Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.
A Shared Events Tip (Beginner)
Since I am a Legacy dinosaur I am still more into copying and pasting events than I am sharing events; however, I just found a reason why shared events is a very good thing.
Last night I found an interesting court case involving my 5th great-grandfather's brother John McMichael. He went to court in 1802 claiming that in 1788 Creek Indians had stolen three of his horses and he now wanted compensation. John's brother David (my 5th great-grandfather) signed an affidavit confirming the story but so did a man named Patrick Hays. I don't know who Patrick Hays is but I do know that David's grandson Leroy married an Elizabeth Hays. I added Patrick as an unlinked person and then I copied and pasted both the theft in 1788 and the 1802 court case to him. Then I had a light bulb moment. Patrick is unlinked in my file and I could very easily forget about him. If I shared the events with him instead of copying and pasting there would be a link between John McMichael, David McMichael and Patrick Hays. No matter who I am working with I can see the link between the men. If I had simply copied and pasted the event there isn't a true link. I would have to open the event, read it, then go to the other person to get more information. Now that I have shared the events it is much less likely that I will forget about Patrick.
(click image to enlarge)
Old dogs can learn new tricks.
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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.
Comments (7)
Bonnie,
Open the report you are working with and go to REPORT OPTIONS. Now click the EVENT OPTIONS button over on the right. This is where you tell Legacy to include shared events and how you want them included.
I don’t like shared events because when I go to print a report for one of the “shared” persons, the shared event and its text do not show on the report at all. I only see the information when working in the database. Perhaps I have missed something that would enable these events to always print. If not, I prefer to go to each person sharing the event and go through the event Add/Repeat cycle, so the event shows on Individual (and other) reports.
You can copy and paste photos from one Media Gallery to another and you can also attach a photo to multiple people using the Picture Center but there is no share feature in the same way as you share events. This feature is in the official queue for the programmers to consider. I have added you as an additional requester 🙂
I love using shared events. Is there a similar way that media can be shared? For instance, if I have a family group in a photo, it would be great if I could use sharing then.
Actually, Bill, I don’t use shared events for everything but for this specific situation it was the most logical option for me. I tend to forget about people in my file and keeping them linked via a share makes that less likely 🙂
Michele, for once, I am a SLIGHT bit disappointed in you. 🙂
While your reason for linking in this case is a good one, it is certainly not the best reason. It is EXTREMELY rare that I copy an event from one person to another. I link them whenever it is possible.
That is because, somewhere along the line, I discover additional information regarding an event requiring further edits. If they are not linked, it can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find all occurrences of the event and edit each the same way. If they are linked, editing the one primary event changes all instantly.
But there is one exception to my “rule” for not using linking. I actually do use the Event Copy/Paste feature quite often for the exception I am talking about. That exception is when I have similar, but not identical, events for several individuals.
In that case, I enter one and then copy it. Go to the other person(s) and paste it there. Then I edit the pasted event with the differences.
An example is when I find multiple family members listed on a census. But their occupation is different. I copy/paste all the event info but change the occupation of each as necessary.
Be well,
Bill
Thanks for this example. I use shared events for residences, but never thought to use for baptisms, confirmations, marriages where the church records include witnesses/sponsors are listed, but not yet linked to family!
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Bonnie,
Open the report you are working with and go to REPORT OPTIONS. Now click the EVENT OPTIONS button over on the right. This is where you tell Legacy to include shared events and how you want them included.