• A couple of weeks ago, I was editing our Cincinnati City Guide (look for it in the May/June 2012 Family Tree Magazine), which is where we’re based and my maternal side comes from. Birth and death certificates from 1865 to 1912, I noticed, are in an online database from the University of Cincinnati. I found my great-grandfather's birth certificate (below), along with those of his siblings.
  
  

• There's also a local index to gravestones in area German Catholic cemeteries, where I found the family's burials (I need to plan a trip there come spring).

• Then I tried out the Genealogy Today data service after I saw an announcement the Surname Search was updated. I try out resources on my family names, though I never expect much when I type in Haddad. But this time, the hit I got partially answered a longstanding question. The site has indexes from biennial reports of a Texas orphanage, which list my grandfather and his two siblings as "inmates." I knew my grandfather and his brother were there, but their sister's whereabouts at that time had been a mystery.

• Next, I Googled the report titles and discovered them listed in a finding aid on the Texas State Library and Archives Commission website. I zipped off an email requesting copies, and had the scans in less than two weeks. Next up: requesting my great-aunt's 1913 admission records. 

• I also noticed a beta collection of city directories on Ancestry.com. Texas is among the handful of states included, with several directories for Corsicana. They list my grandfather as a helper at a local bakery that's still open and is pretty famous.
  
  
  

• Another email, and I learned the bakery's records don't go back to the 20s. But I ran a web search and found a transcript of a 1971 oral history with the bakery owners cataloged on the Baylor University Libraries' website. I emailed a request and had a digitized copy of the transcript within a day. Impressive! One of the bakery owners started work there as a schoolboy, about the same time as my grandfather, and now I have an idea of what the work was probably like.
  
  
  

Monday, February 06, 2012 11:06:56 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [4]

• Genealogy organizations Archives.com, FamilySearch, and Findmypast.co.uk, will work together on the 1940 US Census Community Project. The ambitious project aims to engage online volunteers to publish a name index to the 1940 US Census soon after the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) releases the records to the public April 2, 2012. All three partners will provide access to the free index on their websites. You can sign up to be an indexer at www.the1940census.com.

Last month, NARA selected Archives.com to host the digitized census records. Ancestry.com also has announced it'll offer a 1940 census index and the record images free, at least through 2013.

• FamilySearch's RootsTech conference, taking place Feb. 2-4 in Salt Lake City, is open for registration. The early bird rate of $149 is valid through Jan. 13, 2012.

• The National Genealogical Society 2012 Conference, taking place May 8-12 in Cincinnati, also is open for registration. Early bird prices ($175 for NGS members and $210 for nonmembers, plus extra if you want a printed syllabus) are good through March 20.

• I saw on Dear Myrtle's blog that genealogy expert and Evidence! author Elizabeth Shown Mills now has a website where she explains her research methodologies. You can visit Mills' Historic Pathways site here.

Friday, December 16, 2011 3:26:15 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [3]

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011 9:04:29 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

In this episode, you’ll hear

• tips on solving family mysteries using autosomal DNA with genetic genealogy blogger Blaine T. Bettinger (See his article on autosomal DNA in the December 2011 Family Tree Magazine)
  
  
• an overview of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation DNA database with Dr. Ugo A. Perego, the site’s director of operations
  
  
• advice on looking for land records from Diana Crisman Smith, instructor of Family Tree University’s Land Records 101 course
  
  
• a meet-and-greet with Kerry Scott, Family Tree Magazine’s new online editor

... and more genealogy news and tips.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 11:52:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

This ominously titled GeneaBloggers Radio show, “The Final Chapter—Obituaries, Death Records and Genealogy” is Friday, Oct. 21 at 9 p.m. ET, 8 CT, 7 MT and 6 PT (for regular listeners, that’s a new time). Go to the GeneaBloggers Radio website to listen.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 3:33:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

To see all the recently updated records, click the region of interest on the FamilySearch.org home page. Next, click the blue “Last Updated” heading on the right.

The list of record collections will be resorted to show recently updated collections at the top:

For example, some recently updated collections from the United States are:

• Arkansas births, christenings, marriages and deaths
• Georgia death index
• North Carolina estate files
• Idaho: Clark County records (marriage affidavits, naturalization records, declarations of intention, deeds, patents, brands and marks, mining records, probate records and estate files)
  
• Illinois probate records
• Indiana marriages
• Ohio: Cuyahoga County probate files
• Oregon: Columbia County records (land and property, marriage, and naturalization records and indexes)
• Tennessee county marriages
• Utah probate records
• Washington state Army National Guard records
• Washington state county records

US Civil War records are also gathered onto a Civil War landing page. These include Confederate pensions ad service records for various states, Union Provost Marshal Files, Union Navy Widows' Certificates and more. To see them all listed, go to the Civil War landing page and click the “More” link beneath the “Find your ancestors in the following collections” list. 

This Civil War page also links to bios on some famous faces from the era and links to how-to information. 

Remember that not all of the collections on FamilySearch have been indexed yet. The organization’s policy is to provide researchers with online access to record images as quickly as possible, and get volunteers working on the indexes in the mean time. 

When you see a “Browse Images” link for your collection of interest (such as the Quebec notarial records, above), you’ll need to have a good idea of when and where your ancestor was living when the record was created. Then you’ll go through the record images one by one, similar to scrolling microfilm.

Thursday, September 29, 2011 9:51:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

Here’s what’s on tap for this edition:

• tips for searching online newspaper collections
  
• what PERSI is and why you should use it
  
• finding historical books on the web
  
• News From the Blogosphere

New to podcasts? Cooke explains here what podcasts are and how to use them. 

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 8:54:07 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• 10 million-plus: The number of indexed Spanish baptisms, marriages and deaths (1500 to 1950) you can search on FamilySearch.org. There are more than a half-million for Portugal. Sunny Jane Morton's guide to researching roots in Europe’s Iberian peninsula has much more advice.

• 2 million (and counting): The number of people profiles on WikiTree. Get a tutorial of the site in the December issue’s Toolkit. 

• 1.7 million: The number of horses in the Confederate states around the start of the Civil War, compared to 3.4 million in the Northern states. But Southerners tended to have more experience on horseback, resulting in better cavalry units in the Confederacy, says Family Tree Magazine contributing editor David A. Fryxell. In this issue’s Now What? column, he answers a reader’s question about ancestors who went out West during the war to capture horses for Union troops. 

• 700-728: If your ancestor’s Social Security Number starts with a number in this range, you know he was eligible to receive benefits from the Railroad Retirement Board. You can request post-1936 records for $27. You’ll find more resources for researching railroad workers, miners, autoworkers and other blue-collar ancestors in this issue.

• 75: Number of great websites especially for state-based ancestor research in this issue. Contributing editor Rick Crume dug up at least one site per state, including such gems as the Indiana State Library Genealogy Collection, the Missouri History Museum and the Wyoming Newspaper Project.  

