Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.
Sharing Your Data (Intermediate)
By now you already know how to share your data with your family and other researchers using Legacy reports and charts. Legacy's reports have more custom settings than any other program I have seen and with Legacy Charting you can produce eye catching charts in many styles.
However, there are other ways you can share your data that are a little more advanced.
GEDCOMs
If your family member or relative is a family historian but doesn't use Legacy you can export your Legacy File as a gedcom which any program can open. Go to File > Export > Gedcom File and make sure you click the Help button on this screen because there are many options when exporting your data.
Exporting a Legacy File
If the person you are working with does use Legacy all you need to do is send them a backup of your file OR if you want to limit your file using Tagging or Focus Group, and/or you want to exclude some things (privacy), you can go to File > Export > Legacy Family File.
Uploading a GEDCOM to a "tree" site
You can upload your gedcom to a website such as MyHeritage. Again, don't forget to look at all of the export options. The Legacy and MyHeritage programmers are working on a direct sync which will make this process much simpler.
Collaborative trees
Geni and FamilySearch's Family Tree are two examples of collaborate trees. You can't upload gedcom's here* but you will only need to hand enter a few people and then you will be able to link your line into the tree. Legacy has a direct sync to FamilySearch's Family Tree which makes this process much easier. Read more information about it.
Your own web site
If you have web space on a hosting site you can create web pages in Legacy and then upload them using one of the free FTP clients. We use and recommend FileZilla. Working with web pages in Legacy is very much like working with reports. On the main toolbar/ribbon click Internet and you will see the five styles of web pages you can choose from. Make sure you click the Help button on these screens so that you will understand all of the options.
The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (TNG)
The Next Generation is a 3rd party program that will create dynamic web pages from your gedcom. There are a lot of One-Name Study researchers that use Legacy and the Guild of One-Name Studies uses TNG for all of their member web pages. For more information about One-Name Studies you can watch Kirsty Gray's webinar, Are You a GOON? What is a One-Name Study and Why Do One?
Create dynamic offline web pages
This is one of the more fun ways. You can create web pages in Legacy and then email the web pages folder to another researcher or family member and they can browse through your "web page" without ever accessing the internet. When you create web pages, you will see a folder in this file path, \Documents\Legacy Family Tree\web\NAME OF YOUR WEBPAGES. For example, \Documents\Legacy Family Tree\web\Michele. All I have to do is send the Michele folder to the person (email, via cloud storage, CD, whatever you want to do). That person need only open the folder and double click on the Index.htm file. This will open in a web browser (you do not have to connected to the internet) and they will be able to navigate it just like if it was a web page. If the folder is large, you can send it to them as a zip file. Right click the folder and select Send to > Compressed (Zipped) Folder. They will need to unzip on their end.
* You actually can upload a gedcom to the FamilyTree but I don't recommend it. FamilySearch will make you address all of the possible duplicates on every person you upload. There is another area on FamilySearch that is not part of the collaborative tree called the Pedigree Resource File where you can upload gedcoms.
I have to mention privacy. Whenever you share your data with anyone, in any fashion, you must be mindful of the sensitive data in your file. You should never share data about living people without their express permission. There may also be other private information in your file that is better not distributed. All of our reports, charts, gedcoms, export Legacy files, and web pages have Privacy Options. For more information read Legacy 101 – Privacy.
After you have done all of this hard work on your family you will want to get it out in the public for others to enjoy. Legacy gives you several options to be able to do this.
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.
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