Genealogy Insider - FamilyTreeMagazineArticles

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Now's the Time to Start on Family History Gifts
Posted by Diane

We don’t mean to rush you into the winter holidays—it was just Halloween—but if you’re thinking of giving family history-related gifts this year, now’s the time to start.

Many such gifts require prep work: For example, you’ll need to gather, scan, digitally touch up and label photos for a photo CD; start laying out an online photo book or calendar; or collect and transcribe family stories. Maybe you want to check another record or two before finalizing a compiled family history.

And by starting early, you can watch for coupon codes and sales; and make sure anything you order online will get to you in time.

As our early gift to you, here’s our December 2006 article with 13 family history gift ideas you can make. The projects range from very quick and easy to moderately quick and easy. The article has supply lists and step-by-step instructions for seven of the projects.

A few more sources of family tree gift ideas:

Perennially popular gifts for genealogists, from inexpensive to a little pricey

Maureen A. Taylor’s gift ideas for photo fanatics

How to create a family cookbook

Family Tree Magazine Plus members can access this article on making photo gifts using online services

Our very own how-to books, CDs and other helps for your genealogy friends (or wanna-be genealogy friends). You can sign up for our e-mail newsletter to learn about specials in ShopFamilyTree.com.

I’m kinda partial to this one: Family Tree Legacies, a book Family Tree Magazine editor Allison Stacy and I put together for recording all kinds of family history information—not just names and dates, but also family stories, news articles, house history, military service details, where people lived and more.

Celebrating your heritage | Family Heirlooms | Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Thursday, November 05, 2009 2:07:21 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Tell Us Your New Year's Traditions (You Could Win a CD)
Posted by Diane

We’re still taking entries for our November 2009 All in the Family challenge, but only for another week. If we publish your entry in Family Tree Magazine, you’ll win our Organize Your Genealogy Life! CD.

Here’s how to enter:

1. Think of your family’s weird, wacky or wonderful New Year’s traditions. Did you irritate the neighbors by banging pots and pans at midnight? Play board games and watch the ball drop on Times Square? Consume cabbage, donuts or black-eyed peas for luck?

2. Next, describe that tradition in 200 words or less.

3. Send us your description either by posting it to our Talk to Us Forum (you must register with the FamilyTreeMagazine.com Forum to post) or by sending us an e-mail.

Please include your name and your city and state with your entry, like so: Diane Haddad, Cincinnati, Ohio. If we pick your entry, that’ll make it easier for us to credit you in the magazine.

And in that case, we’ll contact you by e-mail to ask for your mailing address so we can send the CD (so keep an eye on your in box).

You have until Nov. 10 to enter. Let’s hear those New Year traditions!

Celebrating your heritage | Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Tuesday, November 03, 2009 8:29:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Last Week to Vote in the Family Tree 40!
Posted by Diane

Remember to cast your vote for your favorite genealogy blog—the top 40 will be in a May 2010 Family Tree Magazine article.

Click here to see more information on the voting categories.

And click here to vote. Thanks for taking part!

Watch for Family Tree 40 updates here and on Twitter (look for the hashtag #FT40).

Family Tree Magazine articles

Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:28:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

10 Ways to Use Your December 2009 Family Tree Magazine
Posted by Diane

The December 2009 Family Tree Magazine should be hitting subscribers’ mailboxes during the next week (yes, it’s already December in Magazine Land). I randomly picked out 10 ways this issue might figure into your family history pursuit:

1. Start a family medical history with nine sources that can help you learn what illnesses your ancestors suffered and died from. (See, I thought I’d start this post on a bright note.) Click here for our online listing of health history books and Web sites.

2. And for a slightly morbid yet somewhat educational five-minute time-killer, try to match up 12 archaic maladies with their modern equivalents.

3. Plan your heirloom preservation strategy with a guide to preserving a variety of keepsakes—including a quilt, a delicate wedding ring and other items our coworkers at Family Tree Magazine headquarters brought in. (Associate editor Grace Dobush blogged about the shady past of one such heirloom.)

4. Are genetic genealogy tests really 99.9 percent accurate? Will they pinpoint where your ancestors lived? Discover the truth behind common beliefs about DNA and genealogy, and use quick-reference lists of testing companies, definitions and online DNA databases.

5. Follow along with our step-by-step guide to entering genetic genealogy test results in two genealogy software programs.

6. Did you know the historical newspaper search at GenealogyBank treats personal names like keywords? That means if your name is also a word, such as White or Banker, you’ll get lots of false matches. (The site’s obituaries and SSDI database are indexed by name). You’ll find search tricks in our Web Guide to GenealogyBank.

7. Can’t find your ancestor’s town of “Gross Herzogtum, Baden?” That’s because gross Herzogtum isn’t a town, but a term for “grand duchy.” Find explanations for this and other place terms related to ruling nobility in our guide to research in German states, including Prussia, Hesse, Bavaria and others. (See articles in our online German research toolkit here.)

8. Thinking of adding (or already have added) a genealogy app to your Facebook page? Get the lowdown on FamilyLink's We're Related and Family Builder's Family Tree, two popular genealogy apps for Facebook.

9. Chuckle over six readers’ captions for a giant-fish photo and enter our newest All in the Family Challenge.

10. Where's that one article ... the one about the census ... not the regular census but the special ones ... ? Stop flipping through all this year’s magazines and open to the 2009 index on the last page of your December issue. You'll find that the article on nonpopulation censuses was in the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine on page 20.

Of course, there are even more great resources and tips in the December 2009 Family Tree Magazine. It'll be available starting Nov. 3 at ShopFamilyTree.com.

Family Heirlooms | Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Genetic Genealogy | International Genealogy

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:38:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Announcing Family Tree Magazine Plus!
Posted by Diane

Along with our Web site’s new look unveiled a couple of weeks ago, we started something else: Family Tree Magazine Plus, an online membership that gives you access to archived articles from the print Family Tree Magazine.

That’s nine years’ worth of advice on researching ancestors from around the world and in the United States, help finding and using genealogy records, recommendations for genealogy Web sites and books, guidance on researching and preserving photos and heirlooms, product and Web site reviews, ways to celebrate your heritage, and more.

In addition, Plus members will get access to new articles when an issue is published, as well as exclusive content that’s not in the print magazine (such as decorative family tree charts that I’ll post about next week).

The cost is $39.99 per year or $5.99 per month. Check out our money-saving VIP program, too, which includes the Plus membership, a year’s subscription to the print Family Tree Magazine, an automatic discount at ShopFamilyTree.com and other goodies.

(Genealogy Insider newsletter subscribers will get a special message about the VIP program this weekend.)

Of course, much of our site is still freely accessible by anyone. We’ll still add new free content, and all the articles and forms that were free before are still free.

When you search FamilyTreeMagazine.com using the search box in the top right corner, you’ll get a list of both Plus and free article titles that match your search.

Next to articles that are part of the Plus membership, you’ll see a green plus icon. Here’s an example:

The Sort By Menu at the top of the results lets you sort the list of articles by Plus/Free (the free articles will then be listed after the Plus articles).

You can click on a Plus article title to read the first paragraph or two, which looks something like this:

Click one of the “Join Plus” buttons to start a membership. Or, if you're a Plus member and you're logged in, you'll see the whole article.

Plus articles show up right on the Web site—no need to download anything.

There’s also a printer-friendly link at the end of every Plus and free article, so you can easily take articles with you to the library.

For a shortcut to starting a Plus membership, just click the orange Join now! button on our home page.

We’re glad to be able to offer this convenient, online way to access the tips and resources in past issues of Family Tree Magazine. If you prefer a more-traditional way to get your genealogy how-to information, though, you can download many back issues and individual articles as PDFs from ShopFamilyTree.com. Most recent back issues are still available in print, too.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Research Tips

Thursday, October 15, 2009 4:00:35 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Announcing Our 2009 Difference Maker of the Year!
Posted by Diane

If you’ve used USGenWeb, RootsWeb, a genealogy society library, the databases on FamilySearch Record Search Pilot, the Ellis Island passenger database, Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness, the photos on Dead Fred, or innumerable other resources and organizations, you’ve been helped by a stranger who just wanted to make it easier for people to find their ancestors.

Nope, your average genealogist wouldn’t get very far without relying on the work of volunteers.

Which is why we started our Difference Maker series—to highlight the efforts of all these unknown volunteers. Family Tree Magazine readers nominated volunteers throughout the year, and we profiled one nominee in each issue. Then readers voted, and the results are in—our 2009 Difference Maker of the Year is Gail Reynolds of Myrtle Beach, SC.

Voters told us how this library volunteer and genealogy instructor has made a difference in their research. “She’ll get you maybe not through that brick wall, but under it or over it. She’ll go to immeasurable lengths to help you—and enjoy every moment.”

Reynolds will receive a year’s subscription to Family Tree Magazine and $100 toward her favorite genealogy cause.

We’re proud of all the genealogy volunteers you’ve met in the magazine this year. In addition to Reynolds, they are:

Ellen Thompson, collecting history of local schools
Robin Dickson, volunteering and indexing records at her library
John Jackson, creating a virtual cemetery for Civil War soldiers
Susan Steele, preserving historical insurance records
Bennie W. White, compiling records and posting resources free online

Family Tree Magazine articles

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 4:32:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Monday, October 05, 2009

Family Tree 40 Blog Voting is Open
Posted by Grace

Voting is now open for the Family Tree Magazine 40 Best Genealogy Blogs (“Family Tree 40” for short).

Go to FamilyTreeMagazine.com to vote. Voting takes place from Oct. 5 to Nov. 5, and you can vote more than once. We grouped the nominated blogs into categories, and you'll be asked to vote for a specified number of blogs in each category. (We aimed to have you vote for a quarter of the total number of blogs in each category, but rounded the number in some cases because, well, you can't vote for half a blog.)

URLs are included on the voting form, so you can check out the blogs if you want. For those who wonder how the categories were determined, here's a rundown:

All-around
These bloggers give you a little (or a lot) of everything: news, research advice, their own family stories, photos, opinions and more. There’s no one quite like the Genealogue, so we thought about that blog for awhile. It landed in this category because the Genealogue posts a satirical take on genealogy news, holds occasional research challenges and blogs about his own family history every so often.

Personal/Family
These blogs primarily cover the blogger's (or, in a case or two or more, bloggers') own research and ancestors. Family historians write what they know and what’s important to them, so this is our biggest category.

Local/Regional
Most posts in these blogs cover resources, genealogy events and history for a city, town, state or region.

Cemetery
These blogs focus on cemetery research, gravestone photos and the like.

Photos/Heirlooms
Content on these blogs is primarily about sharing, researching and preserving family photos and/or heirlooms.

Heritage
Here, blog content focuses on a particular heritage group, such as African-American, Jewish or Irish. We had some tough decisions in this category, as some family-related genealogy blogs by nature also examine that family’s ethnic heritage.

News/Resources
Blogs in this category deliver a range of genealogy news and information about new resources.

How-to
These blogs have instructional content on genealogical resources and methodology. In some cases, bloggers wrote about their own research and ancestors, but framed posts in an instructional manner.

Genealogy Companies
Blogs in this category are written on behalf of a genealogy company, and contain helpful (but not overly advertising-oriented) information on the company’s products, as well as other resources.

Genetic Genealogy
Blogs that are primarily about genetic genealogy and family health history.

The top 80 vote-getting blogs will make it through to a "final" round, and our editorial staff will select 40 blogs from that list. The Family Tree 40 will be announced in the May 2010 Family Tree Magazine and in the Genealogy Insider e-mail newsletter. You also can follow us on Twitter for contest updates (we'll use the hashtag #FT40).

Click here to get voting!

By the way, feel free to grab either of the little logos below to promote your blog or someone else's!

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun | Genealogy Web Sites | Social Networking

Monday, October 05, 2009 2:37:39 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [3]

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Thanks for Sharing Your Family Photos!
Posted by Diane

Late last month we put out a call for photos of your ancestors; one person’s photo will be on the cover of the January 2010 Family Tree Magazine, our special 10th Anniversary Issue. I’m excited that you were excited to share your family photos. Thank you!

Our art director Christy Miller, who designs Family Tree Magazine covers, wanted to add her thanks and an update on how selection is going. This from Christy:

We were thrilled to see your response to our call for photos. With more than 300 submissions (and a few more waiting in our in-boxes), it's definitely going to be a challenge choosing just the right photo for the cover.

Every picture you sent tells a story about your family—such as the three sisters having a tea party, the 1909 off-roaders, this American Indian family whose members were removed to Oklahoma, the young woman in this gorgeous hand-colored portrait, this fun wedding-day photo, this one showing some old-fashioned PhotoShopping … we could go on.

A few people even sent unidentified photos, hoping someone else will recognize the faces of those pictured.

So all the pictures speak to us. For magazine cover purposes, we’re especially liking photos where you can see the subjects’ faces clearly, they’re making eye contact with the viewer, and their expressions are open and friendly (as if to say, “pick up this magazine!”).

Thanks for sharing your photos with Family Tree Magazine. We're thoroughly enjoying looking through them. And don't worry if your photo doesn't get chosen for the cover—we may use it inside the magazine during the year (we'll contact you in that case).

