Cues & Clues for AQ

Thursday, June 19, 2014

AQ: Add-On Products: Charting Companion

Most genealogical programs have other software programs that work well with them to provide a customer something beneficial to them. Ancestral Quest has several products that work well with it to provide additional resources to its users.

While Ancestral Quest does have many charts to choose from within its own program, Charting Companion has additional charts not available through Ancestral Quest.

Supplementing your charting capabilities is a great idea. You can add Bow-Tie Charts, Hourglass Charts, Trellis Charts, Embroidery and more. Here is a link to samples of charts possible through Charting Companion.

This program is completely compatible with Ancestral Quest Versions 3.0 through 14. To learn more about this software click here.

Remember Ancestral Quest is fully FamilySearch Certified!

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Happy Ancestraling...

Claire ;)

AQ Cues & Clues Blog:http://ancquest.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncQuest

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ancquest

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/inclinesoftware

Friday, June 13, 2014

AQ: News...Updates...Events

When it comes to finding out what the latest is concering Ancestral Quest, with just a few clicks one can easily discover all the happenings!

Once you have opened your AQ program go to Help and notice the drop down choices:

Click on Newsline which takes you to the screen which shows you all the news:

Notice that one can choose to view the news and notices, hide them, check the news daily or weekly.

By checking these radial bullets, one can keep up to date not only with the program updates but also learn about the latest trainings and other important news items.

Additionally, AQ now has a monthly newsletter that is emailed to everyone. The June issue just came out this week, if you missed it the link to it is here.

Remember Ancestral Quest is fully FamilySearch Certified!

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Happy Ancestraling...

Claire ;)

AQ Cues & Clues Blog:http://ancquest.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncQuest

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ancquest

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/inclinesoftware

Monday, June 9, 2014

AQ: Adjusting Those Columns under Name List

Some things get confusing once in awhile and adjusting those columns under the Name List can be a little difficult if you are not used to manipulating items within Ancestral Quest.

The first step is to click on "Name List" and note the column headings and "Adjust Columns and Sorting":

One needs to click that button to open up the dialog box where you can adjust those column headings by removing, adding and re-ordering. Once clicked this is what it looks like:

General is usually where one will find the most used and requested columns so clicking that brings up a long list of possible column titles:

Notice there are 4 windows. The top left window has the available fields or "Column Headers", the section in the middle has 'greater than arrow' to move items from the right column to the left column and there is a 'less than arrow' that removes fields you don't want any longer.

Notice on the right side of the "Show Fields" the up and down bottons:

The highlighted item is also displayed in the bottom right where you are told how it will be sorted. The arrows give you the opportunity to re-order the way they appear in your family file. Once done you click OK. If you are satisfied than you are all set, if not, go back and re-order as you wish.

After working on my own name list, I came up with these as the column titles:

Remember Ancestral Quest is fully FamilySearch Certified!

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Happy Ancestraling...

Claire ;)

AQ Cues & Clues Blog:http://ancquest.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncQuest

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ancquest

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/inclinesoftware

Friday, May 30, 2014

AQ: New Build: 20

All software needs to updated regularly these days and Ancestral Quest is no exception.

While PAF had a few updates, this will be the 20th update for Ancestral Quest since Version 14 came out in 2012.

Many times updates enhance the software and help it to run and work better as well as new features can be added. To see the list of changes from from this latest release, please click here.

You may have noticed when you opened up your Ancestral Quest program today that there was an update and to click here, if you did it took you to this page:

When you clicked the "Get Update" it took you to this screen:

From this point you can follow the update instructions step by step, however if you need additional help, here are additional step by step directions if you missed the notice when you first opened up Ancestral Quest today.

Update Ancestral Quest to the Latest Build

Remember Ancestral Quest is fully FamilySearch Certified!

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Happy Ancestraling...

Claire ;)

AQ Cues & Clues Blog:http://ancquest.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncQuest

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ancquest

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/inclinesoftware

Friday, May 23, 2014

AQ: Collaboration

Genealogy and/or Family History research can be demanding and frustrating to the point that the help of another family member is advantageous.

