YourTrees
Creating great digital records
How to create good records
In YourTrees we have a mantra, a good old-fashioned saying that’s as pertinent today as when it was first recorded in the 1650’s. “A place for everything and everything in it’s place.”
There’s also an abbreviation in computing – “GIGO” for “Garbage In, Garbage Out”
Bottom line? We make it harder for our legatees and other researchers, if our records aren’t properly organised and consistently entered, so how do we achieve that?
We’ve provided a series of Crib Sheets, by topic, to help you enter your records correctly.
Each document contains the Crib Sheet (normally one page) followed by some examples from popular family tree programs, because they all approach data entry in a slightly different way.
But we start with a data entry checklist. Use this as a guide and dive into the more detailed crib sheets for more information.
Need assistance
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The Crib Sheets
Data Entry Checklist
A high level view of how to enter data
Names
Break down a name into its constituent parts and know where to enter them
Places
Identify places in a full and consistent way, to make precise location easy and avoid ambiguity when different places share common or similar names
Dates
GEDCOM has a strict but highly flexible date format. Check how to use it
Citations
Allow others to verify your facts by quoting your sources. Citations can be useful reminders to you too
Notes
How to use notes to store those important snippets of information that are related TO a data field but are not allowed IN a data field
Post-upload Data Validation
After we’ve published your tree, there are data validation reports you can run to check for errors that cannot be caught by our point-of-entry data-scrubbing program. This crib sheet tells you how to run them
For more information on these topics
Online Workshops
Attend one of our FREE, regular, two-hour online workshops to examine these subjects in depth
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YourTrees
A Digital Legacy