Family Roots and Branches

Who Do You Think You Are? Season Three Video Preview

2012-01-28T09:04:00.003-05:00

Who Do You Think You Are? will return for its third season on Friday, February 3 at 8/7c on the NBC network. Twelve more celebrities will trace their ancestors and discover hidden stories from their past. Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Reba McEntire, Rob Lowe, Helen Hunt, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rashida Jones, Jason Sudeikis, Jerome Bettis and Paula Deen will explore their roots in the NBC genealogy show.

The promo for the show has been released and you can view it below.

RootsTech Conference Will Broadcast Select Sessions Free Online

2012-01-28T08:26:00.002-05:00

RootsTech, a leading family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 2-4, 2012, announced today that fourteen of its popular sessions will be broadcasted live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend worldwide a sample of this year’s conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The second-year conference has attracted over 3,000 registered attendees.

The free online sessions include the keynote speakers and a sampling of technology and family history presentations. Following are the fourteen broadcasted sessions and speakers.

Thursday, February 2

8:30-10:00 am MST (10:30 am-12:00 pm EST), Inventing the Future, as a Community (Keynote Address) by Jay L. Verkler

11:00 am-12:00 pm MST (1:00-2:00 pm EST), Do I Trust the Cloud? by D. Joshua Taylor

1:45-2:45 pm MST (3:45-4:45 pm EST), Effective Database Search Tactics by Kory Meyerink

3:00-4:00 pm MST (5:00-6:00 pm EST), Twitter – It’s Not Just “What I Had for Breakfast” Anymore by Thomas MacEntee

4:15-5:15 pm MST (6:15-7:15 pm EST), Eleven Layers of Online Searches by Barbara Renick

Friday, February 3

8:30-9:30 am MST (10:30-11:30 am EST), Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities (Keynote Address) by Josh Coates

9:45-10:45 am MST (11:45 am-12:45 pm EST), Publish Your Genealogy Online by Laura G. Prescott

11:00 am-12:00 pm MST (1:00-2:00 pm EST), Optimize Your Site for Search Engines by Robert Gardner

1:45-2:45 pm MST (3:45-4:45 pm EST), Genealogists “Go Mobile” by Sandra Crowly

3:00-4:00 pm MST (5:00-6:00 pm EST), Google’s Toolbar and Genealogy by Dave Barney

Saturday, February 4

8:30-9:30 am MST (10:30-11:30 am EST), Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry (Keynote Address) by Tim Sullivan and Ancestry.com Panel

9:45-10:45 am MST (11:45 am-12:45 pm EST), Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101 by Lisa Louise Cooke

11:00 am-12:00 pm MST (1:00-2:00 pm EST), Future of FamilySearch Family Tree by Ron Tanner

1:45-2:45 pm MST (3:45-4:45 pm EST), Privacy in a Collaborative Environment by Noah Tatuk

Beginner Class Post: American County and Town Sources

2012-01-17T14:25:00.003-05:00

For the students in my Tuesday night beginner class here are three possible references you might want to consider purchasing to help you pursue county and town record sources.

Family Tree Resource Book for Genealogists by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack
Available from Amazon.com for $25.50

Red Book - American State, County and Town Sources edited by Alice Eichholz
Available from Amazon.com for $30.88

The Handybook for Genealogists, 11th edition (out of print) by Everton Publishing
10th Edition only available from Amazon.com for $43.40

These are excellent reference books for anyone researching an American genealogy.

Martin Sheen, Reba McEntire, Helen Hunt Among 'Who Do You Think You Are?' Season 3 Cast

2012-01-14T06:49:00.003-05:00

The NBC genealogy series returns Feb. 3 with a new group of celebrities exploring their family history. Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Reba McEntire, Rob Lowe, Helen Hunt, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rashida Jones, Jerome Bettis, Jason Sudeikis and Paula Deen Take a Look Inside Their Family Histories on NBC's Genealogy Alternative Series Produced by Lisa Kudrow.

Viewers can take an up-close and personal look inside the family history of some of today's most beloved and iconic celebrities when NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" returns for its third season on Friday, February 3 (8-9 p.m. ET). The celebrities who star in the series are Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Reba McEntire, Rob Lowe, Helen Hunt, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rashida Jones, Jerome Bettis, Jason Sudeikis and Paula Deen.

From executive producers Lisa Kudrow ("Friends," "Web Therapy") and Dan Bucatinsky ("Lipstick Jungle," "The Comeback") - through their production company Is or Isn't Entertainment and Shed Media U.S. ("Supernanny," "The Real Housewives of New York City") -- "Who Do You Think You Are?" is an adaptation of the award-winning hit British television documentary series that leads celebrities on a journey of self-discovery as they unearth their family trees that reveal surprising, inspiring and even tragic stories that often are linked to crucial events in American history.

"We're very excited about the stories we have this season. This fantastic group of people we have will take us to countries we haven't visited before which is thrilling and gives us glimpses into crucial details of history that not only shaped their families, but our world," said executive producers Kudrow and Bucatinsky. "This is what we love about this series; it's so enriching for us the viewer, as well as the participants and their families."

From Ireland's freedom fighters to the American Revolutionary War, and from the African nation of Cameroon to Bulgaria, "Who Do You Think You Are?" will reveal the fabric of humanity through everyone's place in history. Each week a different celebrity takes a journey into their family's past, traveling all over the world. While giving viewers an in-depth look into their favorite stars' family tree, each episode will expose surprising facts and life changing encounters that will unlock people's emotions, and show just how connected everyone is not only to the past, but to one another.

Ancestry.com continues in its role as NBC and Shed Media's official partner on the series, helping to provide the exhaustive research used to build each story. "'Who Do You Think You Are?' is such a beautiful showcase for the type of discoveries people can make through family history research," said Josh Hanna, Executive Vice President for Ancestry.com. "We are extremely proud to help produce a program that inspires so many to begin their own journey of discovery and are excited to see it grow more this season."

"Who Do You Think You Are?" is produced by Shed Media U.S. in association with Is or Isn't Entertainment. Alex Graham, Kudrow, Bucatinsky, Jennifer O'Connell and Al Edgington are the executive producers. The unique, award-winning series is based on the popular BBC television documentary series from Wall to Wall Productions, created and executive-produced by Graham.

Ancestral Lines Pairing System: A New Genealogy Numbering System

2011-12-21T06:36:00.002-05:00

From our good friend Dick Eastman and the EOGN website:

"Genealogists have invented several different numbering systems over the years to keep track of the individuals in a genealogy. In situations where names are repeated often in a family, a numbering system helps identify the individual of interest. We already have Ahnentafel Numbers, d'Aboville Numbers, Henry Numbers, the Register System, the Dollarhide System, and the NGSQ System. Each assigns numbers, letters, or combinations of numbers and letters to each individual. Now, writing in the American Ancestors web site, Capers W. McDonald has suggested using a new numbering system: the Ancestral Lines Pairing System.

"Quoting from the web site:

"A new ancestral numbering system has been developed that visibly displays component lines and generations of pedigrees in either text or chart formats. This “Ancestral Lines Pairing System” meets essential requirements of being easy to read and understand while maintaining the integrity of its unique indicators, and of recording relationships briefly with as much useful information as possible.

"You can read an abbreviated version of the article at http://www.americanancestors.org/ancestral-lines/ or an expanded PDF version at http://goo.gl/WGUWe.

"My thanks to Bill Bernardy for telling me about this article."

Dear Abby

2011-12-20T10:58:00.002-05:00

"I have always wanted to have my family history traced, but I can't afford to spend a lot of money to do it.

Any suggestions?"

Van in Texas

======================================================

DEAR VAN:

"Register as a Republican, and run for public office."

Abby

Ancestry Beta Testing a New Viewer

2011-11-20T09:51:00.003-05:00

For the students who just finished taking my Internet and Genealogy class this last semester, "I told you so." I told them during the class that some time after the class concluded (this last week) and the end of the year, Ancestry.com would make a major change to their site. It happens everytime I teach this class.

So imagine my shock (NOT!) when I got a notice from the Genealogy Insider blog via the FTM newsletter that Ancestry is now Beta testing a new image viewer.

The interface is similar to the previous viewer, with some new and improved features:

Faster image loading.

Works on more platforms and with more browsers than the previous image viewer, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Web browser issues were preventing a large portion of Ancestry.com members from using the previous image viewer.

New tools, including rotating an image (handy for census returns with the address written along the side of the page), mirror (flips your record over so you're reading it backward, which I've heard can help with hard-to-read records), and new zoom controls.

Easy installation. Most people won't have to install anything (I didn't), though you might need to install a more recent version of the free Adobe Flash Player.

You can learn more about this by clicking here.

FamilySearch Volunteers to Index 1940 Census

2011-11-12T08:14:00.003-05:00

FamilySearch is heading up a volunteer effort to index the 1940 US census when records are released to the public next April. They have created a webpage to recruit volunteers for transcribing the 1940 census, scheduled for release April 2, 2012 (142 days from today).

On April 2, 2012, NARA will provide access to the images of the 1940 United States Federal Census for the first time. Unlike previous census years, images of the 1940 U.S. Federal Census will be made available as free digital images.

Upon its release, FamilySearch and its partners will coordinate efforts to provide quick access to these digital images and immediately start indexing these records to make them searchable online for free and open access.

You can get more information on this project by clicking on the FamilySearch 1940 Census Index Volunteer Page link.

2 Million Records Added to U.S. Collections

2011-11-12T07:46:00.004-05:00

A broad range of records were added to FamilySearch this week from 20 countries, notably Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, England, Dominican Republic, Germany, Italy, Philippines, and the U.S. The U.S. additions include a variety of records from California, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin (See the full listing of new updates below)

Collection Records Images Comments
Australia, Tasmania, Miscellaneous Records, 1829–1961 0 9,723
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Austria, Carinthia, Military Personnel Records, 1846–1897 0 238,473
New browsable image collection.

Austria, Seigniorial Records, 1537–1888 0 29,522
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Canada, Saskatchewan Provincial Records, 1879–1987 0 57,903
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Chile, Santiago, Cementerio General, 1821–2006 0 65,853
New browsable image collection.

Colombia, Catholic Church Records, 1600–2008 0 9,710
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Dominican Republic, Catholic Church Records, 1590–1955 0 165,106
New browsable image collection.

El Salvador, Catholic Church Records, 1655–1977 0 589,990
New browsable image collection.

England, Cornwall Parish Registers, 1538–2010 0 11,979
Added browsable images to existing collection.

England, Lancashire, Oldham Cemetery Registers, 1797–2004 0 45,387
New browsable image collection.

England, Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1538–1900 399,299 0
Added new records to existing collection.

Germany, Württemberg, Schwäbisch Hall, Probate Records, 1833–1905 0 21,584
New browsable image collection.

Honduras, Catholic Church Records, 1633–1978 0 37,672
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Hungary Catholic Church Records, 1636–1895 261,188 0
Added new records to existing collection.

Isle of Man, Parish Registers, 1598–1950 410,460 42,054
New index collection.

Italy, Napoli Castellammare di Stabia, Civil Registration (Comune), 1809–1936 6,134
0
Added new records to existing collection.

Italy, Potenza, Lagonegro, Civil Registration (Tribunale), 1866–1910 0 154,261
Added browsable images to existing collection.

New Zealand, Probate Records, 1878–1960 0 89,600
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Paraguay, Catholic Church Records, 1754–1981 0 303,041
New browsable image collection.

Peru, Catholic Church Records, 1687–1992 0 76,341
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Philippines, Civil Registration (National), 1945–1980 0 265,673
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Slovakia, Church and Synagogue Books, 1592–1910 0 594,660
Added browsable images to existing collection.

Spain, Consular Records of Emigrants, 1808–1960 0 20,978
Added browsable images to existing collection.

U.S. Social Security Death Index 113,448 0
Added new records to existing collection. Records now current as of 31 Oct 2011.

U.S., California, San Mateo County Records, 1856–1967 0 114,986
Added browsable images to existing collection.

U.S., California, State Census, 1852 188,578 0
New index collection.

U.S., Illinois, Macon County, Decatur Public Library Collections, 1879–2007 0 64,268
New browsable image collection.

U.S., Indiana, Marriages, 1811–1959 87,711 0
Added new records to existing collection.

U.S., North Carolina, Estate Files, 1663–1917 7,112 130,600
Added new records to existing collection.

U.S., Ohio, Stark County Coroner's Records, 1890–2002 0 39,054
Added browsable images to existing collection.

U.S., Oregon, Columbia County Records, 1854–1958 0 29,284
Added browsable images to existing collection.

U.S., Texas Birth Certificates, 1903–1934 422,956 423,803
Added new records to existing collection.

U.S., Texas Deaths, 1977–1986 0 59,536
Added browsable images to existing collection.

U.S., Texas, Bexar County, San Antonio Cemetery Records, 1893–2007 0 38,892
New browsable image collection.

U.S., Texas, Matagorda County, School Census Records, 1923–1946 0 52,548
Added browsable images to existing collection.

U.S., Washington State County Naturalization Records, 1850–1982 0 169,740
Added browsable images to existing collection.

U.S., Wisconsin, Probate Estate Files, 1848–1935 0 179,977
Added browsable images to existing collection.

United States, National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866–1938 165,432 0
Added new records to existing collection.

Venezuela, Civil Registration 0 13,194
Added browsable images to existing collection.

U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates Website

2011-11-06T08:31:00.004-05:00

I mentioned in our Thursday night Internet and Genealogy class a website on the Internet where you can search the Journals of the US Senate and House of Representatives for possible mentions of your family members.

Click here for a link to this site

1883 U.S. Government Military Pension List Online

2011-11-03T16:05:00.002-04:00

GenealogyBank has announced that it has the five-volume List of Pensioners-1883 online, to help with your family history research. These U.S. federal government military pension records are a valuable genealogy resource actively used by genealogists to trace family lineage.

List of Pensioners on the Roll January 1, 1883; giving the name of each pensioner, the cause for which pensioned, the post office address, the rate of pension per month, and the date of original allowance. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1883. Senate Document. Serial Set Vol. No. 2078, Session Vol. No. 5; Report: S.Exec.Doc. 84 pt. 1-5.

The List of Pensioners-1883 lists the pensioners by U.S. state and county. Volume 5 includes the lists of pensioners that lived overseas.

Each military pension record entry gives:
· Name of pensioner
· Pension certificate number
· Date of the original pension
· Reasons why the pensioner received the pension
· The monthly pension payment
· U.S. Post Office where the pensioner receives their mail

Types of military pension records included:
· Veteran disability pension records
· Army pension records
· Navy pension records
· War widows pension records
· War orphans pension records

Genealogy Tip: This is a crucial genealogical resource for identifying pensioners from all American wars still living in 1883 and it pinpoints where they were living—anywhere in the U.S. or around the world. This extensive U.S. military pension list includes pensioners from the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and more—making it easier to trace your veteran ancestors and relatives who received survivor benefits.

Volume One
Connecticut; District of Columbia; Maine; Massachusetts; New Hampshire; New Jersey; Rhode Island; Vermont

Volume Two
New York; Pennsylvania

Volume Three
Illinois; Iowa; Ohio

Volume Four
Alaska; Arizona; California; Colorado; Dakota; Idaho; Indiana; Kansas; Michigan; Minnesota; Montana; Nebraska; Indian Territory (Oklahoma); Nevada; New Mexico; Oregon; Utah; Washington; Wisconsin; Wyoming

Volume Five
Alabama; Arkansas; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maryland; Mississippi; Missouri; North Carolina; South Carolina; Tennessee; Texas; Virginia; West Virginia

Countries of the World, including Hawaii (which was listed as the "Sandwich Islands.") Africa; Austria; Belgium; Brazil; Denmark; England; France; Germany; Ireland; Italy; Madeira Island (Portugal); Malta; Mauritius; Mexico; Netherlands; New Zealand; Norway; Peru; Romania; Russia; Scotland; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Wales; West Indies; Foreign Address Unknown

You can explore the List of Pensioners-1883 online at GenealogyBank.

Important Changes Made to the Public Death Master File (DMF) and the Social Security Death Index (SSDI)

2011-11-03T10:45:00.002-04:00

Courtesy of our old friend, Dick Eastman's newsletter at EOGN

Effective 01 November 2011, the Social Security Administration (SSA) changed its policy on what records it will use as source material for adding new entries in the Public Death Master File (DMF) which, in turn, is used to create the Social Security Death Index (SSDI).

The Agency decided that it can no longer use state death records to add new entries to the DMF. Furthermore, the SSA will remove approximately 4.2 million records currently on the SSDI because those entries were made based on information from state death records.

You can read a lot more about the new changes in Steve Danko's blog at http://stephendanko.com/blog/15164 as well as from a Fact Sheet from the Social Security Administration’s website at http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/ci/fattach/get/601/

Google Ditches the (+) Search Engine Math Symbol

2011-10-31T14:38:00.001-04:00

Just as I put my last syndicated genealogy newspaper column to bed last week, there was a major change made at the Google search engine that conflicted with what I wrote in that column.

Google has changed the way one of their most useful search operators works: The (+) plus symbol operator.

Next time you want to make sure any single word or phrase appears in your search results, wrap it in quotation marks. To get exact results include specific keywords, you used to be able to add the (+) plus symbol operator to the front of a term, such as: +Georgia Atlanta

The search above would tell Google that the word "Georgia" must be on every search result and would ignore pages that don't have that word, such as a page that says, "Atlanta, Texas."

Now, rather than adding the (+) operator, you need to wrap the word or words in quotation marks, such as: "Georgia" Atlanta.

This will now give you the same results as if you had used the plus sign in the old way of searching on Google.

The iPhone: a Scanner in Your Pocket

2011-09-02T10:50:00.002-04:00

Another great article courtesy of my friend and fellow ham radio operator Dick Eastman.

The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.eogn.com. This article was originally posted on Dick's blog and newsletter at
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2011/08/the-iphone-a-scanner-in-your-pocket.html

The next time you read a document that contains information about your ancestors, wouldn't it be nice to immediately scan an image of it and email the image to yourself? Even better, how about uploading the image immediately to Dropbox or to MobileMe iDisk? If you own an iPhone, you can do that right now by installing a bit of low-cost software.

Scanner Pro converts your iPhone into a scanner. How well does it perform? Click on the thumbnail-sized image to the right to see a larger picture of a page I scanned today with Scanner Pro on an iPhone 4. The page is from The Book of Dow written by Robert Piercy Dow and published in 1929. I think it is a great image for a cell phone camera! Best of all, I always have the iPhone with me so that means I also carry a scanner with me everywhere I go.

Scanner Pro handles any type of documents ranging from simple one page letters to multipage legal documents. It can add, move, delete pages and even combine pages in landscape and portrait orientations. The program first scans whatever you wish and then displays the image on the iPhone's screen. It even features automatic edge detection and advanced image processing. However, if the automatic edge detection doesn't match your needs, tap anywhere on the screen and manually adjust the crop area. I did that with the book shown above as I wanted only a section of the page, not the entire page.

The program stores all images as industry-standard PDF files. Once stored in your iPhone, the image(s) may be exported to Evernote, to Google Docs, to a photo library (such as MobileMe iDisk, Box.Net, Humyo and any other WebDAV enabled online storage system), or sent to any email address. The image is standard PDF and can be used by any Windows, Macintosh, or Linux computer as well as by many handheld "smartphones."

Multi-page documents can be scanned and processed together as a single batch. For instance, perhaps you wish to scan ten pages from a book. Once scanned, you can export all the pages at once to Evernote, to Google Docs, to a photo library, or to email.

I have only used Scanner Pro for a short time but have fallen in love with it. I will be taking it to every library I visit from now on. In fact, I always take my cell phone with me everywhere. In the past, I would enter a library and then go looking for a photocopy machine. I was always delighted whenever I found such a machine that created digital images. Not all libraries have digital imaging available. Thanks to the new Scanner Pro software, I now have digital imaging capability with me at all times. Not only can I use the iPhone in libraries, but also when visiting a relative.

Of course, Scanner Pro can be used for thousands of non-genealogy purposes as well. This morning, I had to send an email message to my insurance company about the new license plates on the motorhome. I snapped a picture of the license plate using Scanner Pro and sent it as an email message to the insurance agent.

Ever see a "for sale" sign of interest on the bulletin board at the local supermarket? Snap a picture and send it to yourself or perhaps to a friend who may be interested in the item.

I often write articles about new products and I use them for a day or two. Not this time. This one's a keeper! I plan on using Scanner Pro often for a long, long time.

Scanner Pro costs $6.99 and is available in the iPhone App Store or you can learn more about it at http://readdle.com/products/scanner_pro_iphone/

NOTE: Any iPhone can snap a picture of a book or most anything else and send it by email. You don't need Scanner Pro for that. However, Scanner Pro adds convenience, the ability to create PDF files, multi-page documents, automatic page edge detection, and image processing. It also adds the capability to add, move, delete pages and even combine pages in landscape and portrait orientations. You cannot perform those functions with the software included with the iPhone. I'd suggest the program is worth a lot more than $6.99.

