Friday, January 15, 2010

Sorting Out the "Living" on Ancestry.com

I was working on my tree in the wee hours this morning on Ancestry.com and I had an epiphany! I uploaded my GEDCOM file from Legacy some time ago and opted to keep those living relatives of mine private, so they ALL show up as "Living" on my Ancestry tree. How am I supposed to tell one "Living" from another?

I was adding a photo of three people, two of whom are living (myself and my brother), the other is our maternal grandmother. When I went to tag the two living people from the photo I had to choose from a list of names. This is all fine and dandy if there are not two people with the same name. I have come across the same problem trying to attach a record to someone when there is a Sr. and a Jr. by the same name with no birth years. Do you know how many "Living's" are in my tree?!?!

But, alas, it occurred to me! How about filling in the first name field with the RIN# or record number for the individual from Legacy's database? At least that way I will know one "living" from another. For example, I am RIN #1 and that makes me "1 Living" in my Ancestry tree. My cute big brother is RIN# 1477, and here he is as "1477 Living". So, for the sake of adding information for me to analyze data and make comparisons, this works for me!

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