Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about sharing your written research documents. Whether its a report, proof argument, or ancestor biography, sharing is a great way to get your research out there. We discuss how to add a few safeguards to your report in case pages of it get separated – like footnotes, copyright notices, and headers and footers. Listen in for a discussion on uploading your report to Ancestry, FamilySearch, or your own blog/website.
Transcript
Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 126: Preparing Reports for Sharing Online. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, The Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go, Hi everyone and welcome to the show.
Nicole (47s):
I’m Nicole Dyer, and I’m here with my mom, accredited genealogist, Diana Elder. Hi, how are you?
Diana (54s):
I’m doing well today, Nicole, how are you doing?
Nicole (57s):
Great. Just working hard, trying to get everything done before Thanksgiving. We’re recording this on Tuesday before the holidays.
Diana (1m 5s):
And it will be so nice to have a little bit of a break and time to make some good food and enjoy being with family. If we can. I know some of us can’t have as big a family gatherings as we’d like this time of year, but hopefully we can all pick up the phone and call our loved ones or use Zoom or whatever to connect. I think it’s even more important during the holidays this year to connect with whatever way we can. I’m personally planning on sending out some real Christmas cards this year.
Nicole (1m 38s):
I always do because we take our family picture and it makes us get our family picture done. And then we send them out. I know that Black Friday will be over by the time you hear this, but I’m planning to wait for those amazing black Friday sales on cards.
Diana (1m 50s):
That’s a great idea.
Nicole (1m 54s):
All right, well, we have some announcements today. We have set the dates for next year’s study groups. So if you’re interested in joining the Research Like a Pro study group, not with DNA, just the regular Research Like a Pro study group, that will be March 3rd to April 28th, weekly on Wednesdays and registration for that will begin on January 4th. So make sure that you get on our study group, email notification list to get notified when registration begins and take advantage of the early bird sale. Then our fall study group Research Like a Pro with DNA will be September 1st through November 17th, weekly on Wednesdays and registration for that will begin on June 1st.
Nicole (2m 41s):
So you can sign up for the same study group, email newsletter to get notified about that. Also, we wanted to let you all know that our mentor application is open. If you would like to be a mentor for one of our study groups and receive complimentary registration, then just go to familylocket.com/rlp-mentors. And you can read about it there. And there’s an application where you can submit your example report. We just would like to see work sample and anybody with experience with our Research Like a Pro method is a good fit to apply.
Diana (3m 20s):
Yeah, being a mentor is a great opportunity. There is something about helping other people learn as well as reviewing their work. That just helps you to more, fully internalize the information. So we’ve really enjoyed teaching the groups. And I think our mentors have really enjoyed their interaction with attendees. So we’re hoping for lots more people to want to be mentors and get to participate with us. Now, if you are interested in getting coupon codes and notifications of cells on our various study groups, courses, books, products, be sure you join our newsletter where we will put those in when appropriate.
Diana (4m 3s):
We have a weekly newsletter that comes out Monday mornings, and we put all sorts of fun things in there. We have links to our newest podcasts and blog posts, as well as some of our older blog posts that maybe apply to the season or to something that we’re working on or talking about. So if you haven’t signed up for our newsletter, be sure you do that. Then you can always know what’s going on with our Research Like a Pro, as well as other things that we do.
Nicole (4m 32s):
Okay. Well today we are talking about preparing research reports for sharing, and this could apply not just to reports on research and progress, but it could also apply to completed research. If you have a proof argument or a narrative biography of an ancestor, any kind of writing that you want to go ahead and share online. So why would you want to share a report online? Well, first and foremost, I think is to show accurate research for a person or an ancestor in your family tree. And often we need to correct erroneous research that has already been posted in Ancestry trees or published in older books and new research has found that it was inaccurate so we need to correct that.
Nicole (5m 16s):
So posting a research report can be a really great way to show people that previous research was incorrect. Another reason is maybe we have been researching a case and have come to a conclusion, but all of the evidence was indirect. So you can’t simply attach a census record or a probate record to the ancestors profile to show a parent-child link or some other kind of conclusion. So you will have to write it up in a written conclusion and share it in order for other people to understand why you came to that conclusion. Now I’ve seen this happen all the time and family trees on FamilySearch and Ancestry, where somebody come to a conclusion added an ancestor in their tree, but hasn’t included any supporting documentation to show why.
Nicole (6m 4s):
And we all wonder, well, I wonder how they knew that this is the parent. Maybe we don’t ever know. Well, wouldn’t it be great if when other people added a parent to the tree, they added a source or a, a research report explaining why they did that. So I think that’s a really important thing to do when we find an answer to a research question that is just mostly based on indirect evidence that we share the report of what we found when we’re done. And then of course, if your report includes DNA evidence, it will most likely need to be written up in a report because DNA evidence is indirect evidence and it must be correlated with traditional records.