My thanks to newsletter reader Claudia Breland for telling me about Scanner Pro.

1940 Census Will be Free on Ancestry.com

2011-08-22T15:48:00.002-04:00

Subscription genealogy website Ancestry.com has decided to make the 1940 census images and index—which will be on the site after the 1940 census is opened next year for research—free to search and view through 2013.

That’ll be more than 3.8 million images with 130 million records. Even better, they’ll be indexed by 45 fields, meaning you’ll be able to search on the name, street address, county, state, parents’ birthplaces and more.

The records won’t be on Ancestry.com right when the census is released April 2, 2012, by the National Archives. Ancestry.com’s press release says they’ll commence “streaming onto the website in mid-April 2012.”

The digital images will be accessible free of charge at NARA facilities nationwide through our public access computers as well as on personal computers via the internet.

The 1940 Census will not have a name index when it opens on April 2, 2012. In order to locate someone, you will need to know his or her address and the Census enumeration district in which that address was located.

What can you do now in preparation for the opening of the 1940 Census?

1. Make a list of all the people you want to look for in the 1940 census. Think broadly--ancestors, their siblings, cousins, etc.--anybody to whom you are related.

2.Collect addresses for these people for whom you plan to search.

Sources for addresses include:

City Directories (NARA has original Circa 1940 City Directories for Washington, DC. The Library of Congress holds a large nationwide collection of city directories and many libraries hold local directories.)

The 1930 Census (useful for people who did not move between 1930 and 1940). If you have a person's enumeration district (ED) number from the 1930 Census you can use "The Converting between 1930 and 1940 Census ED1940s in One Step" search utility at http://stevemorse.org/census/ed2040.php?year=1940 to find the equivalent ED for the 1940 Census.

World War II Draft Records (contact the National Archives' Regional Location for the state in which your ancestor lived).

Naturalization Petitions or Declarations of Intent filed close to 1940 (contact the National Archives' Regional Location for the state in which your ancestor lived)

3.Identify the enumeration district (ED) in which each address was located. There are currently several ways to do this:

Search the 1940 Census Maps for Enumeration District Numbers
Go to the Archival Research Catalog (ARC): http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/

Enter 1940 Census maps + the county + the state: 1940 Census maps Sussex Delaware

You can narrow the search by including a town name in the search: 1940 Census maps Sussex Milford Delaware

Note: Not all towns will have individual maps. You may need to look at county maps for some towns. In the search results, click on the map to see a larger version of the map.

More to follow as we get closer to this major genealogical event.

Ancestry.com Post New NARA Civil War Records Online

2011-04-07T06:34:00.005-04:00

Blog Editor Note: This digitization of Civil War records is part of a five-year deal with Ancestry.com and NARA. The public will have free access starting April 6 for a week before a paid subscription is required to access the records.

WASHINGTON, DC and PROVO, UT — 04/06/11 — Ancestry.com (NASDAQ: ACOM), the world’s largest online family history resource, and the National Archives, today launched millions of newly digitized Civil War records that are now available online for the first time. This effort is part of an ongoing partnership between Ancestry.com and the National Archives to make important historical records more easily available to the American public. Ancestry.com’s entire Civil War Collection of more than 42 million records, including 25 million records from the National Archives, will be free to access for the general public for one week beginning on April 7. Existing members will have immediate access beginning today.

Included are the entire U.S. Civil War Draft Registration Records, 1863-1865 and the complete 1860 and 1870 Censuses. These Civil War collections are in the National Archives and have been digitized by Ancestry.com to help preserve the original records and provide convenient online access. They now serve as a vital source of information for an estimated 17 million Americans(1) who have an ancestor who fought in the conflict. The entire Civil War Collection can be accessed for free at www.ancestry.com/civilwar150.

The highlight of the Civil War Collection is the newly digitized Civil War Draft Registration Records, 1863-1865. These records are among the most popular in the National Archives Civil War holdings and served as a virtual male census for the northern states during the war period. Famous 19th century Americans such as Andrew Carnegie, future President Grover Cleveland, Aaron Montgomery Ward and multiple Rockefellers are all found in these records. Previously only available by request in original form in the Research Room of the National Archives, the public will now be able to easily access these records on Ancestry.com without having to travel to Washington, D.C.

“The significance of these records, which document one of the most important events in American history, cannot be overstated,” said Ken Burns, director and producer of the award-winning documentary THE CIVIL WAR and longtime board member of the Foundation for the National Archives. “I’ve been able to make multiple discoveries about my own great-great-grandfather Abraham Burns through these and other records from the National Archives. I’m excited that more people will now be able to have similar discoveries through Ancestry.com.”

Ancestry.com is providing another special experience in searching for Civil War and National Archive information through the new interactive Military Headstone Archives. Dynamic visuals and multimedia tools will enable users to ‘virtually’ explore the cemeteries of the Civil War’s most famous battlefields at Gettysburg, PA; Sharpsburg (Antietam), MD; Stones River (Murfreesboro), TN; Petersburg, VA; Shiloh, TN and Vicksburg, MS. Users can search for their family’s heroes in Ancestry.com’s unique collection of headstone photographs from 33 national cemeteries in the North and South. The new Military Headstone Archives can also be accessed by visiting: www.ancestry.com/civilwar150

Since 2008, Ancestry.com and the National Archives have worked as partners to make important historical records available to the public as part of a shared commitment to preserving America’s heritage. A key component of this collaboration includes digitizing as many of the original paper National Archives’ Civil War records as possible and publishing those records on Ancestry.com.

“The National Archives continues to be a model for preserving important U.S. history and making those records available to the public,” said Josh Hanna, Executive Vice President for Ancestry.com. “We’re honored that our partnership with the National Archives has made millions of records, including the new Civil War Collection, available to the many Americans who want to learn more about their family history.”

“We are pleased that our partnership with Ancestry.com is making these important records available outside of our research rooms,” said Susan Cummings, National Archives Director of Access Programs. “This is just the first of many series of Civil War records that will be made available online that are scanned from original records, instead of from microfilm in the years to come.”

The expanded Civil War Collection now includes new National Archives records such as:

● U.S. Civil War Draft Registration Records, 1863-1865: This collection lists all Civil War Draft Registrations. There were four drafts between 1863 and 1865, which included 3,175,055 people in its rolls, although of those, just over 46,000 actually entered into service. Historically, the 1863 draft was one of the most tenuous moments in the Union outside of the battles fought on Northern soil. Most of the concern was due to the draft riots that took place in New York in 1863. These records include more than 630 volumes of registries and are lists of individuals who registered for the draft.

● U.S. Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865: This collection contains indices of compiled military service records for volunteer Union and Confederate soldiers who served with units organized in more than 20 states. The indices also include Confederate soldiers who later served with the Union Army, Union and Confederate soldiers, Generals and staff officers, and other enlisted men not associated with a regiment. Individual records contain both military and personal details useful for locating an ancestor in time and place by tracking his movements during the course of the Civil War.

Other additions to the Civil War Collection include:

Union records

● Kansas Civil War Enlistment Papers
● New York Civil War Muster Rolls
● New York Civil War City Registers

Confederate records

● Alabama Census of Confederate Soldiers
● Confederate Pension Applications from AL, AR, TX and VA
● Georgia Civil War Correspondence
● Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy

To begin searching The Civil War Collection, current subscribers can visit www.ancestry.com/civilwar and new users can visit www.ancestry.com/civilwar150. For further stories and updates related to Civil War family history research, please follow Ancestry.com on Facebook and Twitter.

About Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com Inc. (NASDAQ: ACOM) is the world’s largest online family history resource, with nearly 1.4 million paying subscribers. More than 6 billion records have been added to the site in the past 14 years. Ancestry users have created more than 20 million family trees containing over 2 billion profiles. Ancestry.com has local Web sites directed at nine countries that help people discover, preserve and share their family history, including its flagship Web site at www.ancestry.com.

About the National Archives

The National Archives and Records Administration, an independent federal agency, is the nation’s record keeper. Founded in 1934, its mission is unique — to serve American democracy by safeguarding and preserving the records of our Government, ensuring that the people can discover, use, and learn from this documentary heritage. The National Archives ensures continuing access to the essential documentation of the rights of American citizens and the actions of their government. It supports democracy, promotes civic education, and facilitates historical understanding of our national experience. The National Archives meets a wide range of information needs, among them helping people to trace their families’ history, making it possible for veterans to prove their entitlement to medical and other benefits, and preserving original White House records. The National Archives carries out its mission through a nationwide network of archives, records centers, and Presidential Libraries, and on the Internet at http://www.archives.gov/.

Blogger Disclosure Statements

2011-04-06T19:18:00.005-04:00

I guess I'm the last genealogy blogger on this planet to discover the 2010 FTC regulation requiring bloggers to have a disclosure statements on their blogs.

This afternoon after Thomas MacEntee's live Legacy webinar, while looking at one of his blogs, I discovered to my horror, the new requirement by the FTC (that is the Federal Trade Commission for those of you who do not speak governmentese) to have a an FTC disclosure statement on your blog. If you mention any products, services, etc that charge real money for their stuff you have to have one of these statements posted somewhere on the blog. The fine for not doing so is $11,000 per post.

Now for some of you, including old Bill Gates, that may just be folding money. For the poor like us, that is food on the table. Now while I may not agree with the FTC and this ridiculous intrusion on free speech, I just can't afford that kind of cash to prove a point.

So that we are complaint with the imperial government's regulation, I have added a FTC Disclosure Statement to all of family of blogs that we maintain.

Bottom line, a big Family Roots and Branches "Tango Uniform" to Thomas MacEntee for the head's up. We poor mountain folk here in western NC do appreciate you looking out for us.

To learn more about blogger disclosure issues, go to Why You Need a Blogging Disclosure Statement at Geneabloggers. To get your own disclosure policy statement for your blog (yes, it is free), go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org/.

Do You Recognize the Organization They Belong To?

2011-04-06T18:48:00.006-04:00

I have a friend here in the Brasstown area of western North Carolina who passed along the picture above to me and is asking for some help. He (and me) would like to know what fraternal or religious organization these fellows could have belonged to.

My best guess is this photo was taken sometime between 1900-1910, may have been taken in northern Georgia (Towns or Union County) or in Delta County, Texas.

My best guess is that these fellows belong to a IOOF (Independent Order of Odd fellows) lodge, but I am not 100% sure of it.

So if you have some insight and can help ID the organization that they belonged to, contact me at our email address teakpub at brmemc dot com. I do appreciate any and all input on this blog post.

Mocavo.com Launches as World’s Largest Free Genealogy Search Engine

2011-04-06T17:54:00.001-04:00

Industry breakthrough provides instant search results for billions of names, dates and places worldwide

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mocavo.com™ (http://www.mocavo.com), a free search engine geared toward genealogists and people interested in learning more about their family history, launches today. Mocavo.com enables the search of more than 50 billion words - including billions of names, dates and places, all within fractions of a second. Mocavo.com fills an important industry need by providing the first large-scale, free search engine for family history research. Coupled with the speed and accuracy by which search results are produced, Mocavo.com represents a major technological breakthrough within the genealogy world.

Mocavo.com has already been met with critical acclaim by several industry experts. Dick Eastman, writer of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and a top blogger in the field, wrote, “All my future genealogy searches will start on Mocavo.com. I've been using the site for a while during its testing and have been very impressed. I suspect you will always have better luck searching for your own surnames of interest on Mocavo.com than on any other search engine.”

Randy Seaver, writer of the popular Genea-Musings blog, said, “Mocavo.com promises to be a genealogist's dream - a search engine focused on free online genealogy resources." Mr. Eastman’s and Mr. Seaver’s full reviews can be found at http://www.eogn.com and http://www.geneamusings.com, respectively.

Starting today, the general public can use Mocavo.com for free. Visitors to www.mocavo.com are simply required to type in the names of interest and click on Search. All related results from industry sources such as genealogy message boards, family trees, state and local historical societies, the Library of Congress, National Archives, Ellis Island, Find A Grave, the Internet Archive, various U.S. state archives, and many tens of thousands of genealogy sites built by individuals will be displayed. Similar to other search engines, Mocavo.com honors site owners by linking directly to their content.

Cliff Shaw, founder and CEO of Mocavo Inc., identifies the current trouble for genealogists and the solution that Mocavo.com provides, “Genealogy has always had the problem of information and potential clues being spread across thousands of disparate web sites and sources. Imagine a world where you have all of the Web’s free genealogy content at your fingertips within seconds. That is Mocavo.com.”

“Mocavo.com has the capacity to index every single piece of free genealogy content found anywhere on the web, and will be growing by leaps and bounds in the coming months,” said Mr. Shaw. “We expect Mocavo.com to shortly offer all of the web’s free genealogy information, searchable and accessible to all – something that has never been done before. It’s set to become the go-to search engine for every family history enthusiast.”

Mocavo Inc. is the brainchild of Cliff Shaw. Mr. Shaw is well known in the industry, having created four successful companies and many innovative technologies, including Smart Matching™, the most successful ancestor-matching algorithm. He created GenForum 14 years ago and it quickly grew to become the number one community for genealogists (now owned by Ancestry.com® (NASDAQ:ACOM)). In the early 2000’s, Mr. Shaw launched GenCircles and Family Tree Legends, becoming the number two family tree publishing site and number two family tree software package respectively (both are now owned by MyHeritage.com). More recently, Mr. Shaw launched the well-received BackupMyTree.com, the industry’s only automatic tree backup solution.

About Mocavo Inc.

Mocavo Inc. operates the world’s largest free genealogy search engine, Mocavo.com, giving genealogists access to the best free genealogy content on the web including billions of names, dates and places. Founded by industry veteran Cliff Shaw, and backed by prominent angel investor, David Cohen, (founder and CEO of TechStars), Mocavo.com seeks to index and make searchable all of the world’s free genealogy information. While Mocavo.com discovers new sites every day, some of the existing sites searchable on Mocavo.com include genealogy message boards, family trees, state and local historical societies, the Library of Congress, National Archives, Ellis Island, Find A Grave, the Internet Archive, various U.S. state archives, and many tens of thousands of genealogy sites built by individuals. For further information, visit http://www.mocavo.com.

Quick-Tip of the Month for Preservation--Scan and Share

2011-04-03T11:12:00.003-04:00

by Dawne Slater-Putt and courtesy of the Genealogy gems newsletter published by the Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Center.

Perhaps the best way to preserve photographs is to ensure that the ones you have are not the only copies in existence – scan and share!

With improved scanning technology, it takes very little time to scan a photograph. Some libraries, including The Genealogy Center, have a scanner that patrons can use. The Genealogy Center’s scanner allows patrons to choose a file format (tif, jpg, etc.), scan their photos and send the digital copies to their own email addresses.

Once photos are scanned, the possibilities for sharing them are endless, ensuring that the images are preserved for future generations. Consider the possibilities:

*Email them to relatives
*Upload them to an album in Facebook or to another social media or photo sharing location
*Use a different ancestral photo as your Facebook profile picture each month
*Post them on a blog
*Upload them to a family website
*Print them and mail to relatives
*Include them in a print or online family newsletter
*Include them in a print or online local or state genealogical society newsletter
*Mass produce mugs, tee shirts, calendars, mouse pads … with ancestral photos and give as gifts or give away/sell at family reunions
*Include them in a family history book
*Insert them into your genealogy computer program
*Upload them to Ancestry.com’s family tree area
*Create a photobook using computer scrapbooking software

Scanning photos can seem like an overwhelming task. Prioritize!

Perhaps handle your oldest photos first, or those of your direct ancestors. Or tackle one side of the family, then the other. By scanning just a few photos at a time on a regular basis, you can make significant progress in a short period of time.

Who Do You Think Your Are? Renewed for Season 3

2011-03-02T17:11:00.003-05:00

According to the TV Line website (http://www.tvline.com/2011/02/nbc-renews-sing-off-two-other-reality-shows/), NBC has renewed their Friday night hit, Who Do You Think You Are?. We will now have a third season of celebrity genealogy.

WDYTYA has had good ratings. For instance, the episode of Who Do You Think You Are? that aired Friday had 5.9 million viewers and a 1.3 in the imporant 18-49 demo.

So I hope to have more in the near future on who we will see next season. In the meantime, enjoy the remaining episodes this season at 8 eastern/7 central Friday evenings on NBC.

Storing CDs and DVDs

2011-03-02T16:58:00.002-05:00

This quick tip is courtesy of the Genealogy Gems newsletter published by the Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Center, Steve Myers & Curt Witcher, co-editors.

Store CDs and DVDs in the same manner you would store books: on end, not flat. If you have a large number of discs, stacking them on top of each other can increase the chances of some cracking or being scratched by dust trapped between the discs. Ideally, each disc should be in its own case with each case bearing an appropriate descriptive label.

Western North Carolina Legacy SIG to meet this week

2011-02-07T11:13:00.003-05:00

The Western North Carolina Legacy genealogy software Special Interest Group will hold its monthly meeting on Wednesday, February 9 at 6:30 pm at the Moss memorial Library in Hayesville NC (weather permitting). If you are interested in using Legacy software in your research, this free meeting is well worth your time.

Wilkinson Co GA Cemetery Book Now Available

2011-02-06T07:08:00.005-05:00

If you are interested in the cemeteries of Wilkinson County, Georgia, a new reference book, published by the county genealogical society, may be the ticket to new family connections.

The Cemeteries of Wilkinson County, Georgia book has been published and is now ready for delivery. If you want a copy, drop a check in the mail to the Wilkinson County Historical Society, P. O. Box 476, Gordon, GA 31031, and Jimmy Lord will mail it to you immediately. The cost is $55.00 plus $6.00 S&H.

You can contact the Society directly through their websote at http://www.netstarz.net/wilco/

RootsTech Conference Will Broadcast Select Sessions Free Online

2011-02-05T06:25:00.002-05:00

RootsTech, a new family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 10-12, 2011, announced today that six of its popular sessions will be broadcasted live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend worldwide a sample of this year’s conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The first-year conference has attracted over 2,000 registered attendees.

The free online sessions include some of the keynote speakers and a sampling of technology and family history presentations. Following are the six broadcasts, speakers, and times of the presentations. All times are in Mountain Standard Time (MST):

Thursday, February 10, 2011

· 8:30-9:00 a.m., A world of Information, Shane Robison, chief technology officer, Hewlett Packard

· 9-9:30 a.m., Turning Roots, Branches, Trees into Nodes, Links, Graphs, Jay L. Verkler, chief executive officer, FamilySearch International

· 3-4:00 p.m., Digitally Preserving Your Family Heritage, Barry Ewell, founder of MyGenShare.com

Friday, February 11, 2011

· 8:30-9:30 a.m., The Changing Face of Genealogy, by Curt Witcher, manager of the Historical Genealogy Department, Allen County Public Library

· 9:45-10:45 a.m., Cloud Computing: What is it and how it has been used to create the next familysearch.org, by Brian Pugh, senior engineer, FamilySearch International

Saturday, February 12, 2011

· 8:30-9:30 a.m. Personal Archiving and Primary Documents, Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archives

· 1:45-2:45 p.m., Virtual Presentations Round Table and Collaborative Panel Discussion, Thomas MacEntee, professional genealogist and technology specialist

· 3:00-4:00 p.m., The Power of PDF: Tools for Every Genealogist , D. Josh Taylor, Director of Education and Programs at New England Historical Genealogical Society.

About RootsTech

RootsTech is a new conference designed to bring technologists together with genealogists to learn from each other and find solutions to the challenges faced in family history research today. The conference’s activities and offerings are focused on content that will help genealogists and family historians discover exciting new research tools while enabling technology creators to learn the latest development techniques from industry leaders and pioneers.

Who Do You Think You Are Season 2 Starts Tonight

2011-02-04T10:03:00.004-05:00

NBC's acclaimed alternative series "Who Do You Think You Are?" begins its second season tonight at 8 pm EST/7 pm CST on most NBC TV affiliates. The show will feature the compelling genealogical story of Vanessa Williams.

In this season of "Who Do You Think You Are?" they will follow some of today's most beloved and iconic celebrities as they embark on personal journeys of self-discovery to trace their family trees. From the trenches of the Civil War to the shores of the Caribbean, and from the valleys of Virginia to the island nations of Australia and Ireland, each episode will reveal surprising, inspiring and sometimes tragic stories that are often linked to events in American and international history.

The celebrities that will be featured in this second season are Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Rosie O’Donnell, Steve Buscemi, Kim Cattrall, Lionel Richie, Vanessa Williams and Ashley Judd.

Each week, a different celebrity is taken on a quest into his or her family history. The search is one of surprising and deeply emotional encounters, resulting in one of the most compelling reality formats of recent years. During each episode, viewers will be taken on a personal and often mysterious quest following some of America's best-known celebrities into their ancestral pasts, as they uncover stories of heroism and tragedy, love and betrayal, secrets and intrigue, that lie at the heart of their family history.