• 10: Favorite Flickr streams Photo Detective Maureen A. Taylor shares in the Toolkit, including those of the Library of Congress and 19th Century Photographic Images. 

• 4: This is the number of fun facts about breakfast in the History Matters column. Did you know doughnuts were considered snacks, not breakfast, until they were served to soldiers in World War II? We'll explain how the morning meal our ancestors enjoyed came to be.

• 2: The number of family trees everyone has—a genealogical tree and a genetic tree. They’re not necessarily the same: Starting at about your third-great-grandparents, not all of your ancestors are represented in your DNA, says Blaine Bettinger in the December issue. But autosomal DNA testing, among the latest developments in genetic genealogy, can unlock much more of your ancestral DNA than traditional Y-DNA and mtDNA tests can. 

• 1: The December 2011 issue has one index (on the last page) which covers all Family Tree Magazine articles in 2011. Can’t remember which issue had the guide to Family History Centers? Look here to find out it was in the January 2011 issue, page 16.
  

(Seeking indexes from past years of Family Tree Magazines? Download them as pdfs from our website.)  

Want to upgrade from newsstand buyer to subscriber? Visit ShopFamilyTree.com to choose from several subscription options (Digital, or US, Canadian or international print).

Go here to become a VIP, which gets you a subscription and a Plus membership, a discount in the store and other perks. 

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 2:45:21 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

There’s a lot more advice where that came from in the limited-edition Ultimate Google for Genealogists Collection. These resources, all from Lisa, show you strategies for searching smarter and saving time by using Google tools.

Only 200 collections are available, and we think they could sell out by early next week. (Hence this special second-in-a-week Editor’s Pick.)

Here’s what’s in it:

• The Genealogist's Google Toolbox book, signed by Lisa Louise Cooke

• Google Earth for Genealogy DVD, volumes I and II

• Google Tools for Genealogists Family Tree University Independent Study Course download

• Search Engine Tips & Tricks: Google Techniques to Boost Your Research Webinar
  

The Ultimate Google for Genealogists Collection is specially priced at $79.99, a 56 percent discount. Get more details about each of these items here.

Friday, September 02, 2011 2:02:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [12]

If you missed it, you can order the Virtual Conference video classes for on-demand viewing at ShopFamilyTree.com. 

One of my favorite parts of the conference was the live chats, which buzzed with research tips, questions and inspiration. For example, Thomas’ Saturday evening chat, Pick Thomas’ Brain: Ideas on Creative Approaches to Genealogy, was chock full of advice.

I’ve pulled some comments from the chat to share here (I made some edits and added topic headings so the Q&A is easier to follow).

On brick walls:

• Thomas: First, very often I think what we call a brick wall isn't really a brick wall . . .
  
  
• Joan: What do you mean by a brick wall not being a brick wall?

• Thomas: To me it is a matter of perhaps not having all the right tools at one's disposal. Or it could be a matter of going back and rechecking spelling, surname variations, etc.

• Allison FTU: A true brick wall is when you have exhausted every possible avenue for research and there is no more information

In many cases, what we refer to as a brick wall is really just an exhaustion of ideas

• Patricia: A Brick Wall to me is having a timeline just end with no leads. Just solved 2 of my brick walls by reviewing current finds in detail as if I was looking at the finds for the first time.

On ancestral adoptions:

• Terri: My brick wall is my grandmother, born and adopted in 1900. I thought her SS application might help, but she apparently fibbed on the application! Gave her adopted info as official
  
  
• Kerry: I've used church records to find babies who were baptized prior to their adoption. Not all were adopted at birth.
  
  
• Allison FTU: If you know what area she was born in, you might try guardianship records.
  
  
• Terri: Are guardianship records civil records, private institutions, what?
  
  
• Allison FTU: Guardianships are typically court records. So you do need to know which county to look in.

On going beyond well-known resources:

• Carol: I have a line that went to Nebraska. FamilySearch and Ancestry seem to have nothing and GenealogyBank only later years. Any links for Nebraska?

• Thomas: What time period? Were they Homesteaders?

• Carol P: Late 1800s to early 1900s

• Thomas: Last night I did a GeneaBloggers Radio episode mostly on Nebraska. 

• Allison-FTU: Also take a look at Nebraska State Historical Society, one of FTM's "best state websites"

On ordering ancestors’ vital records:

• Mary Ann: When I look for birth, marriage, and death certificates in the US, I am taken to sites where it is free for 7 days and then you pay. Is there a good site to find these certificates?

• Thomas: I personally don't recommend those sites. In most cases, if you know how to order them directly from the state or county, it is better and cheaper. What do others think?

• Mary Ann: Yet, the states’ [vital records office websites] are sending me to those sites.

• Kerry: I totally agree; I'd much rather order directly from the source.

• Terri: I have seen some states that use a private online payment service for their records, but there's generally an option to pay the vital records office directly.

• Thomas: I want to share an odd tool from the Centers for Disease Control of all places—Where to Write for Vital Records! 

• Allison FTU: It's also available to download as a PDF 

• Kerry: Some states (Minnesota, for instance) house records at the state historical society, and you can order (and in some cases, view) them online.

• Thomas: Did you know that some societies have a vital records service where they will, for a much cheaper fee, pull the records? Illinois State Genealogical Society does this for Illinois Death Certificates.

• Mary Kay: Or borrowing microfilm from your local FHC.

On hard-to-trace immigrants and F.A.N. clubs:

• Christine: Ancestor arrived in 1750 from Rotterdam, based on PA baptism records which are German Lutheran—don't have a clue where to start across the pond. Strategy much appreciated....

how to get from point of departure (Rotterdam) in 1750 to where he might have lived...

• Thomas: Have you tried the F.A.N. club approach? Friends, Associates, Neighbors?

Elizabeth Shown Mills uses that F.A.N. club term all the time.

Last night on my radio show, Gail Blankenau from Omaha who specializes in German Parish Records used the term "10 up and 10 down" meaning always go up 10 lines from what you've found and down 10 lines as well.

• Allison-FTU: Christine, have you heard of something called manumission records?

In Germany during the time period, emigrants had to pay a tax to be released from serfdom. The resulting records are manumissions

There's an often-referenced index to German manumissions by Werner Hacker ... let me see if i can find a link

• Christine: Would they have been microfilmed by the Family History Library?

• Allison-FTU: Yes! Check out this page on the FamilySearch wiki for more info 

• Thomas: I just found this for Germans to America  

On online research tools:

• Thomas: Want to let you know that my entire research toolbox is on my Destination: Austin Family blog

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 9:50:10 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [6]

What a find! The article has so much "what was he like?" detail that I wouldn't have found elsewhere. So I wanted to share some resources from contributing editor Rick Crume’s November 2011 Family Tree Magazine cover story on researching ancestors in online newspapers. 

