial: for example); full or abbreviated (b: for birth as an example) or none. It may let you choose if you want to use "in" or not. For dates, you can choose only the date, date and location, or only location. It also lets you choose to include source but I've found that usually results in going over the limit unless you are only doing two or three generations. Now, for the Number of generations - the fourth button down, "Number of Generations", lets you choose how many generations you want and if there are a tremendous amount of people, you may not always be able to include 10 generations. Just above that button, "Individuals to Include", this defaults to include all the descendants - or - you can change it to include only direct descendants going from the name you started with to (click change secondary individual) whomever you choose to be the end of the direct line. You can also check the box if you choose to include the siblings of the direct descendants. These buttons can also be accessed through the text menu bar above labeled "Contents". Tip - If you want to print, say only three generations because of the length, and then print another for each second generation (son/daughter), for the son/daughter, view the outline chart as before, only now for the son/daughter. Then, click the top right side menu button, "Format". In the "Generations Numbers" box, you can now Change the Starting Generation to 2 or for whichever generation you want. In the "Indention" box, you can change the "." to a "-" or eliminate it completely. Then be sure and click OK when finished. One more thing - always do this so when you print this report or make a gedcom to exchange, this will be included - your name and data. On the Text Menu Bar above, click on "Contents", then click "Title and Footnote". Here you can include the date of the printing and in the Footnote box, be sure and place your name, address and email so everyone will know where this report came from. It also lets you choose to place a box around this or not. NOTE - The Footnote box will appear when printed but does NOT appear when copied and pasted. And, in doing email, we will be copying and pasting but your email address will be in your message and anything else you wish to include. Now that you have your outline descendant tree just the way you want it, you are ready to copy and paste it to an email or other word processor program. So, on the text menu bar above, click "Edit", "Copy Outline Descendant Tree". This places this on your "Clipboard". Now go to your email message or word processor document and click where you want to place this. Then, holding down the CTRL key, press "V" on the keyboard - or - in most cases, you can click "Edit", "Paste" from the text menu bar above in your program. Oh, there's one more tip I'd like to throw in here - for those of you who have children in the files and they aren't in the correct birth order - in regular "Family Page" view, from the text menu above, click "People", then "Sort Children" (children with blank birth dates will appear first unless you place "abt [year]" in that field). If you want the wives, husbands to show/print in correct order, you MUST put in an estimated date (abt 1850 for example). So, there you are - all ready to swap data through email.
website by Dorinda Davis Shepley