At the same time, "Who Do You Think You Are?" celebrates the twists and turns of a great nation and the people who made their way here in search of freedom and opportunity. As each celebrity discovers his or her unknown relatives - most of whom overcame hard times - the show will take viewers back through world history to expose how the lives of everyone's collective ancestors have shaped our world today.

From Executive Producers Lisa Kudrow ("Friends," "The Comeback") and Dan Bucatinsky ("Lipstick Jungle," "The Comeback"), in conjunction with their production company, Is or Isn't Entertainment, and Shed Media U.S., the series is an adaptation of the award-winning hit British television documentary series from Wall to Wall Productions, created and executive produced by Alex Graham. Jennifer O'Connell and Al Edgington also serve as executive producers.

You can see a preview of tonight's show, watch shows from season one, and much more at http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/ The show is sponsored in part by Ancestry.com.

Athens Historic Newspapers Archive Now Available

2011-02-03T06:39:00.000-05:00

The Digital Library of Georgia is pleased to announce the availability of a new online resource: The Athens Historic Newspapers Archive http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/athnewspapers .

The Athens Historic Newspapers Archive provides online access to five newspaper titles published in Athens from 1827 to 1922. Consisting of over 57,000 newspaper pages, the archive provides historical images that are both full-text searchable and can be browsed by date. The site will provide users with a view into the history of Athens in its early years as the home to the first state-chartered university in the nation and its eventual growth into the largest city in northeast Georgia.

The archive includes the following Athens newspaper titles: Athenian (1827-1832), Southern Banner (1832-1882), Southern Watchman (1855-1882), Daily/Weekly Banner-Watchman (1882-1889), Daily/Weekly Athens Banner (1889-1922).

The Athens Historic Newspapers Archive is a project of the Digital Library of Georgia as part of the Georgia HomePLACE initiative. The project is supported with federal LSTA funds administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Georgia Public Library Service, a unit of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. Digitization is also made possible through a grant provided by the Francis Wood Wilson Foundation, Inc.

Other newspaper archives available through the Digital Library of Georgia include the Atlanta Historic Newspapers Archive (1847-1922), the Macon Telegraph Archive (1826-1908), the Columbus Enquirer Archive (1828-1890), the Milledgeville Historic Newspapers Archive (1808-1920), the Southern Israelite Archive (1929-1986), and the Red and Black Archive (1893-2006). These archives can be accessed at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/MediaTypes/Newspapers.html

And for my students the service is "free."

Families for Android Op System Now Available

2011-02-02T09:26:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday night one of my students in my beginner Legacy class asked if there was a Legacy app for the Android operating system. My answer was not yet. After class I go home, check my email inbox and that answer has now changed. I had the press release below in my inbox.

TelGen Limited is pleased to announce the release of the first version of Families for Android. This app provides the same functionality as the popular Families app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, but now on the Android platform.

This application is designed to operate in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree, the leading Windows-based genealogy software from Millennia Corporation. Legacy family files can be easily transferred from a PC to your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or Android device, enabling them to be viewed and edited wherever you are. Families supports the following functionality:

•Multiple family files
•New family files can be created from scratch
•Family View and Pedigree View
•Index, searchable by Given Name, Surname or RIN
•Events
•To Do Lists
•Master and Detail Sources
•Locations and Addresses, with geolocation via Google Maps
•Alternate Names
•Pictures, including the ability to add pictures from camera or photo album
•Portrait and Landscape mode on all views
•Full screen support on the iPad
•Legacy file versions 6 and 7 are supported

Families uses a highly efficient database implementation, allowing very large family files to be supported. Users have successfully displayed and edited files containing over 300,000 individuals on an iPhone and a sample family file is included.

On iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad Families requires access to a Wi-Fi network or use of iTunes via a USB connection in order to transfer family files between your device and your PC. USB transfer uses iTunes File Sharing which requires your device to be running iOS 3.2 or above.

On Android Families uses a USB connection to transfer family files to and from your Android device's SD card.

Families requires a companion program running on the PC to transfer family files to and from the device. This program, Families Sync, can be downloaded free of charge from here. For iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, iTunes must be installed in order to use this program.

Families for Android can be purchased from Android Market for £8.99 or equivalent in other currencies (approximately US$14.30)

For more information see http://www.telgen.co.uk/families or email families@telgen.co.uk.

New Ancestry iPad, iPhone and iTouch app

2011-02-01T09:43:00.000-05:00

How would you like to be able to see and navigate your Ancestry.com family tree on your iPhone or iPad so you can more easily share family stories visually? How would you like to be able to view the Census and other records you’ve attached to people in your Ancestry.com family tree on your iPhone or iPad at your next family gathering? Well good news – now there’s an app for that.

This week Ancestry announced the availability of an enhanced version of their iPhone app, Ancestry, that now has universal support for the iPad and offers several new features:

•Lighter version of your Ancestry.com family tree
•An interactive family tree viewer to visualize relationships in your family history
•Information is automatically available when you log in to your Ancestry.com account from your computer
•Easy to upload photos, add ancestors, correct dates, include notes and more, from within the app.
•Ability to view attached historical documents and source citations attached via Ancestry.com
•Access to family trees that were shared with you
•An improved user experience, Intuitive to use, with iPad functionality

Built with the tablet experience in mind, the new Ancestry app brings to life on iPad’s large screen multi-generational family trees complete with images of original family records and photos, making iPad a powerful tool for you to display and share your trees with family and friends in an interactive, highly visual way.

So check out http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ancestry-com-tree-to-go/id349554263?mt=8

Don’t have an iPad or an iPhone? Do not despair since Ancestry is considering the creation of an Android version of their Ancestry app down the road.

A headstone leads deputy to old grave

2011-01-23T09:56:00.002-05:00

Thanks to my friend Al Swint on the ClayCountyGenealogyGroup Yahoogroup for the link to this interesting story. An Oconee county deputy sheriff and genealogists identified the cemetery from which came an old, mysterious headstone found on the side of a road near Athens, Georgia. It is a great story and thanks Al.

http://onlineathens.com/stories/012211/new_774400973.shtml

Oconee County sheriff’s Lt. David Kilpatrick makes a photographic documentation recently of the spot where he returned an infant’s gravestone in an abandoned cemetery. (Picture via link courtesy of the Athens Banner-Herald Online Athens website)

Legacy for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad

2011-01-22T16:34:00.003-05:00

Got an iPhone, iPod Touch, or an iPad? With the Families application from TelGen Limited you can now easily transfer your Legacy Family Tree files from your PC to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, enabling them to be viewed and edited wherever you are. Any changes you make on these devices can then be synced back to your Legacy file on your PC.

Features of Families:

•Family, Descendant and Pedigree Views
•Support for display and editing of privacy fields
•Pictures, including the ability to add pictures from camera or photo album
•Locations and addresses, with geolocation via Google Maps
•Multiple family files
•New family files can be created from scratch
•Index, searchable by given name, surname, or RIN
•Events
•To Do Lists
•Master and detail sources
•Alternate names
•Portrait and landscape mode on all views
•Full screen support on the iPad
•Legacy file version 6 and 7 are supported

Families uses a highly efficient database implementation, allowing very large family files to be supported. Users have successfully displayed and edited files containing over 300,000 individuals on an iPhone.

Families requires a companion program running on the PC to transfer family files to and from the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. This program, Families Sync, can be downloaded free of charge. Note that iTunes must be installed in order to use this program.

Families is available in the App Store for $14.95. For more information, and to view screen shots of Families, please click here.

Tips For Using Your Digital Camera for Genealogy

2011-01-21T16:09:00.000-05:00

A digital camera has been part of my genealogy bag of trick for a number of years now. I own a Nikon D5000 DSLR (left) with a bag full of lenses and stuff. I can't imagine doing genealogy without it.

If you own a digital camera here is some goodies from the Family Tree Magazine Genealogy Insider Blog:

"You have a great research tool in your digital camera! It can capture images of gravestones, ancestral homes, family heirlooms and your ancestors' records. But it's not quite as simple as taking a quick snapshot.

"Before you start a genealogical photography session, create a shot list of the pictures you want. Check out our recommendations on the Genealogy Insider blog."

Editor has fun with marriage announcement - 1835

2011-01-20T15:37:00.004-05:00

Got this cute piece courtesy of the good folks at the GenealogyBank blog. The newspaper editor of the Norfolk Advertiser had a little fun with this marriage announcement.

The last marriage reads: At Onondaga Hollow (now Syracuse, New York), Mr. Sier Patterson to Miss Precious Little, all of that town. Mr. P. has made up his mind to enjoy Precious Little during the remainder of his life. (22 August 1835, page 3).

For newspaper research I highly recommend GenealogyBank. I have made significant genealogical discoveries in the last few years regarding my family via their service. You can read about some of them on my personal blog at http://larry-family-history.blogspot.com/. There is a link to GenealogyBank in the Genealogy Research Site section of this blog (right side of page).

Legacy Family Tree 7.5 update now available

2011-01-18T10:10:00.004-05:00

Just minutes ago I downloaded the long-anticipated Legacy 7.5 update! This update adds additional New FamilySearch support (for those with a new.familysearch.org LDS account) and includes several minor bug fixes that have been reported to their support team.

How to Update

For Deluxe Edition users, all you have to do is connect to the Internet, start Legacy 7, and click on the "Install and Download Now" link on the Legacy Home tab. If you're reading this from within the Legacy Home tab inside of Legacy 7.0, you'll first need to click on the Home button in the top left of the Legacy Home tab.

If you are a Standard Edition Legacy user, you will need to visit the Legacy website. Go to http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/DownloadUpdate.asp and follow the instructions.

The Top Ten Indicators That You've Become A Gene-Aholic

2011-01-18T07:56:00.002-05:00

From Alan Jones' webpage via the GAWILKIN Mailing List

10. You introduce your daughter as your descendent.

9. You've never met any of the people you send e-mail to, even though you're related.

8. You can recite your lineage back 8 generations, but can't remember your nephew's name.

7. You have more photographs of dead people than living ones.

6. You've ever taken a tape recorder and/or notebook to a family reunion.

5. You've not only read the latest GEDCOM standard, you understand it!

4. The local genealogy society borrows books from you!

3. The only film you've seen in the last year was the 1880 census index.

2. More than half of your CD collection is made up of marriage records or pedigrees.

1. Your elusive ancestor has been spotted in more different places than Elvis!

Genealogy Wisdom

2011-01-18T07:41:00.000-05:00

Dan was a single guy living at home with his father and working in the family business.

When he found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly father died, he decided he needed a wife with which to share his fortune.

One evening at an investment meeting he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her natural beauty took his breath away.

"I may look like just an ordinary man," he said to her, "but in just a few years, my father will die, and I'll inherit $65 million."

Impressed, the woman obtained his business card and three days later, she became his stepmother.

Understanding Geneaology has its value.

Blog: Five Interesting Genealogical Web Sites

2011-01-18T05:42:00.004-05:00

Sometimes the road less traveled can make a difference in our genealogical research. Genealogist, writer, blogger, and indefatigable researcher, Carolyn Barkley travels that road and details five Internet genealogical stops that may make a difference in your research. Check out her article on the GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com at http://www.genealogyandfamilyhistory.com/?p=528.

A Really Simple Explanation of Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

2011-01-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

A Really Simple Explanation of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) by Dick Eastman

Blog Editor's Note: The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.eogn.com/.

The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee when he launched the first web site on 6 August 1991. That web site described a new protocol that Berners-Lee had invented, called "HyperText Transfer Protocol," or http. Tim Berners-Lee's invention has become very popular in the eighteen years since that modest beginning!

How info-glut wastes valuable time

Of course, the World Wide Web has encountered various problems and "growing pains" in the past eighteen years. One of the biggest problems, in my mind, is simply that of popularity. There are millions of web sites available today. I like to check frequently with a rather large number of web sites to see what has been added recently. However, I find that checking each web site by using the 1991 technology that uses http protocol is time-consuming. Going out to each site and manually scanning to see what is new can consume quite a bit of time, especially if you want to check several hundred web sites!

Luckily, there is a simple solution: skip the http and use RSS instead.

The newer, easier, and faster way

Instead of you going out, make the new info come to you. In effect, your computer can retrieve all the new information and store that information on your hard drive.

The new RSS (Really Simple Syndication) protocol simply adds a method of automation: instead of performing repetitive tasks yourself, let your computer do them. After all, computers are really good at performing repetitive tasks.

In the old-fashioned http method, you (the user) open a web browser and go out to various web sites of interest and retrieve information. That process works well but is really slow. Checking a few hundred web sites might require hours.

In the newer method of using RSS protocol, your computer (or web program) will go out to the Web and retrieve any new information on web sites that you have specified in a list. You manually create the list, but the computer does the repetitive checking and retrieving of new information. The new information is then stored on the computer's hard drive, waiting for you to read it. Since the information is already stored for you, there is no waiting for web pages to display. Reading new articles that have been stored on a local hard drive is as fast or perhaps faster than reading new e-mail messages in an e-mail program.

Speed is the key here. In fact, if you connect to the Internet via a dial-up connection, you need RSS! However, even users of the highest speed fiber optic connections will find RSS to be pleasantly faster than retrieving information in the old-fashioned way. You can now check hundreds of web sites for newly-added information within a very few minutes, not hours.

What you need: a reader and subscriptions

First, you need an RSS reader. There are many to choose from for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Palm, SmartPhone, and Apple iPhone operating systems. Most of them are available free of charge; a few with advanced features cost a few dollars. I'd suggest that you start with a free RSS reader and use that until you become experienced enough to understand the advantages of a commercial reader. I suspect that most users never upgrade; they keep using their free RSS readers for years.

An RSS reader might be a bit of software that you install on a local computer or it might be software that runs on a distant web server in the best "cloud computing" manner. Free web-based RSS readers are available at Google.com (http://www.google.com/reader/), Newsgator (http://www.newsgator.com/individuals/newsGatoronline/default.aspx), Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/), and many others.

Installing an RSS reader in your own computer usually results in faster operation, especially for people who do not have high-speed internet service. Hundreds of such newsreaders are available. However, if you are new to RSS, I would suggest that you start with one of the following:

* Windows: FeedDemon - http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/FeedDemon/Default.aspx
* Macintosh: NetNewsWire - http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/default.aspx
* Web-based: Google Reader - http://www.google.com/reader/

You can easily switch to a different RSS reader at a later date if you wish to. Your list of monitored web sites can be exported as an OPML file and then imported into any other modern RSS reader; you won't have to manually create your list again.

Next, you need to "subscribe" to the web sites you wish to monitor. In this step you find web sites that offer information in RSS format. Luckily, millions of web sites do just that today. Most major news services, stock market information services, weather forecasts, sports reports, and much more are available as RSS feeds. I even monitor my checkbook entries via an online RSS feed!

In addition, almost all blogs offer RSS feeds. One estimate claims there are more than 50 million blogs, and that the number is increasing rapidly.

My EOGN web site has offered RSS feeds for more than five years, and there are many other genealogy web sites that also offer RSS feeds.

Subscribing means creating a list of sites you are interested in monitoring. The exact process will vary from one RSS reader to another, so you will need to read the program's documentation to find the exact steps for creating that list in the RSS reader you selected. With most RSS readers, you use a normal web browser to first find a web site of interest, then switch to the RSS reader and give it a command to "check this site often." In many cases, you can simply enter the URL for a favorite web site in a subscription search box. If that site offers an RSS feed, it will automatically be added to your list.

Most RSS readers check for updates at least daily; most can check even more often than that. Should you wish to, most RSS readers will even check hourly.

Use your computer for automation

Instead of manually going out to find new information, you can make that info come to you. In effect, your computer retrieves all the new information and stores that information on your hard drive or on the hard drive of a single web server. The end result is simpler, easier, and much faster operation.

New articles will start arriving in your RSS reader without any action on your part.

I can say two things about RSS readers: they simplify your life, and they are almost as addictive as genealogy!

Technology Tip of the Month--Inserting Images into Shapes Using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010

2011-01-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

From the Genealogy Gems newsletter (No. 82, December 31, 2010) published by the Fort Wayne Library by Kay Spears.

I know I promised an article on footnotes; however, thanks to an alert reader we are going to cover inserting images into shapes using Microsoft Word version 2010 (version 2007 is similar). The instructions in the previous article worked for version 2003.

Newer versions of Microsoft Word combine the standard menu bar, taskbar and toolbars into what is called a “ribbon.” The tabs on the “ribbon” are: File, Home, Insert, Page layout, References, Mailings, Review, and View. Choose the Insert tab, click on Shapes, and then select one of the many shapes available. As soon as you pick a shape, your cursor turns into a cross. Holding down the left click button on your mouse, drag and your selected shape will appear. The easiest way to insert an image into the shape is by right clicking on the shape. When you do so, the old drawing toolbar and a shape menu will pop up. I will now explain how to insert an image by using each of those tools.

The Paint Bucket method: Click on the Paint Bucket drop down arrow and four options for further action appear: Fill Colors, Picture, Gradient, and Texture. Click on Picture. An Insert Picture dialog box will open. Locate the folder with your image in it and click on that image, then click on Insert at the bottom of the dialog box. Your selected image will fill the shape.

The Shape Menu method: Right click on the shape and find Format Shape at the bottom of the menu. Click on Format Shape, and then Fill. Select Picture or Texture Fill, then click Insert From: Fill. An Insert Picture dialog box will open. Locate the folder with your image in it and click on that image, then click on Insert at the bottom of the dialog box. Your selected image will fill the shape.

Once your image is inserted into a shape, the Format Shape dialog box becomes a Format Picture dialog box. Those who have worked with Adobe Photoshop or Elements may be familiar with some of the visual effects tools that Microsoft has placed in this dialog box. I’d recommend experimenting with these options: Reflection, Glow and Soft Edges, Picture Correction, Picture Color and Artistic Effect. I think you'll
be pleased with some of the effects you can produce with these tools.

Preserve Your Family History for FREE at BackupMyTree.com

2011-01-15T08:22:00.003-05:00

This morning while scanning my surname genealogy message newsgroups I ran across this sentence from one of the posters:-

"I have info on this family but only on paper since I lost everything on the computer."

The one big thing I preach in my classes over and over is to backup your genealogy. It is a must. My genealogy students have also heard this many times. My favorite word is . . . wait for it . . . FREE!

So when I saw this interesting article on the morning feed from my friend Dick Eastman, I had to check it out.

The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.eogn.com/.

BackupMyTree is a FREE (I've taught Dick well-LVH), automatic backup service that is focused exclusively on genealogy files. I have written before about BackupMyTree at http://goo.gl/gn4IO. However, the online service has matured significantly since my earlier article. New features have been added and one or two shortcomings have been corrected.

I was impressed to learn that BackupMyTree now backs up more than three terabytes of family tree data for more than 16,000 registered users. I decided to try the newest and latest version of BackupMyTree.

What happens to all your genealogy data when your hard drive crashes? Note that I wrote "WHEN your hard drive crashes," not IF it crashes. All hard drives will crash sooner or later. If you have a recent backup available, a hard drive crash can be inconvenient. If you do not have a recent backup available, the same hard drive crash will be a disaster.

BackupMyTree is designed to save you when your hard drive does crash. BackupMyTree backs up your data NOW to multiple hard drives under control of the company. Even if one of the company's hard drives later crashes, your data remains safe and secure on the remaining drives. You can restore your data at any time.

In short, BackupMyTree works with many of today's most popular genealogy programs, although not with all of them. It is an automatic backup program to preserve your data and allow you to retrieve that data at any time. BackupMyTree automatically finds and backs up industry standard GEDCOM files as well as data files created by Family Tree Maker, Personal Ancestral File, Legacy Family Tree, RootsMagic (version 4 or later), Family Tree Builder, Family Tree Legends, Ancestral Quest, Ancestry Family Tree, Reunion for Mac, and GenoPro. Note the inclusion of Reunion for Macintosh. The rest are all Windows programs.

When your hard drive crashes, you first repair the damage. Then you log back onto the BackupMyTree.com service and download any or all of your genealogy files. Your genealogy information is preserved.

Of course, BackupMyTree has many other uses besides recovering from hardware failures. First of all, it protects you from the "OOOPS Factor." That is, the accidental deletion of information. Security experts tell us that more data is lost by human error than by all the hardware failures combined. BackupMyTree provides protection against both problems. In fact, BackupMyTree stores previous versions of your family tree file should anything become corrupted. This feature can also come in handy when you accidentally add or delete data and need to revert to an earlier version of your own files.

Another use of BackupMyTree is when you are at a friend's house or even at a genealogy conference. You can easily grab that family tree file you left at home from anywhere you can access a web browser.

Note that BackupMyTree is designed to back up only your genealogy files, not everything on your hard drive.

The thing that fascinates me most about BackupMyTree is how it automatically finds and backs up your files. With most other online backup products, you have to specify what files or folders to back up. Of course, these other products assume you are a knowledgeable computer user and that you know where every file of importance is stored on your own hard drive.

