Tuesday's Tips provide brief how-to's to help you learn to use the Legacy Family Tree software with new tricks and techniques.
Options: Data Entry (Beginner)
Previous articles in this series:
Customize Legacy
Options: General Settings
The next section in the Customize Legacy menu is Options > Customize > 2. Data Entry
Option 2.1 When Adding and Editing Information (ff)
As always, you can see which settings I personally use. The Verify NEW Names, locations, and events will trigger a popup box every time you add something in these fields that you haven't already entered before. It is a great way to make sure that you haven't accidentally misspelled something.
When you add a new person, Jump to Notes when saving individual will take you directly to their notes, which notes field it jumps to is controlled by another option which we will get to. This is convenient if you like to add some notes on the new person before continuing. Jump to Marriage Info when adding a spouse works in the same way. If you add a spouse to someone it will jump to the marriage screen so that you can add their marriage details (date, location, notes, events, sources, media). Check for Problems when saving individual is tied to the settings you have selected in Tools > Potential Problems. Verify USA Counties in Place Names will trigger a dialog box if you enter the name of a county that didn't exist at the time of the event (based on the date you entered). This only works for locations in the US. Please see Using the USA County Verification Feature for more information.
When you add a child to a family, or you add a father to a child, the Add a default surname when adding a new father or child will automatically insert the surname to save you some time. Check for Duplicates while adding new individuals is tied to the settings you have in Options > QuickDup Options. If you enter a new person that Legacy thinks is a duplicate (based on what you have told Legacy to do) you will get a dialog box so that you can review the possible match.
You can also click Options on this screen to change your criteria like you can at Options > QuickDup Options. If you select Yes, or I'm not sure you will be taken to the Manual Merge screen. If you select No, this person is not the same, the dialog box will close and your new person will be added to the database. The criteria for the QuikDup is more basic than what you will find in the regular Merge options (Tools > Find Duplicates). This QuikDup routine is a screening process.
2.2 When Adding New Spouses, Children, Events, and Media (gbl)
You can see I have all of these boxes checked. When you add new spouses, children, events, or media, if they have dates they will be automatically sorted into their correct positions. Legacy follows a series of rules when it does this because some of your entries won't have dates. To see how this works, click the Explain how this sorting works link at the bottom of Option 2.2.
2.3 What Age to Presume a Person is Dead (ff)
You can see that I err on the side of caution when it comes to automatically marking people as deceased. This option is based only on the person's entered date of birth. For those that don't have a date of birth entered, you can use Tools > Advanced Set Living (affectionately known as IntelliMurder) which will look at the dates of the surrounding people. For more information please see IntelliMurder!
If someone is over your Ask if living limit, you will get a popup box asking if the person is still alive. It is a signal that you need to do some checking to find out.
If you make adjustments to your parameters you need to click the Apply button and Legacy will make a run through your file to see if anyone needs to be changed to deceased.
2.4 Text Formatting Codes (gbl)
Checking this box will allow you to use the Windows shortcut commands for text formatting. You can highlight text within a note-type field and add the surround codes for bold, italic, underlined, and superscript by pressing Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I, Ctrl-U, and Ctrl-S. These codes are then honored when creating a report.
2.5 Enter Key Behavior (gbl)
The first option means that you can use the Enter Key to move from field to field. If that screen has command buttons (for example, Edit, Save, Cancel) you have to manually mouse click to activate those buttons.
The second option is the Windows default which means you will be using the Tab Key to move from field to field. The Enter Key in this case will activate whichever command button is default for that screen (it will highlighted). Notice in this screenshot the Save button is outlined in blue. Save is the default for this screen and it is the active button. You can simply hit the Enter Key to select it. If you need one of the other buttons you will need to use the mouse.
2.7 Ancestor/Descendant Interest (ff)
If you have this option checked, you will see two new boxes appear on the Individual's Information screen. You can set your interest in this person's Ancestors and/or his Descendants on a scale of 0-3.
If you have this option on, you can use this as a Search Criteria. You will find this at Search > Find > Detailed Search. As with most searches you can use Equal to, Greater than, and Less than. In the last box you can change the value from 0-3. You can then work directly off of the Search List, print the Search List, or export the Search List just like any other Search List you generate.
2.8 Rule for generating default married names (ff)
If you choose 1-Replace wife's surname with husband's surname as an additional entry in the Index View it is very similar to Option 2.1 where you can automatically generate a surname when adding a father or a child. However, when generating married names it is a view only.
If you do choose to generate married names, to be able to see these names on the Name List, Search List, and Index Views you have to have Married Names turned on there. On either screen go to Options and then click Include Married Names. The two screens work independently of each other. You can have married names turned on for the Name/Search List but turned off on the Index View. Married names will have a § in front of the name.
Your other option is 0-None – don't generate married names.
If you ever change your mind, make sure you click the Apply button to the right of Option 2.8 which will reset your file to your new choice.
Next time we will go through 3. Date Format.
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.
You have two choices for the Enter key. 1) Moves cursor to next field and 2) Selects default command (enters the data and closes the dialog box)