Nicole (6m 45s):
So if you are sharing a report using DNA evidence, be sure to listen to our previous episode about privacy and permission for sharing your DNA report because most DNA research will include living test takers. Another reason why you may want to share a genealogical research report is to share the historical and interesting information that you discovered about a person. Maybe you’re sharing a biography that you’ve written, compiling, contextual, geographical and historical information with what the records say that you found. This is a lot more fun for people to read. And so if you’re sharing this with your descendants, by posting it up on FamilySearch or Ancestry for them to find someday when they’re interested, then how much more fun will it be for them to read a narrative about an ancestor that includes pictures and maps and background information.
Nicole (7m 42s):
So you may want to be sharing that type of report online.
Diana (7m 47s):
And after I did my four generation project, I felt like I had spent so much time and effort on that, that I put it up on FamilySearch and I divided it by generation and attached it to each generation. And then it’s so nice because on FamilySearch, then you can tag all the different people that are mentioned in it. And I just was so grateful that I had a place that I could put it out there forever and ever. It will be there for anyone interested in learning more about an ancestor or to see how these people connect, because some of my generations were all indirect evidence. There was no record that actually stated these were the parents of this individual and it had to be put together with all of those different pieces.
Diana (8m 31s):
So it’s really great to think about sharing our research in a written form. Well, let’s talk a little bit about safeguards against separation. So Genealogy Standards talk about this and standard eight and 74 suggest taking measures to be sure your writing and the documentation that goes with it don’t get separated as you share your work. So this why we want to use footnotes that are on each page instead of doing endnotes that are all at the end of the report. If we are sharing our report or proof argument, people want to be able to see where different pieces of information came from.
Diana (9m 11s):
And I like to glance down at that footnote, as I’m reading, if somebody says this person was born in this place and on this date, then I want to see exactly where that information came from. And so if I can glance down on that page to the footnote and it cites a birth certificate, or it sites FindAGrave, or a census, then it helps me understand how accurate, how reliable that information is. Now, if those are all at the end of the report, and let’s say someone takes just one page and posts that elsewhere, well, those footnotes wouldn’t travel with that page. And unfortunately the documentation would be separated.
Diana (9m 55s):
And so this is why we want to make sure we’re using footnotes instead of endnotes in this type of an example. You might see endnotes in a book, so if a book is published, you know, there’s not going to be a separation, those pages will stay together. And at the end of each chapter in an appendix at the end, they might have all the notes. So that’s a little bit different case than a report like this, that someone could print off and then hand out different pages. So another good safe guard to include is a footer with the page number and total number of pages. Because this way, if someone just takes one page, you could see that, oh, this is page 8 of 15. And you’ll know there is a lot more that goes with this report.
Diana (10m 37s):
You can also have a header that has your name and email address so anyone reading it could contact you for additional information or the rest of the document if it got separated. And you can also add a copyright notice to your report, because anything that we create, we immediately have the copyright to that. This is good to know, and to remember, and to put on our work so that people realize, you know, our work is copywritten. And so someone else can’t, or shouldn’t, take our words and then publish that or pass that off as their own work.
Nicole (11m 12s):
So true. You know, I was thinking about what you said about putting endnotes in book chapters. And I’ve seen that quite a bit with older genealogy books, but I really think that even in book chapters, the new way to go is to use footnotes instead of endnotes, because people can still make copies of book pages and then it would be separated.
Diana (11m 32s):
That’s true. And I’m actually doing a review right now of a book that a journalist sent me and I am so glad that she does have footnotes because all the way through, I am reading her footnotes. And her footnotes are really informative and interesting and adds so much to the book. And I’m really glad that they’re right there on the same page and not somewhere at the end because it’s an ebook and that’s even more annoying to try to scroll and try to find the notes. So, yeah, I’m a proponent of using footnotes.
Nicole (12m 4s):
Agreed. It’s just so much easier. And I will always want to know the source of the information. So I get annoyed when I have to flip to the end of the chapter or book and try to find the notes. And it reminds me of when I was in college, studying history and all of the notes were in the end, in the appendix and it was just a pain.
Diana (12m 21s):
It is. I agree.
Nicole (12m 22s):
Well, let’s say that you’ve prepared your report and it’s got a header and a footer and all of the footnotes. Now you’re ready to save it and share it. So we recommend saving your document as a PDF file before you share it. This makes it much easier for people to read it because almost everyone has the correct software on their devices to read a PDF file, but not every device is able to easily read a Word document. Some people don’t have Microsoft Word software and some people can open that on their tablet or phone. So saving it as a PDF also makes it harder for others to edit the document, which they shouldn’t be doing because you hold the copyright to that.