Collaboration in Ancestral Quest allows one to share their family file with another person through a log in and a password. AQ has a unique feature that allows you to work with other family members on a single collaborative family file. Each collaborator takes a turn to check out and edit the file. Changes that are made by one collaborator can be seen by the other collaborators after the file has been checked in.

To set up Collaboration, one needs to be a Registered Owner and create an account by going to "Collaboration" and click on "Sign-up" which looks like this:

Following the prompts brings you through the steps as an adminstrator and owner of the file. Once that is set up, one "Publishes" their family file to our central server by clicking on Collaboration and scrolling down to "Publish Current File" which takes a few minutes.

To work with a Collaboration File, one uses a proper log in and checks out their file by going to "Collaboration" and scrolling down click on "Check out file".

While this file is on your own computer, no one else can access that same master file, take time to do your research, changes, etc. that normally happens when working on your family file. If another family member you have given access to needs to look at the file, they can download a 'working copy' which allows them to print reports and look at the data but they can not make any changes to the file.

When done, click Collaborate and Check In File, you can also set it up that when you close your program it automatically will check the file in.

This whole process provides a way to have ones files on another server (as a backup) and allows one to work with others once access has been set up for them. Here are some links that go into more detail:

A Visual Diagram:http://www.ancquest.com/images/CollaborationDiagram.pdf
More detailed explanation:http://www.ancquest.com/aq_collab.htm

The author has used collaboration for years and has found it to be most helpful as there is access from any location as long as there is Internet service.

Remember Ancestral Quest is fully FamilySearch Certified!

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Happy Ancestraling...

Claire ;)

AQ Cues & Clues Blog:http://ancquest.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncQuest

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ancquest

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/inclinesoftware

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

AQ: Portability and Mobile Applications

We are a very mobile society today and it seems that we want everything right there at our fingertips if at all possible.

In theory this is actually a great idea and many have taken this to reality and created many applications that individuals today can put on their cell phones, smart phones, iPads and Androids, it truly is an amazing time we live in to think that with a few clicks one can locate the nearest place to eat or sleep, even a place to pay the least amount of funds for a gallon of gas or play your favorite game.

Enter genealogists and family historians, there are applications that aid one to access an online tree and most are done very well, however, some may want to access their personal tree through their current software.

Ancestral Quest has provided this through AQ2Go which allows you to put your program on a flash drive or a portable hard drive. The directions for this are found right on the website here: http://www.ancquest.com/AQ2Go.htm.

Others may not wish to use this portability and are concentrating more on an application, a smart phone or a tablet. Currently the program does run on any tablet that has the full Windows program on it, so the program runs on an Asus ME400 which is a full Windows tablet or any tablet that runs the full Windows program. An article about 10 good Windows tablets is provided on ZDNet.

For other solutions check out some of the following links:

Anroid: http://www.ancquest.com/add-ons.htm#droid_apps

IOS: http://www.ancquest.com/add-ons.htm#iOS_apps

Additionally there are articles on this subject in the FamilySearch Research Wiki:

Android: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Accessing_Ancestral_Files_on_Android_Portable_Devices

IOS: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Accessing_Ancestral_Files_on_iPad_Portable_Devices

Regardless of which solution you choose, one of these will work for you!

Remember Ancestral Quest is fully FamilySearch Certified!

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Happy Ancestraling...

Claire ;)

AQ Cues & Clues Blog:http://ancquest.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncQuest

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ancquest

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/inclinesoftware

Thursday, May 1, 2014

AQ: Updating Ordinance Work..

Keeping up with completed temple work can sometimes be overwhelming, however, with just a few clicks using Ancestral Quest, you can update those individuals in your database who have already been linked to FamilySearch Family Tree.

Once you've opened AQ, go to FamilySearch from the top menu bar and click on "Ordinance Reservation and Tracking System" as follows:

This will take you to this screen

Click on "Update Ordinances" which takes you to this screen

Depending on how many records need to be updated will depend on how long it will take. Once done, your records will be updated.

Take advantage of linking and synching your family file, in this way you'll be able to update more of your database as time goes on.

**Remember Ancestral Quest is fully FamilySearch Certified**!

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Happy Ancestraling...
Claire ;)
AQ Cues & Clues
Blog: https://www.facebook.com/AncQuest
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncQuest
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ancquest

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/inclinesoftware