P.S. Does anyone else see a resemblance between the young woman in this photo and actress Julia Roberts?

Family Tree Magazine articles | Photos

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 3:56:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

More on the Family Tree 40
Posted by Diane

Thanks to the genealogy blogging community for helping spread the word about our Family Tree Magazine 40 Best Genealogy Blogs, an article scheduled for the May 2010 issue. We hope it will draw readers’ attention to the great work being done on genealogy blogs.

We wanted to get readers involved in the article for a few reasons:

To encourage people to check out more blogs, including ones they might not be aware of
To make the selection process more of a bottom-up effort, not just our editors’ choices
To get genealogists’ help and input in selecting from the huge blogging universe

We chose to do this through a nomination period, followed by a voting period. Genealogy blogger FootnoteMaven raised some questions about the process in her recent “Hmmmmmm” post, so I wanted to clarify some points here. I apologize in advance for the long post!

Voting
We’d planned to explain more about voting once we saw how nominations went. Not having done this before, we didn’t know what kind of response to expect, which is why we weren’t more explicit about judging and criteria from the outset—it wasn’t a secret; we just weren’t sure how our criteria would work, based on the number and quality of nominations we might receive.

Voting is intended to make the process participatory, but voting alone won’t determine which blogs are featured in the article. When the voting concludes—assuming we receive adequate nominations—the top 80 vote-getting blogs will make it through to a “final” round, and then our editorial staff will select 40 blogs from that list.

Narrowing the list of nominees
There’s no predetermined limit to how many nominees will be included in voting. But we do anticipate a need to eliminate some nominations from consideration. Criteria that would disqualify a blog:

It isn’t primarily about genealogy.
The blogger doesn’t post original content (for example, if he/she simply aggregates feeds from other blogs).
The blog is no longer updated, or does not post new content on a regular basis (say, at least once a week).

In narrowing remaining nominees, we’ll look at the quality of the posts—rampant misspellings (beyond typos—those happen to everyone) and poor language can make posts hard to follow. We’ll look hard at blogs associated with paid services—such a blog might be helpful to readers, or it might be primarily a marketing tool. Those made up strictly of advertising content would likely be eliminated.

If a blog gets just one or a few nominations, that won’t keep it out of the voting. If one blog is nominated many times, though, we’ll note that it’s probably a blog many people are reading.

Categories
We thought we’d divide nominees into categories because it’ll be easier for readers to choose from, say, a list of 20 similar blogs than one huge list of all 500 or 1,000 (or however many) nominees. We feel it’s important to see the nominees before setting categories in stone, so we can make sure we have categories that account for all the blogs in the running. We also don’t want to end up with categories containing only two or three nominees, or 100 nominees, which would be unmanageable for voters.

FootnoteMaven asked specifically about categorizing wide-ranging, very frequently updated genealogy blogs such as Randy Seaver’s Genea-Musings. We’ll come up with a broad, all-encompassing category for such “super bloggers.”

She also wondered whether the “excellent genealogy advice,” “offer insight,” etc. qualities mentioned in our first Family Tree 40 post might hint at the voting categories. They’re not meant to. Instead, we just wanted to get nominators thinking about why they’d want to take the step to nominate a particular blog.

Finally, FootnoteMaven also wanted a Family Tree 40 badge that encourages blog visitors to vote for their favorite genealogy blog, not just her own. Here’s an alternate version of the badge she and other bloggers can use:

and the original, which blogger also could choose:

If you have a comment or question, please click Comments and let us know.

Family Tree Magazine articles

Thursday, September 10, 2009 6:21:12 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [5]

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Nominate a Genealogy Blog for the Family Tree 40
Posted by Diane

Do you have a favorite few genealogy blogs that you read regularly? Maybe the blogger offers excellent genealogy advice, insightful analysis or a unique point of view. Or the writing especially creative or humorous.

If so, we want to know about it. In the May 2010 issue, we’ll be naming the Family Tree Magazine 40 Best Genealogy Blogs (“Family Tree 40” for short).

First, we’re asking the genealogy community to nominate the genealogy blogs they read most. Later, family historians will vote on their favorite blogs in several categories.

Click here to nominate your favorite blogs by filling out our online form.

The nomination period is from Sept. 3 to 30. You can nominate as many blogs as you want (one at a time), your own included, as long as each blog is related to family history in some way.

Voting will take place from Oct. 5 to Nov. 5. We’ll let you know here and in the Family Tree Magazine E-mail Update newsletter when voting is open.

You also can follow us on Twitter for contest updates (we’ll use the hashtag #FT40).

The Family Tree 40 will be announced in the newsletter and in the May 2010 Family Tree Magazine. Start nominating and stay tuned!

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites

Thursday, September 03, 2009 2:15:31 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Special All in the Family Challenge: Ancestral Anniversaries
Posted by Diane

For the All in the Family department in the 10th anniversary issue of Family Tree Magazine, we thought it would be fun to go with the theme by including readers’ stories of ancestral anniversaries.

Tell us about your family's longest-wedded couple: who they are, when they were married, how they met or how they celebrated a milestone anniversary, and maybe even their secret for a long, happy union.

If we publish your story in the January 2010 issue, we'll send you one of our genealogy how-to CDs.

Things to remember before you enter:

Post your entry to the Ancestral Anniversaries thread in the Talk to Us Forum. (To help combat spammers, forum registration is required for posting. You can register by clicking here.)
Please keep your entry under 125 words, so we can include more stories in the magazine.
Please add your city and state to your entry for publication in the magazine.
We'll contact you for your mailing address and possibly for a photo of your anniversary couple, so please keep an eye on your e-mail account.
By submitting, you give Family Tree Magazine permission to feature your contribution in all print and electronic media.

We'll need your entry for this All in the Family challenge on or before September 15. Thanks for sharing your family's stories!

Celebrating your heritage | Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Tuesday, September 01, 2009 6:18:42 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Put Your Ancestors on Our Cover!
Posted by Diane

We're looking for a great ancestral photo to feature on the cover of the January 2010 Family Tree Magazine (that's our 10th anniversary issue!).

Maybe your family photo is the one.

Post your ancestral photo to our Ancestral Cover Photos Flickr group or e-mail it to us (we'll then post it on Flickr), and we may use it on the cover!

Before you start flipping through those albums, please note these requirements:

The image must be dated before 1920 and not show any individuals still living (we don't want to upset any of your more-modest relatives).
The image must be high-resolution (at least 300 dots per inch) so it will reproduce well in print.
The image must show people (five or fewer is best, that way we'll be able to see everyone).
Include your e-mail address and/or phone number with your submission—we'll need to be able to get a hold of you if your image is chosen.

Some disclaimers for you to be aware of: By submitting your photo, you affirm that you are the owner of the image and it is not subject to copyright by any other party. You also grant Family Tree Magazine permission to crop the digital image as necessary for publication, and to use the image in any and all print and electronic media.

Got questions? Click Comments to ask them, or e-mail them to us.

Update: Please submit your photo(s) by September 15. Also, it's fine to submit more than one image, but please try your hardest to choose up to your five favorites to send. Thanks!

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun | Photos

Thursday, August 27, 2009 1:36:48 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [3]

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

NewsInHistory.com Database Launches
Posted by Diane

NewsBank, which produces the GenealogyBank newspaper subscription site as well as news services for libraries, has introduced another site called NewsInHistory.com.

This subscription site, which you can access from home, lets you search the full text of “thousands of historical newspapers and millions of articles” from US newspapers published between 1800 and 2000.

A subscription costs $99.95 for a year or $19.95 per month.

See a title list sorted by state on the site. The content appears similar to GenealogyBank’s Historical News collection, at least for the 1800-to-2000 time frame.

So what’s different? NewsInHistory.com targets a more-general audience of history buffs and scholars. The announcement of its launch emphasizes how the articles “capture the civic, political, social and cultural events of American life.” You search it by a keyword, date and place of publication.

GenealogyBank content goes back to 1690, for one thing, and the search places more importance on finding ancestors' names. It also has genealogy-friendly collections including America's Obituaries, the Social Security Death Index and Historical Documents.

GenealogyBank costs $69.95 per year or $19.95 per month. Look for our special pull-out guide to using the site in the December 2009 Family Tree Magazine.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Newspapers | Social History

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:34:17 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Pick a Mascot for Family Tree University
Posted by Diane

Would you rather be a Fighting Kin-garoo or a Family History Hawk? Or maybe a Missing Lynx?

We’re on the hunt for a mascot for Family Tree University, the series of online genealogy classes we’re launching in late fall. Family Tree Magazine subscribers can read more about it in the November 2009 issue—coming your way right about now—or visit the Web page and sign up for e-mail notifications.

You can help choose a Family Tree University mascot by clicking here and voting for your favorite (or if you don’t see a mascot you like, you can suggest one).

We'll let you know when classes are starting. Hope to see you on "campus"!

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun | Family Tree University

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 8:58:30 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [4]

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Full Circle
Posted by Diane

In April, I interviewed Ian Frazier, who penned the story of his northern Ohio ancestors into a book called Family, for the November 2009 Family Tree Magazine (on newsstands Sept. 8).

A half-hour after our interview, Frazier was the keynote speaker at the Ohio Genealogical Society's golden anniversary banquet. During dinner, he sat next to the loquacious Kenny Burck, president of the Hamilton County (Ohio) Genealogical Society.

Frazier’s account of their conversation about Kenny’s son Bobby, aka New York City's Naked Cowboy, appears in the Aug. 24 New Yorker.

And my husband of almost a year was Bobby Burck’s lab partner in high school.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Thursday, August 20, 2009 1:21:51 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Monday, August 17, 2009

Help Choose the Genealogy Difference Maker of the Year!
Posted by Diane

From the unofficial town historian who helps out at the library three days a week to the legions of people doing FamilySearch Indexing, your average genealogist wouldn’t get very far without relying on the work of volunteers.

If you’ve used USGenWeb, RootsWeb, a local genealogical society, the databases on FamilySearch records search pilot, the Ellis Island passenger database, Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness, cemetery inscriptions on Find-A-Grave, or innumerable other resources and organizations, you’ve been helped by a stranger who just wanted other people to be able to find their ancestors.

We started our Difference Maker series to highlight the efforts of all these unknown people. Family Tree Magazine readers nominated volunteers throughout the year. We selected a nominee to profile in each 2009 issue—they are

Ellen Thompson, for collecting history of local schools
Robin Dickson, for volunteering and indexing records at her library
John Jackson, for creating a virtual cemetery for Civil War soldiers
Gail Reynolds, for being a library volunteer and genealogy teacher
Susan Steele, for preserving historical records
Bennie W. White, for compiling records and posting resources free online

Now it’s up to you to help choose a Difference Maker of the Year. That person will win a year of Family Tree Magazine and $100 toward his or her genealogy cause.

Click here to learn more about the work of these six volunteers, then hit the voting link on that page to cast your vote.

Voting closes Sept. 16 at midnight EDT. One vote is permitted per computer.

Congratulations to these six people, and thanks to all the genealogy volunteers out there who make it easier for us to research our roots.

Family Tree Magazine articles

Monday, August 17, 2009 6:03:50 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

UGOs (Unidentified Genealogical Objects)
Posted by Diane

Yesterday evening, our company had a trade show, wherein each community (genealogy, writing, woodworking, crafts, etc.) displayed its latest how-to publications and resources.

The Family Tree Magazine staff enjoyed showing off our CDs, webinars and forthcoming Family Tree Legacies book, and sharing genealogy tips with coworkers. I think one guy is searching the free 1911 Irish census as I type this.

The best part was our guessing game. For a chance to win a prize, our colleagues guessed the identity of this object, commonly used in the course of genealogy research:

Here were some of their guesses (obviously, we’re dealing with some wise guys here):

“toddler’s crayon”
“fossilized chocolate cake”
“worry stone” (over those unsolved brick walls, we presume)
“paper weight”
“scrubber to get your pen started” (huh?)
“thumbprinter thingie”
“It’s used to help you separate papers. You rub your fingers on it so you can easily rifle through your records”
"a secret listening device"
“a template for drawing circles for names on your family tree”
“a starter for the center of your family tree”

What’s your guess?

The correct answer is tombstone rubbing wax, used for making impressions of tombstones. The astute Holly Davis, an editor over at The Artist’s Magazine, is the winner of a scrapbook album kit!

For step-by-step instructions on making tombstone rubbings (including ensuring the stone is sound), see this FamilyTreeMagazine.com article.

And to avoid arrest while making said tombstone rubbing, read our Now What? blog post.

Cemeteries | Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:05:30 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Playing Heirloom Detective
Posted by Grace

I just finished writing a super-comprehensive article on heirloom preservation for our December issue. We asked our coworkers if they had any particularly interesting heirlooms to show off, and got some great items to photograph for the magazine.

An item we didn't use was very intriguing, though. Kelly wrote:

Let me know if you guys ever do an article on gruesome heirlooms—my family has this shirt that my great-great grandfather was wearing when he was shot and murdered. (Gross! And weird—who keeps that kind of stuff?)

Genealogists do! I wanted more details.

