Tuesday’s Tip – Set Direct Line (Beginner)

Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.

Set Direct Line (Beginner)

Setting your Direct Line is a navigational tool which will help you click through your file at lightening speed. Before you get started, go to Options > Customize > Data Format > Option 3.8. Here is how I have mine set up. You might have chosen different options but make sure that the box to Indicate direct-line children in lists (bold) is checked. Notice that this is a (gbl) option. This means it is global and if you have more than one file you only have to set this option once and it will affect all of your files.

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Step 2 is to actually set the direct lines. Go to Tools > Set Direct Line.  Put yourself in the box using the Change button and then Set Preferred Line.

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Now when you navigate your direct line ancestor will be in bold in all list style dialog boxes.

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In the Name List you can see three of my direct line ancestors in bold, my great-grandfather, my 2nd great-grandfather and my 3rd great-grandfather. They are also colored blue because I have the Ancestor colors turned on and they are in my paternal grandfather's line.

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So how does this save you time? It is easy to see the bold names in the Family View and you can go click, click, click click to go up or down the direct line chain. You can also easily retrace your steps when working with your direct line. This is something I use all the time. If you want to capture both your direct line and your spouse's, simply set the direct line to one of your children.

Find tech tips every day in the Facebook Legacy User Group. The group is free and is available to anyone with a Facebook account.

For video tech tips check out the Legacy Quick Tips page.  These short videos will make it easy for you to learn all sort of fun and interesting ways to look at your genealogy research.

Michele Simmons Lewis, CG^® is part of the Legacy Family Tree team at MyHeritage. She handles the enhancement suggestions that come in from our users as well as writing for Legacy News. You can usually find her hanging out on the Legacy User Group Facebook page answering questions and posting tips.