This book is a compilation of raw data I’ve gathered and includes deed abstracts, warrant and patent lists, and last will & testament transcriptions for Hoovers across Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in records from 1729 through 1800.

It represents a large chunk of my Hoover surname research and the data has been instrumental in helping to build a clearer picture of these early families. I hope it will help you!

Stay tuned for the publication information.

I‘ve finally finished formatting my newest publication, An Index to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Online Deeds for deed books A through D. Now I need to decide how to publish it.

It’s currently best formatted for distribution via book (aka print) or PDF. The names and deed information are laid out in a table for the starting letters of the surnames. Works great for these formats but won’t work for an ePub. Since the index is for the online deeds—meaning people can use them from home—I wonder if it makes sense to publish for ePub or not. Or even for print. PDF might be enough for when you’re working at your computer…

What do you think? Does anyone searching for deeds from Lancaster County have a preference? Post a comment and let me know.

Genealogy Program

Christopher Fritz posted an article on using Gramps, his genealogy software of choice, to write his book. I’ve never used Gramps, so I can’t speak to its abilities. I use Reunion and I thought about using it to generate the book. I even went so far as to include the content for each person from A German-American Hacker-Hocker Genealogy in their record. I, then, created a “Register Report” and included the specific fields and notes that I wanted in the book.

The resulting report included the information I wanted and numbered everyone correctly, but I had several issues. First, there were formatting problems. It’s a register report, so it used the Register Style for a numbering system. I want to use the NGSQ style. Major problem! Also, it included the source information as endnotes, not footnotes.

Also, I include the facts regarding an ancestor—as I find them—in Reunion, not just my conclusions. This means that I may have multiple entries for date of birth or death. Including all this detail is unnecessary and potentially confusing to readers. I just want to tell the story as I’ve deduced it from my research.

Additionally, I think the text generated in the report is stilted and repetitive. But, more importantly, I find it nearly impossible to write a narrative in my genealogy program. It just doesn’t work for me.

Word Processors

My next step was to move to a word processor—Microsoft Word. It’s a powerful tool and can do just about everything I need—with the exception of NGSQ style numbering for lists within lists. The problem I had with it was that it was too powerful.

Word has so many features, it can be difficult to figure out how to use. And when I used the more advanced feature of “master documents” to manage my large, unwieldy, and difficult-to-find-anything document, I found it difficult to come back to the manuscript after any time away from it, because I would have to figure out how to use it all over again before I could start writing!

I, then, turned to a writing tool I’d used for creative writing—Scrivener. This software was designed for writers and makes it really, really easy to organize chapters, sub-chapters and so on. It’s even easy to re-organize chapters. But, while I love Scrivener, I found that for this project, I need to see the document in it’s correct format while I write. Scrivener is for writing books, not formatting content.

So, I moved on to Apple’s Pages. It’s a simplified word processor. It doesn’t have the features or power of Microsoft Word—doesn’t even do indexing, but it allows me to easily format the content as I write. So far I’m satisfied with it’s abilities. I’m not overwhelmed with options and I can do what I need to do. And at 218 pages, the book hasn’t yet become too unwieldy.

At some point I will need to transfer the manuscript back into Microsoft Word for some final formatting. An ebook or PDF version will be fine without an index because the reader can easily search for a specific name or place. However, an index is a must-have for a printed book. Word is the only program I have where I can create one from the manuscript.

My first challenge was to recreate the manuscript—as it apparently no longer existed. So, I scanned, transcribed, and edited the OCR text. As I was doing this, the information architect (my day job) in me popped out. Surely, I thought, I could do a better job of organizing the information, making it easier to read and quicker to find a particular person.

Numbering

I decided to reorganize the information to follow accepted genealogical standards. The book is a “descendants-of” style book. It follows the lines of descent from Christoph and Anna Margaretha (Jock) Hacker through each of their four surviving children as far as possible. The two most accepted numbering systems for this type of book are the Register Style and the NGSQ Style (aka modified Register Style).

I decided to follow the NGSQ Style. It numbers each child, regardless of whether or not that line is carried on later in the text. Therefore the numbers only need to be changed if a new child is added or one is deleted. Less editing sounds like a good deal to me.

However, although word processing programs can create numbered lists and automatically update the numbers when items are added/deleted, none of them can automatically create the following style lists:

Descendants of Stephen Hacker (1)

2. Christoph Hacker (Stephen Hacker¹) blah blah blah…

Children of Christoph and Anna Margaretha (Jock) Hacker:

3.      i. Christina Hacker
4.    ii. Maria Catharina Hacker
5.   iii. Johan Adam Hacker
6.   iv. Anna Margaretha Hacker
7.    v. Johan Georg Hacker

Descendants of Christoph Hacker (2)

3. Christina Hacker Lang (Christoph², Stephen Hacker¹) blah blah blah…

Children of Johan Michael and Christina (Hacker) Lang:

8.      i. Anna Christina Long
9.     ii. Johan Michael Long

5. Johan Adam Hacker (Christoph², Stephen Hacker¹) blah blah blah…

Children of Johan Adam and Elisabetha (Weidman) Hacker:

10.      i. Christianna Hacker
11. + ii. Frederick Hacker

There are actually several lists here—lists within lists! I’d love to be able to have each list—1. Descendants [(#)], 2. Individuals [#. name] and 3. Children [#. i. name]—number automatically based on either the previous item or list. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way of doing it.

Each individual list of children numbers the children automatically, but doesn’t auto number their birth order (roman numerals). These lists can also be set up to continue their numbering from the previous child list, though I haven’t figured that one out in Apple Pages, yet. I’m currently setting each child list’s start number as I create a list.

Additionally, the NGSQ Style uses a plus sign (+) in front of an individual’s number to indicate that their line is carried on. Can’t do this and use an auto-numbering list. So, I’ve compromised (i.e., gone off standard) and added the plus sign after the individual’s number and before their birth order number (see Frederick Hacker).

I just can’t stand the thought of having to renumber every single person individually in the book if I add/delete children based on new or revised research. This is fine for an article of limited scope, but for a book with this many people? Nope. No way.

You have to work with what you’ve got, I guess.

Where Did This Information Come From?

Another big part of practicing genealogical standards is providing sources and citations. While there is a list of sources in the original manuscript and sometimes the name of a family member who provided information, there are no actual citations for any of the data.

This really smacked me in the face when I started to find conflicting information during my family research. How could I determine if the previous information was the correct information if I didn’t know where it came from? You need to know the source in order to evaluate it and assess the pertinence of the data it provides.

So, my simple project suddenly expanded—exponentially. I’ve been and am still documenting the facts. This—and the fact that I don’t really want to include living people—means that I’ll be limiting the scope of the book to several generations in order to actually publish it.

It also means that I’m writing my own Hacker-Hocker family genealogy, not recreating A German-American Hacker-Hocker Genealogy. I’m writing a book that includes verifiable information with footnotes and source list, so that future family generations can do their own research—if they want—and see how I reached my conclusions.

Even the obvious should be questioned, researched and verified. And sometimes the connections are not so obvious. Knowing how I got there will let my reader determine if they think I’m correct—or not—in my conclusions.

I’d also like the book to be more than just a list of names, dates and places. Pictures, maps, diagrams, documents… I’d like to include all these things to make my relatives seem like the people they were. I may never know everything about them—may only ever know a little bit—but they deserve to be remembered as more than just what’s carved on their gravestones.

Next time, more on the writing tools I’ve used/tried.
Old Typewriter photograph © Petr Kratochvil