In the article, Rick provides a chart with the essentials on 15 large online historical newspaper collections—some free, some by subscription or with society memberships, some available through libraries—including:

• 19th Century US Newspapers
  
• Accessible Archives 
• Ancestry.com
  
• Chronicling America 
• Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876
• Footnote.com
• GenealogyBank 
• Google News and News Archive 
• New York Times Archive 
• NewspaperArchive 
• Old Fulton NY Post Cards  
• Paper of Record  
• Proquest Archiver 
  
• SmallTownPapers 
• World Vital Records 

He also notes where the sites' collections overlap, and offers some advice on finding other, smaller collections of newspapers:

• Your public library might provide online access to newspaper databases or have historical papers on microfilm. Check at the reference desk.
  
  
• Portals that can link you to more online newspaper archives include Cyndi’s List, Free Newspaper Archives, Online Historical Newspapers and XooxleAnswers: Newspaper Archives.
  

• Search the Library of Congress Chronicling America newspaper directory for microfilmed papers you can order via interlibrary loan.

• Surf websites of state archives for their newspaper holdings, which may be available for loan to your local library.

The November 2011 Family Tree Magazine also has articles on using published family histories, researching English roots, finding cultural and ethnic heritage organizations, tracing ancestors in Chicago and Portland, Ore., using Mocavo.com and more. The issue hits newsstands next week, but you can order it now from ShopFamilyTree.com. 

For even more help finding ancestors in old newspapers, check out Family Tree University's Newspaper Research 101 class.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011 2:47:03 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

A bunch of you chimed in with advice, encouragement and stories that’ll benefit other overwhelmed family archivists. The gist of your advice is:

• Take your time. Baby steps!
  
• Sort by family, people or place.
  
• Digitize.
  
• Archival storage.
  
• Share.
  
• Consider donating what won’t be kept.

Here are some more details from your suggestions and stories. To read the full comments, go to Allison’s “Organizing Grandma’s Archive” blog post and click Comments at the bottom. 

• Claire suggested making an inventory of the items: “Tackle one box a week. Label the first box 1, the second 2, etc. Go through the contents and list everything in a notebook under the appropriate tab. For example, in the Anderson-Dugan tab, you might have:
  

John Dugan birth certificate, box 1
Photo of Anderson family reunion 1930, box 1

"At some later date you might relocate everything to a better storage system," Claire adds, "but at least for now you'll know the contents of each box.”

• Joseph Martin would allow more time: “I count 15 boxes in your stack. Give yourself two months to sort and organize one box. In less than three years, you will be done.”
  
  
• Renee advises scheduling small chunks of time (30 to 50 minutes) a few times a week, so things don’t feel overwhelming. “I wouldn't begin to move things around until you document how the documents appeared, since what folder they were in or what they were next to can have bearing on the meaning of the document. I would take photos of the box and each item in the box as you unpack them.”

She also recommends digitizing as you go. “If you re-create the folders and boxes digitally, you'll always know the exact order they arrived in. You can then tag them or make digital copies and reorganize them according to your preference. It will make you familiar with what's there and you won't have to reorganize the actual papers. You can just store them (or toss, if needed) and work with the digital copies.” 

• Patti McElligott describes her system of 3-inch binders for each family name, with each family member on a tabbed index sheet. Paper records for each person go inside clear sheet protectors behind his or her tab.
  

Patti’s tip for labeling photos: “Take a stack, and anytime you are sitting down, write on the back the who, what, where etc. There are pens made for this that will not damage the pictures.”

• Cheryl Hughes was also left with an archive like Allison’s, but from several different relatives and families. She’s been working on it for 10 years. “I still get boxes, as I am thought of as the 'picture person' of all these families,” Cheryl says.
  

She separated papers from the pictures, and had some of the old photos and tintypes restored and copied. “I am copying all pictures to CDs or SD cards and having prints made to share with other family members … the originals are in safe, acid free boxes, with copies in albums.” 

• Micki Gilmore’s inherited archive is smaller. “I plan to digitize. There are some great scanners out there,” she says, and plans to tackle one box at a time.

• Diane Hart has been digitizing photos all summer. “The photos are on discs, and then I view them on a slide show on my computer. They look so nice! … From photos I received from my 83-year-old aunt, I made a disc for her with a very nice identifying label, printed a thumbnail photo gallery of disc contents, and included my contact information. Then I drove miles to deliver this to her, and we watched the slideshow. She absolutely loved it! She is the only living child in my Dad's family of 13.”

• S. Lantz is using Clooz software to keep track of her archive. “[It] allows you to tag names in your genealogy name list with each item (photos, census, documents, books, etc.). If you assign a unique number to each item, you can run an individual report that will list all of the items tied to that individual.” 

• Juanita Dean uses photo boxes and tabbed dividers to organize her photos by place, then event. “If you look at the photos yearly, put them in a larger box that is handy to share for reunions, otherwise use archival boxes to put them away.”

• I love Ardith Hale’s words: “The Chinese say you can move a mountain one spoonful at a time.” She advises Allison catalog and digitize, then sort.
  

“I have been given a huge store of pictures, which we went through with my mother to assign names, then sort by family. Each family gets theirs. Older ones are being digitized, copied and spread around so that hopefully somewhere there will be a copy. Unidentifed ones are kept together in the hope that some reunion or gathering can attach a name.”

• Shasta says “Take your time, think of a plan, and execute it slowly, a little bit at a time … I managed to scan our family photos by doing a few each day, a little extra when I had time.”

Thursday, August 11, 2011 9:35:48 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4]

It stands for Illinois Regional Archives Depository, a statewide records management system that divides the state into seven regions and helps you access genealogical records. 

IRAD is just one of the Illinois resources Thomas MacEntee will introduce you to in our Illinois Genealogy Crash Course webinar, Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. Eastern (6 Central, 5 Mountain, 4 Pacific). 

MacEntee, a Chicagoan, creator of the GeneaBloggers website, and author of the November 2011 Family Tree Magazine Chicago research guide, will cover important Illinois history, including migration patterns:

“From 1800 to 1840, many migrated to southern Illinois from Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Virginia,” he says. “After 1830, they came to central Illinois from Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The period from 1840 to 1920 saw a flow of immigrants to the Chicago area. A great migration of African-Americans from the South to Chicago and other northern cities took place from 1920 to 1970.”

You’ll also get information on essential Illinois records, including the marriage return, and other websites where you can do research on ancestors from the Land of Lincoln.

Be sure to take advantage of our Early Bird special, which saves you $10 off your Illinois Genealogy Crash Course webinar registration.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011 4:24:06 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

FamilySearch has added new records from the United States and seven other countries—Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, and Poland—to its record search.

Updates to US collections total 1.8 million records, including the South Dakota 1945 state census, New York court records, Indiana marriage records and Utah Indian Wars service affidavits.

