One thing I’ve learned about myself is I work much better when I have a plan… except not much of one. Too much planning can make me doubt myself. So after a very weird, unproductive few days I had to make a plan. Don’t ask me about all those files from yesterday, some are still there, some aren’t.
Plan Step 1: I booted up a RootsMagic file that had all the names in it and turned on the ‘Reference Number’ option. So I could view who was what number.
Plan Step 2: I went to a random number generator and told it to give me 7 random numbers between 1 and 4215. 4215 being the number of people in my big database.
It gave me these numbers.
Plan Step 3: I matched up the numbers with names from the RootsMagic file. (Note: There may have been a way to get ID numbers in FTM but I didn’t know how/try to do it.
Plan Step 4: Since I want universal reference ID’s between all mediums (RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, my website), I add a new Reference ID into each person on Family Tree Maker.
Extra Step: I added the Ref ID into my view on the Pedigree tab on Family Tree Maker. This is a one time only step which is why I didn’t add it as step 5.
What will I do with these people you ask? One of biggest things when I sit down to work on my big file is where to start? Well I’ll start with these random people. I’ll research these 7 people until I’ve exhausted my online sources or patience. Then I’ll pick some more random numbers. In regards to my start over files, I’ll still slowly work back on those but I want to take the time to send away for records as I go too. Which means it will take some time. This gives me something to do… like spend a day lost in the census.
Extra: I only chose to do this in FTM because I have already been adding census information into FTM this week.
So there is my battle plan, whether it makes sense or not. Now we’ll see if I get anywhere!
