How I use FamilySearch Source Box for my One-Name Study

I use the Family Search Source Box folders as one tool to organize my one-name-study.

When one does the main bulk of all their online searches and data collecting in the FamilySearch Historical Records Collection, it seems to be a no-brainer to me to utilize the setting in my Family Search account to make it work for my own purposes.

In doing a one-name study, we are not traveling down the lines of a pedigree or filling in a fan chart. Although some one-namers do eventually reconstitute families or even families that connect to their own family, we are collecting for a surname study which requires intense variations of organization.

Last summer, I had many revelations while a student at the Intro to One Name Study course run by Helen Osborne at Pharos Tutors . One of the texts we studied was the Seven Pillars of Wisdom - The Art of One-Name Studies. To quote literally from the manual, it dictates that ‘it is impossible to prescribe the "right" way to carry out a One-Name Study’ so the bottom line was to use, with confidence, what tools that work for you.

Among my tools, for a small one –name study, is the utilization of the Source Box.

First, one needs to have an account at Family Search. Secondly, you go to your profile name and left-click to Source Box. There is a section called MY FOLDERS. It could not be easier. One limitation is that you are only allowed up to 50 folders and there are no sub-folders. As I have a small study that spreads internationally, I decided to label them by localities.

I also created a folder where I save deviant surname variations (no doubt, due to indexers’ transcriptions, where I need to do further research) called Deviants. I have another folder called Family Tree for future attachment to Family Trees when I have identified a family group. Since Family Search Tree added the ADD UNCONNECTED PERSON option, whenever I reconstituted a definite unrelated family in one location with documentations for my one-name study, I add them through this option with sources from my source box.

This is not the only way I save my sources for my one-name study but it just makes sense to use this Source Box approach for organizing my sources right where I basically search for them.

Creating your own Source Template in RootsMagic

I am a veteran PAF₁ user. I have been using PAF literally since I was a baby. I did not have a computer but our Family History Center had one and it was love at first sight.

Later, I married someone who was a computer geek. We had an Amiga for years and PAF worked on it. Then progress followed, all the way up to version 5.2. But this is not an article about PAF. When FamilySearch announced that they were discontinuing PAF downloads from their website, I reinvigorated the ROOTS MAGIC ESSENTIALS ( the free version) on my desktop. I have since updated to their current version 7.

Like many genealogists, we have our "staple" data entry genealogy software and then, our prospective ones. Because PAF is gone, I am allowed to flirt with other programs out there. Roots Magic 7 exports spreadsheets so that was a determining factor for me. I also found out that you can create your own source templates.

On the RootsMagic Forum, Renee Zamora mentioned that one can create their own source templates which interests me because I use a lot of European sources that just do not cookie-cut into the templates at RootsMagic. So using Elizabeth Shown Mill's Evidence Explained₂ examples, it has been an intriguing temptation to create my own.

So get a look at the templates that have been created already at this Roots Magic Homegrown Templates site and see if you like them. By the way, if you working with English records, someone has created some GRO templates already for your research.

1) Personal Ancestral File .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Ancestral_File

2) Evidence Explained