Basically, all I know is my great-great grandfather was a pig farmer who had a farm in Lockville, Ohio. According to the story, my great-great-grandpa turned to go back into the house after refusing to sell land to this guy, and when he did, the guy shot him in the back. Yikes! And that's how my grandpa ended up with a bloody shirt in a trunk in his basement.

All I knew was her grandpa's last name, Boyer, and that the murder took place in Lockville, Ohio. Surely there would have been newspaper articles about the fracas, but I couldn't search GenealogyBank until I had a specific name. I decided to do an old-fashioned Google search, for Lockville Ohio murder.

One of the very first results was a Google Books excerpt of a tome of Ohio penitentiary pardon petitions. Bingo! A John L. Tisdale pleading for clemency after serving eight years for the murder of a George L. Boyer in 1890. With that name, I searched GenealogyBank and found this article in the June 24, 1890, Cleveland Plain Dealer:

It reads:

Murder at Lockville.
LANCASTER, June 23.—[Special.]—George (sic) Tisdale, a farm laborer, shot George L. Boyer, a prominent famrer, at Lockville, this county, this morning. As the two sons of Tisdale were quarreling with a son of Boyer about hogs that had trespassed on Boyer's farm, he came up to protect his son, when Tisdale came out of his house and shot Boyer in the right breast, Boyer dying in five minutes after.

The Google Books result gives a little more insight into Tisdale's side of the story. He says Boyer was "a coarse, passionate man, of cruel heart" and was "a quarrelsome man and possessed a violent temper." (If you were trying to suss out your ancestor's personality, what a find! Read the September 2009 issue for more on ancestral psychoanalysis.)

With a little searching on Ancestry.com, I found the Boyer family in the 1880 census:

(Click to enlarge)

And going back, the family appeared in the same spot in every census going back to 1850. Amazing, what one bloody shirt can do for a family's research!

Learn more:

Family Heirlooms | Family Tree Magazine articles | Free Databases | Newspapers

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 3:51:25 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Friday, July 31, 2009

Crimes of Your Great-Grandfathers
Posted by Diane

A couple of months ago, when I was editing an article criminal ancestors for the forthcoming November 2009 Family Tree Magazine, I asked Family Tree Magazine E-mail Update newsletter readers about murders and other crimes in their family history.

Dozens of you responded with stories—some are fascinating (in a can't-look-away kind of way), some are amusing (in a gallows-humor kind of way) and some are sad. Here's a sampling of them:

Carol Clemens' family legend was that her great-grandfather Martin Franchetti was accidentally shot and killed by a stray bullet from a saloon brawl in 1902.

After finding references to seven newspaper articles within a couple of months, she discovered her ancestor was shot during an argument with a former boarder who’d developed a crush on Franchetti’s wife. Clemens says help from the Schenectady County Clerk’s office was invaluable in locating the perpetrator's criminal trial records.

Cheri Adams couldn’t find anything about her the family of her great-great-grandmother’s second husband. A Google search brought up a New York Times article stating that the husband, Elijah Godfrey, was killed while handling dynamite in his cabin. Another article revealed that the medical examiner thought it was murder. “It seems Elijah had been speaking with authorities regarding stills in the area," writes Adams, "and undoubtedly due to his loose lips, the owners of the stills took revenge.”

Tom Neel of the Ohio Genealogical Society found an account in a 1915 county history about John Gately, his fourth-great-grandfather from North Carolina. “Sometime after the year 1793,” Gately’s father-in-law, thinking the younger man had stolen his money, killed him.

Neel found corroboration in court records while at this year’s National Genealogical Society conference in Raleigh, NC. Turns out the aging father-in-law had misplaced his stash.

Domenic Parenty, great-grandfather to Janice Gianotti-Zakis, was "gunned down in the street, defending a woman" in Chicago in 1894. In 2002, she confirmed the story in police records from microfiche at Northeastern Illinois University. Now, her ancestor’s case is chronicled on the site Homicide in Chicago: 1870-1930.

Kathleen Anders wasn’t interested in genealogy when she found a tombstone in a Nebraska cemetery with the names of two young people who died on the same day. On a return trip, the caretaker furnished a file of newspaper clippings: Anders' great-grandfather had taken the lives of his brother and sister-in-law in 1903. Over the next two years, she found the trial transcript and interviewed people who remembered her family.

With the mystery solved, she’s turned to ancestors whose less sensational lives still deserve to be known. “I now focus on the other lines of the family that have, in their own right, great stories to be researched and written about.”

Carol Heap’s grandfather Frederick Hirsch, a Nassau County, NY, police officer, was killed in the line of duty May 6, 1931, by a 19-year-old nicknamed "Two Gun Crowley." Crowley was convicted and sent to Sing Sing prison in New York, where he was executed in the electric chair in 1932. Hirsch's wife raised four young children alone; Heap remembers her father saying he really missed having a Dad.

Connie Parott received a copy of a relative's 1970s school essay detailing her third-great grandfather's efforts to track down the murderer of his brother Thomas at a Sylamore, Ark., Christmas Eve dance in 1877.

She found several news articles, “but to my amazement,” she writes, “the stories favored excessive details about the murderer, but nothing about the victim. The murderer had accidentally shot himself in the leg while hiding in the woods. His leg was amputated, so the newspapers had a field day describing a one-legged man hanging from the gallows.”

Forum members also posted stories and tips for researching ancestral crimes here. You'll also find advice in the previously mentioned November 2009 Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands Sept. 8.

court records | Family Tree Magazine articles | Newspapers | Social History

Friday, July 31, 2009 8:47:24 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

101 Best Web Sites for Genealogy in 2009
Posted by Diane

Our 2009 list of 101 Best Web Sites for genealogy is now online!

For this year's edition of our annual list, we went with 10 categories of 10 sites each, plus one site (maybe you can guess which one) that’s in its own class. We also turned the focus a bit more to the Web 2.0 sites that are changing how you do online genealogy.

We also adjusted our system for indicating free and fee-based sites: Sites that are mostly free but for which you might eventually get out your credit card for some thing or another are marked by one dollar sign ($). Subscription sites and those where you must pay for any meaningful content get a double dollar sign ($$).

Go on over to the list and click through to these great genealogy resources. Got any favorites you’d add, or beefs with any of our picks? Post your feedback to our 101 Best Sites forum.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 6:52:34 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Friday, June 05, 2009

Sale on Genealogy CDs, Downloads and Books
Posted by Diane

I’m letting it slip about the sale on genealogy how-to CDs (including the much-coveted State Research Guides CD), digital downloads and books in our MyCraftivity online store.

But you'll need the secret code!

When you’re ready to check out, enter FTSUMMER15 in the Special Offers box, and we'll take 15 percent off your entire order. That’s on top of the sale prices already in effect for most items—so, for example, the aforementioned State Research Guides CD becomes $32.30 (regular price is $49.99).

The code expires June 12, so start shopping.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Research Tips

Friday, June 05, 2009 7:54:16 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Technical Issues
Posted by Diane

So. Our blog software had to be upgraded this morning, and the URL format for individual posts is different in the new version.

We discovered too late that the links to all our previous blog posts also have been retroactively changed. Which in one fell swoop rendered incorrect a number of links in our weekly E-mail Update newsletters and in the magazine.

We're going to do as much as possible to make it easy for you to find the posts you want. In the mean time, you can find recent articles on the main page of the blog.

To find past posts, you can use the date or topic categories in the left margin, or run a search using the Search box below the categories (enclose phrases in quotation marks).

If you're looking for some Genealogy Insider post in particular, leave a comment and we'll give you a link.

Family Tree Magazine articles

Thursday, May 07, 2009 9:50:23 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Enter to Win Our Organize Your Genealogy Life! CD
Posted by Diane

We’re hard at work putting together a CD called Organize Your Genealogy Life! with Family Tree Magazine’s best advice and resources for sorting and storing your genealogy research, computer files, heirlooms and photos. We hope it’ll make you a more efficient researcher and ease your clutter-induced stress.

Whenever we tell people about this CD, they describe their overstacked desks (or dining room tables), overflowing file drawers and overstuffed hard drives. Maybe something resembling this:

So we thought we’d hold a little drawing—you submit a photo of your disorganized genealogy space, and we’ll randomly select three photos whose submitters will receive this CD free.

There are two ways you can enter:

Uploading your photo to our Flickr group. This is be easy if you’re already on Flickr: Just click Join to join our Flickr pool. If you’re not on Flickr, you’d need to become a member, which requires you to have a Yahoo! ID—click the aforementioned Join link to be guided through the steps. It’s not hard; but it does take a few minutes, which brings us to option two.

You also can e-mail your photo to us (we’ll post it to Flickr).

Either way, your photo should be 72-dpi JPG files, and you should include your name, hometown and e-mail address. Post or e-mail your photo by June 16 (updated). By entering, you agree to let us use your name and submitted photo in any and all print and digital media.

Just for the record, the photo above isn't my genealogy space—it's that of the researcher who won an organization contest we ran in 2002. She also had stuff int eh trunk of her car. Just goes to show any year is a good year to get organized.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Research Tips

Wednesday, May 06, 2009 3:02:44 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Meet Our Family Tree Huggers
Posted by Diane

For people who research genealogy, “tree hugging” has a second meaning. That's the one we have in mind as we recognize several members our online community as Family Tree Huggers.

Over the years the FamilyTreeMagazine.com Forum has been up and running, these especially active members have enhanced the entire community’s experience with their observations, research advice, questions and inspiration.

These folks, who represent a range of research levels, will have this nifty badge to use as a forum avatar and to put on their own Web sites and blogs. They’ll serve as a sounding board for feedback on article topics, genealogy Web sites, industry news, etc.

Thanks to Valerie Craft, Jackie Fry, Linda Matthews, Dae Powell, Cat Smith and Linda Swisher for helping to make our Forum a welcoming place. Get to know this group of researchers a little better.

And we’re on the lookout for more Family Tree Huggers who post frequently to the Forum and help make it a great place for genealogists to hang out. Let us know if you're interested.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 5:19:09 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, April 13, 2009

Free Download: Where to Find 1880 DDD Census Records
Posted by Diane

I wanted to let you know we’ve just uploaded a new genealogy Cheat Sheet to our online Research Toolkit: A state-by-state listing of where to find 1880 supplemental census schedules of “defective, dependent and delinquent" classes (“DDD schedules” for short).

Download it as a PDF from our Record References page.

You'll know to look for your ancestor in DDD schedules if his 1880 US census listing has a mark in columns 15 through 20, showing whether he was ill or had a physical or mental disability. If so, DDD schedules might give more information about his condition or reasons for being institutionalized.

These special schedules, recorded only for the 1880 US census, aren’t in online databases such as Ancestry.com’s. Some states’ DDD records are on microfilm at the National Archives and/or genealogy libraries; other states' records are in original form at state archives and libraries. Few are indexed.

We can’t promise our listing is comprehensive, but it does give locations and Web site addresses of repositories where we could find DDD records for each state or territory. If you’re still having trouble finding DDD schedules for your ancestor, start by contacting the state archives where he lived.

For help using DDD and more special census records—including agriculture, manufacturing, mortality, slave and other schedules—look for our guide in the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine. It starts mailing to subscribers this week.

census records | Family Tree Magazine articles | Libraries and Archives

Monday, April 13, 2009 3:46:08 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Help Tracing Roots in Europe
Posted by Allison

Need a hand crossing the pond? You'll find help in our newest CD, the Family Tree Passport to Europe.

Given the popularity of our heritage articles in Family Tree Magazine—"When are you going to do an article on [insert ancestral homeland]?" is an oft-asked question in our inbox—we're excited to have a way for folks to tap into the great advice we've offered on European genealogy.

The CD combines 22 guides to researching in these nations and regions
(some articles cover more than one country):

Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
England
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Scotland
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Wales

Plus articles on Jewish roots and major ports of emigration. The guides include hints for finding and using records, identifying ancestral villages, dealing with foreign language barriers and understanding historical events that affect your ancestors' circumstances—and your genealogy search. Many guides include helpful maps to put your family in geographic context.

And of course, there are lots of recommended resources for learning more—and all the Web sites are hyperlinked for one-click access.

For those of you who subscribe to our e-mail newsletter, look for a special discount offer on this CD to hit your inbox tomorrow.

Don't get the newsletter? Now's a great time to sign up—in addition to genealogy news, tips and advice each Thursday, you'll get the opportunity to download our 42-page PDF e-book Best of the Photo Detective. Visit our newsletter page to subscribe for free.

Family Tree Magazine articles | International Genealogy

Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:00:29 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Footnote Launches 1930 Census, New Look, New Search
Posted by Diane

Historical records site Footnote just announced its new Great Depression Collection, anchored by an interactive version of the 1930 census that CEO Russ Wilding calls “a gathering place for the American story.”

Footnote members can attach family photos and stories to names on the census images and automatically create Footnote Pages for them.

That opens up at least one back-door genealogy research avenue, suggests spokesperson Justin Schroepfer: If someone left a note on your ancestor’s neighbor’s listing, you could contact the member through the site and possibly get in touch with the neighbor’s descendants.

Also in the Great Depression Collection are digitized and indexed documents from the era, including newspapers with articles on President Roosevelt’s New Deal and ads revealing how much your ancestors paid for groceries.