Note that in many cases, the updates consist of unindexed digitized documents, meaning you won’t find them using the search on FamilySearch’s home page. Instead, you’ll need to browse the collections by date or place (however the records are organized).

Click here to see a list of the updated collections, whether each one is indexed, and a link to each collection. 

FamilySearch also has announced it’s launching a YouTube channel Aug. 4. You can preview it now by watching Genealogy in Five Minutes: Learn From Family (this one’s actually 6 minutes and 8 seconds long), with tips on talking to relatives about family history.

The video is part of what'll be a 24-episode series offering quick tips on various aspects of genealogy. When the channel launches, you’ll also be able to watch inspirational videos, those highlighting the lighter side of genealogy, a series on societies and archives, how-to videos and others.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011 9:40:45 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4]

Do you have dents in your forehead from banging it against a brick wall? Our August Ultimate Collection is designed to save your forehead, your sanity, and your genealogical motivation with solutions to research brick walls such as

• missing records due to fires, flood and other disasters
• hard-to-find ancestors in censuses and passenger lists
• pre-1850, head-of-household censuses
• ancestors born (or married or died) before vital record-keeping
• not knowing where to look next

The Family Tree Ultimate Research Solutions Collection has expert advice and ideas for conquering genealogy challenges, including

• The Family Tree Problem Solver, revised edition, by Marsha Hoffman Rising: It has techniques for approaching real genealogy problems, plus case studies so you can see the advice in action. This edition includes new information about online research and using DNA research. 

• 101 Brick Wall Busters: Solutions to Overcome Your Genealogical Challenges: This Q&A book answers research questions from Family Tree Magazine readers. 

• Brick Wall Strategies: Advice and Ideas for Getting Past Research Dead Ends on-demand webinar: Learn how to assess your research problems and formulate a plan of attack for solving them.

• Reverse Genealogy: Family Tree University Independent Study Course download: This course teaches you tactics to research your family tree forward (the opposite of what genealogists usually do) to find living relatives.

The Ultimate Research Solutions Collection is $59.99, a 67 percent discount, during August. Only 39 (and counting down) are still up for grabs, so get yours while you can!

Tuesday, August 02, 2011 11:26:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [5]

Aliquot parts is an important element in the public land survey system (PLSS), also called the rectangular survey system, which was used to survey and divvy up land starting shortly after the Revolutionary War.

States with land surveyed under the PLSS, called Public Land States, are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

That's everything except the original 13 states, Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas and Hawaii. (Parts of Ohio were surveyed with the old metes-and-bounds system, too.)  

The PLSS established principal meridians—imaginary north-south lines—to serve as the starting point for surveying each 24x24-mile tract. A tract is divided into 16 townships; townships (23,040 acres) contain 36 sections, each 1 square mile (640 acres), like this: 

A section could be split into halves, quarters or other parts. A description of your ancestor’s subdivision on a land record might look like N½ SW¼, which you’d read as “the north half of the southwest quarter.”

Here’s an example of how land might be divided and described in aliquot parts:

This free FamilyTreeMagazine.com article has more information about the PLSS and the Bureau of Land Management’s free federal land patent site.

One of the video sessions in Family Tree University’s Summer 2011 Virtual Conference, Aug. 19-21, is Diana Crisman Smith’s demo on platting your ancestors’ properties using PLSS. Learn more about the conference and register here. 

Thursday, July 28, 2011 9:19:52 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [9]

Most researchers agree it’s important to cite sources, but the hows, whens and wheres have caused a bit of a stir. Genealogy blog readers may notice what my mom and dad used to call a “discussion” over the importance of adhering to the finer points of source citation style (which might be intimidating to newbie or casual researchers) versus just getting the source information down.

Another component to the issue (and something else that can make source citation look complicated) is evaluating a source's reliability:

Is the information likely to be correct because the source—say, a birth certificate—was created when the birth, marriage or other event happened? Or is the source less reliable because it’s a transcription of a digitized book written years later by someone who read a newspaper article about the grandson of the person whose neighbor was actually there? Do several less-reliable sources that provide consistent information equal a reliable source? Can you ever really prove when certain events happened in your ancestor’s life? What does it all mean??

These folks weigh in with their opinions and encouragement:

• In his Citation blog category, the Ancestry Insider writes in depth about source citation principles and the quality of source information given on genealogy records sites such as Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.

• Source Citations in Genealogy: Church or Cult on the Clue Wagon blog encapsulates the above-mentioned discussion. The comments here include 10 commandments of source citation from Evidence Explained author Elizabeth Shown Mills.

• The Genea-Musings Source Citation posts describe sourcing in genealogy software and online family trees, review presentations on citing sources, link to others’ posts on the topic and more.

• On his Planting the Seeds blog, Michael Hait explains why the way you format source citations is important. 

• James Tanner on Genealogy’s Star writes here about genealogical evidence as opposed to proof. Dear Myrtle links to several of his related posts here. 

• On Luxegen Genealogy and Family History, Joan Miller writes about how to educate new researchers regarding citations, and her Good/Better/Best citation philosophy.
  

• Posts in the GeneaBloggers Source Citation category link to the site's quick reference citation guide and a discussion of blogs' reliability as sources. 

Source citation doesn’t have to be scary. The key is to note every bit of information available about the record, website, book, newspaper, person or other source you used, and make sure it doesn't get separated from the information the source provided. Whenever possible, get the original record rather than stopping when you find an index or a transcription.

Use your knowledge as a researcher to decide whether the information in the source makes sense, and how far you can trust that source. If you have any doubts, don’t add the information to your tree, but use it to form a hypothesis you can keep researching.  

Related resources:

• Family Tree Magazine free, downloadable Source Citation Cheat Sheet
  
  
• Source Documentation 101: How to Cite Genealogy Sources Accurately and Effectively Family Tree University course
  
  
• Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills, available in ShopFamilyTree.com 

Thursday, July 14, 2011 9:08:57 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [8]

From 9 a.m. Friday, Aug. 19, to 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 21, you get a three-day all-access pass to watch 15 pre-recorded video classes and participate in live chats. We’ll also have a digital swag bag, ongoing message board discussions, an exhibit hall and opportunities for attendees to win prizes.

Because the conference is web-based, you can participate from anywhere there’s a computer with internet access. Join in every day or anytime during the weekend as your schedule allows.

Here's a sampling of the video sessions:

• Google Surname Search Secrets with Genealogy Gems founder Lisa Louise Cooke 

• Build Your Research Toolbox with GeneaBloggers and High-Definition Genealogy founder Thomas MacEntee  
  

• City Directories: Key to Your Family’s Past with genealogist Maureen A. Taylor (aka the Photo Detective)
  

• Finding Your East European Ancestors’ Village with genealogist Lisa A. Alzo
  

MacEntee and FTU instructor Nancy Hendrickson will be conference supermoderators, joining in on message board discussions and live chats all weekend.