BackupMyTree takes a different approach. When the software is installed on your computer, it (optionally) searches for every GEDCOM file and every file created by any of the software products mentioned earlier. All of the files it finds are added to the list of files to be backed up. While I always know where my primary databases are stored, BackupMyTree is really good at finding those miscellaneous files I had forgotten about. I didn't remember that small GEDCOM file a cousin sent me by email but BackupMyTree found it in my email program and backed it up, all without any intervention by me.

Of course, there are many options. I have described the default actions. However, each user can override most of the default settings and customize BackupMyTree as he or she pleases.

In fact, it isn't even necessary to install software in your computer. I suspect that most users will install the BackupMyTree software for Windows. After all, it provides the most convenient use of the service. However, for those who wish to do everything manually, you can upload files using the manual upload system. BackupMyTree will store the files for you with all the same protections as if you're using the software.

One of the recent changes to BackupMyTree is the ability to exclude groups of files. Previously, you could only exclude files one by one, a tedious process if you had hundreds of files. The latest version now includes a checkbox that says: Allow Multiple Selections, allowing the user to easily exclude or include multiple files in a much easier way.

The online service also recently added the ability to upload genealogy files that are ZIP'd. The code is intelligent; you can put as many trees into a ZIP as you like. This is great for users who use the manual upload function and who don't want to install the Windows software client.

Security of your data is an issue with any online backup service. With BackupMyTree, your family tree files are protected by 128-bit SSL security during transfer from your computer to the servers. Nobody can intercept your data while it is being sent via SSL encryption. Next, your family tree files are stored on Amazon's S3 storage infrastructure so you can be sure it's safe and secure. Amazon even stores multiple copies of all data so there's no risk that a file will be destroyed by a hardware failure in a server. For a detailed explanation of the security being used, read Overview of Security Processes at http://aws.amazon.com/articles/1697

The use of BackupMyTree is automatic. If you install the software and use the default settings, the software will automatically make frequent backups of your genealogy data. The first backup will take several hours if you have a lot of data. Later backups will perform quickly as they only back up the new information recently added. The previous information is already resident on the servers so there is no need to keep backing up the same information time and time again. Should you need to restore the data, BackupMyTree will automatically retrieve what information you specify and assemble it into one dataset. You never have to combine retrieved files to get what you want; BackupMyTree does that for you automatically.

Backups are performed simultaneously while you are using the computer for other tasks. The backups might slow the computer down slightly while a backup is in progress. However, most users report they don't notice any change in computer operations.

Did I mention that all of this is FREE?

OK, now what is your excuse now for not backing up the genealogy files that required hundreds of hours for you to research and create?

BackupMyTree is supported on Windows XP, Vista, and on Windows 7. It reportedly works on earlier versions of Windows as well but is not officially supported on those older products.

BackupMyTree provides fast, automatic backup and off-site storage for all of your family tree files. All of the most popular family tree file formats are supported. You can retrieve any or all of your files at any time. It is FREE, simple, easy, safe and secure.

I rarely recommend specific products but I am recommending this one. BackupMyTree should be installed on every genealogist's Windows computer.

You can learn more about this great free service at https://www.backupmytree.com/.

Preservation Tip of the Month--Care and Management of CD-ROMs/DVDs

2011-01-15T08:01:00.000-05:00

From the Genealogy Gems newsletter (No. 82, December 31, 2010) published by the Fort Wayne Library:

During the holidays, you’ve likely took a number of digital pictures, and perhaps even exchanged information electronically with a family member. As your thoughts turn to backing up that data and you plan to use CD-ROMs or DVDs, we have a couple of common-sense tips for you.

*Use a soft marker to label the disks.

*If you're going to use a label, use one that covers the surface evenly. Don't use something like a return address label, as it will make the disc off-balance in today's high-speed drives, causing damage to the disc and/or the drive.

*Burn more than one copy, and store a copy in a different location than the computer. If your house burns down, the back-up disk doesn't do you any good if it was laying next to the computer.

*Check your media periodically, perhaps once every six months. If something is wrong, immediately burn another copy from one of the other backup disks.

*Use only high-quality media. In most cases, you do get what you're paying for.

*Don't use re-writable CDs or DVDs. The chemical process that allows the recording media to be written onto repeatedly is not as stable over the long term.

Legacy Tip: How to create a 2011 birthday / anniversary calendar using Legacy Family Tree

2011-01-14T06:35:00.000-05:00

Now that the new year is here, why not resolve to be a better relative by remembering family birthdays and anniversaries? Two features of Legacy Family Tree makes this easy to do:

•Legacy's birthday and anniversary reminders described here.
•Legacy's Calendar Creator.

Legacy can create a birthday calendar, an anniversary calendar, or a combination of the two. There are options to include a cover picture, picture pages above each calendar month, and complete control over color, layout, shadows, fonts, page size, and more. The calendars can be blank or include the birthdates and anniversaries of the people already entered in your family file.

That's right! Because the information (birthdays and anniversaries) is already in your Legacy family file, Legacy will automatically add this to the calendar pages. With the who to include options, you can customize the calendar so only certain family lines are included. You even have the option to skip the anniversaries of divorced couples.

You can get started by clicking on this link.

Google Earth 6 now available (free)

2011-01-13T18:41:00.006-05:00

Google Earth has done it again. And this time, genealogists will be dancing with excitement.

After viewing the new Historical Imagery video for the newly-released Google Earth 6, I can't wait to start using these new tools. In Google Earth 6, you can travel back in time to see imagery from previous years.

You can download Google Earth 6 at http://earth.google.com . Watch the Historical Imagery video below.

Genealogy Tip - Are You Building Your Own Brick Walls?

2011-01-13T18:09:00.001-05:00

By Joan Young as published in the Rootsweb Review:

It's a new year, a new opportunity to dust off some of your trickiest research issues and take another crack at finding the answers.

We all have them--brick walls, impossible to locate ancestors who we swear arrived on a mother ship from Mars and plopped full-grown in the place we first found them leaving no trail or records in their wake. Mind you, these elusive ancestors lived well before the days of the Witness Protection Program. They probably were not spies or secret agents whose identity was changed or hidden. They most likely didn't need protection from the bad guys (or maybe the good guys) despite possible family stories to the contrary.

Granted there are occasions where there simply is no evidence to be found for your brick wall ancestor, but there may also be instances where your approach to breaking down the wall may need some fine tuning.

Here are a few suggestions for taking a New Year's shot at cracking those long-standing brick walls.

1) If you have only considered that your SMITHs are English expand your horizons if you have no direct proof of ethnicity. Take a look at who your John SMITH married and what community he lived in and his religious affiliation. You may find that John SMITH was originally Johan SCHMIDT. Being locked into assumptions of ethnicity can result in building your own brick wall.

2) Did your Aunt Susie tell you great-grandmother Matilda was a "Cherokee Princess?" Examine anything you can find about Matilda such as census records and place of birth before you run off to check Cherokee records. Even if you don't know Matilda's maiden name, clues such as her birth location could help you establish whether Aunt Susie was on the mark or not. Since Native Americans didn't use titles such as "Princess" the use of this term could be an indication that not everything you were told was completely accurate even if there is a kernel of truth to the story.

3) Have you been accepting the family trees you found online which list no sources for your John SMITH in Arkansas being the same John SMITH who fought for the Union in the Civil War from Maine? Family trees are a great resource, but make sure you personally verify sources for the data you find there. Do not accept online unsourced information at face value. If no sources are given, contact the database submitter, when possible, to learn where they got their facts. Finding multiple trees or messages listing "facts" with no sources is no guarantee of accuracy. Others may simply have copied from the original submitter.

4) Have you given up on finding your SMITH ancestors because you searched everything online and off last year and the year before and found nothing? Thousands of new records are added online and placed in files at your local historical society library (or a society in the area where you first located your SMITHs) every year. Always start off the New Year with a fresh search to see what might have come to light or been digitized since you last checked.

The point of all of these suggestions is to keep an open mind, don't jump to conclusions, and while not ignoring family stories and lore, consider other possibilities as well. Follow where the evidence trail leads you rather than leaping to conclusions or jumping at illogical connections.

If you do make new discoveries about elusive brick wall ancestors be sure to post them online in an updated family tree, or on a message board or mailing list. Sharing what you have learned will help others and provide them with an opportunity to share any additional data they uncover with you.

Happy hunting in 2011!

Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 12 January 2011, Vol. 14, No. 1

Two New Family History Blogs

2011-01-11T17:37:00.002-05:00

Thanks to the favorable response and feedback we have received from visitors to this blog, Gayle and I have now moved our family history information to new separate genealogy blogs. We will continue to focus on general genealogy information and announcements on this blog.

You can find information on all of Gayle's family history on her new blog at
http://gayle-family-history.blogspot.com/

You can find information on all of Larry's family history on his new blog at
http://larry-family-history.blogspot.com/

Hope you enjoy the new look and continue to watch this blog for new stuff of general interest to the genealogist and family historian.

Legacy 7.5 receives FamilySearch certifications - to be released January 17, 2011

2010-12-31T16:46:00.002-05:00

Legacy Family Tree 7.5 has now received official FamilySearch certification in four new categories and will be available as a free update for both Standard and Deluxe edition users on Monday, January 17, 2011.

For years, FamilySearch has worked on developing a web application for researchers to be able to interact with a very large, unified database of connected genealogical information. This new system is being released in phases - first for members of the LDS church while it is tested and perfected, and then to the public. This new database, commonly known as "New FamilySearch" is the database with which Legacy 7.5 will interact. All other databases, including the new Historical Records, Family Trees, and Library Catalog are currently open to everyone at www.FamilySearch.org.

Who should install this update?

Everyone. Although the only major new feature in the 7.5 update will be the addition of more new FamilySearch integration tools, there will be dozens of minor additions and fixes for everyone. However, gaining access to the new FamilySearch databases requires an account. Currently, registering for a new account is restricted to members of the LDS church.

New FamilySearch Certifications

•Sync - ability to keep FamilySearch family tree current with Legacy's information for selected persons and information (optional - you do not have to share anything if you do not desire)

•Update - publish to new.familysearch.org family tree. Also includes request to combine matched individuals (also optional)

•Ordinance Reservation (LDS-specific) - identify persons needing ordinances, prepare for Ordinance Request, and check for duplicate ordinances

•Ordinance Request (LDS-specific) - request ordinances in order to print the ordinance cards

Previous FamilySearch Certifications

•Access - search and read new.familysearch.org family tree

•Print - print multiple reports and charts using online data from FamilySearch

•Ordinance Status (LDS-specific) - read and display ordinance status information

•PAF Import - PAF data can be imported into Legacy for use in the tree

We also expect to be certified in the "Helper" category for this update.

I want to remind the local genealogists here in western North Carolina that I will be teaching Legacy classes starting the second week of January 2011. I will be teaching both beginner and advanced Legacy Family Tree software classes at Tri-County Community College in Peachtree, NC, during this Spring semester. Seating is very limited and on a first paid registration, first seated basis only. Cost is only $55 for each of the 13 week courses. You don't want to miss this one, so after the New Years holiday, call the campus at 828-837-6810 and ask for Lisa Long to get on the list.

FamilySearch Wraps Up Genealogical Gifts for the Holiday Season

2010-12-16T16:07:00.003-05:00

FamilySearch Wraps Up Genealogical Gifts for the Holiday Season

Nearly 4 million images added from 7 countries
Nearly four million new digital images are now available on Beta.FamilySearch.org. These collections include the first images from South Africa, as well as records from Brazil, Canada, Germany, Guatemala, the Netherlands, and the United States. About 1.7 million of these records are indexed.

See the chart below for the complete list of newly added or updated collections.

Project Digital Images Indexed Records Comments
Brazil, Catholic Church Records 100,110 0 New images added to existing collection
Canada, Quebec Catholic Parish Registers, 1621-1900 85 79,936 New records linked to images; most images already published
Germany, Hessen, Darmstadt City Records, 1627-1939 55,528 0 New images
Guatemala, Civil Registration, 1877-1934 0 22,448 New records added to existing collection
Netherlands, Civil Registration, 1792-1952 1,505,610 0 Images added to existing collection
Netherlands, Zuid-Holland Province Civil Registration 6,349 0 New images
South Africa, Orange Free State, estate files, 1951-1973 79,466 15,879 New records linked to images; multiple images per record
U.S., Maryland, Register of Wills Books, 1792-1983 62,763 0 New images
U.S., Minnesota Territorial Census, 1857 342 156,888 New records linked to images; most images already published
U.S., North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762-1979 39,836 45,204 New records linked to images; partial collection, with more images to come
U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 2,040,944 1,371,394
New records linked to images; includes the states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Blog Disclosure Statement

2010-09-01T17:07:00.000-04:00

This policy is valid from 1 September 2010

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200 Million More Historic Records See the Light of Day

2010-08-19T05:23:00.001-04:00

As the nation’s genealogical societies gather in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference this week to share tips and tricks for finding one’s elusive ancestors, there will certainly be some clamoring over an unexpected gift from FamilySearch, a world leader in historic records preservation and access. FamilySearch announced the addition of over 200 million new searchable historic records online representing 18 countries. The new records were added to the hundreds of millions FamilySearch published earlier this year at a similar event in Salt Lake City, Utah. The total number of records on the pilot site totals 700 million.

The latest deluge of records includes 53 new or updated collections from the United States, and over 100 million new records from Europe, Scandinavia, and Mexico. The United States collections include the 1910 U.S. Census, and states’ birth, marriage, and death records. There are 10 million new records for New Jersey and Michigan respectively, 4 million from Tennessee, an amazing 41 million from Massachusetts, and much more from other states.

“Some time ago, FamilySearch committed to creating access to the world’s genealogical records online in a big way. Today’s updates are part of an ongoing effort to make good on those commitments,” said Paul Nauta, FamilySearch public affairs manager. “We have only just begun,” Nauta concluded.

In the U.S., FamilySearch is focusing currently on digitizing and publishing online federal and state censuses, and state birth, marriage, and death records. When complete, the initiative will provide a definitive collection of U.S. genealogical resources for family history researchers.

In addition to the new U.S. collections, over 100 million records were added to FamilySearch’s international collections online—making it most likely the largest international genealogy collection online. The new international databases come from birth, marriage, and death records, and from municipal records. (Go to FamilySearch.org, then click Search Records, then click Records Search pilot) to see a full list of the free collections. The records will soon be available also at beta.familysearch.org.

“What makes today’s announcement even more impressive is that FamilySearch uses predominantly a growing corps of volunteers to accomplish the task of digitizing and indexing the records for online publication. That’s also in large part how we can do it for free, how it can be done at no cost to the patron,” said Nauta. Currently, 350,000 volunteers worldwide log on to FamilySearchIndexing.org and use FamilySearch’s proprietary software to view digital images of historic documents of personal interest and type in the desired information. FamilySearch then creates a free, searchable index of the historic collections online for the public to use.

Families Genealogy App for iPhone, iTouch, iPad

2010-08-17T08:17:00.004-04:00

Telgen Ltd has released a fabulous new genealogy app for the iSeries of devices that interfaces directly with the Legacy Family Tree Software. The new software package is called Families.

Using this new software package, Legacy family files can be easily transferred from a PC to your iPhone, iTouch or iPad, enabling them to be viewed and edited wherever you are. Families supports the following functionality:

• Multiple family files
• New family files can be created from scratch
• Family View and Pedigree View
• Index, searchable by Given Name, Surname or RIN
• Events
• To Do Lists
• Master and Detail Sources
• Locations and Addresses, with geolocation via Google Maps
• Alternate Names
• Pictures, including the ability to add pictures from camera or photo album
• Portrait and Landscape mode on all views
• Full screen support on the iPad
• Legacy file versions 6 and 7 are supported

Families uses a highly efficient database implementation, allowing very large family files to be supported. Users have successfully displayed and edited files containing over 300,000 individuals on an iPhone.

You can see some iPhone screens shots at http://www.telgen.co.uk/families/iphone/iphone.html.

Legacy is the premier genealogy software package that I recommend to my genealogy students, and now if you have one of the iSeries of devices, you can take your genealogy with you literally in your pocket. The app sells for $14.99 through the iTunes store and has our highest recommendation if you are a Legacy / iPhone / iTouch / iPad user.

Tennessee Page on FamilySearch Research Wiki

2010-08-17T07:57:00.002-04:00

The Tennessee page on the FamilySearch Research Wiki has recently been updated and now includes a wealth of new information and resources to help people find their ancestors in the Volunteer State. The link for this revised page is: http://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Tennessee.

The FamilySearch Research Wiki is a free resource created by the genealogy community. The core content for the Tennessee page was contributed by the expert researchers at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The page also includes tips and research advice from local experts.

The Wiki staff is currently working on updating all of the state pages; Tennessee is one of the first because the 2010 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference will be held in Knoxville August 18 to 21. For more information about the FGS conference, please visit: http://www.fgs.org/2010conference/index.php.

Page Highlights

· A clickable county map on the main page
· Easy navigation at the bottom of each page
· How to find Tennessee sources in archives, libraries, in print, and online
· Information on substitute sources when records are lost
· Local lists of published family histories
· Links to published Tennessee county tax lists
· Audio files of locals pronouncing Tennessee county names
· Contact information for volunteers who will look up information in local resources

Newberry Library Announces the Digital Atlas of Historical County Boundaries

2010-07-15T08:57:00.003-04:00

Courtesy of Dick Eastman's EOGN, the following announcement was written by the Newberry Library:

The Newberry Library is pleased to announce the completion and release of its Digital Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, a dataset that covers every day-to-day change in the size, shape, location, name, organization, and attachment of each U.S. county and state from the creation of the first county in 1634 through 2000.

Nearly every aspect of American life can be described, analyzed, and illuminated through data gathered and organized by county or available in county records, and knowing how and when boundaries changed is often the key to finding and understanding great quantities of historical data. For example, a farm may have been in one family for many generations, but over the decades changes in county lines may have effectively moved that farm from one county to another. When looking for old family records, how does the modern genealogist know which county seat will hold great-grandmother’s marriage certificate? How does an attorney know which county seat recorded the deed to great-great-grandfather’s farm?

In addition, population figures are commonly aggregated at the county level, but comparing statistics from one enumeration to the next may not accurately reveal actual change. Was a change in the figures from census to census due to population movement or to a change in the boundaries of the reporting counties, or to a combination of both?

With the Newberry’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, genealogists, geographers, historians, political scientists, attorneys, demographers, and many more now can find accurate county data that will greatly assist them in their research.

The data are organized by state and are available online in four versions:

Viewable, interactive maps (electronic analogues to printed maps) on which the historical lines have been plotted against a background of the modern county network

Downloadable shapefiles for use in geographic information systems (GIS)

Downloadable KMZ files for use with Google Earth

Downloadable and printable PDF files (each full-page frame shows a map of a different version of each county, with the historical boundaries displayed against a background of the modern county network)

Supplementing the polygons and maps for each state are chronologies, commentary on historical problems, long and short metadata documents, and a bibliography.

The project began in 1988, with principal funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. Additional support came from the Newberry Library, which also served as headquarters, and from other foundations and individuals. The Newberry Library is the copyright holder; all files of the Digital Atlas of Historical County Boundaries are free for use under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Creative Commons License. Queries should be addressed to scholl@newberry.org. The Website for the Atlas is http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp

NMDA Sponsors Yorktown Historical Dig

2010-06-22T10:33:00.010-04:00

The board of directors of the Nicolas Martiau Descendant Association (NMDA) recently voted to fund a very special archaeological project that could have major significance to the descendants of the progenitor of their family association - Nicolas Martiau.

In 2003, the James River Institute for Archaeology, Inc., conducted a preliminary archaeological survey of Lots 110, 113, 114, and 115 in Yorktown, Virginia, that are owned by York County. These lots are located within the city of Yorktown between Buckner and Martiau Streets. The survey consisted of several hand excavated test pits and two machine-cut trenches. The survey discovered several potentially significant archaeological remains including British Redoubt No. 1, a dwelling and outbuildings from colonial Yorktown, evidence related to Nicolas Martiau's settlement, and intact layers dating from the Chiskiack Indian period through the 17th and 18th centuries.

As the article below indicates the NMDA funded the use of ground penetrating radar survey on the site recently in the hopes that artifacts of our early ancestor and his family may be found.

This is appear to be a first for any family lineage based organization, financially supporting an attempt to recover family artifacts that date back to nearly the first settlers of this country in the early 17th century in colonial Virginia/Jamestown/Yorktown.

So who is Nicolas Martiau and why is he so important in the history of this country?

You get a glimpse of him in an excerpt from the Daily Press, Newport News, VA., Thursday, September 27, 1973, Martiau: A Common Ancestor - Father of America's Fathers Studied

"First in peace, first in war, first in the hearts of his countrymen ... This accolade, describing George Washington - America's first president - surely must continue to strike a note of pride in his now ancestors.

"And there are quite a number, according to Robert Clay of Richmond. Clay is a descendant of Nicolas Martiau, first known forebear of Washington in this country. Clay, who is a staff member of the Virginia State Library in Richmond, says Martiau "is kin to half the people in the English-speaking world.