Nicole (13m 6s):
So if you want to save your document as a PDF, and you’re not sure how, I’ll just give a couple of tips on that. If you’re using Word to create your report, you can easily save it as a PDF by just clicking file and then click save as, and then change the file type from the dropdown list by clicking on the arrow. And then you’ll see a dropdown list of all the types of files you can save your document as, and just choose PDF. If you’re writing with Google docs and not Word, then you can also save as a PDF in a similar way. You just go to the top of Google docs, click file, and then click download and then click PDF document.
Nicole (13m 48s):
And I do this all the time. It’s great for turning in assignments and things. It is, I just think a better way to share a written completed document that the other person doesn’t need to be able to edit. Sometimes people have asked us how to merge documents into one PDF. Like if you have a report and then you have a separate file in another document, that includes the attachments for that report. And so some people have recommended using a PDF editor to help merge two documents together. So there are PDF editors available for purchase and some free ones as well, but most of them are for purchase. There’s an article I’ll link to called Best Free PDF Editors in 2020, if you are looking for a way to do that, but you really can just put the attachments at the end of your report document so that you don’t have two separate files.
Nicole (14m 39s):
And that’s what I usually do.
Diana (14m 41s):
Yeah, those are all such good ideas. One of the other things that I really like about a PDF is that all of your images and captions and tables are reproduced how you have them in your Word document or your Google doc. It doesn’t do anything weird with those because you know, sometimes if you’re transferring Word to Google docs, the formatting gets a little messed up, but it’s nice because if you make it a PDF, then it all looks as beautiful as when you first created it. It does really a wonderful way to share. So let’s talk about specific ways to share. If you have an Ancestry tree, you might want to share your report on your Ancestry tree.
Diana (15m 23s):
It’s something to know about Ancestry, public member trees, is your file must be 15 megabytes or fewer. Usually that’s not going to be a problem. You might have something that could get long if you have a lot of images in there. So just pay attention to that. And if your report is getting too long, then you can break it up. Kind of like I did with my four generations, that was a 40 page report. And so I broke it up into four 10 page reports by generation. And so that can be a really good way to make something long, a little bit smaller, or you can call it part one, part two and split it if you need to. And if you need instructions for adding your PDF document to your Ancestry tree, there is an Ancestry support article that’s just titled Uploading Photos or Documents, but it’s really not very hard.
Diana (16m 13s):
I’ve done this for a lot of different things. You just go to the profile of the person in your tree that you want to attach something to, and then you go to their gallery and you see the gallery kind of towards the top. And when you click on that, it gives you a place to upload. Then you go ahead and just select your document. And at the time you upload, you are able to add a title, date, place, and comment or description, and you can also link additional people in the tree. I like to have already created a source citation for whatever I’m uploading. And I usually do that in a research log, but if you haven’t done a source citation for whatever you’re uploading, and in this case, a report, you can just do it right there.
Diana (16m 59s):
And so you could do a nice citation because then if somebody decides they want to add your report to their person in their tree, they can take that citation and have that travel with the document. And then anybody who reads that will know that you were the creator and the data was created in any information that you want people to know about that document. So that’s always really a good practice to have a source citation, to go with anything that you upload. I know I have one document that we found on Ancestry for one of my husband’s ancestors, no citation, and I still cannot find the original of that document and I so wish that whoever had uploaded it, it’s a great document, but I just so wish that there was a citation that went with that.
Diana (17m 47s):
So it’s really important for us to remember that as we are putting our work out there, that we should cite our own work.
Nicole (17m 56s):
Absolutely. I always appreciate it when a blog post or an article has the footer cite this, and then it has this citation already made for you. And so it’s already done and it’s much easier to cite it.
Diana (18m 11s):
I agreed. Which is why it’s nice on Find a Grave because they do have a citation and it is so easy to use that and copy that.
Nicole (18m 18s):
Yes, if anybody doesn’t know about this, it’s kind of hidden. But scroll to the bottom of any Find a Grave memorial page and then click on source citation. And it opens up a little paragraph, which is the source citation for that Memorial. The only thing that I’ve been editing about those citations that are made, because they’re pretty good is if there is a headstone photo for the Memorial, I add in the name of the person who took the headstone photo and their contributor number. And then I also like to add the full URL for the page instead of just the shortened URL, because it’s not too much longer. And I like to have that in my citation.
Diana (18m 56s):
Oh, that’s a great tip.
Nicole (18m 57s):
Well, you can also post your report on FamilySearch. One of the benefits of uploading to FamilySearch is their collaborative family tree. This is one big family tree that’s supposed to have just one instance of every person in it and not like Ancestry trees where it’s a database of user created trees and there. So there’s a lot of trees with the same people in it. So the goal at FamilySearch is to have just one profile for each person in the world’s family tree. And this helps for better collaboration and sharing. So this really is the perfect place to share your research results. When you attach a document in FamilySearch, often others are notified who are watching that person, who are descendant of that person, and they’re interested in their records.