Tuition for the Virtual Conference is $199, but you can use promotion code VCS11 to get the early bird rate of $149 through this Friday, July 15.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011 11:31:46 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [5]

Hats off to you who squeeze all your genealogy into just a few hours on the weekend, quick half-hour intervals during lunch, or late nights on the computer after the kids are in bed.

The Weekend Genealogist Value Pack—available during July at an extra-deep 63 percent discount—will help you make the most of your limited research time. This value pack contains: 

• Online Genealogy Crash Course DVD: Lessons to help you master finding ancestral records online and using Ancestry.com.

• Discover Your Roots Winter 2011 digital issue: Our 132-page guide to getting started in genealogy, with articles on finding your ancestors in a weekend genealogy blitz, avoiding common myths, visiting the courthouse and more.

• Discover Your Family Tree FTU Independent Study Course: This course download is designed to help you start your family tree research without feeling overwhelmed.

• 60 Minute Genealogy Jobs download: You can do these 14 family history projects in an hour or less, making them perfect for lunch hour.

Click here to find out more about the Weekend Genealogist Value Pack.

Wednesday, July 06, 2011 12:19:19 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3]

“Burned courthouses,” you say? “Early, hard-to-trace immigrants”?

Our Virginia Genealogy Crash Course webinar will show you how to get past research brick walls such as

• courthouses (and their records) destroyed during the Civil War and in fires and floods at other times
  

• hard-to-research Colonial-era immigrants
  

• potentially confusing land records due to the carving up of Virginia’s enormous original territory into other states, a maze of courts, and many cities that are independent of their surrounding counties 

You’ll also learn about Virginia records including headrights and vital records, and the best websites for Virginia research (including the Library of Virginia, whose Virginia Memory site has digitized newspapers, military records and other genealogical resources).

The Virginia Genealogy Crash Course webinar, presented by Family Tree Magazine contributing editor David A. Fryxell, takes place Wednesday, July 27, at 7 pm Eastern time (6 pm Central, 5 pm Mountain, 4 pm Pacific).

Attendees will receive a link to view the session again as many times as they like, a PDF of the presentation slides, and Family Tree Magazine’s Virginia State Research Guide.

Click here to find out more about the Virginia Genealogy Crash Course webinar—and take advantage of the 20 percent off early bird registration special.

Thursday, June 30, 2011 9:44:14 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2]

The quiz, by One-Step Tools webmaster Steve Morse and friends, is designed to guide you through the site’s tools that help you determine your ancestor’s 1940 census enumeration district (ED). This is important because, when the 1940 census comes out April 2, 2012, you won’t be able to search by name. Instead, you’ll need to find the records for the ED where your ancestor lived and view pages until you find him or her.

(If you don’t mind waiting an as-yet-unknown length of time for a searchable name index to be created, probably by FamilySearch and/or a commercial entity such as Ancestry.com, you may not need to worry about the ED. I say “may not” because if your ancestor gets mis-indexed or the census-taker recorded his name in an unexpected way, you still might need to browse the records.)

Anyway, I tried the quiz for a spin and did indeed find the 1940 ED I needed. Here’s how it worked for me:

Question: Do you know where your family lived on April 1, 1940, the official 1940 census day?

Answer: I chose yes. This was my hint to check the address in my ancestor’s 1942 declaration of intention to naturalize:

Question: Did the family move between 1930 and 1940?

Answer: Yes.

• in a rural area or a small urban community (under about 5,000)?
• in an urban area of 5,000 or more?
  
• in an institution (hospital, jail, orphanage, etc)?
  
• outside the US proper but under US jurisdiction? 

Answer: They lived in Cleveland, Ohio, an urban area of 5,000 or more.

Question: Check to see if the city is on the One Step 1940 Large City ED Finder Tool. Go to this tool, choose the state or possession, and look in the city dropdown box. Do you see your city listed there?

Answer: I clicked the link to the 1040 ED Finder, chose Ohio from the state dropdown menu, and yes, Cleveland was in the city menu. 

Question: OK, now to use the above One Step tool, choose the state and city and then enter the street and cross streets for the house at which your family lived.

Answer: I went back to the 1940 ED Finder, which looked like this:

I chose my ancestors’ street, Franklin Blvd, and was directed to choose a cross street.

Um, cross street? Luckily, at the bottom of the page you can enter a house number and generate a Google, Yahoo! or MapQuest map of the location, like this one:

I chose 47th W. as the cross street and was rewarded with:

The "View microfilm " link gives you a message that the 1940 census images are not available. Looks like Morse is planning to link the ED numbers to the record images when they're released on NARA's website ext year.

I tried other quiz answers, too: 

• Basically, if you don’t know where your ancestors lived in 1940, you’ll get suggestions for records to check.
  

• If you know where they lived in 1940 and they hadn't moved since 1930, you’ll be directed to the site’s 1930-to-1940 ED Conversion tool (EDs changed from census to census).
  

• If your ancestors lived in a small-ish town or rural area, the area may not yet be covered in the One Step 1940 ED Finder, in which case you’re directed to National Archives’ ED maps (not yet online). Those will be easier to use if you know the street address. 

• If you don't know the address in the small-ish town or rural area, you can use the One Step ED Definition Tool to choose a state and county, then search on a community name. If the name is in the definitions, you’ll get back a list of possible EDs where you can start your census search. 

Now, the trick is not losing the sticky note I wrote the ED on.

You can read all about the 1940 census in the May 2010 Family Tree Magazine's Complete Census Guide. Family Tree Magazine Plus members can read the 1940 census article here.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011 2:42:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4]

(My immigrant great-grandfather, who wasn’t naturalized on the Fourth of July, gives his birthday on most records as July 4, 1881—I don’t know if he was actually born that day, or he just knew it was a big day in his new country.)

Here are some pointers on finding your ancestors’ naturalization records:

• Not all immigrants became citizens, and some waited until long after they first arrived in the United States. Typically, men who were birds of passage (they traveled between their homeland and America several times before settling here) didn't rush to become citizens.

• The citizenship process involved filing a declaration of intention to naturalize, also called first papers, then waiting a legally proscribed amount of time (this varied over time) before filing a petition for naturalization, or—you guessed it—second papers. See more on the process, as well as an exception for those in the military, here.

• Your ancestor could file papers at any courthouse. He could even begin the process in one court and finish it another. Aliens more often applied at county and state courts than at the federal level because the fee was usually lower and it was often closer to home. To find naturalization records before 1906, you’ll need to check municipal, county, state and federal courthouses where the immigrant lived. 

• After 1906, courts had to file copies of naturalizations with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now US Citizenship and Naturalization Services, or USCIS). You can order copies of these records for your ancestor from the USCIS Genealogy Service. 