"John Baer Stoudt authored a book titled Nicolas Martiau - Adventurous Huguenot, in which he describes his subject as the earliest American ancestor of both General George Washington and Governor Thomas Nelson.

"There was a distinct French Huguenot strain in the lineage of Governor Washington," he says. "It came to him from his first American ancestor, Nicolas Martiau, a Huguenot refugee who came to Virginia in 1620. This resulted in Washington's blend of Cavalier and Huguenot, Stoudt observes.

"Stoudt further states that Martiau, who was the personal representative of Henry, Fifth Earl of Huntington, was naturalized in England before coming to Virginia. In this country, he served in the House of Burgesses, and was appointed a justice. He was a member of the Virginia Company. With the rapid growth of "adventure," Stoudt says, "and with the great increase in the value of the trade with the mother country, it became evident of the need for fortifications in the colony."

"Henry sent Martiau and another to Virginia at his own expense. Stoudt opines that the Earl apparently obtained for Martiau, the special form of naturalization granted only by proclamation. This gave him the right to acquire property and privilege to vote and hold office.

"Martiau was 33 years old, when he came to Virginia in the sailing ship, Francis Bona Ventura - one of 153 passengers. He selected places for palisades and fortifications at Yorktown; at Fort Story; and at Old Point Comfort, Fort Monroe, one of the oldest forts in America.

"In 1632, Martiau took his seat in the House of Burgesses as a representative from Yorktown and Isle of Kent.

"The Martiau Plantation comprised 1300 acres including the site of Yorktown. For his dwelling, he selected the high bluff on the curve of the York River as it widens to the Chesapeake Bay. This patent is in the Land Office at Richmond, and contains his family's name. His will is on file in the State Library. In his will, he provides for, and sets free his two Negro servants. This gesture antedated similar actions by George Washington a century and a half later. Washington was one of the first slave owners – if not the first to do so.

"The Courts of Virginia," Stoudt says, were "much like county courts of England. The first court at which Martiau sat was July 12, 1633. His last appearance was on Sept. 24, 1655. Occasionally, the court met at Martiau's home.

"Martiau's wife was the widow of an army lieutenant, according to Stoudt. Nothing is known of her arrival, or of her maiden name, he says. "It seems that the family name of the earliest maternal ancestor in Virginia of George Washington, must remain unknown," he continues.

"Jane Martiau died before 1640, and was buried most likely in the family burial plot not far from the big house, Stoudt says. Also buried there are Captain Nicolas Martiau Sr., and his son, Nicolas Martiau Jr., who never attained majority. Other children were Elizabeth, (married to Col George Reade. Mary) married to Col. John Scarsbrook, leader in Bacon's Rebellion, Sarah was married to Capt. William Fuller, Puritan Governor of Maryland.

"The gravestones of Elizabeth Martiau, and her husband, Colonel George Read, are in Yorktown's Grace Episcopal Church graveyard. The ledgers were discovered during excavations on Buckner Street, Yorktown. They were restored and preserved in 1931 by another Martiau descendant - Letitia Pate Evans. The colonial town's Read Street is named for Colonel Read, according to a native Yorktownian.

You can learn more about the Nicolas Martiau Descendants Association on their website at http://www.nicolasmartiau.org/.

Genealogist who can prove descend from Nicolas Martiau are eligible for membership in the Nicolas Martiau Descendant Association (NMDA). A six generation descendants chart in pdf format is available at the URL below and if you can prove a connection to anyone on that chart, you would be eligible for membership in the NMDA.

Nicolas Martiau Six Generation Descendants Chart

Your blog reporter serves as the National Registrar of the NMDA and I will be happy to assist anyone with their membership application into the Association. You can contact me at the email in the masthead above.

NARA Lists Microfilm Pubs and Orig Recs Digitized by Partners

2010-06-19T07:43:00.003-04:00

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has posted a list of all the documents that have been digitized and placed online by its commercial partners Ancestry.com and Footnote.com. If you want to see what is available online go to http://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners.html.

The list is arranged in alpha-numeric order by NARA microfilm publication number. Original records that have been digitized will have "Original records" listed in the microfilm publication number column. The list can be re-sorted by clicking on any of the column headings. Clicking on the titles in the list will direct you to the web sites of our partners.

The Social Security Death Index and Ordering SS-5 Copies Online

2010-05-15T08:13:00.002-04:00

This genealogy tip by Joan Young is courtesy of the Rootsweb Review 12 May 2010 Vol. 13 No. 5.

My August 2008 article covered using RootsWeb's Social Security Death Index (SSDI) database. As a follow-up to my article I want to share a little more about the SSDI.

The article explained the procedure for ordering copies of the original SS-5 by mail. While the form that generates a request letter is still available on RootsWeb's SSDI page, the Social Security Administration now has an online order process which promises a much faster turn-around time and greater ease of ordering via credit card.

The online order form is located on a secure server on the SSA Web site. Both a photocopy of the original SS-5 or a computer extract called a "numident" may be ordered. As a rule, genealogists use an SS-5 because they want to learn the place of birth and/or the parents' names of the deceased account holder. The computer extract would usually not provide parents' names, so it would be of little value for genealogists if this is the information you are seeking.

Information obtained from the Social Security Administration based upon the SSDI is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which applies to deceased individuals. You can find the FOIA guidelines here. In some cases, the Privacy Act may also apply. Information covered under the Privacy Act is discussed here. The Privacy Act covers the living as well as those individuals who may be presumed by the SSA to still be living.

The individuals found in the SSDI at RootsWeb are deceased; however, the parents who are identified on the SS-5 copy may still be living. The SSA will not release the parents' names unless the parents are proven to be deceased (you would be required to submit proof of death) or, based upon the information included in the SS-5, it could be presumed that the parents would currently be one hundred and twenty (or more) years old. This is the cut-off age the SSA uses at present when processing FOIA requests when there is no actual proof that a named individual is deceased.

Keeping the above guidelines in mind will be helpful in deciding whether it would be worthwhile to request an SS-5 copy from the SSA. You will also be able to avoid needlessly paying for information that the SSA may not divulge under The Privacy Act. If the wage earner on the account would currently be under one hundred years of age the SSA is unlikely to release parental information where there is no proof of death on file for the parents.

Additional information in using the RootsWeb SSDI can also be found here:
http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ssdi/
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rwguide/lesson10.htm

FamilySearch - Over 300 Million New Names Added Online

2010-05-03T12:14:00.003-04:00

There were over 150 new collections added or enhanced this week at FamilySearch.org. FamilySearch volunteers indexed over 120 million records—over 300 million new names—from original source documents to accomplish this great feat. The massive release was announced this past week at the National Genealogical Society annual conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The records can be found at FamilySearch’s Record Search pilot (FamilySearch.org, click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot) or Beta.FamilySearch.org.

See below for the complete list of all the newly added or improved collections.

Collection Name Time Frame Records Indexed

Argentina Baptisms, 1645—1930 4,209,653
Argentina Marriages, 1722—1911 150,895
Australia Deaths and Burials, 1816—1980 106,767
Austria Births and Baptisms, 1651—1940 88,885
Austria Burials, 1768 – 1918 31,756
Austria Marriages, 1722 — 1898 25,383
Bahamas Births, 1550—1891 53,476
Barbados Baptisms, 1739—1891 222,010
Barbados Burials, 1854—1885 92,226
Barbados Marriages, 1854—1879 15,666
Belgium Births and Baptisms, 1560—1890 354,038
Belgium Deaths and Burials, 1564—1900 67,182
Brazil Baptisms, 1688—1935 3,597,609
Brazil Deaths, 1750—1890 43,931
Brazil Marriages, 1730—1955 475,107
Canada Births and Baptisms, 1661—1959 2,160,243
Canada Deaths and Burials, 1664—1955 101,189
Canada Marriages, 1661—1949 262,982
- British Columbia Death Registrations, 1872—1986 928,851
- British Columbia Marriage Registrations, 1859—1932 124,593
- New Brunswick Births, 1819—1899 25,414
- Nova Scotia Births, 1702—1896 125,791
- Nova Scotia Marriages, 1711—1909 32,245
- Ontario Births, 1779—1899 455,469
- Ontario Marriages, 1800—1910 28,574
- Quebec Births, 1662—1898 27,212
Caribbean Births, 1590—1928 438,073
Caribbean Deaths, 1790—1906 13,088
Caribbean Marriages, 1591—1905 88,186
Costa Rica Baptisms, 1700—1915 176,574
Costa Rica Deaths, 1787—1900 31,505
Costa Rica Marriages, 1750—1920 57,849
Czech Republic Births, 1637—1889 33,062
Czech Republic Marriages, 1654—1889 12,698
Dominican Republic Baptisms, 1726—1924 114,209
Dominican Republic Deaths, 1666—1862 14,636
Dominican Republic Marriages, 1743—1929 31,992
Ecuador Baptisms, 1680—1930 593,710
Ecuador Deaths, 1800—1920 43,852
Ecuador Marriages, 1680—1930 271,061
El Salvador Baptisms, 1750—1940 218,500
El Salvador Marriages, 1810—1930 28,162
France Deaths and Burials, 1546—1960 347,368
France Marriages, 1546—1924 1,397,204
Germany Births and Baptisms, 1558—1898 33,749,332
Gibraltar Marriages, 1879—1918 2,201
Gibraltar Births and Baptisms, 1704—1876 30,515
Great Britain Deaths and Burials, 1778—1988 69,278
Great Britain Marriages, 1797—1988 22,036
- Channel Islands Births and Baptisms, 1820—1907 41,647
- Isle of Man Births and Baptisms, 1821—1911 224,489
- Isle of Man Deaths and Burials, 1844—1911 42,389
- Isle of Man Marriages, 1849—1911 42,662
- Wales, Births and Baptisms, 1586—1907 773,392
- Wales, Deaths and Burials, 1586—1885 15,109
- Wales, Marriages, 1541—1900 39,630
Grenada Births and Baptisms, 1866—1891 33,239
Guatemala Baptisms, 1730—1917 466,223
Guatemala Deaths, 1760—1880 20,921
Guatemala Marriages, 1750—1930 112,610
Honduras Baptisms, 1730—1930 220,317
Honduras Marriages, 1800—1910 31,686
Hungary Baptisms, 1734—1895 14,210
Iceland Marriages, 1770—1920 42,954
India Births and Baptisms, 1800—1945 887,579
India Deaths and Burials, 1800—1945 566,529
India Marriages, 1800—1945 203,970
Ireland Deaths, 1864—1870 51,249
Italy Births and Baptisms, 1806—1900 1,940,693
Italy Deaths and Burials, 1809—1900 438,494
Jamaica Births and Baptisms, 1752—1920 331,497
Luxembourg Births, 1662—1840 7,835
Luxembourg Deaths, 1702—1798 1,554
Luxembourg Marriages, 1700—1810 1471
Mexico Deaths, 1680—1940 362,067
Mexico Marriages, 1570—1950 6,232,176
Panama Baptisms, 1750—1938 269,054
Panama Deaths, 1840—1930 21,463
Panama Marriages, 1800—1950 39,839
Paraguay Baptisms, 1800—1930 101,337
Paraguay Marriages, 1800—1900 14,400
Peru Baptisms, 1556—1930 4,013,461
Peru Deaths, 1750—1930 101,257
Peru Marriages, 1600—1940 443,248
Philippines Births and Baptisms, 1642—1994 334,139
Philippines Deaths and Burials, 1726—1957 5,128,622
Philippines Marriages, 1723—1957 2,247,381
Portugal Baptisms, 1570—1910 424,354
Portugal Deaths, 1640—1910 100,234
Portugal Marriages, 1670—1910 59,735
Russia Births and Baptisms, 1755—1917 170,844
Russia Deaths and Burials, 1815—1917 100,647
Russia Marriages, 1793—1919 33,559
Samoa Baptisms, 1863—1940 28,013
Samoa Burials, 1895—1970 42,061
Spain Deaths, 1600—1920 186,259
Sweden Baptisms, 1611—1920 9,280,828
Sweden Burials, 1649-1920 1,207,501
Sweden Marriages, 1630-1920 2,243,064
Switzerland Baptisms, 1491-1940 1,001,685
Switzerland Burials, 1613-1875 138,011
Switzerland Marriages, 1532-1910 268,739
Switzerland, Basel City Church Books, 1380-1917 Images Only
Switzerland, Schaffhausen Genealogies and City Directories, 1460-1952 Images Only
Ukraine, Births and Baptisms 14,166
Uruguay Marriages, 1840—1900 19,810
United States 1910 Federal Census (AZ, CA, DE, FL) 4,078,117
United States Births, 1867—1931 20,946
United States Deaths, 1867—1961 3,705
United States Marriages, 1733—1990 7,176
- Arizona Births and Christenings, 1909—1917 27,483
- Arizona Deaths, 1910—1911; 1993—1994 10,168
- Arizona Marriages, 1888—1908 75,094
- Arkansas Births and Christenings, 1880—1893 11,724
- Arkansas Deaths and Burials, 1882—1929; 1945—1963 38,956
- Arkansas Marriages, 1837—1944 1,005,608
- Delaware Births and Christenings, 1710—1896 30,298
- Delaware Deaths and Burials, 1815—1955 209,592
- Delaware Marriages, 1713—1953 70,024
- District of Columbia Births and Christenings, 1830—1955 121,224
- District of Columbia Deaths and Burials, 1840—1964 372,173
- District of Columbia Marriages, 1830—1921 242,760
- Florida Births and Christenings, 1880—1935 28,301
- Florida Deaths and Burials, 1900—1921 24,800
- Florida Marriages, 1837—1974 860,110
- Hawaii Births and Christenings, 1852—1933 150,992
- Hawaii Deaths and Burials, 1862—1919 105,519
- Hawaii Marriages, 1826—1922 103,871
- Idaho Births and Christenings, 1856—1965 75,881
- Idaho Deaths and Burials, 1907—1965 31,253
- Idaho Marriages, 1878—1898/1903—1942 88,588
- Kansas Births and Christenings, 1818—1936 59,392
- Kansas Deaths and Burials, 1885—1930 39,907
- Kansas Marriages, 1840—1935 378,903
- Kentucky Births and Christenings, 1839—1960 547,119
- Kentucky Deaths and Burials, 1843—1970 1,971,681
- Kentucky Marriages, 1785—1979 1,532,718
- Louisiana Births, Christenings, 1811—1830; 1854—1934 16,890
- Louisiana Marriages, 1816—1906 129,641
- Maine Births and Christenings, 1739—1900 940,882
- Maine Deaths and Burials, 1841—1910 172,879
- Maine Marriages, 1771—1907 597,508
- Maryland Births and Christenings, 1650—1995 206,288
- Maryland Deaths and Burials, 1877—1992 11,686
- Maryland Marriages, 1666—1970 253,727
- Montana Marriages, 1889—1947 197,930
- New Mexico Births and Christenings, 1726—1918 435,411
- New Mexico Deaths, 1788—1798; 1838—1955 9,627
- New Mexico Marriages, 1751—1918 93,387
- New York Births and Christenings, 1640—1962 1,351,166
- New York Deaths and Burials, 1795—1952 701,396
- New York Marriages, 1686—1980 859,927
- North Carolina Births and Christenings, 1866—1964 156,156
- North Carolina Deaths and Burials, 1898—1994 2,742,609
- North Carolina Marriages, 1759—1979 2,128,391
- Ohio Deaths and Burials, 1854—1997 2,535,557
- Oregon Births and Christenings, 1868—1929 70,253
- Oregon Deaths and Burials, 1903—1947 29,035
- Oregon Marriages, 1853—1935 57,523
- South Dakota State Census+1921, 1935 673,322
- Tennessee County Marriages, 1790—1950 10,145
- Utah Births and Christenings, 1892—1941 48,049
- Utah Deaths, 1888—1946 148,933
- Utah Marriages, 1887—1966 308,854
- Vermont Births and Christenings, 1765—1908 402,329
- Vermont Deaths, 1871—1965 235,415
- Vermont Marriages, 1791—1974 185,433
- Virginia Deaths and Burials, 1853—1912 785,241
- West Virginia Births and Christenings, 1853—1928 544,589
- West Virginia Deaths and Burials, 1854—1932 56,688
- West Virginia Marriages, 1854—1932 203,378
- Wyoming Marriages, 1877—1920 14,070
World Misc Births, 1534—1983 616,742
World Misc Deaths, 1767—1950 15269
World Misc Marriages, 1662—1945 28668

I will have some additional details including some new FamilySearch links in my next Finding Your Roots syndicated genealogy column.

The End of the 3.5 Inch Floppy!

2010-04-26T08:33:00.003-04:00

My good friend Dick Eastman on the EOGN blog is reporting this morning the following storey:

"Technology marches on. Sony has announced on its Japanese website that the company will be ending sales of the classic 3.5 inch floppy disk in the country in March of 2011. Whether you still have a 3.5 inch floppy drive in your computer or not will make little difference if you cannot purchase the disks."

You can read the rest of the article in Dick's blog at
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/04/the-end-of-the-35-inch-floppy.html

Who Do You Think You Are?

2010-04-05T08:10:00.001-04:00

Local Family Historian to Conduct Free Genealogy Seminar

A new prime time NBC network television program on Friday nights has sparked an amazing revolution in the world of genealogy research. The new program, Who Do You Think You Are?, has inspired many would-be genealogist to take up the mantle and research their family roots. While the program provides the viewer the motivation to research their family history, it is short on actual details of how to conduct the process.

First, there is no such thing as an ordinary family. Each one has its own stories: the black sheep, the Civil War hero, the ancestors who fled to the United States, or the lost family fortune. No matter how plain you think your background is, chances are there is a saga just waiting to be discovered by you and your family. So if you are interested in researching your family history, a special program will be presented in April in Hayesville, to help get you started in researching your family genealogy.

Larry Van Horn, noted local family historian and syndicated newspaper columnist, will conduct a free genealogy seminar for genealogy beginners on April 10 (Saturday morning) between 9:30-11:00 a.m. at the Moss Memorial Library, 26 Anderson Street in Hayesville.

Larry, who has been teaching genealogy classes at Tri-County Community College for the last 12 years, will present material that will aid the newcomer in discovering their family's past. The program will focus on the first steps you need to get started, Internet resources you can use in your research, and some genealogy tools you can use to document your family findings.

So if you are interested in researching your past, and uncovering your family's great American story, be sure to mark April 10 from 9:30-11:30 a.m. at the Moss Memorial Library on your calendar.

RootsTelevision.com - It is going to stay on the air

2010-03-09T07:31:00.003-05:00

Just got an update from Megan and it is great news!

Dear RootsTelevision.com Viewer,

OK, you convinced me! After getting inundated with emails, tweets, and Facebook postings and messages about the closing of RootsTelevision.com (RTV), I've decided to keep it going. I honestly had no clue how valued it was by the genealogical community, and I agree with the many of you who pointed out that it serves a somewhat different purpose than the prime time programming that's on TV at present (much as I've been enjoying that!). At the same time, I think many had not realized that RTV is a one-person company, but one that's not inexpensive to provide.

Thanks very much to all you who reached out to share your thoughts and experiences. Although I haven't been able to respond to all of you, I hope you realize that your comments made all the difference in the world. Thanks also to the more than 20 individuals, organizations and companies that contacted me to explore the notion of adopting RTV. It's refreshing to know how many were willing to step in and help. I also need to thank Brightcove, the video platform used by RTV, for working with me to find viable solutions.

I should probably clarify one point of confusion. Many were under the impression that even if RootsTelevision.com closed down, the video archive would remain. Quite a few also wrote asking me to send DVDs of the videos, but with more than 700 videos on the site, popping them on a DVD is not an alternative. Hosting and streaming this wide array of videos is one of the most costly aspects, and there are rights issues involved as well, so if RTV had gone, so would have all the videos.

That's why I surveyed genealogists on Twitter and Facebook, asking whether you would be willing to tolerate commercials if it would help preserve RootsTelevision.com. I was beyond relieved how lopsided the response was! So please be aware that I will be adding commercials to help pay the bills. Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to customize them, but I'll experiment with ways to make them as painless as possible. I'd also greatly appreciate it if you let me know of any people, companies or organizations that would be interested in running banners ads on RTV. Boston University and Family Tree DNA have both helped support RTV in the past by sponsoring ads, and more of the same would help ensure that the doors of RTV stay open in the future!

Og and I are going to do a little tinkering under the hood at RTV, so you'll see fewer new videos for a while, but please use that time to explore the hundreds of videos that are already there. Please also consider uploading your own videos (podcasters welcome!) through RootsTube (http://rootstelevision.com/submit_rootstube.php) and let us know of any great genealogical videos you come across in your online travels. If we see something we like, we'll do our best to secure permission to share the video on RootsTelevision.com, so you can have the widest, high quality viewing selection possible all in one place.

And finally, I would ask that you spread the word to your friends, relatives, libraries, and genealogical societies that the lights are still on at RootsTelevision.com! The more viewers, the better – so watch often!