Along with this release, Footnote revealed a new home page and new search. Duplicate home page links to the same place have been eliminated for a more streamlined look, and there’s no longer a separate advanced search—you expand the search box on the home page to bring up additional search fields.

Footnote searches for plurals and stem names (such as Michael for Mike), but doesn’t automatically look for alternate spellings. I couldn’t find my Haddad ancestors in the 1930 census until I entered the enumeration district and sheet number as keywords—they’re indexed under Haddah. But you can look for alternate spellings by using an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to stand in for any number of letters.

Look for more search tips in our Footnote Web Guide in the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine (on newstands May 5).

The Great Depression Collection is part of Footnote’s subscription offerings. (There’s a limited-time special offer of $55.95.) Footnote also offers a pay-per-view option for many of its records.

The 1930 census actually went live yesterday, but Footnote postponed the announcement to work out a few bugs (it was killing me to keep my mouth shut, but I distracted myself by updating the abovementioned Web Guide).

Family Tree Magazine articles | Footnote | Genealogy Web Sites

Thursday, March 26, 2009 12:36:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [2]

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Speaking of Irish Roots and Women's History ...
Posted by Diane

March is both Irish-American Heritage Month and Women's History Month. (If you're an Irish-American Woman, double hats off to you!)

March 2, President Obama followed his predecessors' example and proclaimed March Irish-American Heritage Month. (Wonder if he was thinking of his own Irish roots when he signed the paper?)

The next day, again following precendent, Obama also proclaimed March Women's History Month.

You're guaranteed a reason to celebrate: Even if you're not one of the 30.5 million Americans who have Irish ancestry, I'm pretty sure you have female ancestry. See FamilyTreeMagazine.com for resources on tracing both:

Access all our Irish research tools in our online Toolkit. The March 2008 Family Tree Magazine has our seven-step guide to tracing Irish roots.

For help finding women, see our list of best records, article on search strategies, and tips on discovering maiden names. The February 2008 Family Tree Magazine has our research guide (sold out on paper, but a digital downloads is available).

Celebrating your heritage | Family Tree Magazine articles | UK and Irish roots

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:42:08 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

To Save or Not to Save?
Posted by Diane

My mom’s been helping clean out Grandma’s garage. Last night when I visited, Mom was telling me about the piles of old receipts Grandma’s been hanging onto all these years.

Mom had pulled out some papers—the hospital bill for my aunt’s birth, the building materials order for the family’s first home—and the rest were in what-do-we-do-with-this? limbo.

Of course, I had to go through it all. I took a bunch of papers, including the bill for Mom’s first communion around 1954

and the receipts for her second-grade schoolbooks (someone played connect-the-dots on the back)

and 12th-grade tuition (including a $25 graduation fee).

I’ll definitely save stuff related to my mom. But what about the other kids’ schoolbook lists, random furniture receipts, a refrigerator repair ticket, ancient correspondence from an insurance company, BBB reports on business schools an aunt was thinking about attending, and similar items?

Theoretically, it’s great to keep every piece of paper. But with limited space and crowded lives, reality demands most of us be choosy about what we save. What would you do with these papers? Click Comments (below) to reply.

Added to my to-do list: Review the February 2007 Family Tree Magazine guide for what to do when you inherit the family archives (print copies are sold out, but this issue is available as a PDF download). And if you're considering donating family materials to a historical archive, see the advice on our Now What? blog.

Family Heirlooms | Family Tree Magazine articles | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 2:15:12 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [13]

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Free Photo Detective Download with Newsletter Sign-up
Posted by Diane

Tell your friends about this one: We've got a free gift for those who sign up to receive our weekly E-mail Update newsletter (which, coincidentally, is also free).

What is it? Our Best of the Photo Detective 42-page digital download, containing photo historian Maureen A. Taylor’s best tips for identifying mystery family photographs.

After you submit your newsletter sign-up, you’ll get a link to download the booklet. It’s a PDF, so you’ll need the free Adobe Reader software to open it.

And yes, if you’re already a newsletter subscriber, you still can get the download. Go to the sign-up page, enter the same e-mail address where you already receive the newsletter, update any other preferences you want, and click Submit. We won’t send two newsletters to the same e-mail address.

Family Tree Magazine articles

Wednesday, March 04, 2009 3:43:42 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Monday, March 02, 2009

Superstitious Ancestors? Enter Our Challenge for a Chance to Win
Posted by Diane

It’s both 15 days till St. Patrick's Day and your last chance to get in on Family Tree Magazine’s March 2009 “Lucky Charms” All in the Family Challenge.

To enter, tell us about a lucky charm or superstition in your family. For example, when I was a kid, whenever someone was getting married or we had a soccer tournament or good weather was needed for some other reason, Mom would set a figurine of Mary in the kitchen window (facing outside, or it wouldn't work).

Maybe you’ve saved Grandpa’s lucky penny or you throw a pinch of salt over your shoulder while cooking, just like Grandma always did.

Cross your fingers and describe your family’s lucky charm or superstition for us. E-mail your entry before March 9, and be sure to include your name and hometown.

If we select your entry to publish in the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine (knock on wood), you’ll win our Beginner’s Guide to Genealogy digital download.

Celebrating your heritage | Family Heirlooms | Family Tree Magazine articles

Monday, March 02, 2009 9:25:38 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Our Organizing Extravaganza
Posted by Diane

If you’re feeling guilty because you haven’t jumped on that New Year’s resolution to organize your genealogy files, this post won’t make you feel any better. (But be consoled by the tips at the end.)

The accumulated paper and other stuff was getting to be a bit much here at Family Tree Magazine. So last Friday, we held an all-out, all-day organizing extravaganza.

Not a file drawer, bookshelf, box, or folder on the server escaped our critical “do we really need this?” collective scrutiny. (Here, Allison displays her recycling skills.)

Associate editor Grace Dobush and art director Christy Miller sorted through props and film from way back before photo shoots went digital.

Where was I? Taking care of my desk drawer, an “after” desperately waiting to happen.

It always looks worse before it looks better. We emptied boxes in a requisitioned cubicle and sorted and arranged. This …

became this …

and this …

I feel refreshed. Energized! Like our time investment in revising filing systems and straightening storage spots will make us more efficient and quicker on the job.

If you want to have your own organizing day, pizza for lunch helps the motivation. And see these tips on FamilyTreeMagazine.com:

Organizing photos

Getting your e-mail in order

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun | Research Tips

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 5:29:39 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [3]

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Ellis Island Hospital Documentary Airs in February
Posted by Diane

Forgotten Ellis Island, a documentary based on film producer Lorie Conway’s book of the same name about the immigrant hospital at America’s busiest port of arrival, is set to air on many PBS stations Feb. 2 at 10 p.m. (It'll air Feb. 16 at 8 p.m. in some places.)

See the Forgotten Ellis Island Web site and check local TV listings for updates. (The online schedule for our PBS affiliate let me set up an automatic e-mail reminder.)

I interviewed Conway for the November 2008 Family Tree Magazine, and the Ellis Island hospital is among my favorite topics I’ve covered. Conway shared photos and stories of immigrants treated there, revealing the hospital’s history and how the staff handled patients' varying cultures, languages and illnesses—while trying to balance a mission of humanity with a duty to protect the US population from diseases.

As mentioned in the November 2008 article, patient records are missing except a few documents scattered in other files. The hospital buildings are under the care of Save Ellis Island and awaiting restoration.

Family Tree Magazine articles | immigration records | Social History

Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:42:11 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Get Family History Help in the Latest Family Tree Magazine Podcast
Posted by Diane

In the busy-ness of attending a genealogy expo and tying up loose ends before offices everywhere are deserted for Thanksgiving, I haven’t yet told you our November 2008 podcast is now available for your listening pleasure.

(Of course, if you subscribe through iTunes or another service, you already know this.)

In this new episode, hosted by Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems, you’ll get quick research-project ideas from the author of “Power Hour” in the January 2008 Family Tree Magazine, insight into family traditions from professional researcher Lisa A. Alzo, and a verbal peek at the vast resources inside the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library.

You’ll hear from other Family Tree Magazine writers and the editors, too—see all the November 2008 Family Tree Magazine Podcast topics in the show notes. As always, the podcast is free.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Podcasts

Tuesday, November 25, 2008 7:27:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Where Do We Find All That Old Stuff?
Posted by Grace

Readers occasionally ask us if we have information on the photos or letters we show in our articles. Unfortunately, for the most part, we don’t. "Many of our old photos have come from antiques stores and flea markets," says our editor, Allison Stacy. "We used to have a photo stylist go out and buy props for us—kind of like a mystery shopper." So where do we get all the stuff we show in Family Tree Magazine?

Without a stylist these days, we have to get a little creative in finding props, and we aren’t too proud to scavenge. "I brought home copies of some documents and burned the edges of them on my patio one night for a photo shoot" for a story about burned courthouses, says our art director, Kathy DeZarn. "The next morning on my way to work I spotted a bunch of charred wood and broken bricks from a house fire just a few blocks from my home. It was just too good to pass up."

Kathy got the Mason jars in the May 2008 History Matters from her aunt’s basement, and "the boxes of stuff I inherited when my parents died has been the source for all sorts of letters, photos and stuff including one (I only found one) of the shoes my mom wore on her wedding day."

Managing editor Diane Haddad’s grandmother's purse and burgundy dress have been in photo shoots for the magazine, as have various family pictures. My own parents happen to have a house full of antiques and ephemera, which comes in very handy! That's a picture from their living room below. (The telephone, directory and telegraph key in the "Getting the Message" article in the January 2009 issue pictured above came from them.)

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun | Photos

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 8:41:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, October 27, 2008

Google Love
Posted by Diane

Life before Google? Sometimes it hurts to think about.

Even before learning some tricks while working on our January 2009 Family Tree Magazine genealogy Googling article, my favorite Google trick was the site search. I’d be racking my brain because I knew I saw something about probate records on some page of a site, and for the life of me I couldn’t find it again.

I go to my Google toolbar and type in site: plus the URL and the search terms, and Google will search just that site. For example, say I want to find FamilySearch’s Denmark research outline. Here’s my Google search: site:www.familysearch.org denmark research outline.

The first result is exactly what I'm looking for.

Other tools I love: language translation (handy when editing foreign-research articles), area code lookup and—since I found out about them from the googling article—the currency converter and calculator tools.

On our Web site, you'll find five time-saving Google shortcuts and an excerpt from Google Your Family Tree, a book by Daniel Lynch. Our readers share their Google love on our Forum.

Learn more about making the most of Google in the January 2009 Family Tree Magazine (it's mailing to subscribers right about now; you can get it Nov. 11 on newsstands and from FamilyTreeMagazine.com).

Family Tree Magazine articles | Research Tips

Monday, October 27, 2008 9:07:32 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Monday, October 13, 2008

Your Family in the Great Depression
Posted by Diane

Pack-rat tendencies, the Clean Plate Club, freezers crammed with food, and a fear of borrowing money: These are Great Depression legacies CNN’s iReporters mention an article on CNN.com.

We've had our own Great Depression storytelling session going on in the Forum (it’s related to an upcoming Family Tree Magazine article).

One Forum member how her grandfather tracked his salary in his diary, watching it fall from $224 a week to $135 a month. Things improved when he got a new job in 1941.

Ask your relatives how your family made do during the Great Depression and how their lives changed, and share those memories in the Forum. Nowadays we all probably could use the perspective.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Social History

Monday, October 13, 2008 9:33:36 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Coming Soon: Help for Genealogy Newbies
Posted by Allison

In keeping with the "behind-the-scenes" aspect of this blog, I thought I'd give everyone a sneak peek at one of the projects the Family Tree Magazine staff is working on.

Beginner's Guide to Genealogy is a primer that culls together some of our best articles on getting started tracing your roots. It's been fun to revisit "classic" advice we've published throughout the years—I've found at least a few nuggets of information I'd forgotten. (Which, for me, is really saying something—the staff accuses me of having a photographic memory of the entire magazine archive. It's what happens after you proofread every article four or five times. But I digress.)

Here's a sampling of topics in the Beginner's Guide:

overview of basic records
oral history interviewing
writing queries that get answers
Web search techniques

And a sneak peek at the cover:

Beginner's Guide to Genealogy will be available as a digital download from our online store by Oct. 15. Which means I better get back to work!

Family Tree Magazine articles

Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:12:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Tales of Terrific Family Tree Teamwork
Posted by Diane

Waaaaaay back in April, to play up the promising possibilities of genealogical research collaboration, we asked for your entries in our Terrific Family Tree Teamwork Contest.

We heard a lot of great stories, but managed to winnow them down to the winners, who're portrayed in the November 2008 Family Tree Magazine. There’s something to learn from each example:

Our grand prize-winners, Bev Ophoven Ewing and Kathleen Lenerz, have never actually met. In 1998 they discovered a cousin connection online. Now, they tackle family mysteries by bouncing ideas around, building off each other’s thinking and divvying up research tasks.

Gwendolyn Cameron and her cousins wanted to learn about their great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran. They traced him to the state hospital where he'd died. The group organized a memorial service, and since our November issue went to press, the hospital has restored its historic graveyard. A rededication is scheduled for tomorrow.