Nicole (19m 43s):
So immediately people, if they’re watching that, will get notified. And when you do make a change or upload a document, it tells you how many people will be notified. So it’s kind of nice to know that. In order to add a PDF file to a person on FamilySearch, you just go to the person in the family tree and then click on memories within the memories page of that person. You can scroll to the documents section. So there’s photos and there’s documents. And when you get to documents, you can click upload document and just like ancestry, you can upload files up to 15 megabytes in size, and they only allow PDFs. They don’t allow Word documents. Ancestry actually does allow Word documents, but FamilySearch only allows PDFs here. FamilySearch allows photos also, but as far as a document type of item, it has to be a PDF.
Nicole (20m 31s):
For full directions on uploading your document to FamilySearch, they have a help center article called, ‘How do I Upload Memories to FamilySearch?’ and on that page, they have a link to the submission agreement, which discusses the fact that you are retain copyright for your submitted documents and it discusses some other concerns as well. So like Ancestry, when you upload your document, you can add a title, date, place, description, and then you can attach it to multiple people in the tree using their name. And then after you type in their name, it asks you to link to that person using their personal ID number. You can also add that document to an album. So if you have an album full of Elder family memories, then you can add it to that album.
Nicole (21m 14s):
When you upload your document to a FamilySearch profile of a person, like I said, others will be notified and then they can also comment on it and can download it and they’ll see it on the FamilySearch app. So it will really be out there for a lot of people to see. So one thing to keep in mind is, are you ready for everyone to see it? If this is I’m still kind of, you’re being worked on, you may want to wait until you have a more finished draft because you never know who will save that and have a copy of the draft forever.
Diana (21m 47s):
And I really like uploading to FamilySearch. It’s free. Everyone can use it, it’s out there, forever, and it’s just a wonderful resource. Well, what if you want to post something on your own blog or website? Things are so easy now to create. And we of course love having our website, Family Locket, and besides informational articles we’ve written a lot of things that are just about our family. I did a really fun series about The Adventures of Cowboy Bob. My dad had all these fun stories from growing up, and I think he had more things happen to him as a kid than anyone else I know, all these adventures.
Diana (22m 29s):
And it was really fun when I wrote those up and they’re out there, you know, they’re published on our website now and occasionally I’ll get an email from a cousin or someone and they’ll say, oh, it was so fun to read that story. I remember my mom talking about that as well. And so it can be really great to have your family history out there. You can do a simple and a free blog. There’s several that you could choose from there’s wordpress.com, wix.com, weebly.com, squarespace.com, blogger.com among many, many others. And the advantage to this is that you have more control and you can then link your website to your Ancestry tree or the FamilySearch public tree.
Diana (23m 15s):
And in any future reports you write so that people can go read your past research. And I do this with a lot of my work. I will in the background information, talk about previous research, and then it’s really nice if it’s been published on my blog or in our book. And then people can go read the first report or the background report that I’m citing in that next piece of writing. So all sorts of really great ways. We can actually publish our work. And it’s fun to think about getting our work out there. So it doesn’t just live on our computer or in our paper files.
Diana (23m 57s):
And we always want to make sure we’re sharing. That’s how we improve the genealogy world. We really encourage everyone to think about some way to get your research out into the broader world,
Nicole (24m 10s):
Agreed, and especially DNA evidence because it’s new and it’s a little bit hard or scary, but it really is opening the door to make more discoveries. And if we don’t write about it now, then there’s chance that that evidence won’t be available later. If people don’t have access to all the DNA results that maybe we have. And so it’s just a good idea to write up what we’ve found and share it. We will be talking more about publishing in a journal or in a book in a future episode, but I hope you got some ideas today for Preparing Reports to Share Online.
Diana (24m 46s):
All right, well, everyone have a great week.
Nicole (24m 49s):
All right. Bye-bye
Diana (24m 50s):
Bye-bye
Nicole (25m 27s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our Research Like a Pro online course or join our next study group. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com. To share your progress and ask questions join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our eCourse or study group. If you like what you heard and would like to support this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.
Links
How to Prepare DNA Research Reports for Sharing
Best free PDF editors 2020: edit PDF documents the easy way.at Tech Radar
5 Alternative Ways: How to Edit PDF on Mac without Adobe at LuLuLook
Ancestry support article: Uploading Photos or Documents
FamilySearch help center article: How do I upload memories to FamilySearch?
Blog sites: WordPress.com, Wix.com, Weebly.com, Squarespace.com, Blogger.com
Study Group – more information and email list
Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide by Diana Elder with Nicole Dyer on Amazon.com
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