• Online sources of naturalization records and/or indexes to naturalization records for various parts of the country include subscription sites Ancestry.com and Footnote.com, and the free FamilySearch.

• Many naturalization records and the indexes have been microfilmed. Search for them in the Family History Library Catalog by running a Place search for the state and county (the city, too, if it's a large urban area), then look under Naturalization and Citizenship. You can rent film through a branch FamilySearch Center near you.

You can see how I found my great-grandfather’s naturalization records here. 

Other naturalization records how-to resources from Family Tree Magazine include:

• The May 2008 Family Tree Magazine digital issue, with our article on finding naturalization records  (Family Tree Magazine Plus members can access this article here.)

• Family Tree University Tracing Immigrants Independent Study Course download 

• Family Tree Essentials CD, with guides to 15 key records including naturalization records 

Monday, June 27, 2011 4:30:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3]

We’ll also discuss rapper 50 Cent’s journey to South Carolina to learn about his roots, the Early American Roads and Trails website, and our state research webinars.

You can listen through iTunes and on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 1:19:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

That’s why the Organize Your Family History Value Pack is this week’s Editor’s Pick. That and the price, steeply discounted through June 30

Whether you work on paper or do everything online or a combo of both, getting your research and your workspace organized is important to keeping track of your family tree.

Here’s what’s in the Organize Your Family History Value Pack:

• Organize Your Genealogy Family Tree University Independent Study course digital download
  
  
• Organization Made Easy: 5 Simple Ways to Get Your Family History in Order on-demand webinar
  
  
• Organize Your Genealogy Life! CD
  
  
• Organize Now! A Week-by-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life by Jennifer Ford Berry 

It’ll help you research more efficiently—you’ll develop a system for filing notes, documents and photos (on paper and your hard drive); learn how to plan and accomplish your next research step; and make the most of your limited research time. And until the last day of June, the whole kaboodle is $49.99—72 percent off full price.

Click here to learn more about the Organize Your Family History Value Pack. 

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 11:20:37 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2]

These are classic genealogy stumbling blocks—but you probably feel like you’ve run up against a brick wall anytime you’ve looked and looked and you just can’t find an ancestor.

Our newest CD, Research Remedies: Best Strategies to Beat Brick Walls and Track Elusive Ancestors, is just for you.

This CD has Family Tree Magazine’s best brick wall-busting help, including:

• proven research techniques such as cluster genealogy and reverse genealogy
  
  
• solutions to common problems such as elusive ancestors, burned courthouses, hard-to-use pre-1850 US censuses (which name only heads of households), early immigrants, and more
  
  
• tips for finding and using often-overlooked and underused resources, such as coroners' reports, outbound passenger lists, nonpopulation censuses, marriage bonds and others, that may hold the answers you need
  
  
• worksheets to help you organize your research strategy and track conflicting information

One of my favorite things about this CD is that you can watch the tips in action: It also contains our hour-long Brick Wall Strategies webinar.

Click here to learn more about the Research Remedies CD at ShopFamilyTree.com.

Thursday, June 09, 2011 9:11:34 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

You can get the most out of your trip—and save money while you’re at it—by using the advice in our Ultimate Research Trip Collection to prepare for your trip. Here’s what’s in it:

• Genealogist's Research Trip Planner e-book download: This book (which was my pet project for a couple of weeks) has sections on planning research trips, what to pack and working out your budget; accomplishing your research objectives at the library, cemetery, FamilySearch Center or courthouse; and walking in your ancestors’ shoes via museums, re-enactments and historic trails. 

• Family Tree Pocket Reference: This pocket-size book has handy reference material you can look up in a snap, including glossaries, acronyms, timelines, census facts and figures, common names, immigration statistics and much more. 

• Cemetery Research 101: Family Tree University Independent Study Course download

• Gravestones "Oldstone" Rubbing Kit for making rubbings of ancestral tombstones

100 copies of this collection will be available only during June, at a savings of more than 60 percent. When they're gone, they're gone! Learn more about the Ultimate Research Trip Collection at ShopFamilyTree.com.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011 1:59:55 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

If you have New Jersey ancestors, you may have noticed that none of the New Jersey population schedules survive for the 1790, 1800, 1810 and 1820 US federal censuses.

Finding substitute sources is one of the research strategies you’ll learn in our next webinar, New Jersey Genealogy Crash Course: Find Your Garden State Ancestors, Wednesday, June 22, at 7 pm Eastern (6 Central/ 5 Mountain/ 4 Pacific).

Presenter Thomas MacEntee, New Jersey genealogy expert and founder of GeneaBloggers, gave me a sampling of other New Jersey research challenges the seminar will help you with:

• Before New Jersey was a state or even a British colony, it was part of the New Sweden and New Netherlands colonies. That can make locating records a challenge, so the webinar will address early records for each of these colonies and where to find them.

• Did you know that many New Jersey couples traveled to other states to get married? You’ll learn which states and counties were most popular and how to search for those marriage records.

Thomas also will tell you how to access New Jersey vital records and other resources, share the best websites for researching ancestors from the state, and more.

Register for the New Jersey Genealogy Crash Course now to get our early bird price of 20 percent off.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 1:00:22 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2]

Start by following @AskArchivists on Twitter (you'll need a Twitter account, of course). Then on June 9, tweet your question and include the hashtag #AskArchivists. You can direct your question to any archivist who’s joining in, or to a specific participating archive—for example, including @USNatArchives in your tweet directs your question to the US National Archives.

Participating archives in the United States and Canada are listed here (the list is still growing). So far, they include the National Archives, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, North Carolina State Archives, Association des archivistes du Québec, Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, plus many college and university libraries.

Get more Ask Archivists Day details on the Ask Archivists blog, and of course, by following @AskArchivists on Twitter.

Monday, May 23, 2011 11:14:51 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• You have to do other things when he is sleeping or have him in one of those swings that you can put him in. They grow fast and you will miss a lot if you don't keep him with you as much as you can. —Irma

• I fit research in in tiny little increments. My children are ages 3 and 5, and I'm home with them full-time. It's hard. If I get to the library, it's on a Saturday (after intense negotiations with my husband as to who will cover the kids when). My online research takes place before 6 a.m. (when the first one gets up) or during naptime.

