Writing – A Pennsylvania Dutch Genealogy

The Trials and Tribulations of Formatting a Deed Index Ebook

Kris Hocker on 25 Jul 2014

I’ve been working on an index of the online Lancaster County deed books for a while now. And it’s taken significantly longer than I’d expected. Compiling the index didn’t take long. Formatting it, however, has taken ages.

Mostly because I kept changing my mind.

My goal was to make the index easy to use in both printed and electronic forms. An ebook book or PDF can be searched, but a printed book needs to be easy to skim—especially an index. So, initially I decided to organize the index in a table format reminiscent of the original grantor and grantee indexes produced by the county.

Starting from my table in Microsoft Excel, sorted by surname, deed book and page, I opened and saved the file as a Word doc, then opened it in Pages for editing.¹ Then I modified the table to create a separate table for each letter of the alphabet, adding a table header to each. Not too bad, although the font size was fairly small in order to get the information to fit nicely on the page.

Unfortunately, because ebooks don’t accept tables, I needed to format the manuscript differently for them. This entailed removing all the table formatting, changing table cells to tabs, then replacing the tabs with either a comma and space, em dash, or carriage return to create a long list.

This was time consuming and ultimately created a very long document. Which then had to be checked against the original “print” format to ensure that I hadn’t inadvertently messed up any of the data during the conversion. And while reviewing it, I found it difficult to easily identify where the in list one surname stopped and the next began.

Worse—I, then, decided to include additional information for each entry. Oh, the headaches that followed that decision.

Did I already add that information to this file or that file? What about the grantee table? Did I add it there? And what the heck was going on with the table? It didn’t fit on the page anymore. I could drop the font size, but then nobody would be able to read it without a magnifying glass!

I finally decided that two formats was too many. Too much to format, too much to edit. I would just have to find a way to make the list more legible and use it for both electronic and print versions of the book.

After some trial and error, I finally found a format I liked that I felt looked good both in print and in the kindle previewer.
I hope you will agree!

The book An Index to the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Online Deeds, Books A-D, 1729-1760 will be available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle and in print at Lulu and Amazon. Release date to come.

Lancaster County Hoover Families of the 18th Century

Kris Hocker on 28 Jan 2013

I‘ve just finished indexing my latest writing endeavor “The Huber-Hoover Families of 18th Century Lancaster County.”

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 or sign-up for the mailing list for the book “Hoover Families of Lancaster County.”

Publishing Formats: What’s Best for an Index to Online Deeds?

Kris Hocker on 6 Dec 2012

Index to Lancaster County Pennsylvania Online Deed Books A-D

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.

Writing My Family Genealogy ~ The Tools

Kris Hocker on 24 Oct 2012

The last time I blogged about writing my family genealogy, I discussed the process of determining the content and format of the book. I touched a little on the tools I’ve tried, but not specifics of what applications I’ve used. So, let’s talk tools.

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.

Note:
I didn’t go into detail on what any of these programs can and can’t do. If you’re interested in learning more about any of them, leave a comment and I’ll write a more detailed post on that program.

Writing My Family Genealogy ~ A Long, Winding Path

Kris Hocker on 25 Sep 2012

When I first considered writing the Hocker book, my vision was fairly simple. My aunt had received a number of queries about A German-American Hacker-Hocker Genealogy from family members interested in obtaining a copy. Since all the copies from my uncle’s print run had already been either sold or donated to libraries, I was going to publish a second edition—with permission, of course.

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:

i. Christina Hacker
ii. Maria Catharina Hacker
iii. Johan Adam Hacker
iv. Anna Margaretha Hacker
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:

i. Anna Christina Long
ii. Johan Michael Long

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

Children of Johan Adam and Elisabetha (Weidman) Hacker:

i. Christianna Hacker
+ 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.

Category: Writing

Genealogy Program

Word Processors

Numbering

Where Did This Information Come From?