In 2006, Melissa Hogan found a team in the Chilton County (Ala.) Yahoo! genealogy group. They turned out to be relatives, and set their sights on discovering the fate of an ancestor rumored to have served prison time.

Susie Bullion recruited her team by creating a memory quilt with squares relatives filled with stories. To share the history, she and her siblings typed up the stories, researched background information and turned them into a family memory book.

Valerie Craft’s family history research began as a college project that never ended. Her mom served both as fan and teammate, especially helpful in putting Valerie in touch with distant relatives.

All the teams won our State Research Guides CD; the grand prize also includes Family Reunion Organizer software from RootsMagic, a Web site from MyGreatBigFamily.com and free batch photo scanning from ScanMyPhotos.

See these and other teamwork tales in our Exclusives for Registered Users Forum (note you must be registered with the Forum and logged in to view this section).

Celebrating your heritage | Family Tree Magazine articles

Thursday, September 25, 2008 2:49:27 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Monday, September 15, 2008

Cast Your Vote for the Genealogy Difference Maker of the Year!
Posted by Diane

We've been profiling an unsung genealogy volunteer in our Difference Makers section of each 2008 Family Tree Magazine issue.

Now you can help choose one of these volunteers as our 2008 Difference Maker of the Year. That person will win $100 toward his or her pet genealogy project, plus a free year of Family Tree Magazine.

Visit FamilyTreeMagazine.com to meet all six of this year's Difference Makers and cast your vote for the Difference Maker of the Year. Hurry! Voting ends at midnight Sept. 24.

You also can see names of all the hard-working volunteers Family Tree Magazine readers have nominated as genealogy Difference Makers.

We're so inspired by these folks that we're continuing the Difference Makers series for 2008. Nominate someone you know who's made a difference in genealogy (scroll to the bottom of the linked page to make a nomination).

Family Tree Magazine articles

Monday, September 15, 2008 6:55:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Olympian Phelps Joins Ellis Island Fundraising Campaign
Posted by Diane

Olympic swimming phenom Michael Phelps is the newest member of the We Are Ellis Island campaign, which is raising funds to restore the South Side of Ellis Island.

On the campaign Web site, you can watch a promotional video featuring Phelps (hard to recognize with facial scruff and a few inches of hair) and others.

Phelps’ ancestors immigrated through Ellis Island. A campaign spokesperson told me she doesn't yet have full details on their names and immigration dates, since Phelps signed on and shot the video just before leaving for Beijing.

Ellis Island's well-known immigration museum opened in 1990 on its North Side. The largely abandoned South Side was home to a state-of-the-art hospital where sick immigrants were treated—and sometimes ordered to return home.

Look for the November 2008 Family Tree Magazine article on Forgotten Ellis Island, a documentary and book about the hospital, and the patients and staff who spent part of their lives there.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Industry | Historic preservation

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 10:28:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, July 10, 2008

New Blog Series: 101 Best Web Sites Profiles
Posted by Diane

I’ll be highlighting two of our 101 Best Web Sites for genealogy (selected at random) each week right here. My math skills aren’t the greatest, but I figure at this rate, we’ll finish up in time to start next year’s list.

Let’s start with Documenting the American South, where the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill library publishes digitized texts, images and audio files.

We called this site one of the “Best for African-American Researchers” because of its strong African-American collections, including information on slavery, biographies and Southern black churches. But it covers a wide range of Southern history topics, including literature, North Carolinians in World War I, and southerners’ letters and other writings.

Next up: Family History Online, a fee-based site that lets you search records compiled by family history societies in England, Wales and Australia. The 67 million records now available include parish registers, memorial inscriptions, censuses, poor law documents and more. (See a breakdown by place under the Databases menu.)

You’ll need to register with the site to search the name index. You see limited results for free; the cost to view full record entries starts at 5 pounds (that's about $10).

The September 2008 Family Tree Magazine (which hits newsstands next week) has the full 101 Best Web Sites list, or click through to them all from FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

And you can visit our Forum to nominate your favorite family history site for honors in 2009.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites

Thursday, July 10, 2008 1:20:49 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Fourth of July Sale!
Posted by Grace

Want to experience some genealogical fireworks? Our State Research Guides CD will spark your US research—and for a limited time, get 20% off, plus free shipping! You can save on any Family Tree Magazine CD with this special offer, good only through Wednesday, July 9. Take advantage of the Fourth of July Sale by visiting our store and entering the coupon code FAM4TH when indicated during the order process; the discount will be applied at checkout.

Here's what you'll save:

State Research Guides CD
Retail: ~~$49.99~~ Sale: $39.99
Contains how-to guides and recommended resources for genealogy in all 50 US states, plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.

2006 Annual CD
Retail: ~~$24~~ Sale: $19.20
Includes all six regular issues plus the Genealogy Guidebook special issue.

2007 Annual CD
Retail: ~~$20~~ Sale: $16
Contains five issues plus a bonus family tree chart and directory.

International Genealogy Passport
Retail: ~~$12.95~~ Sale: $10.36
Features a region-by-region directory of resources to trace your roots anywhere in the world, plus our 2005 Sourcebook special issue.

Click here to visit the shop.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Research Tips

Wednesday, July 02, 2008 9:26:01 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Would You Read a Digital Magazine?
Posted by Diane

Right on the heels of Dick Eastman’s blog post about the disappearance of print newsletters and magazines, Everton’s Genealogical Helper announced the debut of its digital edition.

Everton’s is still doing its print edition, too. Ancestry (published by Ancestry.com’s owner, The Generations Network) also publishes both on paper and digitally, as does Internet Genealogy. Digital Genealogist is available only online.

I was proud to see Dick’s description of Family Tree Magazine as a “combined online and offline magazine." That’s what we’re going for: We’ve found readers are accustomed to getting information in a variety of ways, so we’re responding with extra online content, our weekly E-mail Update newsletter, back issues and special editions on CD, digital downloads of our State Research Guides, our blogs and online Forum, online videos and our recently launched podcast.

The entire publishing industry is caught up in the “digital vs. print” discussion, with some swearing it's just a matter of time before all print publications go away, and others insisting people always will want to curl up with a paper magazine or book.

Many who commented on Dick’s post said they’d rather read paper. What about you all—would you read a digital version of your favorite genealogy magazine?

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Industry

Thursday, June 12, 2008 8:59:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [7]

Friday, May 23, 2008

USCIS Genealogy Service to Handle Citizenship Record Requests
Posted by Diane

A rule published in last Thursday’s Federal Register announces the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, formerly the INS) will set up a fee-based Genealogy Program for responding to historical naturalization records requests. The rule takes effect Aug. 13.

Currently, requests are processed through the Freedom of Information Act/Privacy Act (FOIA/PA) program, which according to the agency, delays fulfillment.

The new program's fees will be $20 for an index search, $20 for record copies from microfilm, and $35 for copies of paper records.

USCIS initially proposed charging $16 to $45 in April 2006. During the ensuing public comment period, the agency received 33 comments, 28 of them positive and many addressing fee levels. You can see a comments summary in the Federal Register announcement.

Records you can request through this program include:

Naturalization Certificate Files (C-Files) dated Sept. 27, 1906, to April 1, 1956

Alien Registration Forms on microfilm from Aug. 1, 1940 to March 31, 1944.

Visa Files from July 1, 1924, to March 31, 1944

Registry Files, from March 2, 1929 to March 31, 1944. These records document the creation of immigrant arrival records for persons who entered the United States prior to July 1, 1924, and for whom no arrival record could be found later.

Alien-Files (A-Files) numbered below 8 million (as in A8000000). A–files were the official file for all immigration records after April 1, 1944. A–numbers ranging up to approximately 6 million correspond to aliens and immigrants who were in or entered the country between 1940 and 1945. A-numbers from 6 to 7 million date from about 1944 to May 1, 1951.

Documents dated after May 1, 1951, even if they’re in an A–File numbered below 8 million, are still subject to FOIA/PA restrictions.

Starting Aug. 13, you’ll be able to submit requests and credit card fee payments through the USGIS Web site on Form G–1041. For records naming someone born less than 100 years ago, you’ll have to prove the person is deceased.

To request an index search, you’ll need to supply the immigrant’s full name and date and place of birth (at least as specific as a year). To request copies of records, you’ll need to provide a file number.

Before the naturalization process was centralized under INS Sept. 27, 1906, local and federal courts kept citizenship records. See the May 2008 Family Tree Magazine and FamilyTreeMagazine.com for tips on finding pre- and post-1906 naturalization records.

Family Tree Magazine articles | immigration records | Public Records

Friday, May 23, 2008 6:26:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Enter to Win a Genealogy Insider T-Shirt!
Posted by Diane

You, too, can be a Genealogy Insider! To celebrate the Genealogy Insider’s first blogiversary tomorrow, we’re holding a drawing for one of our new T-shirts.

To enter, click Comments below and answer these three questions:

How many times a week do you read the Genealogy Insider blog?

What is your all-time favorite Genealogy Insider blog post?

What family history topics would you like to see the Genealogy Insider cover more often?

We’ll draw one commenter at random to win a short-sleeve T-shirt proclaiming his or her Genealogy Insider status. Remember, you must provide your e-mail address when you post—we’ll contact the winner for a size and mailing address. (Your e-mail address will appear with at, NOSPAM and dot to keep spam robots from harvesting it.)

You have until 5 p.m. EDT next Tuesday, May 27, to post your comment.

Want to guarantee you get a shirt? Genealogy Insider T-shirts and other gear are available in our CafePress store.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Thursday, May 22, 2008 3:19:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [75]

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Genealogy Insider is Turning 1!
Posted by Diane

Seems like just yesterday Family Tree Magazine entered the blogosphere with our very first post on the Genealogy Insider. But time flies, and that was almost 365 yesterdays ago: May 23, 2007.

To celebrate our blogiversary this Friday, we’re taking a quick look at highlights from our first year:

A few of the names we tossed around when the Genealogy Insider was still an idea: Blog Wild, Twigged Out, Theories of Relativity, Root Points. We settled on the name that says "genealogy" and "news."

We’ve published 243 posts (not counting this one), around 4.7 posts a week.

News of NARA’s free online passenger list transcriptions topped the charts in page views.

Our post on USGenWeb sites' departure from RootsWeb after it moved to Ancestry.com’s domain came in second in page views.

Associate editor Grace Dobush’s Family Tree Firsts installment about requesting an SS-5, our post on FamilySearch’s new record search, and the Web Sites category round out our top five most-viewed items.

The post you all spent the most time looking at reported World Vital Records' free newspaper articles. (Sorry, they’re not free anymore—World Vital Records makes each US Collection database free for 10 days after it’s added.)

The topic inspiring the most comments (26) was this month’s controversial news about the Catholic Church’s policy of withholding parish records from FamilySearch digitizers.

Our April Fool’s Day Family Tree Magazine cover got the second-most comments at 11.

Stay tuned for more first-blogiversary developments!

Family Tree Magazine articles

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:15:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [3]

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Six Hints for Google Books Search
Posted by Allison

In our July issue, we have a Toolkit article on Google Books Search: a functionality within Google to comb the contents of all kinds of books the company has digitized in conjunction with libraries, publishers and authors.

I've been playing around with Books Search to create a video demonstration of how it can help genealogists (watch it on our You Tube channel), and decided to share a few hints I picked up:

For best results, limit your search to books only: From the Google home page, click the more link in the top frame, then select Books.
Type a surname plus subject:genealogy in the search box to look for published family histories. Not that your results will also include books authored by people with that surname, even if that family isn't the primary focus. By searching for genealogy as the subject, you'll avoid lots of hits on books where the word genealogy just happens to appear in the text.
Search by county and local history books by typing the state, county or city name (use quotation marks around an exact phrase) and the word history in the search box. For example: ohio "wood county" history.
On the results page, look at the end of each listing for Full View, Limited Preview, Snippet View or No Preview Available. This tells you how much of the actual book you'll get to see.
If the book is too big or takes too long to download, an alternative is to save it to a personal Google library you create. You have sign up for a free Google account to use this feature.
For books with limited or no viewable pages, use the Find This Book in a Library link to go to WorldCat, where you can enter your ZIP code to locate it in a library near you or where you can get it on interlibrary loan.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Research Tips

Thursday, April 24, 2008 3:03:42 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Terrific Family Tree Teamwork Contest
Posted by Allison

We all know genealogy brings families together—and we’d like to recognize families who’ve embraced that collaborative spirit to make genealogical breakthroughs. Has your clan worked together to solve a family mystery? Taken a teamwork approach to writing or documenting your family history?

Tell us your story! Explain who was involved, how the collaboration came about and what you achieved in 500 words or less.

We’ll select several true tales of family teamwork to feature in our November issue. It’s a chance to not only trumpet your collaborative triumph to the genealogy world, but also win prizes for your feat: We’ll pick one featured family at random to receive a grand-prize package designed to facilitate further collaboration. The package includes:

Family Reunion Organizer software from RootsMagic
Free scanning of about 1,600 4x6 prints—or as many as you can fit in the prepaid box—from ScanMyPhotos.com
An interactive family Web site with one year of free hosting from MyGreatBigFamily.com

Plus, each featured family will receive a copy of our State Research Guides CD.

