I think many genealogists (including me) enjoy forms. We collect data and we like to have a place to put it. I have been playing with a website that allows me to create forms willy nilly and I’m having a great time.
That website is Transpose. It makes it ridiculously easy create forms that you can fill out yourself or share with others via weblink. (So you could create a form to send to cousins, for example, and the answers would form a database in your Transpose account.) You can also publish form templates for others to download and customize for their own use.
I learned about Transpose via Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide, who mentioned that she used Transpose’s previous incarnation, KustomNote, for creating contact forms that help her organize the many DNA-related contacts she receives.
Since creating my (free) account on Transpose, I have created a bunch of forms, including several genealogy-related templates that I’ve been using regularly.
I’ve made three genealogy templates public:
- Genealogy conference notes (which was really handy when I was taking notes at the Southern Illinois Genealogical Society’s conference)
- Genealogy task list (which is wear I’m keeping track of current projects, as I blogged about last week)
- Genealogy abstract form (which I’m using to capture data as I abstract my ancestors’ Civil War pension files)
Please feel free to download them and customize them for your use. I’m sure I’ll be adding more–they’ll all be tagged Genealogy, so they’ll be easy to find when you browse public templates at Transpose. All my templates are quite simple, but I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of the power of Transpose. I look forward to getting into it deeper!
Oh, and of course, Transpose has an iOS app, so I can use it on my iPhone and iPad. (An Android app is in development.)
If you use Transpose and have any public templates, please let me know in the comments!
Unfortunately, Transpose announced on November 8, 2016 that it is shutting down on December 9, 2016.
Thanks for telling us about Transpose, Janine. It sounds as if using it will be a lot easier than creating typable PDF forms for transcribing vital records from LDS microfilm — which has been my strategy until now.
l find that forms help me to get all the details out of a document without skipping something by accident, and typing “not given” or “blank” in a field makes it clear that I looked for it.
Something that helps me is a field or fields on the form to enter information about whether I’ve finished entering that info into my genealogy database, paper records, FamilySearch tree, etc. On paper forms, it would be a set of checkboxes. Maybe Transpose has something similar to checkboxes?
Again, thanks!
Yes! Transpose has checkboxes! I haven’t used them in my forms because I’m not crazy about how they look. But you could integrate them into a form. That’s a great application for them.
Thanks for your comment, Marian. I’m glad you found the post helpful!
I’ve never heard of Transpose before. Thanks for sharing this tool and your genealogy templates with us Janine!
You bet, Jana! So glad to spread the word about Transpose.
Janine,
I want to let you know that your blog post is listed in today’s Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2015/09/follow-friday-fab-finds-for-september_18.html
Have a wonderful weekend!
Thanks so much, Jana! Always an honor.
I was wondering if you had followed through on the Transpose from your 10 things OR guide! Here’s the follow up I needed!
I have yet to create a better research log form in Transpose than the Evernote I created a couple of years ago. So I’m still using that simple Evernote form to keep simple records of my searches. But thank you for asking!
Thanks for another great post, never heard of Transpose, so might have to go look at how I am going to use this in my research