Mostly, I try to remind myself that this is the period in life where you're supposed to focus on the family tree in your own house, not the one in your file cabinet. You will be amazed how quickly they grow up, and those dead people aren't going anywhere. They'll still be there in a few years when he just wants you to leave him alone so he can play video games. —Kerry Scott (who blogs at Clue Wagon) 

• Genealogy is something we never stop doing even if it is only going over details in our head while rocking, feeding or holding a baby in the middle of the night. Find a good place to sit with Leo and in the same area put an art easel (use the cheap ones children use) and put items you need to contemplate, then get yourself a recorder. Record ideas or thoughts about genealogy or day-to-day items. Replay when you have time. Enjoy the time he is awake. My baby turns 45 this year and I still can remember those times. —Patricia Nemeth

• My children grew up underneath the tables at the Family History Center in Salt Lake City, back in the day (1985-1990). They made a little fort and basically hung out and behaved because they knew Chuck E. Cheese was the last stop before heading home. —Kay McCullough

• Concentrate on the descendant right now—the ancestors will wait. Get a recorder to remember what Leo does and says as he grows. He'll appreciate knowing about that when he has descendants, as much as he'll appreciate knowing about his ancestors. And you'll have plenty of time between the ages of 50 and 90 to research genealogy—believe me, I know. —Gene Kuechmann

• When my daughter was that young, I decided to focus more on making history and memories, instead of looking at records. Those will wait for me, although I did do some research from time to time when I got a moment. This is the time to take pictures—maybe a scrapbook or slideshow—to record your ongoing family history.
  

Oh, and while all those relatives are over to ogle the baby, don't forget to ask them about the family history. Somehow people are more inclined to talk when they know it is for someone who definitely doesn't know the story.

When we finished a cemetery trip or a library trip (yeah, I did make her sit through those—she helped by drawing pictures I would publish in the family book), there was always a trip to Taco Bell as a reward. —Shasta

• It seems like just yesterday when I was trying to research and raise little ones. Naptime and late at night were the best times to do genealogy (and an occasional Saturday when Dad was home). But there were long stretches of time when I didn't do any, simply because we were too busy making our own family history. Or I was too tired! —Michelle Goodrum

• I squeeze in small moments of searches whenever I can—while making dinner, etc. I stay super-organized so I know exactly where I left off. —Elyse Doerflinger (who blogs at Elyse’s Genealogy Blog) 

Tuesday, May 03, 2011 9:58:26 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Puritans who settled in New England
• Quakers (often Welsh) in Pennsylvania
• Scots in mid-Atlantic states (some in Virginia)
• Anglican “cavaliers” in Tidewater Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina.

Having a sizable number (50 to 100) of immigrant ancestors in one or more of those areas is a good indication you have royal roots. Also look for ancestors with gentry-level occupations such as a wealthy farmer or merchant, governor, minister or military officer.

If you suspect royal roots, your research strategy will be similar to that of any ancestry: Work backward generation by generation, keeping an eye out for the link to a royal family. But watch out for forged published genealogies, which might've been created as families tried to prove distinguished heritage.

Here are some free FamilyTreeMagazine.com articles with royal roots resources:

• Tips and resources for tracing royal connections 
• Royal research websites
  
• Using Burke’s Peerage and Gentry, a resource for tracing titled families 
• Researching coats of arms 
• Resources for heraldic genealogy 

You’ll find our guide to researching royal roots in the Spring 2011 Discover Your Roots (also available as a digital issue). 

And check out the books Colonial Americans of Royal & Noble Descent: Alleged, Proven, and Disproven by Patricia Scherzinger and, for more-distant royal links, Blood Royal: Issue of the Kings and Queens of Medieval 1066-1399: The Normans and Plantagenets by T. Anna Leese. 

I'd love to hear about your genealogical connections to the royal family!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011 9:36:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3]

Modern life presents us with different opportunities to be green. Here are a few ways you can incorporate environmentally friendly measures into your genealogy research:

• Does your Family History Center have a microfilm reader that lets you load record images onto portable media? Bring a flash drive or CD when you go to check film, and save the paper.

• Avoid printing out e-mails, websites and online newsletters if you can help it. Or you can print on both sides of your paper (but check your printer manual first—some manufacturers caution against printing on the back of paper that’s already been run through the printer).

• Your computer and other electronics that stay plugged in draw energy even when turned off. Plug them into a power strip and switch it off when you’re not using the devices. (Read more about “phantom loads” here.) 

• See if your favorite publications offer digital issues or subscriptions. You can get a digital subscription to Family Tree Magazine and download digital versions of back issues. You also can access content from back issues online with a Family Tree Plus membership.
  

• Going to a conference? Opt for a syllabus on CD, if available.

• If you use a digital camera, don't print all your pictures—just the ones you’d like to put in an album or display. (Make sure you back up all those digital pictures, though.)

• Get together with genealogy pals and carpool to the library, the cemetery and society meetings. Make lists of everything you want to get done so you don’t have to take another trip.

• Instead of buying bottled water, bring a water bottle on your research trips.
  
  
• E-mail your family newsletters and reunion invitations, rather than printing and mailing them.
  

Thursday, April 21, 2011 3:38:22 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3]

Mocavo.com crawls websites similar to the way Google does, except it focuses on free genealogy content—making it easier for you to find relevant family history information on the web. You can read genealogy-technology blogger Dick Eastman’s enthusiastic comments about Mocavo.com here. 

Click here if you’d like to suggest a site to Mocavo’s developers, who plan to update the site more frequently. 

Get Family Tree Magazine Web Guides, Family Tree University courses and other online genealogy helps from ShopFamilyTree.com.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 9:33:36 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

I kept up with my Google blog reader (sometimes at 3 a.m.) while on maternity leave, so I noticed the regular record updates at FamilySearch.org. That’s how I got a surprise hit on my grandfather while casually searching collections from states my ancestors lived in.

The match, from the collection Texas Births and Christenings, 1840-1981,  has indexed information (so, no image of the record itself) from a church baptismal register in Gonzales, Texas:

The information was close to a baptismal certificate I already had from our family papers. In 1960, my grandma wrote the church where my grandfather was baptized to request the baptismal record. Apparently she needed it so my grandfather, who didn’t have a birth certificate, could participate in his company pension program. Here’s what the priest sent her:

I was never 100 percent confident in the birth information on this certificate, since it was created when he was almost 60 and my research gives two birthdates and places for my grandfather. So I was excited when I saw on FamilySearch.org the microfilm number for the original baptismal register (circled in red above).

I ran a Family History Library online catalog search for the film number and found this catalog record: 

It's hard to read here, but the baptismal register is from Sacred Heart Church, formerly called St. Joseph, in Gonzales, Texas, part of Archdiocese of San Antonio. (Note the 1960 baptismal certificate says St. James Church at the top.)

I printed this catalog page and took it to the FamilySearch Center to rent microfilm no. 25152. 

When the film came in, I quickly found my grandfather’s record (thanks to the page number provided in my FamilySearch.org search result). Here’s the first page, with my grandfather at the bottom:

My great-grandfather Mike Haddad appears in a few records as "Fadlo" (probably short for his pre-immigration name)—I believe that's why he's recorded as "Daddlod" here. 

And the second page, with columns for the sponsors, the minister who performed the ceremony, details on the person's Confirmation (another Catholic sacrament, usually received around age 13), and “remarks.”

See the note on the far right in the Remarks column? That reports my grandfather’s marriage t0 my grandma in 1942 in Cincinnati.