To enter, post your story in the Terrific Family Tree Teamwork Contest section of our forum—near the top of the site under Exclusives for Registered Users. If you aren’t already a registered user, you’ll need to sign up to view the contest area and post. Don’t delay! The deadline is May 15.

Family Tree Magazine articles

Thursday, April 17, 2008 4:06:30 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Thursday, April 03, 2008

We're Honored
Posted by Allison

When it comes to recognizing useful genealogical tools and services, we're used to doling out the honors—from our annual 101 Best Web Sites roundup to our "Libbys" libraries awards, coming in the July issue—rather than receiving them. But this week, we've gotten news that two awards have been bestowed upon Family Tree Magazine:

In a study of online traffic rankings, Utah-based professional research firm ProGenealogists found FamilyTreeMagazine.com to be one of the 50 most popular genealogical Web sites for 2008. Not surprisingly, heavy-hitting data providers Ancestry.com and RootsWeb (both owned by The Generations Network) topped the list. Some of the other rankings might surprise you—see the full list.

ScanMyPhotos.com customers selected this blog as the Best Genealogy Reference Tool and Family Tree Magazine as the Most Popular Genealogy Publication in the 2008 Artistry of Genealogy Awards. You can read about all the winners at ScanMyPhotos.com’s online Photo Preservation Center.

It’s nice to know that genealogists find our tools, tips and information so useful. We’d love to hear your feedback, too (both compliments and critiques): Tell us how you think we can make our magazine, blogs and Web site even better by posting a comment.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Industry | Genealogy Web Sites

Thursday, April 03, 2008 4:51:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, March 17, 2008

Got Irish Roots?
Posted by Diane

Happy St. Patrick's Day! A few numbers to help you appreciate the occasion:

30.5 million US residents who claim Irish ancestry
4 million population of The Republic of Ireland
22.5 percent Massachusetts residents with Irish ancestry
4.8 million immigrants from Ireland admitted for US residence since 1820
100 pounds of green dye added to the Chicago River St. Patrick’s Day, 1962 (the year that verdant tradition began)
3 million spectators at New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade
52,000 number of Irish immigrants who arrived in New York City in 1847
372,000 total population of New York City in 1847
107 years Boston has held an annual St. Patrick’s Day parade (Beantown witnessed the country’s first recorded St. Paddy’s Day celebration in 1737)
9 places in the United States named Dublin

We’re all Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, but if you’re Irish every other day of the year, too, the March 2008 Family Tree Magazine Irish research guide—and our online Irish Toolkit—will help you trace those roots back to the Emerald Isle.

Family Tree Magazine articles | International Genealogy | Social History

Monday, March 17, 2008 2:56:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Family Tree Magazine Editor on Roots Television
Posted by Diane

Our very own Allison Stacy is appearing now in a video on Roots Television.

At the recent Family History Expo in St. George, Utah, Dick Eastman (of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter fame) asked Allison, Family Tree Magazine's editor-in-chief, for the scoop on what to expect in upcoming issues.

Click to find out what we're up to!

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Events

Wednesday, February 27, 2008 6:39:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, February 21, 2008

The Five Ws of Genealogy
Posted by Diane

Researching ancestors in Canada?

Lisa A. Alzo, who wrote a guide to Canadian genealogy research for the May 2008 Family Tree Magazine (on sale March 18), sent these five questions you should ask yourself (though we think they’d be helpful for research all over the globe):

Canadian research has much in common with research elsewhere—your best chances for success will come from having laid a solid foundation. That means being able to answer the genealogical version of the Five W’s:

1. Whom are you researching? Be equipped with all the names your relatives were known by, and all the possible spellings.

2. What do you want to learn? This will give you some insight into what record you need to locate.

3. Where should you look? Canada’s a big country and records were mostly created and stored locally, and under an area’s geographic name at the time.

4. When did it happen? As in other places, different types of Canadian records were kept starting at different times. If your research starts before certain records were kept, you’ll need to find an alternate record to study. And what’s more, the way variousrecord groups were created and stored changed over time.

5. Why do you need a particular record? For example, maybe you want that marriage registration to learn the names of the couple’s parents. Knowing that can help keep you focused and open up possibilities for research in other records.

Look for Alzo’s advice to finding and using genealogical records in the May 2008 Family Tree Magazine.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Research Tips

Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:01:49 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Friday, January 18, 2008

Studying the States
Posted by Diane

You might notice I've been slightly quieter around here lately. That’s because I’m cramming for an appearance on “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”

OK, that’s not actually true. But I feel like I am. I’ve been learning all kinds of interesting facts about US history and geography while editing Family Tree Magazine State Research Guides like crazy for a compilation CD we’re planning to put out this spring.

Oh, haven’t we mentioned that already? Yes, the CD will contain our research guides for all 50 states, plus bonus material including help tracing roots in Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. So I’m back to reading about Mississippi school censuses and the Vicksburg National Military Park, and you can bet we’ll keep you updated.

Have a great weekend!

Family Tree Magazine articles

Friday, January 18, 2008 10:00:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

10 Biggest Genealogy News Stories in 2007
Posted by Diane

Here are the top genealogy developments of 2007… at least in our humble opinion. Got one to add to (or kick off of) the list? Got an opinion which news is the biggest? Click Comment (below) and get it off your chest.

Competition comes back
For a few years there, after industry leader MyFamily.com (now The Generations Network) purchased second-place Genealogy.com in 2003, industry competition ebbed and online innovation slowed. Today The Generations Network is still the giant, but the growth of relative newcomers including World Vital Records and Footnote, plus FamilySearch’s records-digitization initiatives, are keeping the genealogy business on its toes.

Records digitization accelerates
In October, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced it was teaming up with FamilySearch to digitize case files of approved pension applications from widows of Civil War Union soldiers. That’s part of an even bigger arrangement that has FamilySearch volunteers stationed at NARA to scan all kinds of records. Footnote also has agreements to digitize NARA records, and FamilySearch has mobilized thousands of volunteers to index scanned records.

Partnerships proliferate
Organizations are joining forces right and left. World Vital Records, which launched in 2006, has built its genealogy database largely through partnership agreements. That site, Footnote, ProQuest and the Godfrey Library announced in May they’d provide access at FamilySearch’s Family History Centers. Nonprofit libraries and archives, including NARA, are using partnerships to increase records access without blowing their budgets.

Social networking explodes
As contributing editor Rick Crume points out in his January 2008 Family Tree Magazine social networking guide, Web 2.0 has allowed sites to be more interactive than ever. In addition to the popularity of photo- and family-history-sharing sites such as Geni and Amiglia, and genealogy networking sites such as FamilyLink and WeRelate, database sites such as FindMyPast have added social networking features.

Family Tree Maker 2008 disappoints
Surely you’ve seen the comments from customers who bought the revamped genealogy program after a brief beta period, only to be disappointed by missing reports, data importing problems and other bugs. If not, let us help you out from under that rock, and take a look at readers’ comments in our products forum.

DNA testing gets higher profile
Your options for genetic genealogy testing—and the number of companies that’ll test you—jumped this year. The Generations Network hopped on board with DNA Ancestry. Mainstream media regularly weigh in on topics such as newcomer 23andme and the usefulness of testing for ethnic roots. PBS’s "African-American Lives" has brought genetic genealogy to prime time.

NARA rates rise
NARA's new rates for ordering copies of records, which included $75 for a Civil War pension file (up from $37), made us wonder about national priorities regarding the public’s access to historical records. Thank goodness for all that digitization (above).

Everyone’s blogging
It’s not hard to find genealogy news, resources and research updates from people in the know—just go to Google Blog Search and type in genealogy. You might come across The Ancestry Insider (an “unofficial, unauthorized view ...”), Geneablogie (the author’s “exploration of his American family of families”) or one of the tens of thousands of other blogs about family history. Heck, Family Tree Magazine got in on the act, too.

Online videos are everywhere
Thank Roots Television for this one. It actually launched in 2006, but expanded its coverage this year by sending crews to genealogy conferences and on cruises, and adding RootsTube (a genealogical version of YouTube where you can upload videos). Founder Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak says the site's roughly 400 shows (divided into 1,100 smaller chunks) are "pushing half a million video views."

Genealogists get younger
A survey Ancestry.com recently released found younger people expressed higher interest in learning heir family history. Empirical evidence—young people at conferences, youth branches of national societies (see our Web site for links) and Facebook genealogy add-ons—also tells us this. This means genealogy can continue its status among the country’s popular pastimes.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Industry

Wednesday, January 02, 2008 9:12:58 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [6]

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Attention, Genealogical Librarians
Posted by Diane

…and friends of genealogical librarians. Family Tree Magazine editors are working on an article that will honor libraries across the United States with outstanding genealogical collections—and we need your help!

To learn more about libraries' resources and collections, we want to survey as many genealogical libraries as we can. Any type of genealogical library is eligible to participate: public or private, large or small, etc.—as long as it has a genealogical collection the public can use (for free or by paying an admission fee).

Librarians can get more details and download our questionnaire (as a Word document) from www.familytreemagazine.com/librarysurvey. Questions cover the types of materials, collection scope and size, online information, that type of thing.

We’ll need completed surveys e-mailed to us by Jan. 14, 2008. If you have questions about the survey, please post a comment here or e-mail our editorial staff.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 9:54:50 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [2]

Enter Your Odd Holiday Tradition in Our All in the Family Challenge
Posted by Diane

Amidst the holiday shopping, baking and get-togethering rush, does your family make time to send around a fruitcake that’s been aging since 1976? Wrap a lump of coal for Uncle Jim? Set an elaborate trap in the hearth for Santa?

We want to know about the unusual traditions that make your family’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or New Year’s celebration complete.

Besides just being fun to hear, readers' off-the-wall holiday rituals are the topic for our January 2008 All in the Family Challenge. You have until Jan. 1 to e-mail your tradition to us.

Don’t forget to include your mailing address in the message or—so sorry—you won’t be eligible to win the subscription to Footnote’s online historical records database. We'll publish the winning (i.e., funniest) entries in the May 2008 Family Tree Magazine.

You also can mail entries (postmarked before Jan. 1) to All in the Family/January 2008, Family Tree Magazine, 4700 E. Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, OH 45236.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 4:28:54 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

PC Magazine Reviews Family Tree Maker 2008
Posted by Diane

Not to beat a dead horse, but has anyone seen PC Magazine’s review of Family Tree Maker 2008?

The reviewer, Lisa Reufenacht, gave it four out of five stars (or circles, or whatever those are). You can kinda tell she doesn’t do a lot of genealogy research. The word GEDCOM is nowhere to be found, and she makes no mention of genealogists' uproar over the software’s functionality problems and missing reports. She also notes Family Tree Maker 2008 is the only genealogy program she knows of offering automatic Ancestry.com searching, apparently unaware that’s because both products come from the same company.

Of course the PC Magazine review is intended for a general audience, one not necessarily composed of genealogical enthusiasts. “Within 10 minutes, I had a family history … going back to my great-grandparents on my dad's side,” Reufenacht says. “I didn't have to search for any of the information—Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com did everything for me.”

Makes us a little sad to think about users who’ll be at a loss for what to do when Ancestry.com runs out of records (or doesn’t have any) on their ancestors.

Though her review focused heavily on the auto-searching, Reufenacht did hit the nail on the head with this one: Used without a $155.40-per-year Ancestry.com subscription, Family Tree Maker loses some its shine.

Look for Family Tree Magazine contributing editor Rick Crume’s Family Tree Maker 2008 review—from a genealogist’s perspective—in our March 2008 issue, on newsstands mid-January (note our magazine is not affiliated with the software).

You can join the Family Tree Maker 2008 discussion in our Product News and Reviews Forum.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Software

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 7:29:34 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Monday, December 10, 2007

A Happy Holiday Field Trip
Posted by Allison

Few aspects of our Family Tree Magazine editor jobs are as enjoyable as getting out into the genealogical community and meeting the readers of the magazine—particularly our friends at the Anderson (Ohio) Senior Center Genealogy Group.

The group’s fearless leader, Bill Warden, invited our staff to speak to the group at Christmastime in 2004. Thus began our now-traditional “Editors and Cookies” visit each December, wherein the group members bring their favorite cookies to share, including some from heirloom recipes. (Yum!)

So we were delighted to learn that Bill brought take-out boxes to today’s session so we could bring some back to the office! Check out the spread:

But the cookies weren’t the best part of our visit. Far better is the opportunity to interact with people who are passionate about family history—and in many cases, Family Tree Magazine. It’s truly gratifying to hear how the work we do every day helps people, and to know that we make their hobby more enjoyable.

I think everyone had fun today taking the genealogy personality quiz that will appear in our March 2008 issue. Here is everyone concentrating on selecting their answers…

Although we can’t visit every genealogy group personally, of course, we’d love to hear what you like (or don’t like) about Family Tree Magazine. Post your feedback in our Talk to Us Forum.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy societies

Monday, December 10, 2007 11:19:15 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Forget Black Friday: Our CDs now on sale!
Posted by Grace

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, you can be sure that we're now barreling towards shopping season. Personally, I avoid malls like the plague on Black Friday. (Though I do indulge in a little Cyber Monday action.)