Thanks again,
Megan

P.S. Be sure to follow us online for new videos, announcements and special events:

Megan on Twitter - http://twitter.com/megansmolenyak
Megan on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/megansmolenyak
RTV on Twitter - http://twitter.com/rootstelevision
RTV on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/rootstv

A Fond Farewell from Roots TV

2010-02-28T19:30:00.002-05:00

Got this in the morning email. Let's hope that someone can pick up this valuable genealogical resource.

Dear RootsTelevision.com Viewer,

It's with mixed feelings that I'm sharing the news that I will be closing RootsTelevision.com (RTV) as of March 10th. Back in 2006, RTV was launched to fill a void. As I wrote at the time:

"We've been perplexed for a long time. These days, there's a horse channel, a wine channel, a sailing channel, a poker channel, a guitar channel, and even a shipwreck channel. So why, we wondered, isn't there a channel servicing the millions of people interested in genealogy and family history?"

The good news is that this yawning gap is now being filled. Genealogy is finally going mainstream. Some of you are probably already watching Faces of America on PBS and The Generations Project on BYU. And many, I'm sure, have heard of the imminent launch on NBC of Who Do You Think You Are? (a series I'm proud to be affiliated with, and for which, I wrote the companion book). The non-genealogical world is finally waking up to the long overlooked potential of what we roots-sleuths do on a daily basis, as you can read in this article:

Roots TV Becomes New Branch of Reality TV

I'm honored to have had the opportunity to fill this void for more than three years. I hope that you have enjoyed the hundreds of high quality videos that RootsTelevision.com has produced or selected. From the viewing numbers and kind comments, I know that many of you have. It's been a privilege to give the genealogical community this resource, but this seems the appropriate time to move on.

We'll be featuring some of RTV's most popular videos during our final days, so please come on over and enjoy them. Thank you for your viewership and friendship. Og and I will miss you!

Warmly,

Megan Smolenyak
HonoringOurAncestors

P.S. If any genealogical entities would be interested in "adopting" RootsTelevision.com, I would be open to that possibility, but would need to hear from you immediately (megan at honoringourancestors.com).

Everybody's Related to Royalty

2010-02-28T19:25:00.002-05:00

This is an interesting article on how our ancestors fan out in the past and double every generation.

We all have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on. To determine the number of ancestors you have, all you have to do is grab a calculator and determine how many generations you wish to go back. That should easy. Or is it?

Read more at: http://famhist2.blogspot.com/2008/03/everybodys-related-to-royalty.html

Open House at Peachtree NC FHC on Feb 27

2010-02-22T17:06:00.002-05:00

For your information. regarding an Open House of the Family History Center Saturday, February 27 from 2-4 PM. Marlene Bryan, FHC director, is adding Thursday evening to her schedule. We thought you would like to let your students and local community know of this event so they can become acquainted with the center and Marlene. She is available to assist anyone with their family search for free. Be assured that the center is a "no proselyting zone" and no one need fear being involved in any religious conversations that they don't start. If they ask questions about The Church of Jesus Christ, the questions will be briefly answered.

Marlene Bryan, experienced genealogist, is the director of the Family History Center at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 656 Highway 141 in the Peachtree area of Murphy. She offers free assistance to those who need help in finding lost ancestors.

Bryan says, "It is a thrill to find someone in your family tree. I just love it when individuals come to the center, and I help them use the tremendous resources we now have. Some find information about an unknown great grandfather who distinguished himself in the Civil War and was decorated for his courage and valor while under enemy fire. Others have been thrilled to find they could trace their ancestors through the Sons of the Revolution or find they descended from a family that sailed on the Mayflower or discover their line came through Scottish and Irish royalty."

The Family History Center is open to the public and is equipped with microfilm and microfiche readers with many microfiche and a few microfilms on site; others may be ordered for the cost of shipping only. The center has three computers with internet access and programs that seem almost magical in what they can do; the computers are connected to a printer and copies of all data can be made for 10 cents a sheet. Bryan announced: "I am expanding my hours to include Tuesdays 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., Thursdays 4 - 8 p.m. (Starting March 4), and Fridays 1- 5 p.m.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invites all to an Open House this Saturday, February 27 from 2-4 p.m.. Visitors are welcome to meet Marlene and see all that the center offers--remember, there is no cost either for use of the center or to have Marlene's expert assistance. At 2 p.m. Saturday, Mayor Bill Hughes and his wife Barbara, Mike and Karen Crubaugh, and Ron and Anne Cluff will be honored for their superb service to the community after which the Family History Center will be open to visitors.

What Are IGI Batch Numbers?

2010-02-02T14:49:00.001-05:00

Entries in the Church of Latter Day Saints International Genealogy Index - IGI © - come from two major sources of information:

1. Individual Submissions - Members of the LDS church regularly submit information to the church about families or other specific records. These records are then processed by a computer and a Batch number assigned to them. Often the information has been submitted on an Individual Entry Form or a Family Group Sheet. The entries submitted may or may not tell you the sources the used for the information submitted and do not always include up-to-date addresses or information about the submitters themselves. Each batch number will often have an associated film number assigned to which is the LDS microfilm number containing the image of the original entry form(s).

2. The Name Extraction program - The Extraction Program of the Genealogical Department involves thousands of members of the LDS church, volunteering their time to extract names from parish records and other vital records around the world. The data extracted is then grouped together for processing by a computer. The computer assigns a BATCH NUMBER to each grouping of records submitted. As a result each group of parish records that have been extracted are assigned an overall number. Christening records from the parish are then assigned a "C" at the beginning of the parishes batch number. Marriage records are recorded with a batch number that starts with an "M".

If a batch number has leading letters that begin with an M or a C, it usually means they have been extracted from an original record. The information for that record will also provide you with a specific LDS microfilm number for the complete list of the records extracted for that particular "BATCH" of submissions.

What this means is that a Batch Number can lead you to extractions of your particular surname for specific parish or church records, for a specific type of vital event during particular time periods covered by the extraction. Most importantly, the Batch number will allow you to search the IGI to identify all entries for a specific parish that may be connected to your family names.

IGI BATCH NUMBER CODES

There a number of codes associated with IGI Batch numbers. The IGI Resource Guide written by the LDS gives the following meanings for letters used as codes in the IGI Events column:

A Adult Christening - An LDS Temple record of the sealing of a wife to her husband. Access to the temple sealing record is limited to the couple's direct descendants and their spouses.

B Birth

C Christening - An original or printed record of births or christenings extracted as part of the extraction programme.

D Death or Burial - Deceased members or 110 year suspended file

E Marriage records from the early marriage record extraction project - these were used by the LDS for proxy baptisms and endowments

F Birth or Christening of first known child (in lieu of marriage date)

J Extraction project

M Marriages - An original or printed record of marriages extracted as part of the Genealogical Department's extraction programme.

N Census

S Miscellaneous: A miscellaneous event may substitute for either a birth or a marriage.

W Will or probate record.

What are Ancestral File Numbers?

2010-02-02T14:45:00.001-05:00

For my students in both of my Internet and Genealogy classes:

An Ancestral File number is a unique number allocated to an individual under the Personal Ancestral File or PAF software.

An Ancestral File Number (AFN) was intended to be a unique identifier for each individual who has a record in the Ancestral File format, but the number isn't always unique, since many individuals have been assigned multiple AFNs through the years, making it confusing for those doing research. AFNs are used as a genealogical indexing tool by the LDS Church. AFNs consist of four capital letters or digits, a dash, and then two or three more capital letters or digits. An AFN does not contain any vowels (A, E, I, O, U, or Y). An example is 1BS3-9X1. AFNs can be searched online at the LDS genealogy website, FamilySearch.

Using the Google search engine you can enter an AFN, sample below, to search all records for someone on Familysearch.

site:familysearch.org 8XJF-4B

Turn Web Pages Into PDFs

2010-01-24T11:07:00.003-05:00

This one is courtesy of my genealogy and ham radio friend - Dick Eastman (Source URL: http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/01/turn-web-pages-into-pdfs.html). Will be adding this to my Internet and Genealogy Class resource guide/handout. I will also demonstrate the usage of this website in class this semester.

"One of the many problems I find when surfing the web is that there are many interesting web sites, almost too many. I'd like to save many of them. My bookmark list in my web browser already contains thousands of links and I can never find what I want. I have tried various bookmark organizers but have never found one that I really like. Besides, when I go back to the site in the future the information that caught my eye today might no longer be there. A perfect example would be this newsletter web site where things change several times daily. I want to save a particular article so bookmarking the web site doesn't do much good.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a way for you to capture a web page in its entirety, either for future reference or for sharing it with your friends without having to start sending links back and forth? I'd like to capture the web page as it exists today. Luckily, there is an easy method of doing just that.

PDFmyURL.com is a web service that captures web sites and converts them to PDF files. You can save the PDF files on your own computer, preserving them as they appeared at the moment you told PDFmyURL.com to make the copy. Best of all, even the links work properly. You simply cut and paste the URL you are interested in, and then a “download this page as PDF” link will be provided for you to retrieve the corresponding document.

A service such as this one also has the distinct advantage of letting your preserve pages forever. That is, even if the original page vanishes from the web you will still be able to access the information as it was, at the time you created a PDF of it. And you can also create PDFs of your own site in order to track its evolution.

Best of all, this is a free service.

Try it. Go to http://www.pdfmyurl.com.

Chicago, IL Key Genealogy Resources Online - Handy Guide

2010-01-24T10:52:00.003-05:00

Chicago Genealogy Resources

Bookmark this page - so you may easily refer to it often. This is a super handy guide to Chicago genealogical sources you will actually use to build your family tree.

Source URL: http://blog.genealogybank.com/2010/01/chicago-il-key-genealogy-resources.html

Ancestry.com Tree to Go. Your tree goes mobile

2010-01-22T07:12:00.004-05:00

In this last week, I have demonstrated to both of my Genealogy and Internet classes the power of having your genealogy in your hand using an iPod Touch or iPhone and the FamView app.

Now right on the heels of that there is a new way to tote around family and photos if you have an Ancestry account and have created a family tree. Meet the Ancestry.com Tree to Go app.

Take pictures of people, places or things you discover and upload them to your Ancestry.com family tree. Add missing dates you find in research libraries. Share your tree with family and friends on the fly. Your history is always handy with Ancestry.com Tree to Go.

All you need is an Ancestry.com family tree, an iPhone or iPod Touch and an adventurous spirit, and you’re ready to download the free app and hit the road in search of your story.

Start with a family tree, then branch out. Already created a family tree on Ancestry.com? You can access and add to it anywhere with Ancestry.com Tree to Go. Don’t have a tree yet? Start building it here first, then grow it wherever and whenever inspiration (or information) strikes. And no matter how many trees you have, they’ll all be at your fingertips from your iPhone.

Capture your history wherever you find it. Imagine locating that old family homestead on a trip to Amish country. Or tracking down that missing gravestone of your great-great-great-grandmother. Or meeting a distant relative for the first time. With Ancestry.com Tree to Go, you can take a photo and upload it to your tree right away, then add facts or notes on the fly. Your incredible discoveries will never be lost again.

Capture your history wherever you find it. Imagine locating that old family homestead on a trip to Amish country. Or tracking down that missing gravestone of your great-great-great-grandmother. Or meeting a distant relative for the first time. With Ancestry.com Tree to Go, you can take a photo and upload it to your tree right away, then add facts or notes on the fly. Your incredible discoveries will never be lost again.

Oh and the best part of this whole thing (yea, you guys in my class know what I'm about to say) -- it's FREE!

So click here to download the Ancestry.com Tre to Go.

Spelling and Your Ancestors

2010-01-20T18:57:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of the Genealogy Pointers newsletter:

[The following article is excerpted from Val Greenwood's acclaimed textbook, The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. 3rd Edition, pp. 32-35, which is described at the end of this excerpt.]

The lack of standardized spellings and the use of phonetic spellings can be very sticky problems. If you go back just 100 years you will find that a large percentage of the population could not read, more still could not write (and many people were able to write only their own names), and even more could not spell. Most persons who did write did not concern themselves particularly with so-called standard spellings, but rather spelled words just as they sounded--phonetically--with local accents. Also realize that the early settlers of America were emigrants from many foreign lands. There were many accents, and when records were made the scribe wrote what he heard, accent and all.

What is the significance of these facts? It means that you will oftentimes be called upon to decipher scripts in which you will puzzle over simple words just because they are misspelled and written in an unfamiliar hand.

However, the main problem is in the spellings of names (especially surnames) and places. In the will which he made in 1754 in Pasquotank County, North Carolina, Jeremiah Wilcox's surname is spelled two different ways--Willcox and Willcocks. In other documents it is spelled still other ways--Wilcox, Wilcocks, Welcox, Wellcocks, Welcocks, etc.--but Jeremiah could not write himself (he made a mark for his signature) so he probably had no idea as to what the correct spelling was or if it was ever being spelled correctly. The name and its spelling were entirely at the mercy of the person who chanced to make the record.

This highlights the fallacy of a practice common in many modern families--that of assuming that if the name is not spelled in a certain way it cannot belong to the same family. Persons with such ideas will pass over important genealogical records because the name happens to be spelled with an "a" rather than an "e," with an "ie" rather than a "y," or with one "n" rather than with two. Be especially careful of this when the two related spellings of a name are found in the same geographic area. The connection, of course, is not guaranteed, as it is not guaranteed even when the spellings are exactly the same, but it is worth investigating the possibility.

Also, because of this spelling problem, we must be extremely careful in our use of indexes. We must consider every possible spelling of the name sought. It is very easy to overlook some of the less logical (to us) possibilities and thus many valuable records. Local dialects and foreign accents often make a significant difference. The pronunciation of a name may be quite different in Massachusetts than it is in Georgia, and so might its spelling.

In law this is called the Rule of "Idem Sonans." This means that in order to establish legal proof of relationship from documentary evidence it is not necessary for the name to be spelled absolutely accurately if, as spelled, it conveys to the ear, when pronounced in the accepted ways, a sound practically identical to the correctly spelled name as properly pronounced.

A few years ago I worked for some time on a problem where the same surname was found spelled twenty-four different ways in the very same locality, some of them even beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. The correct spelling of the name (supposedly) was "Ingold," but the following variations were found: Ingle, Ingell, Ingles, Ingells, Ingel, Ingels, Ingeld, Inkle, Inkles, Inkell, Ingolde, Engold, Engolde, Engle, Engell, Engles, Engells, Engel, Engels, Engeld, Angold, Angle, and Ankold. These several variations were all found in the same family at the same time. Would you have considered all of them, or would you have stopped with those that began with "I"?

Other less likely possibilities for this name are Jugold and Jugle. Such errors could easily occur in an index because of the similarities between the capital I's and J's and the small n's and u's.

Another family changed the spelling of its name from Beatty to Baitey when moving from one location to another. In still another instance the surname Kerr was found interchanged with Carr. Whether these spelling changes were intentional is unknown, but the intention makes little difference. In one family three brothers deliberately spelled their surname in different ways--Matlock, Matlack, and Matlick. In his history of the Zabriskie family, George 0. Zabriskie reports having dealt with 123 variations of that name, though certainly not all in the same locality or the same time period. [END of excerpt]

The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. 3rd Edition
If you found this excerpt fascinating--and helpful--you might want to take a closer look at Val Greenwood's handy textbook. Among other things, The Researcher's Guide contains an in-depth discussion of death and other vital records in the U.S., including where and how to find them. This third edition incorporates the latest thinking on genealogy and computers, specifically the relationship between computer technology (the Internet and CD-ROM) and the timeless principles of good genealogical research. It also includes a new chapter on the property rights of women, a revised chapter on the evaluation of genealogical evidence, and updated information on the 1920 census. Arguably the best book ever written on American genealogy, it is the text of choice in colleges and universities or wherever courses in American genealogy are taught.

This is my favorite classroom textbook that I use to teach two of my advanced genealogy courses. It is a reference you should have on your genealogy library shelf -- Larry.

Census "view maps" links no good, Ancestry.com?

2010-01-02T12:58:00.002-05:00

I came across an interesting piece of information on the Ancestry.com census map view and some of the issues you will encounter if you use it. It comes from the damed Dear Myrtle Blog at this link http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/2009/12/census-view-maps-links-no-good.html.

If you plan on using the "view map" option on the Ancestry.com census summary page, take a peak at the link above before you do it.

Do not go to the USGenWeb site!

2009-10-21T07:13:00.002-04:00

I have the following information courtesy of Tammy, the USGenWeb Bastrop County, Texas website:

UsGenWeb has been fighting a hacker and virus for the past month. Each time the site is cleaned, it is reinfected. It was clean yesterday and today infected again.

As a county coordinator, we have been asked to pass on the message asking folks not to visit the www.usgenweb.org or www.usgenweb.com sites until these issues have been resolved.

UsGenWeb is now owned by Ancestry and some have reported Ancestry is infected as well. Not sure if the freepages accounts are housed on the same server but if this is the case, then the freepages accounts could be too.

What is happening is that when you visit an infected page your virus scan would alert you, if your virus scan is working and catches it, or Adobe might try and download a file. It is said that it steals your cookies and sends them somewhere. This is dangerous because the cookies could contain personal information you have sent to a legitimate site and saved in a cookie.

If you have a webpage on the usgenweb site (most that do are county or state coordinators) then if you download (usually through ftp) you are at risk of getting the virus, which could infect your webpages and write code at the bottoms of the pages.

We haven't been told too much except that county coordinators who's pages are on rootsweb cannot ftp into their sites and pass the word about not visiting the main usgenweb page.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shirley Cullum
Date: Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 5:07 PM
Subject: [TXGW-NEWS] Do not go to the USGenWeb site
To: "TXGW-NEWS-L @ rootsweb.com"

This was sent from the NC, Sherri Bradley:

"Please ask folks not to visit National, and for those that host their sites on
theusgenweb.org not to log in at all.

Sherri"

All 2.5 Million Granite Mountain Films May be Digitized by Early Next Year

2009-10-03T12:18:00.004-04:00

The FamilySearch Center in the Joseph Smith Building is getting a full upgrade - and progress on the digitization of the Granite Mountain microfilm is moving ahead at a terrific pace. According to Paul Nauta, with FamilySearch, all that film - 2.5 million rolls - may all be digitized by early next year. That is amazing statement and may bode well for all of all of us genealogists.

"Nauta (Paul) said FamilySearch has 185 camera teams filming 60 million new images annually. Also, the Granite Vaults are having all of their microfilm (2.5 million rolls) digitized and that process could be completed as early as next year."

The following teaser is from the October 22, 2009 edition of the Mormon Times
(Deseret News).

Using Google Search Books

2009-10-01T12:10:00.001-04:00

Here is a great video from the folks at Family Tree Magazine on how to use Google Search Books.

Antietam Union Civil War Soldier Buried

2009-09-18T09:00:00.001-04:00

The remains of a Union Civil War soldier found nearly a year ago on the Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland are laid to rest. Video story from the Pentagon Channel.

House Republicans Harpoon $8.7-Million Intended to Connect Whalers to Their Ancestors

2009-07-28T11:15:00.000-04:00

Normally I wouldn't post something political here on this genealogy blog, but this one I can't pass up. Hey, it is a bit of Genealogy in the News you might find interesting.The House Democrats wanted to spend $8.7 million for a "cultural exchange program" to connect whalers in Massachusetts with their whaling ancestors in Alaska and Hawaii.

The spending proposal has apparently been eliminated from the appropriations bill for the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Departments.And just when I was starting to see "Franklins" and a new job as a working genealogist. I wonder how many of these types of government programs are available for the genealogist to apply for?

More details at http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=51572.

Preventing Identity Theft with the SSDI

2009-07-05T07:46:00.002-04:00

Identity theft and genealogy is a subject that I have discussed before in my genealogy classes and on the road in lectures.

An article on preventing identity theft on Dick Eastman's blog is well worth the read, especially for these all knowing politicians who think they have all the answers, read the paragraph below.

"Identity theft is a major concern these days, as it should be. Many legislators seem to think that the problem can be solved by locking up all the birth, marriage, and death records, which, of course, has an impact on genealogists. The legislators apparently have never checked with the security experts who deal with identity theft every day, however. The security experts report that public domain records of birth, marriage, and death are rarely used by identity thieves. Instead, the thieves have easier methods."

You can read the rest of the article at
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/07/preventing-identity-theft-with-the-ssdi.html

What’s This FamilySearch Alpha Thing?

2009-06-22T11:27:00.001-04:00

There is something new hanging around the Family Search family of websites. You can learn more at http://labs.familysearch.org/blog/?p=110.

FamilySearch Expands Canadian Census Collection

2009-06-10T13:08:00.001-04:00

FamilySearch, in partnership with Ancestry.ca and the Libraries and Archives Canada (LAC), announced today the addition of the 1851, 1861, and 1871 Canada Census indexes to its online collection. The new indexes can be searched for free at FamilySearch.org (click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot). FamilySearch published the 1881 Canada Census previously online and plans to add the 1891 Canada Census shortly.