If you've got some genealogy buffs on your list (or if you've got yourself on your list), you have to check out our new 2006 and 2007 CDs! Every single page of Family Tree Magazine has been turned into a fully searchable, easily navigable and totally hotlinked product that you can take with you wherever you go. You will never have to type another URL again!

The 2007 CD includes all issues from this year, with articles including how to master the US census, the best family history tools ever, and guides to tracing Civil War and WWI ancestors. Also on the 2007 CD are our exclusive state research guides for Indiana, Maine, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming. (We threw in some extras, too!)

The 2006 CD includes articles on 365 ways to trace your roots, 89 family history freebies, five ways to save time online and genetic genealogy explained in plain English. The 2006 issues include our exclusive state research guides for Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas.

The files on the CDs are enhanced PDFs, which you can view with the free program Adobe Reader. (If you don't already have Reader, it's available for download here.)

We editors here at Family Tree Magazine put a lot of sweat into making these CDs, and we think you'll find them as handy as we do! Click here to browse our CDs and order online! (If you prefer not to buy online, we do have alternative shopping options.)

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Software

Wednesday, November 21, 2007 3:27:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, November 12, 2007

Report Urges Opening Adoptees' Birth Records
Posted by Diane

A report released today could help change how—and whether—adopted people can search for their family trees.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute examined whether adopted people, once they become adults, should have access to their original birth information.

The report’s conclusion is "yes," and it urges all states to follow the eight (Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee) that already allow adults who were adopted to access their original birth records. The institute found that in states with open records, “most birthparents and adoptees handle any contact with maturity and respect.”

You can read the report online and learn about the controversy surrounding opening birth records for adopted individuals at CNN.com.

For many genealogists, an adopted parent or grandparent presents a research brick wall. According to the report, some states have restored access more narrowly, “typically to individuals who were adopted prior to the state's law sealing this information.”

You can get help researching ancestral adoptions in the February 2007 Family Tree Magazine. Also see these links:

Finding Adoption Answers
www.familytreemagazine.com/nowwhatonline/adoption.html

Adoption Mailing lists
www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_adoption.html

Orphan Trains
www.familytreemagazine.com/feb07/orphan.asp
www.familytreemagazine.com/articles/june02/orphan.html

Family Tree Magazine articles | Public Records

Monday, November 12, 2007 9:47:54 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, November 05, 2007

Finding Old High School Yearbooks
Posted by Diane

My high school reunion (I’m not going to tell you which one) was a few weekends ago . I got to page through some old yearbooks and was reminded not only of my lack of skills with a curling iron, but also of yearbooks’ value in genealogical research.

Any descendants I may have, for example, will learn facts such as the name of my high school and the years I attended, and they’ll get a glimpse of my teen-age tendency toward geekiness. Yes, I’m a former member of the newspaper staff, yearbook committee, academic team and drama club set crew. I’m so glad it’s OK to be geeky when you’re a grown-up.

You also can see names of various award winners and, for seniors, the directory with contact information.

Of course, yearbooks show you all those great photos. If you’ve got family pictures of teen-aged relatives with unidentified others, try compare the unknown faces to photos in your ancestor's high school yearbook. Names of friends who signed the book are clues, too.

The yearbooks now available through World Vital Records are from colleges. The following tips for finding high school yearbooks come from the October 2005 Family Tree Magazine. If you know of other yearbook sources, hit Comment and post them:

Look up the school online (try a Google search or a site such as Public School Search) to see if it's in operation. Then call the office and ask whether old yearbooks are in the school or alumni office, and ask permission to visit.

If you struck out, call libraries and historical societies in the area, which may collect old yearbooks.

Next, see if you can find any alumni—even one from your ancestor’s class—through the school’s Web site. (No Web site? Do a Google search such as graduate central high school anytown.) The graduate may be willing to do a lookup. You also can visit genealogical message boards covering that town and ask if anyone has a yearbook.

Not many high school yearbooks are online, but sites with collections include the National Yearbook Project and Dead Fred. A Google search may help here, too. Try searching on the high school name plus yearbook genealogy.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Research Tips

Monday, November 05, 2007 3:46:18 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [10]

Monday, October 15, 2007

Batch Photo Scanning Services
Posted by Allison

For our January 2008 issue, contributing editor Rick Crume wrote an article about methods for scanning family photographs—a process that often can be tedious and time-consuming. One option Rick describes in the article is batch photo-scanning services. You ship off your pictures to the company, which then scans and delivers your digital images and originals in just a few days. These services are economical, too; you can get up to 1,000 photos digitized for as little as $50.

The catch, of course, is you have to let your pictures out of your possession. If you’re like me, you might not feel so comfortable entrusting your precious memories to UPS or the postal service. So this type of service might not be the best choice for irreplaceable historical photos.

On the other hand, if you don’t scan or otherwise copy your favorite photos—from yesterday and today—you risk losing them should they become victims of a flood, fire or even the family dog. If you have duplicates of photos, batch scanning seems like an ideal solution for getting them digititzed.

In addition to photographic prints, many services will also scan 35 mm slides and negatives. Depending on the service, you can get your scans on a CD, DVD, USB drive or even have them stored online.

Here’s a sampling of the services we’ve found. Know of any others? Post a comment.

30 Minute Photos Etc.
www.scanmyphotos.com

BritePix
www.britepix.com

Digital Pickle
www.digitalpickle.com

DigMyPics
www.digmypics.com

Larsen Digital
www.slidescanning.com

MySpecialPhotos
www.myspecialphotos.com

ScanCafé
www.scancafe.com

ScanDigital
www.scandigital.com

SecuringMemories.com
www.securingmemories.com

Family Tree Magazine articles

Monday, October 15, 2007 7:03:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [7]

Friday, October 12, 2007

Our Photo Detective in the Wall Street Journal!
Posted by Diane

Family Tree Magazine’s very own Photo Detective, Maureen A. Taylor, is featured in today’s Wall Street Journal, right there on the front of its Weekend Journal section.

The article tells the stories of several families whose photos Maureen has used to fill in a missing piece of the past. Several of the pictures, such as this one showing three young ladies, have been featured in Maureen’s Photo Detective column in Family Tree Magazine and her Photo Detective blog on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

You also get a sense of the research that goes into each photo analysis. Maureen draws on her burgeoning library of obscure reference books; guides to historical uniforms, clothing, accessories, fraternal insignia, artifacts and other items that show up in our ancestors’ photographs; a closetful of antique photos; other historians' insights; and a store of knowledge that comes from studying history and analyzing thousands of images over the years.

See a portion of the article on the Wall Street Journal Web site.

In Family Tree Magazine and her Family Tree Books, Maureen shares tips you can use to glean family history clues from your own clan's photos. Here are some links to get you started:

Photo Detective blog
Here, Maureen analyzes readers' photos, gives advice on preserving old images and more.

Photo Detective Online Archive
Maureen has been identifying images on FamilyTreeMagazine.com for years! Access those articles here.

Uncovering Your Ancestry Through Family Photographs, 2nd edition
In this book, Maureen offers in-depth advice and examples to help you analyze your own family's photographs.

Dating 20th-Century Photographs: Links
Maureen recommended these Web sites in a June 2006 Family Tree Magazine article on analyzing and preserving more-recent images.

Photographic Mystery—Solved!
Another photo success story, showing the value of consulting your relatives when researching family photos.

Now What? Online: Dating Foreign Photos
Some things to look for in images taken overseas.

Software for Organizing and Editing Photos
Maureen and other Family Tree Magazine authors recommend these programs for fixing up and storing digitized images.

The Photo Detective
Maureen's Web site, where you can submit photos and ask questions and find out where to see her presentations.

Celebrating your heritage | Family Tree Magazine articles

Friday, October 12, 2007 6:25:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

New Grand Army of the Republic Records Resource
Posted by Diane

If you read the July 2007 Family Tree Magazine article on Civil War ancestors, you know Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) records are a promising resource—some 40 percent of Union veterans joined their local GAR posts.

But you also know the GAR wasn’t a centralized organization, and post records are dispersed among state archives and historical societies (sometimes with microfilmed copies at the Family History Library), with sporadic indexes.

GAR help is here: Missouri historian Dennis Northcott is compiling a book series transcribing information from GAR death rolls. The three books he’s published so far include name, military unit and rank, death date, and post information for 90,000 GAR members in several Midwestern states: Illinois; Indiana; and Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. (Note if your ancestor moved, he would've joined a post in his new state, not the state from which he served.) Now Northcott's working on Ohio and Pennsylvania.

He's posted all the names from the series on his Web site. If you think you've found your ancestor, you can order the book ($30) or look for it at your library.

Armed with the GAR post location and information from the bibliographies in Northcott’s books, you can start your search for GAR rosters, meeting minutes and other records.

For more research resources, see our online Civil War genealogy roundup.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Military records

Wednesday, September 26, 2007 6:02:48 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Friday, September 07, 2007

Ancestry.se and More Swedish Genealogy Resources
Posted by Diane

Ancestry.com has launched a Swedish Web site, www.Ancestry.se. Accessible with a $299.40-per-year ($29.95 per month) World Deluxe membership, the site contains Swedish emigration records with 1.4 million names, and vital records from 81 Lutheran parishes in Sweden’s Varmland County.

The same records are also available through Ancestry.com’s US records collection ($155.40 per year). Note they’re not linked to digitized original records.

The original emigration data comes from a CD called Emigranten Populär. Data were culled from various records including passport lists, passenger lists and correspondence. For more on what you can learn from the records, see Ancestry.com’s “about” page for that database.

You can buy a version of the database on a two-CD set called Emigranten for $190 from Göteborgs-Emigranten in Göteborg. Other Swedish record sources you can check out:

Emigrantslistor, passenger-list information from 1851 to 1940 the police department kept for Stockholm. The Family History Library has this on microfilm, as well as emigrations through other Swedish ports.
Emibas, a CD of 1.1 million emigrants listed in between 1845 and 1930. It’s available from Ancestors Swedish.
Genline has digitized virtually all Swedish church records and made them searchable in its database. Access costs around $370 for a year; you also can buy shorter subscriptions and take advantage of special offers.
SVAR, a division of Sweden's national archives, offers a smaller collection of digitized church records, as well as some censuses and vital records (click the English icon on the Web site). It costs about $146 per year, with shorter subscriptions and other packages available.

For more help, use our Swedish online ethnic toolkit and see the October 2006 Family Tree Magazine (sold out from our back issues store, but ask for it at your library).

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy

Friday, September 07, 2007 10:03:05 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Research Family Reunions in Newspapers
Posted by Diane

Next time you're using a database of historic newspapers, try this tip from Tom Kemp, of the GenealogyBank subscription newspaper site: Look for articles about your kin's family reunions.

Society pages in old newspapers would report on local gatherings, often with names of the family patriarch and out-of-town or well-known attendees. You can download a few examples from GenealogyBank's free downloads page.

Search for family surnames and the words family reunion. Try adding a place if you get a lot of hits. Kemp also suggests searching for reunions of high schools and colleges and military units.

A subscription to GenealogyBank costs $19.95 per month or $89.95 per year. Many public libraries offer cardholders free access to its sister database, NewsBank, through their Web sites.

Other resources include Ancestry.com's newspapers ($155.40 per year in the US Records Collection) and the growing newspaper databases at World Vital Records ($49.95 for two years).

You'll find more options for finding newspapers both online and in libraries on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

Also see the newspaper research guide in the February 2007 Family Tree Magazine.

Family Reunions | Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Research Tips

Wednesday, September 05, 2007 3:12:12 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Ancestry.com Launches DNA Beta Site
Posted by Diane

Back in June, The Generations Network (TGN) acquired Relative Genetics and its test results database from Sorenson Genomics. (See our blog report.)

Now we’re seeing the fruits of that union on the DNA Ancestry beta site. There, you can order Y-DNA tests for $149 (33 markers) or $199 (46 markers), or mtDNA tests for $179. On the overview and ordering pages, you get information on the tests, and you can see a sample test results report. Trace Your Roots with DNA (Rodale, $14.95) co-author Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak became TGN’s chief family historian early this year, so expect good-quality background information.

Those with a free Ancestry.com registration will be able to search a test-result database and enter results from other companies’ tests.

The Relative Genetics site will be phased out by the end of 2007. See DNA Ancestry's FAQ page for more information.

Look for more genetic genealogy help in upcoming issues of Family Tree Magazine. Also see the October 2006 Family Tree Magazine’s user-friendly testing guide (sold out from our back issues store, but ask for it at your library).

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Genetic Genealogy

Tuesday, September 04, 2007 2:24:34 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Friday, August 10, 2007

Calendar Proverbs
Posted by Diane

In earlier times, calendar-based sayings helped shape people’s lives. Family Tree Magazine author Nick D’Alto, who put together an article about online calendar tools for your genealogy research (look for his advice in the November 2007 issue, on newsstands Sept. 11), found a few:

Household Chores
Wash on Monday
Iron on Tuesday
Mend on Wednesday
Churn on Thursday
Clean on Friday
Bake on Saturday
Rest on Sunday.

The Little House Cookbook, which has recipes and background from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series, explains the logic behind the chore schedule: Clean on Friday and bake on Saturday to have a neat house and fresh bread for Sunday, on Monday you wash the dust and flour off your clothes (and do this hard work after a day of rest), then iron and mend the now-clean attire.