Over a fourth of all Canadians struggle to trace their roots past 100 years. Having the indexes to all of the pre-1900 Canadian censuses online will make it much easier for Canadians to extend their understanding of their family’s history.

These censuses are part of the FamilySearch records access program reported in May 2008 to provide public access to more records more quickly. In this project, Ancestry.ca provided the indexes to the 1851 and 1891 Canada Censuses, and FamilySearch created the indexes for the 1861, 1871, and 1881 Canada Censuses. It is a win-win for the public, who will have free access to all five of the pre-1900 census indexes online at FamilySearch.org.

FamilySearch used its growing community of online volunteers to index the 1861 and 1871 Census records. For the past year, volunteers have logged online to FamilySearch’s indexing application from all over the world, working seven days a week, 24 hours a day—literally—to accomplish the feat. Thousands of volunteer hours later, coupled with the added indexes from Ancestry.ca, the public now has free, easily searchable databases of millions of Canadian citizens from 1851 to 1891.

“The publication of free indexes to these major censuses gives a great boost to Canadian family history research. For the first time, genealogy enthusiasts and historians may search online databases containing some 17 million records of individuals who lived in Canada in the latter half of the 19th century. Indexers keyed many personal details—names, ages, birthplaces, religions, and residences—for individuals listed in these early Canadian censuses,” said FamilySearch chief genealogical officer, David Rencher.

Researchers will discover heads of households, their family members, and any lodgers residing with a family at the time. They can also see the street address where ancestors were living at the time the census was taken, along with their age, occupation, and perhaps their ethnicity.

Free access to the indexes for the 19th century collection of Canada Censuses is the first phase. Free access to the record images will also be available to qualified FamilySearch members as soon as an authentication process is implemented.

The 1881 Canada Census was published on FamilySearch.org in 2002. The 1916 Canada Census was also made available for free to the public earlier this year through FamilySearch’s 4,600 family history centers worldwide.

FamilySearch Indexing Update - May 27, 2009

2009-05-28T16:26:00.003-04:00

Eleven new indexing projects were added this week—most international (Argentina, Canada, and France). Five of the projects are birth, marriage, and death records for France. Please forward this update to any organizations or individuals that might be interested in helping create indexes to these or other FamilySearch indexing projects.

New indexing projects added this week are:

· Argentina Censo 1869—Jujuy Salta Tucuman
· Canada, British Columbia Births, 1854–1903
· France, Paroisses de Cherbourg, 1802–1907
· France, Paroisses de Saint-Lo, 1802–1907
· France, Paroisses de Coutances, 1802–1907
· France Registres Protestants, 1612–1906 [Part 1]
· France Registres Protestants, 1612–1906 [Part 2]
· Indiana, Blackford County Marriages 1811–1959
· North Dakota—1920 U.S. Federal Census
· Ohio Tax Records—3 of 4, Post 1825
· South Carolina—1920 U.S. Federal Census

(See the chart below for a complete list and current status of all indexing projects).

Recently Completed Projects

(Note: Recently completed projects have been removed from the available online indexing batches and will now go through a final completion check process in preparation for future publication.)

· Argentina Censo 1869—Catamarca y La Rioja
· Minnesota—1920 U.S. Federal Census
· Minnesota Probate Court Wills 1849–1918

Current FamilySearch Indexing

Projects, Record Language, and Percent Completion
Argentina, Buenos Aires 1855 Census Spanish 28%
Argentina Censo 1869—Corrientes y Entre Rios Spanish 87%
Argentina Censo 1869—Jujuy Salta Tucuman Spanish (New)
Arkansas County Marriages V, 1837–1957 English 93%
Arkansas County Marriages VI, 1837–1957 English 15%
Austria, Wiener Meldezettel, 1890–1925 German 1%
Belgium, Antwerp Foreigners Index, 1840–1930 Dutch, Flemish 36%
Brandenburg Kirchenbücher, 1789–1875 German 61%*
Canada, British Columbia Births, 1854–1903 English (New)
France Registres Protestants, 1612–1906 [Part 1] French (New)
France Registres Protestants, 1612–1906 [Part 2] French (New)
France, Coutances, Paroisses de la Manche, 1792–1906 French 9%
France, Paroisses de Cherbourg, 1802–1907 French (New)
France, Paroisses de Coutances, 1802–1907 French (New)
France, Paroisses de Saint-Lo, 1802–1907 French (New)
Germany, Mecklenburg 1890 Volkszählung, Div 24–38 German 12%
Illinois, Cook County Birth Certificates, 1916–1922 [Part 1] English 83%
Indiana, Adams County Marriages, 1811–1959 English 3%
Indiana, Allen County Marriages, 1811–1959 English 4%
Indiana, Blackford County Marriages 1811–1959 English 24%
Italy, Trento Baptism Records, 1784–1924 Italian 75%
Mexico, Censo de 1930—Sinaloa Spanish 95%
Mexico, Censo de 1930—Tamaulipas Spanish 54%
Mexico, Censo de 1930—Yucatan Spanish 16%
Mississippi—1920 U.S. Federal Census English 67%
New York 1905 State Census English 13%
Nicaragua, Managua Civil Records, 1879–Present Spanish 44%*
North Dakota—1920 U.S. Federal Census English (New)
Peru, Lima—Registros Civiles, 1910–1930 Spanish 24%
Russia, St. Petersburg Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1833–1885 German 1%
South Carolina—1920 U.S. Federal Census English (New)
Spain, Avila, Moraleja de Matacabras, 1540–1904 Spanish 19%
Spain, Lugo—Registros Parroquiales [Part 1], 1530–1930 Spanish 18%
U.K., Cheshire—Land Tax, 1778–1832 English 92%
U.K., Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1538–Present English 1%
Ukraine, Kyiv, 1840–1842 Russian 17%
Venezuela, Mérida Registros Parroquiales. 1654–1992 Spanish 15%*
(*Percentage refers to a specific portion of a larger project.)

Current FamilySearch Partner Projects, Record Language, and Percent Completion

Arkansas Marriages IV, 1837–1957 English 31%
Belgique—Registres Des Décès—En Français, 1796–1910 French 21%*
Belgique— Registres Des Décès—Charleroi, 1851–1900 French 21%
België—Overlijdens Registers—In het Nederlands, 1796–1910 Dutch, Flemish 84%*
België—Overlijdens Registers—Kalmthout, 1851–1900 Dutch, Flemish 17%
België—Overlijdens Registers—Mechelen, 1851–1900 Dutch, Flemish 6%
Bremer Schifflisten, 1904–1914 German 53%
Flanders Death Registration, 1796–1900 French, Dutch, Flemish 79%*
Indiana Marriages, 1882 to April 1905 English 89%
Norway 1875 Census [Part 1] Norwegian 31%
Nova Scotia, Antigonish Church Records, 1823–1905 English 81%
Ohio Tax Records—2 of 4, Post 1825 English 76%
Ohio Tax Records—3 of 4, Post 1825 English (New)
Vermont Militia Records, 1861–1867 English 39%
(*Percentage refers to a specific portion of a larger project.)

Current FamilySearch Regional Projects, Record Language, and Percent Completion

(These projects are being indexed by volunteers in specific areas of the world.)

Australia, Sydney Cemetery Inscriptions, 1800–1960 English 4%
Australia—Victoria Probate Records, 1853–1989 English 63%
Canada, British Columbia Marriages, 1859–1932 English 5%
Quebec—Trois-Rivières IC, 1800–1900 French 48%

Millions of Historic Southern Records Now on the Web

2009-05-14T07:51:00.003-04:00

SALT LAKE CITY—FamilySearch announced today it has published millions of records from Southern states to its rapidly growing, free online collection. The collection includes both digital images and indexes. Millions of death records from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida were the most recent additions. Viewers can search the free collection on the Record Search pilot at FamilySearch.org (click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot).

In the past 18 months, FamilySearch has been diligently publishing digital images and indexes from Southern states. It is part of a worldwide initiative to provide fast, economical access to genealogical records. Fueled by over 100,000 online volunteers, FamilySearch is digitizing and indexing historical records and publishing them online.

The most recent additions are from the following collections:

· Alabama Statewide Deaths 1908 to 1974 (Index)
· Arkansas County Marriages: 1837 to 1957
· Civil War Pension Index Cards (Digital Images)
· Florida Deaths 1877 to 1939 (Index)
· Florida State Censuses: 1855, 1935, 1945 (Digital Images)
· Freedman Bank Records: 1865 to 1874
· Freedman’s Bureau Virginia Marriages 1855 to 1866
· Georgia Deaths 1914 to 1927
· Louisiana War of 1812 Pension Lists (Images)
· North Carolina Deaths 1906 to 1930
· North Carolina, Davidson County Marriages and Deaths, 1867–1984 (Digital Images)
· South Carolina Deaths 1915 to 1943
· South Carolina Deaths 1944 to 1955 (Index)
· Texas Death Index 1964 to 1998 (Index)
· Texas Deaths 1890 to 1976
· Virginia Fluvanna County Funeral Home Records 1929 to 1976 (Digital Images)
· West Virginia Births 1853 to 1990 (Index)
· West Virginia Marriages 1853 to 1970 (Index)
· West Virginia Deaths 1853 to 1970 (Index)

FamilySearch has also published free indexes to the 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, and 1920 (partial) U.S Censuses—all important resources for Southern states research.

David E. Rencher, FamilySearch chief genealogical officer said, “This significant set of records fills a real need in Southern states research. To be able to search vital records across the South by name and locality leverages the best search techniques and greatly improves the odds of success for those researching Southern families.”

During both pre and post Civil War eras, there was general migration from the eastern seaboard, down through the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and on into Texas. “The publication of these records will begin to open up and answer many questions about family members that migrated and were never heard from again,” Rencher added.

With just a few clicks, visitors can now search millions of records online for that elusive ancestor. Or pore through digital images of historic documents that before this time were inconvenient or impossible for many to access because the original documents were located in an archive somewhere in the South.

“There is much more to come,” said Rencher. “FamilySearch has a large collection of records [on film] from the Southern states that still need to be digitized, indexed, and made available for the public online—and we are acquiring new records all the time. It’s a great time to be a family history enthusiast,” concluded Rencher.

FamilySearch is currently working on federal and state censuses and birth, marriage, death, and war records. New indexing projects and searchable collections are added weekly.

Video interview with Legacy's Ken McGinnis

2009-05-01T10:49:00.002-04:00

As most of my genealogy class students know I recommend the Legacy Genealogy Software package. If you are still using the "free" standard edition, below is a link to a video report that describes the differences between the standard and deluxe editions. Wonder if you should take the #29.95 plunge?

"Ken McGinnis, vice-president of Millennia Corporation (that's us!), was interviewed at the recent St. George Family History Expo. His interview is now published online as a video for you to view. Ken talks about some of the differences between the free, Standard Edition of Legacy and the Deluxe edition. He also talks a bit about Legacy's Research Guidance and SourceWriter features.

"Ken is one of the main reasons we have Legacy Family Tree. Meet him online by watching the video at the link below. "

http://legacynews.typepad.com/legacy_news/2009/04/video-interview-with-legacys-ken-mcginnis.html

Our Cemetery Research Toolkit

2009-01-19T13:48:00.002-05:00

The Van Horn Cemetery Toolkit Checklist

We have been asked on numerous occasions what gear we take with us when we are on a cemetery research trip. Below are some of the items that have traveled with us at one time or another. Not everything may be a go on every trip, but we take with us what we think we may need for the areas we are going to be researching in.

• Antibacterial liquid soap and/or waterless instant hand sanitizer (such as Purell)
• Batteries for the electronics
• Binoculars
• Boots/Sturdy shoes
• Cutoff broom or mop handle for probing.
• Brush; Soft-bristled plastic, nylon or natural bristle brushes only. Plain water, rags and a soft nylon brush are the items of choice for cleaning tombstones. Choose a brush, such as a kitchen scrub brush, with an easy-to-grasp handle and soft nylon bristles. No wire brushes - they can damage tombstones! Clean the tombstone from bottom to top to avoid further streaking or staining, rinsing well as you go. Old tootbrush for working small areas.
• Carpenters apron
• Cellular phone (sooner or later someone will fall over a tombstone or footstone)
• Composition book
• Digital Camera and accessories: memory cards, batteries, mirror, etc
• Digital Tape recorder
• Dog spray to keep away the stray dogs and animals.
• Drinking water and snack foods
• Family Radio Service Radios - pair
• First Aid kit and Snakebite kit (available from sporting goods stores that carry camping and hiking goods)
• Gardeners knee pads
• Gloves (leather work gloves, jersey work gloves and rubber gloves) Protective hand lotion (such as "Gloves in a Bottle" or Ivy Block (poison ivy, oak and sumac protectant)
• GPS device to record the position for your County and the DHPA's Cemetery and Burial Ground Registry.
• Hand tools: Rakes, Shovels and spades, Trowels, Clam-shell post hole digger, Grubbing hoe, Machete, Chain saw, Weed eaters, Pruning, shears, garden trowl.
• Insect repellant and Bee and wasp spray.
• Jumbo Wax Crayons. An inexpensive alternative to rubbing wax for tombstone rubbings is a jumbo crayon, such as the ones used by young children. Peel the paper off of the crayons (your toddler can probably do this quicker than you can) and use the side of the crayon for your rubbing, rather than the point.
• Kodak Photo-Flo (1/4 oz. to 5 quarts of water; used for initial cleaning) [wash stone with Photo-Flo and water, using a soft-bristled brush; rinse thoroughly]
• Long-sleeved shirt
• Magnifying glass
• Paper: Parchment, butcher paper, wax paper for rubbings
• Pens and pencils
• Plastic trash bags
• Probes (i.e., "Smart Stick" sold by T&T Tools, Forestry Suppliers Bench Meadows or your local plumbing supply dealer) Ask for tile probes.
• Rags
• Safety goggles
• Spray bottle with water
• Sunscreen and hats
• Tape Measure
• Tombstone cleaning compound; Also you might try 1 part Ammonia and 4 parts water. Be sure to rinse the stones well with clean water in the beginning and at the end. Start at the bottom and work upwards.
• Tombstone cleaning soap: Orvus soap by Proctor & Gamble (available at farm and animal supply stores; 1/4 cup to 1 gallon water for cleaning) Wash stone with Orvus and water, using a soft-bristled brush; rinse thoroughly
• Tombstone rubbing Pellon Interfacing. Soft non-fusible Pellon interfacing material is perfect for tombstone rubbings. It folds neatly in a bag without wrinkles, takes crayon beautifully and can even be ironed when you get back home to melt the wax into the fabric and preserve the rubbing for years to come. It is readily available from your local fabric store. Be sure to get the non-fusible variety!
• Water: Lots and lots of water, always start with water and finish with clean rinsing.
• Wet Wipes
• Whisk broom
• White Chalk (no colored chalk)

Genetic Genealogy Companies Under Fire - Comment

2008-11-22T08:22:00.002-05:00

While prowling around my newsletters looking for a hook for my next newspaper column I ran across the blog article below on "Genetic Genealogy Companies Under Fire" on the Family Tree magazine blog. See http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider/Genetic+Genealogy+Companies+Under+Fire+.aspx

Now I am not going to beat up on Diane who posted the piece on the Family Tree Blog. I'm aiming at the fools at the ASHG and their statement issued at http://www.ashg.org/pdf/ASHGAncestryTestingStatement_FINAL.pdf

Personally to stereotype all DNA testing companies by saying that they "aren't doing enough to make sure you understand the limitations and implications of DNA testing," is misleading at least and intellectually dishonest at best.

In their press release at the link above they made the following assumption,

"Ancestry testing is done on an individual basis, in an attempt to determine the ancestral origins or population(s) of origin for a person or family."

It is obvious these intellectuals do not have a clue what the majority of genealogist use DNA testing for. Like a majority of the genealogist who test, I was looking for guidance through Y-DNA to give me research guidance on my Vanhorn ancestoral line (narrowing down the candidates to advance my research). Do I care about haplogroups - nope. I understand the limitations.

If there are companies out there selling that sort of testing, I support the ASHG in their concerns. But to stereotype all DNA testing companies and genealogist in their use of DNA testing as they did in their press release, you folks need to get a grip and issue an apology.

I did my DNA testing with FamilytreeDNA

FamilySearch-Ancestry - New Images and Enhanced Indexes to the U.S. Censuses

2008-07-21T10:17:00.001-04:00

Ancestry.com and FamilySearch, the two largest online family history resources, announced today they will exchange records and resources to make more historical records available online. The first project is a joint initiative to significantly enhance the online U.S. Federal Census Collection (1790 to 1930). The original census records are among the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

FamilySearch is digitally converting master microfilm copies of the original U.S. Federal Censuses from 1790 through 1930 and, under this agreement, will give these improved images to Ancestry.com. All census images and indexes will be available on Ancestry.com for subscribers. As projects are completed, images will be available for free in NARA reading rooms and FamilySearch’s 4,500 Family History Centers.

Ancestry.com, which currently offers indexes and images to the entire publicly available U.S. Federal Census Collection, will give FamilySearch copies of its existing census indexes. Through its online indexing system and community of volunteer indexers, FamilySearch is already indexing select censuses. FamilySearch will merge the Ancestry.com indexes with the new FamilySearch indexes to create enhanced census indexes, which will be added to both sites. Indexes to the enhanced censuses will be free on Ancestry.com for a limited time as they are completed. Indexes will also be available for free on FamilySearch.org.

Allen Weinstein, the Archivist of the United States, welcomed this agreement as a significant benefit for researchers. He remarked that, “Census records are among the most important documents the American people have to trace their genealogy and know their family history. Having two of our partners working together to enhance the indexes and images of these essential documents will enable an unprecedented level of access and understanding.”

The first census exchanged is the 1900 U.S. Census. FamilySearch completed a 1900 index in addition to Ancestry.com’s original. In the new index, FamilySearch added several new fields of searchable data, such as birth month and birth year, so individuals can search for ancestors more easily. The two indexes will be merged into an enhanced index, available on both sites. The new 1900 census images are now available on Ancestry.com. The enhanced 1900 index will be available for free for a limited time at Ancestry.com and ongoing at FamilySearch.org.

Ancestry.com will also provide FamilySearch its original 1920 U.S. Census index. Using the Ancestry.com index as a first transcription, FamilySearch will create a new second index with added fields and arbitrate any discrepancies between the two indexes. The 1920 project is currently in progress. Individuals interested in helping create the improved index can volunteer at FamilySearch.org. Once completed, the enhanced 1920 index will be available on both sites and will link back to images on Ancestry.com.

The 1850 through 1870 (partial) and 1880 and 1900 U.S. Censuses can be searched currently at FamilySearch.org; all publicly available U.S. Censuses are already available on Ancestry.com.

Tim Sullivan, president and CEO of The Generations Network, Inc., parent company of Ancestry.com, said, “This collaboration represents a significant step forward in making family history research more accessible. The enhanced U.S. Federal Census Collection that will become available through this agreement is a gold mine for family history researchers, and we look forward to collaborating with FamilySearch in identifying other opportunities to help people discover their roots.”

“The U.S. Censuses are arguably the most important collection of U.S. genealogical records. FamilySearch is excited to see the complete, improved indexes of these collections freely available online over the next two years. And we look forward to working with Ancestry.com to enhance access to additional, significant collections in the future,” said Jay Verkler, Managing Director for FamilySearch.

Broaden Access to All Censuses for England and Wales by FamilySearch

2008-07-21T10:16:00.001-04:00

FamilySearch announced today that it is joining forces with findmypast.com, The Origins Network, and Intelligent Image Management—companies that specialize in providing online access to British family history resources—to make significant British historical record collections more broadly available online. The first joint initiative seeks to publish online indexes to censuses for England and Wales from 1841 to 1901. The 1841 and 1861 Census indexes are the first targeted under the agreement and are accessible now at FamilySearch.org and findmypast.com.

In the agreement, FamilySearch, in conjunction with The Origins Network, will provide digital images for the 1851, 1871, and 1881 Censuses. It will also extend the 1871 Census index. Findmypast.com will provide FamilySearch copies of its English and Welsh Census indexes from 1841 to 1901. The Federation of Family History Societies will help complete the index for the 1851 Census.

Initially, users of FamilySearch.org will be able to do a free search by record type, given name, surname, age, gender, place of birth, and relationship to head of household (relationship was not recorded in the 1841 Census). The free search capability at FamilySearch.org will include additional fields of data in the future. Users will be able to search the full indexes and view original images for free at FamilySearch’s 4,500 Family History Centers or for a nominal fee at findmypast.com.

The addition of findmypast.com’s English and Welsh Census Collections to FamilySearch’s online databases will increase the use of the valuable record sets and increase traffic to findmypast.com.

Jay L. Verkler, Managing Director for FamilySearch, said, “The new images and additional information provided by FamilySearch will significantly enhance and improve the overall English and Welsh Census collection. And its addition to FamilySearch.org will increase awareness of the rich Web resources of FamilySearch affiliates and the likelihood of success for FamilySearch.org patrons doing British research.”