When to Marry
Monday for wealth,
Tuesday for health,
Wednesday best day of all,
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
Saturday, no luck at all.

Birthdays
Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go;
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But a child born on Sabbath-day
Is always bonny good and gay.

I was born on a Sunday, so I suppose that bodes well. Do you know another calendar-based rhyme? Click Comment to share it.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Social History

Friday, August 10, 2007 8:12:48 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Friday, August 03, 2007

Faster, Better Web Searching for Your Ancestors
Posted by Diane

The following tips will help you target your online ancestor searches. Try them out on our 2007 list of the 101 Best Web Sites for Genealogy—you’ll find these sites in the September 2007 Family Tree Magazine and on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

• Take a minute to read a site's search instructions. They reveal tricks such as omitting a given name or including wildcards. In Ancestry.com’s Exact Matches census searches, for instance, a * after three or more letters of a name represents up to six characters.

• Use Boolean operators such as + and - to focus search-engine queries: “tom + clancy -hunt” would help weed out results for the author of The Hunt for Red October, who doesn’t happen to be your great-uncle Tom.

• Use search engines to find information on a particular Web site. So to locate FamilyTreeMagazine.com’s advice on researching riverboat passengers, you could go to Google and type in riverboat site:familytreemagazine.com. (Note this technique won’t find people in online databases—but see our next tip.) PS: The riverboat advice is on our Now What blog.

• Database searches call up your ancestor’s record only if an indexer entered the same information you’re searching on—so try different approaches. Start by entering all you know about the person. If you don’t get results, search with fewer terms and combinations of terms (such as the person’s name and residence, or his name and birthplace).

• Seek alternate name spellings. Check the search tips to see whether a search automatically looks for similar names. Even if it does, try odd spellings: A census taker or an indexer might’ve interpreted the name so outlandishly that a “sounds like” search wouldn’t pick up on it.

• On Web sites with multiple databases, search individual databases one at a time. Those customized search engines often include fields you won’t get with the site’s global search.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Research Tips

Friday, August 03, 2007 5:09:47 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Friday, July 27, 2007

Funny Census Entries From Readers
Posted by Diane

We got a kick out of the funny census listings Family Tree Magazine readers submitted for the September 2007 All in the Family column. I wish we had enough space to print them all in the magazine.

But there's plenty of space here, so I offer these additional humorous census entries to brighten up your Friday (to submit ancestral look-alikes to the current All in the Family contest, see the Talk to Us Forum):

Boy/girl
Madison P. Glenn was born in February 1869, in Van Wert County, Ohio. Madison was 4 months old when the census enumerator visited and marked column 5 (for sex) as F/M.

Madison’s gender must have been a mystery to the parents Clark and Elizabeth Glenn, to my fourth-great-uncle and -aunt, or to the neighbor who might’ve helped complete the form. Since Madison isn’t listed in any later censuses, we never did find out how things developed.
Cherie P. Bowers
Byron, Mich.

Size-wise
My favorite census entry exhibits the creativity enumerators used when families weren't at home. I can't help but wonder, what if this family had had 10 children? What if they’d been Irish or Italian? What would the enumerator have come up with instead? From the 1889 Washington Territorial census:

Name of Persons         Nativity
Dutchman, Mr.            Germany
------- , Mrs.                   "
------- , Little        "
------- , Small           "
------- , Smaller              "
------- , Smallest             "
Lisa Oberg
Shoreline, Wash.

Another gender-bender
My grandmother's family of nine siblings was known for playing jokes on each other. Once, my great-uncle Llewellyn Brown (born 1882) was lampooned in a formal manner. In the 1901 Canadian census, I found Loouella instead of Llewellyn. I thought it might've been a spelling error, but he was also listed as dtr. My guess is Llewellyn’s sisters were less interested in the accuracy of the official census than in perpetuating another round of family humor.
Marie Tovell Walker
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Was her mother named Goose?
The funniest name I've come across in the census is a woman named Bo Peep, listed in the 1910 census of Harrison County, WV, with her husband Lee Maxwell. I did a little further research and sure enough, there she was in a West Virginia marriage index: Bo Peep K. Smith. Her husband was a farmer; I wonder if he raised sheep?
Maggie DeFazio
Pittsburgh, Pa.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy fun

Friday, July 27, 2007 3:44:39 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Search Online Mortality Schedules for Free
Posted by Diane

Bill Cribbs, the man behind the GenealogyBuff.com free genealogy search engine site, has gathered hundreds of counties’ online transcribed mortality schedules and made them searchable at MortalitySchedules.com.

For the 1850 through 1880 US censuses, enumerators recorded names of and other details about people who’d died within the past year. These mortality schedules may be the only death record for some people, especially in states that didn’t require recording of deaths until later.

You can browse MortalitySchedules.com by state or search on one or more keywords, such as a name or place. (If you want matches to contain more than one keyword, select “Find all words” from the dropdown menu.)

When you click on a match, you'll be taken to the Web site that stores the transcribed records. What you see varies depending how the data was transcribed and digitized.

You may get a chart or a text file listing a few details of deaths in that enumeration district, or you may get the whole shebang: the deceased’s age and marital status at death; death date, place and cause; birth date and place; physician’s name; parents’ birthplaces and more.

This 1880 schedule is on one of the chock-full-of-data library Web sites recommended in the September 2007 Family Tree Magazine Indiana State Research Guide:

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Research Tips

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 7:49:08 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Friday, July 20, 2007

Traditional Recipes: Burgoo, Anyone?
Posted by Diane

Our Family Tree Magazine coworker Kathy, who has deep roots across the Ohio River in Kentucky, is yawning from a weekend preparing burgoo for the family reunion cookoff she dreamed up.

Burgoo is a big thing around here, but somehow I hadn’t heard of it. It’s a thick stew that's traditional in Kentucky, especially at church festivals. (This 1900 postcard shows group burgoo preparation.) It's even served at the Kentucky Derby alongside mint juleps.

The ingredients list spans the barnyard, with beef, chicken and pork. Vegetables include potatoes, corn and five kinds of beans; pickling spices and hot sauce are among the seasonings. The chef can substitute freely and toss in pretty much anything on hand, though, then cook it for a day or so.

Kathy’s recipe originally made 75 gallons. She cut it down but still ended up with enough for most of the tri-state area (and several lucky coworkers).

She had to do some research to adapt measures and cooking methods to modern times. For example, the recipe called for a “number 10 can” each of ketchup and tomatoes. A Google search gave the equivalent: 6 lbs, 6oz (that’s a lot of Heinz).

Apparently Kathy’s relatives got really excited about the cookoff. One family spent all Saturday together, some out back roasting meat and others inside peeling potatoes. (That clan won a ladle and bragging rights.)

A little good-natured cooking competition can spice up a ho-hum family reunion and beef up the family history element. Need help gathering and preparing old recipes? The December 2004 Family Tree Magazine features an article all about that, and FamilyTreeMagazine.com offers an excerpt plus a handy old-fashioned-to-new-fashioned measurement conversion guide.

And if you just have to make burgoo right now, here are some recipes.

Family Reunions | Family Tree Magazine articles

Friday, July 20, 2007 8:01:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Friday, June 29, 2007

Occupations of Our Ancient Ancestors
Posted by Allison

If our ancestors scoured today’s help wanted ads, they’d probably find many modern jobs baffling (Application Systems Support Engineer? Analytics Consulting Analyst?). But their occupations are often equally bewildering to us, especially the further back in time you go.

Case in point: This morning, I heard a radio interview with Vicki Leon, author of Working IX to V, a new book about professions in the ancient world. Consider a few of the career opportunities for our long, long ago ancestors:

Flabellifer—Primary job function is carrying a fan and flapping it on command.

Sandaligerula—Seeking highly motivated sandal remover. This position is responsible for changing boss’ street shoes and party slippers, and ensuring he or she is wearing situationally appropriate footwear at all times.

Praepositus camelorum—Only the best in beast supplying need apply. Must demonstrate proven ability to track, capture and supply animals used in Roman gladiatorial contests and circuses.

Armpit Plucker—Steady hand and high tolerance to shrieking strongly preferred.

You’ll find a glossary of occupations your more-recent ancestors might’ve worked on our Web site, and a guide to researching employment records in our April 2005 issue.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Social History

Friday, June 29, 2007 4:11:17 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Friday, June 22, 2007

Fun with iGoogle
Posted by Diane

I got a blast from the past—well, from last year, anyway—when Lisa Cooke e-mailed that she's started a Genealogy Gems podcast.

Cooke and her family had applied to be guinea pigs on PBS' "Texas Ranch House" reality show, which aired in May 2006. She's a veteran genealogist, too. So for the June 2006 Family Tree Magazine's Branching Out news column, I asked her how it felt to be transplanted to 1867 and walk in her Western forebears' shoes.

Hot and sweaty, but satisfying, it turned out. Fast foward 150 years and Cooke is dispensing research advice through her podcast.

I just listened to this week's session about creating a genealogy iGoogle page. Kind of like making your dream home page, with tools ("gadgets") that will search for GEDCOMs, find genealogy blogs, keep your research to-do list, and lots more.

Once you start your page, click Add Stuff and then type "genealogy" into the iGoogle search box to find the gadgets.

Here's my iGoogle page, so far:

Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites

Friday, June 22, 2007 10:20:52 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Put Your Family in its Place
Posted by Diane

You want to walk in your relatives’ footsteps this summer. See the places they lived. Go where they went. But how do you find where those were? In the July 2007 Family Tree Magazine, Fern Glazer suggests the following resources to help you pinpoint the places your family frequented.

Censuses: These enumerations provide a snapshot of a family, including the names, ages and occupations of household members, relationships among them and immigration information. The city and county are at the top of each page; the address is on the left. Look at every census during your relative’s lifespan.

City directories: Most American cities (and some rural areas) published directories annually or biannually beginning in the mid-1800s. These alphabetical listings of residents include names, street addresses and occupations.

Some directories include addresses for businesses and public buildings, maps and advertisements. Ads may provide clues about family businesses and details about the neighborhood. To locate city directories for your family’s area, visit USCityDirectories.com. Your local library probably has directories for your city. Some large libraries have other towns’ directories; if yours doesn’t, you may be able to borrow them on microfilm through interlibrary loan.

Telephone directories: If you want to find a person or place in more-modern times—say, in the years after the telephone was invented—you might have luck consulting the phone book. Or search US and international listings, including yellow pages, e-mail directories and fax listings, by name, address, phone number or ZIP code at Infobel.

See the July 2007 Family Tree Magazine for more trip-planning advice, including how to map ancestral addresses and create an itinerary even your grumpy brother-in-law can appreciate.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Research Tips | Social History

Wednesday, June 20, 2007 3:30:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Friday, June 15, 2007

Tombstone Rubbing Tips
Posted by Diane

We added a Cemetery Central forum to the FamilyTreeMagazine.com message board! Go to http://www.familytreemagazine.com/forum/forums/forum-view.asp?fid=23 to post your graveyard research stories and questions.

I opened it up with the tale (and resulting helpful hints) of creating this tombstone rubbing for the December 2006 Family Tree Magazine:

Maybe you'll have some tips to add to the collection. I'd love to see your tombstone rubbings and photos, too!

Family Tree Magazine articles | Research Tips

Friday, June 15, 2007 2:45:45 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Nine Steps to Civil War Ancestors
Posted by Diane

The July 2007 Family Tree Magazine makes researching Civil War soldiers doable for anyone, with nine steps to uncovering genealogical records on Union and Confederate ancestors. Here's a quick overview of the steps:

1. Search the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System.

2. Order your ancestor's Compiled Military Service Records from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

3. Seek the soldier's pension file, at NARA for Union soldiers and state archives for Confederate soldiers.

4. Look for NARA's records of the first US military draft, enacted in 1863.

5. Consult your ancestral state censuses and the 1890 US census schedule of Union veterans and widows (extant for states alphabetically from Kentucky through Wyoming).

6. Research records of veterans organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic (post records are usually at state historical societies and archives) and United Confederate Veterans (on Family History Library microfilm).

7. Find cemetery records using sources such as the Department of Veterans Affiars National Gravesite Locator.

8. Get the back story on your ancestor's regiment—the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System can get you started here, too, with its regimental histories.

9. Look for digital maps and images on Web sites such as the Library of Congress' American Memory collection.

You can find thorough how-tos and additional resources for each of these steps in the July 2007 Family Tree Magazine, available now on newsstands and at FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

Research Tips | Family Tree Magazine articles

Thursday, May 24, 2007 2:45:44 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [3]

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Meet Bob
Posted by Diane

If he looks familiar, it’s because he was our Geared-up Genealogist model in the July 2007 Family Tree Magazine.

Bob is not a professional model—I found him at the Y on a stationary bike. He’s what my mom would call a ham, so I knew he’d be just right. Don't you agree he did a good job of evoking the inimitable mood of a genealogist about to make astounding ancestral discoveries? (That's without jarring even one of the things tucked into all the pockets.)

Bob isn’t into genealogy (gasp!). I'll be sure to pass on any comments you post convincing him he needs to be.

Family Tree Magazine articles

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 5:07:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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