Elaine Collins, Commercial Director at findmypast.com, commented, “Findmypast.com is delighted to be working with FamilySearch to launch the British Census Collection online. Censuses are the core building blocks for family historians and genealogists alike, and now, at last, here is the definitive version. This has been a very exciting project for us, and we look forward to collaborating with FamilySearch in the future to bring other important collections to an ever wider international audience.”
FamilySearch will utilize its impressive online community of volunteer indexers to add more fields of data to select censuses. When finished, the improved census indexes will be available on FamilySearch.org, findmypast.com, and Originsnetwork.com. Individuals interested in volunteering as online indexers for British historical projects can do so at FamilySearch.org.

Ian Galbraith, CEO of The Origins Network and Upal Rahman, President of Intelligent Image Management (IIM) Inc. said, "The FamilySearch England and Wales Census project is clearly a milestone initiative in the history of genealogical research. It heralds a new era of easier accessibility to a mountain (literally!) of genealogical material available hitherto only to the privileged few, if at all. We are delighted to be working with FamilySearch and proud that they have chosen for the FamilySearch Website the 1841 and 1871 UK censuses—the most accurate available—which The Origins Network and IIM jointly developed."

The 50 Most Popular Genealogy Websites on the Net

2008-07-01T10:56:00.003-04:00

ProGenealogists Inc earlier this year released a study that for the first time identifies the 50 most popular genealogy websites. This list was compiled using the "places rated" approach to average the website traffic rankings from four major web analytic companies.

The top two websites actually tied for first place -- Ancestry.com (a subscription based genealogy records website) and their sister -- Rootsweb.com. Sitting in third place is a little know website MyHeritage.com. This Israeli based website focuses on genealogy community building and networking, and it boast over 23.8 million members worldwide (with a large European and Israeli presence).

In the fourth spot is another subscription service, also owned by the parent company of Ancestry (The Generations Network) - Genealogy.com. Rounding out the top five Internet genealogy websites is a longtime favorite of genealogists - Familysearch.org. This is a major data website sponsored by the LDS Church and includes instruction and reference help.

Nine of the 50 sites on this list are pay or subscription websites. Bryce Barnett, ProGenealogists Operations manager noted, "This illustrates that genealogists understand the value of paying for information."

Half of the sites on this list are data-oriented and another quarter are sites that provide links to genealogy sites on the Internet and data. Longtime genealogists favorite Cyndi's List was number 15 in popularity.

You can see the entire list and links for this top 50 list of Internet genealogy websites on the ProGenealogists website at http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.htm

Update on FamilySearch online databases

2008-05-24T11:05:00.004-04:00

Shortly after I put my weekly syndicated genealogy newspaper column (Finding Your Roots) to bed, I received a telephone call from Paul Nauta, manager of public affairs for the LDS church's FamilySearch Web site, letting me know that the FamilySearch Record Search pages have moved to a pilot page (http://pilot.familysearch.org/).

In addition, some new databases were added to the mix as indicated below"

Collection Name: Indexed Record Count/Unindexed Digital Image Count/Comments
1870 United States Census: 60,170 / 124,298 / New
1880 United States Census: 50,538,378 / 0 / Updated with add'l authorities
1900 United States Census: 79,191,470 / 1,663,024 / Updated with add'l relationships
Germany Baptisms 1700-1900: 4,905,598 / 0 / New
Germany Marriages 1700-1900: 1,347,321 / 0 / New
Mexico Baptisms 1700-1900: 1,926,938 / 0 / New
Mexico Marriages 1700-1900: 296,990 /0 / New
Michigan Births 1867-1902: 1,409,988 / 96,165 / New
Michigan Deaths 1867-1897: 507,342 / 24,628 / New
Michigan Marriages 1868-1925 : 1,533,863 /109,256 / New
West Virginia Births 1853-1930: 381,464 / 0 / New
West Virginia Deaths 1853-1970: 1,133,106 / 0 / Updated with add'l data
West Virginia Marriages 1853-1970: 415,770 / 0 / New

Total 143,648,398 / 2,017,371

I will have more on this in the next Finding Your Roots column. But in the meantime if you would like to help with the ongoing genealogical records indexing project being put online by the LDS church go to http://www.familysearchindexing.org/en/home/home.jsf?pname=homeTab.

I have been a record indexer for some time now and have had a ball working on index Louisiana Death records. It is nice to have a way of giving back to the hobby that has given me so much pleasure over these 30 plus years.

Free Online Genealogy Resources

2008-05-10T09:20:00.003-04:00

You folks who have taken my genealogy classes know what my favorite word is . . . free! And the link below is an Adobe PDF list of free genealogy resources on the internet courtesy of the good folks at FamilySearch.org.

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/News/frameset_news.asp?PAGE=Press/Free_Online_Records.pdf

I also have some other surprises but you will have to read my syndicated genealogy column in order to discover those.

Good luck and good hunting all,

Larry

RootsWeb Announcement

2008-03-19T15:01:00.004-04:00

The following was written by Tim Sullivan, CEO of The Generations Network, Inc. and is posted here at the RootsWeb blog: http://bigfile.rootsweb.com/newsroom/?p=111.

As you know, The Generations Network has hosted and funded the RootsWeb online community since June 2000, thereby maintaining RootsWeb as the world's oldest and largest free genealogy website. TGN remains committed to this mission and believes that RootsWeb is an absolutely invaluable and complementary resource to Ancestry.com, our flagship commercial family history site. We believe in both services and want to see both communities prosper and grow.

As part of this goal, we have decided to "transplant" RootsWeb onto the Ancestry.com domain beginning next week. This move will not change the RootsWeb experience or alter the ease of navigation to or within RootsWeb. RootsWeb will remain a free online experience. What will be different is that the Web address for all RootsWeb pages will change from www.rootsweb.com to www. rootsweb.ancestry.com. Again, the RootsWeb experience is not changing.

The decision to host RootsWeb on Ancestry.com is being made for one primary reason: we believe that the users of each of our two main websites can be better served if they have access to the best services available on both. Simply stated, we want to introduce more Ancestry.com users to RootsWeb and vice versa.

Today, despite the fact that Ancestry.com and RootsWeb.com are the two most frequently visited family history sites on the Web, only 25 percent of visitors to Ancestry.com visited RootsWeb in January 2008, while only 20 percent of visitors to RootsWeb visited Ancestry.com (according to Comscore Media Metrix). We think we will serve our users best by doing a better job of letting them know what is available on both Ancestry.com and RootsWeb. Hosting RootsWeb on Ancestry.com is the first step towards making this happen, but we will absolutely look for more and better ways down the road to advance this goal.

Hosting RootsWeb on Ancestry.com will also make it easier for us to make changes and improvements to the RootsWeb experience in the future.

All old RootsWeb URLs will continue to work, whether they are bookmarks or favorites, links to or from a hosted page or URLs manually typed in your Internet browser. We will have a redirect in place so that all old URLs will automatically end up on the appropriate new RootsWeb URL. You will never need to update your old favorites or links unless you want to. We have worked to make the transition as seamless as possible for our users, and this change should have a minimal impact on your experience with the site.

RootsWeb will remain a free online experience dedicated to providing you with a place where our community can find their roots together. If you have questions regarding this change please email them to feedback@rootsweb.com.

Thanks,

Tim Sullivan
CEO

New ways of finding elusive ancestors

2008-02-27T14:48:00.001-05:00

It seems like fellow genealogist, Tom Kemp, is always coming up with creative ways of finding ancestors. In his blog, he explains how he used GenealogyBank to find historical documents about the Platter family.

He also alerted me to GenealogyBank's new pricing - just $9.95 for the first month. For the amount of data available at this site, it really is a good deal.

- Over 106 million historical newspaper articles (1690-1977)- More than 26 million obituaries (1977-current)
Read the whole story at:
http://legacynews.typepad.com/legacy_news/2008/01/new-ways-of-fin.html

The Relatively Speaking Genealogy program is on the air

2008-02-11T13:05:00.000-05:00

I have found an interesting genealogy radio program that airs each Sunday from 4-6 p.m. MST (6-8 pm EST) on KSL-AM/FM in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Relatively Speaking is a new radio program hosted by long-time KSL NewsRadio personality Jackie McKay and features the genealogy expertise of Mary Slawson, a highly respected genealogy author.

If you don't get a chance to hear the program live, they have podcast of past episodes on the home page for this program on the KSL website. There is also some additional interesting genealogy material available on the program's website page.

So turn your web browser to http://www.ksl.com/?sid=640045 and check out this new weekly genealogy program.

You can get more information on listening to the program live via the internet at http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=21

PBS Ancestors TV Series Links Available Here

2008-02-11T12:04:00.000-05:00

For the benefit of my genealogy class students and others who visit this site, I have added links to each of the PBS Ancestors episodes from Season 1 and 2 to the resource portion of this blog (see the bottom of this blog). These are courtesy of the Roots Television website. Just click on the link and it will open up the webpage and media player so you can view that episode. These are excellent training videos and is the same material that I use in my Beginner / Intermediate classes at Tri-County Community College in Peachtree, North Carolina.

So if you miss a class, you can at least get the jest of what I covered by reviewing the associated video for that class at the links to the left. If you are new to genealogy, or a reader of my syndicated newspaper column - Finding Your Roots, you can learn more about how to do genealogy by viewing all of these videos in both series.

Hope you enjoy the service and be sure to visit the Roots Television website for additional material that can aid you in your family research (link in our "Genealogy Related Links We Recommend" section of this blog).

New Genealogy and Family History Genealogy Blog Available

2008-02-09T11:37:00.001-05:00

We are writing to tell you about our new blog, GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com. We hope you will check it out soon.

So why another genealogy blog, you may already be asking? Our purpose is to showcase our authors and their books/CDs and encourage you to contribute your own ideas and comments--it's that simple. As we say in our mission statement, "With 50 years of experience in the field, Genealogical.com will use its blog to inform researchers at all levels and to promote dialog about a variety of topics including resources, techniques, and items of current interest. We’ll provide an inside look into the world of genealogical publishing through interviews with authors and dialogs with senior members of our publishing companies. We’ll also post excerpts from our publications ..., so there will always be something for you to read about."

The first blog article entitled “The Small World of the 17th Century" is now up running. We hope to post new articles approximately once a week. You will also find postings for upcoming speaking engagements by our authors, links to other blogs, and more items as time and space dictate. We hope that you will become a regular visitor and invite you to participate with us freely and frequently. To access the blog, follow this link: http://genealogyandfamilyhistory.com/ .
Sincerely,
Your friends at Genealogical.com

CONTACT US
http://www.genealogical.com/ is the online home of Genealogical Publishing Company and its affiliate, Clearfield Company. For general information about our companies and their products, e-mail us at info@genealogical.com . To order on-line, you may e-mail us at sales@genealogical.com.

Family History Library now offering personal consultation sessions

2008-02-08T20:39:00.000-05:00

The world's best library for genealogical research just got better! The Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, recently added personal consultation sessions as one of their services. Sessions last from 30-45 minutes, depending on the nature of the problem.

Consultation sessions are not limited to genealogical research problems. They also include document reading, newsletters, organization, pictures/videos, PowerPoint, scanning techniques, and using flash drives.
Read more at:
http://legacynews.typepad.com/legacy_news/2008/01/family-history.html
(Source: Legacy News)

Just how good are the FamilySearch indexes ?

2008-02-08T20:29:00.000-05:00

FamilySearch Indexing continues to grow. Today Headquarters announced that over 115,000 volunteers have signed up to help index records.

The fruits of the efforts are starting to help people more easily identify their ancestors. The completed projects, with the linked images, are freely available for searching at http://labs.familysearch.org. For
example, one of the first indexing projects was the 1900 U.S. federal census. The entire census (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) is now searchable at the labs website.
Read more on this at:
http://legacynews.typepad.com/legacy_news/2008/01/familysearch-in.html
(Source: Legacy News)

Ancestry.com Search Template

2008-01-25T07:31:00.000-05:00

In my genealogy classes at Tri County Community college this week, the subject came up about the useless search basic and advanced search templates located on the home page of the popular genealogy service Ancestry.com. I mentioned in class that I would post a link to my favorite search template that I use on the site here on the blog.

So if you are looking for something a bit more user friendly, click on the "Search" tab at the top of any of the main pages or bookmark this link: http://www.ancestry.com/search/Default.aspx

Take a few minutes to famaliarize yourself with all the options you have on this page including the locality search at the bottom of the page and the record category search down the right side of the page.

Family Tree Announcement from Ancestry.com

2007-12-30T12:40:00.000-05:00

Since 1999, our Online Family Tree system has helped almost 2 million people build family trees, upload GEDCOM files and add their trees to Ancestry World Tree. We’ve maintained this system for some time, but the it’s finally become outdated and will soon be replaced with the Ancestry Member Tree system introduced in July 2006. We realize this is a bitter disappointment for some of you who have worked in our Online Family Tree system for years. This is an important step for us that lets us focus all our ability on creating one great system for everyone to use. At nearly 8 years old, Online Family Tree is an ancient product (in internet years anyway), and we feel it is important to move everyone to the new system while this one is still running. If we prolonged this, it would be much more difficult to do this while the OFT system is on life-support.

What does this mean for you?

For those that have a file in the old Online Family Tree system, you’ll be able to access your tree in that system through about March 2008. Between now and then you can easily transition your family tree file to the Ancestry Member Tree system and get used to it before the Online Family Tree system expires.
We know how much time and energy you’ve put into your tree and we’ve done our best to make sure you don’t lose a bit of it as you change systems. There are basically two phases to this transition period for Online Family Tree:

Phase 1 — Trial and transition.

Between now and March 2008 you can move your family tree file to the Ancestry Member Tree system and get familiar with it. Your file in the old Online Family Tree system will remain intact so you can double-check everything. However, once you’ve transitioned your tree to the Ancestry Member Tree system, any new information added or edits made will not be reflected in your Online Family Tree file. Do nothing during this timeframe and nothing will change in your Online Family Tree file. If you make changes to your Online Family Tree file after you’ve transitioned to Ancestry Member Trees, you’ll have the option to send the updated file to the new system once again.

Phase 2 — Tree expiration.

At the end of March 2008 we’ll send you another reminder to transition your tree. At this point, your tree will no longer be accessible in the Online Family Tree system, but the file itself WILL remain on our servers and in the system for as long as we can maintain it. When you come to view your Online Family Tree file, you’ll see only a link to move your family tree file to the Ancestry Member Tree system.

After March 2008 we plan to remove the old feature set surrounding your file. This means that all Online Family Tree files previously submitted to Ancestry World Tree will remain there permanently, unless you take steps to remove it.

About Ancestry Member Trees

The Ancestry Member Tree system will give you most of the same features as the Online Family Tree system. That includes integrated record search, the ability to invite family members to edit and contribute, GEDCOM import and export and much more. The Ancestry Member Tree system will also offer many new and exciting features.

Below is a comparison chart to show which features from the Online Family Tree system are available in the Ancestry Member Trees system:

We believe you will find much to enjoy about Ancestry Member Trees, and we hope to continue to add features and make you excited about the product.

Already more than 3 million people have created trees using the Ancestry Member Tree system, and we’ve been amazed at the work that has been done:

4.2 million family trees created

378 million names added

937,000 family members invited

48 million Ancestry Hints™ accepted

4 million photos uploaded

Spring 2008 Genealogy Classes Set at TCCC

2007-12-24T08:36:00.001-05:00

Do you want to learn more about your family history? Are you digging for those family roots on the internet, but not finding much?

Then consider taking one of the genealogy classes at Tri County Community College, Peachtree, North Carolina, this Spring. These inexpensive classes are available for all genealogy skill levels and are taught by local genealogy newspaper columnist and lecturer, Larry Van Horn.

Van Horn is professional family historian/genealogist who has been actively researching his many ancestral families for the last 30 years. He is currently working over 130 ancestral surnames, and has documented/sourced over 23,000 family ancestors and descendants in compiling his extensive family history. He lectures on genealogy topics to groups throughout the Tri-State area and writes the popular weekly syndicated newspaper column - Finding Your Roots. He has taught genealogy classes at Tri County for the last ten years.

Genealogy is one of the largest and fastest growing hobbies in the country. Millions of people all across the United States, and indeed the world, are digging up clues into their past. Google currently reports over 91.6 million pages on the net that contain the word genealogy. The most popular genealogy website on the internet, Ancestry.com, has more subscribers online than the Wall Street Journal.

Genealogy courses scheduled for Spring are:

Genealogy - Beginning/Intermediate
This course covers the usage of a variety of record sources in the pursuit of ancestor hunting. Sources such as vital records, census, church records, court, military, land property, and tax records will be discussed in detail. If you want to
learn how to find and use these records in genealogical research, this course is for you. This course is a requirement to take any of the advanced genealogy courses offered at TCCC. The class will be held Thursdays, January 10 * March 27, from 6:30 * 9:00 p.m. Cost is $50.

Researching an American Genealogy, Part 1
The first part of this course instructs the researcher in the timeless principles of
genealogical research. It incorporates the latest thinking on genealogy and computers, specifically the relationship between computer technology (the Internet and CD-ROM) and the timeless principles of good genealogical research. It also includes information on the evaluation of genealogical evidence and organization, analyzing the family pedigree, correspondence, research tools, reference materials, and cutting edge technology such using DNA in genealogy. Part 2 will be taught in the
spring of 2008. This is an advanced course and students must have completed the Beginner/Intermediate Genealogy and Part 1 of this course in order to register for this class. The class will be held Mondays, January 7 * April 7, from 9:30 * 11:00 a.m. Cost is $50.

Researching an American Genealogy, Part 2
For those who want to learn how to build pedigrees and reconstruct family groups, tying them from one generation to the next, this course is a must. This course also has value to other researchers. Historians, demographers, and sociologists studying people in the past will find that this course will provide important guidance in assessing which records will provide the facts needed. Part 2 of this popular advanced genealogy course will cover records and their uses. This course will look in-depth at vital records, census, probate and basic legal terminology, land records, court, church, and military records, and many more. The class will be held
Tuesdays, January 8 * March 25, from 6:30 * 9:00 p.m. Cost is $50.

All in the Family - Veep Cheney and Obama 8th Cousins

2007-10-17T07:09:00.000-04:00

Press reports this morning (October 17) indicate the Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are related - 8th cousins.

Lynne Cheney, wife of the US VP, revealed that while researching the Cheney family tree for her new book Blue Skies, No Fences, she discovered that the Vice President and Obama are related -- albeit distantly.

Mrs. Cheney said that it was "an amazing American story that one ancestor . . . could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths."

Mrs. Cheney said she traced a common ancestor of the two men to a 17th century immigrant from France - Mareen and Susannah Duvall.

According to Mrs Cheney's spokeswoman, Mr Obama, the son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas, is distantly related to Mareen Duvall, whose son Samuel married the granddaughter of Mr Cheney's ancestor, also called Richard Cheney

In fact, according to the Chicago Sun-Times Obama and President George W. Bush are 11th cousins.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton offered a tongue-in-cheek response to the revelation, saying, "Every family has a black sheep."

FamilySearch Wiki Beta Online

2007-10-11T13:29:00.000-04:00

Information courtesy of the RootsMagic Newsletter:

The Family History Department in Salt Lake City has developed a new research support tool called the FamilySearch Wiki at http://www.familysearchwiki.org/.

This resource has been developed to help make family history research advice easier to find and share.

FamilySearch Wiki is intended as an online community for family history researchers and those interested in learning how to be more successful in the search for their ancestors. This site includes all the research outlines published by the Family History Library and many other articles never published such as the wiki material for Japan, China and India.

The site is in beta, so you may find missing pieces, but take it for a spin and feel free to tell others about it.

Tracing Your Family Tree to Adam and Eve. Possible?

2007-10-11T10:29:00.000-04:00

This always gives me a chuckle when I hear this from a "family historian." Some genealogists claim that they have extended their ancestral lines back to Adam and Eve. Is this possible? If so, is it necessary for all of us to extend our pedigrees back to them?

From Robert C. Gunderson, Senior Royalty Research Specialist in the LDS Church Genealogical Department in Salt Lake.

"The simplest answer to both questions is No. Let me explain. In thirty-five years of genealogical research, I have yet to see a pedigree back to Adam that can be documented. By assignment, I have reviewed hundreds of pedigrees over the years. I have not found one where each connection on the pedigree can be justified by evidence from contemporary documents. In my opinion it is not even possible to verify historically a connected European pedigree earlier than the time of the Merovingian Kings (c. A.D. 450-A.D. 752)."

Gunderson says, "Every pedigree I have seen which attempts to bridge the gap between that time and the biblical pedigree appears to be based on questionable tradition, or at worst, plain fabrication. Generally these pedigrees offer no evidence as to the origin of the information, or they cite a vague source."

And I firmly agree with Mr. Gunderson. I have been conducting genealogy research for well over 30 years now and I have yet to see a valid, sourced and proven genealogy to anything in this early era.

And this is what I tell my genealogy students: "If it is not sourced, it is not history. An unsourced genealogy should start out as...once upon a time."