The handwriting was uniform throughout the entire book. From the title and publisher pages, 

it looks like this was a blank register book printed in 1944, which someone later filled in with information from diocesan church records going back to 1883.

My guess is that the (?) in the sponsor column next to Saida’s name—a symbol also appearing by several other names on the page—means the person who copied the original records into this book couldn’t quite make out the handwriting.

In 1960, when my grandma sent her request to St. Joseph, she must've provided her marriage information. Then the priest who answered her letter would’ve looked at this book in order to fill out the baptismal certificate, and added the marriage details to the notes column. 

So this still isn't the actual record that was created in 1902 when my grandfather was baptized, but I have more confidence in that 1960 baptismal certificate (and the birth date it provides) now that I've seen where that information came from.

One question: Why does the baptism certificate sent to my grandma in 1960 say "St. James" at the top, when the church register is from St. Joseph (later changed to Sacred Heart)? Perhaps the diocese routed all records requests like my grandma's to St. James? What do you think?

Monday, April 18, 2011 11:23:23 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [6]

If an ancestor fought in a Colonial war—that is, any war taking place before the American Revolution—you’re more likely to locate state militia pay lists, muster rolls and military hospital records in state archives and military historical societies covering the war or the place where your ancestor enlisted. It’ll be easier to find records if you can learn which regiment or company your ancestor was part of.

This is a little taste of the advice is from our new Military Research Guide CD, which has Family Tree Magazine’s best in-depth guidance and tools for researching ancestors who served in the US armed forces. 

Click here for more details about the research topics and worksheets covered in this keyword-searchable, Windows- and Macintosh-compatible CD. It’s available now at ShopFamilyTree.com. 

Thursday, April 14, 2011 9:25:46 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

The other day I was flipping through TV channels when I stumbled upon the reality TV show “Gold Rush Alaska.” As I got lured into watching a couple of episodes (they were running a marathon that day), it all looked very familiar:

Huge excavators were pulling up great bucketfuls of material from the ground. The huge volume of earth would then tumble its way down sifting machines, eventually run across a wave table. The ultimate goal was to sift out the gold nuggets.

Then it hit me: That’s what we do with Google!

Yes, more than once after doing a simple search I have felt like a huge bucket full of earth had been dropped on me. I would stare at the hundreds of thousands of results and wonder, “How am I ever going to sift through all this to find my genealogy gems?” (This concept goes right back to the early days when I began the Genealogy Gems Podcast in 2007. My first gem was on Google, and I have frequently featured the search powerhouse on the show ever since.)

On the show, newbie miners were struggling to figure out which specialized tools they needed to sift immense quantities of dirt and rocks down to the type of material that carries the gold -- the fine black dirt. Then they had to use another set of unique tools to sift the fine black dirt in hopes of finding gold nuggets.

So what are the right tools for the job of sifting through the seemingly endless material on the Internet? And how do we get that unwanted material out of the way so we can get down to the good stuff where our genealogy gems may be hidden?

In the first installment of this Tech Tips Blog Series I shared with you one of my favorite “sifters” –- the dot dot dot (…) technique. But that is just one of a cache of search sifting tools -- known in the search world as operators -- available to family history researchers. Let me share a few more favorites from my new book The Genealogist's Google Toolbox (Genealogy Gems Publications)

Understand the underlying concept: Search is art, not a science!
While search operators behave scientifically and logically, we must construct our search queries artfully. Sometimes it’s what you add in, and sometimes it’s what you leave out, that determines the quality of your results.

Exact phrase sifter
When you want to find an exact phrase in a website, enclose the phrase in quotation marks. For example, “U.S. federal census” will bring up websites with that exact phrase and eliminate all other variations.

Words apart search
While quotation marks can help you zero in, in some cases they may actually prevent the ideal results. (There’s that “art” thing again.)

We have to keep in mind that sometimes the words that we are looking for won’t appear next to each other even though they normally do. For example, you may be looking for a city directory, and normally you would expect to see the two words together as a phrase: city directory. But by using an asterisk to set them apart, you may find the perfect result that searching for them together may have missed.

city * directory

Results could include:

city phone directory

city telephone directory

city and county directory

Related Search
For this little gem, watch my video from the Genealogy Gems YouTube Channel.

I hope these gems bring you a family history strike! Good luck!

Monday, March 14, 2011 11:24:56 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]

It’s not as simple as taking a quick snapshot, though. Before you start a genealogical photography session, create a shot list of the pictures you want. Here’s what we recommend:

Gravestones Shot List

• cemetery entrance
• whole cemetery
• stones of interest, with nearby stones
  
• the whole gravestone, showing the inscription and carving
• close-ups of the inscription and carvings
• any creative shots you want of the beautiful artwork and scenes in graveyards

Ancestral Homes Shot List

• the entrance to the street (a view your ancestor may have seen every day)
• the house with neighboring buildings
• the whole house (we suggest first knocking on the door to let the current resident know why you're taking a picture of his house)
  
• as many sides of the house as you can capture without trespassing
  
• interesting architectural details
• the yard
• any features mentioned in family stories (such as the tree Grandpa fell out of as a boy)

Heirlooms Shot List

• full view of heirloom
• heirloom with a ruler to show size
• all sides of heirloom item
• close-ups of interesting details, such as carving or painting
• close-ups of manufacturer’s marks
• close-ups of damage or other features affecting value

Records And Documents Shot List

• title page of film roll or book
• full record (be sure to get each page)
• close-ups of hard-to-read areas

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 2:20:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [12]

Read about two neighboring Indiana land patents and other clues Nancy has found to the mysterious Michael’s whereabouts.

Also, Nancy mentions a Cincinnati connection that clicked for me—I wonder if a local park called LaBoiteaux Woods is named for the family of Michael’s first wife, Keziah Laboyteaux?

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 11:48:21 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

In subscription site Ancestry.com’s new database of Sears catalogs from 1896 to 1993, I couldn’t resist browsing the early 1980s doorstoppers of my childhood. As a kid, I’d "shop," choosing one item per page, and use the toy sections to create impossibly optimistic Christmas lists.

But for genealogical purposes, you’ll probably want to look at catalogs further back in time. Of course, you won’t find ancestors. But if your family farmed in the 1940s, for example, you can keyword-search catalogs from that era for equipment they might’ve used. If you fondly remember Grandma making cakes with her rotary egg beater, you can learn when she might've bought it and see an illustration. This one cost 30 cents in the Fall 1929 edition:

Need to date a photo? Search the catalog database for the dress style or an object in the photo. I entered shirtwaist, and among the results was this illustration from the Spring 1905 catalog:

Your searches find keywords in the catalogs’ product descriptions, so you may have to experiment with search terms to find a drawing that matches what’s in your photograph.

The Ancestry.com blog suggests using the catalog pages to spark stories and reminisce with relatives—another handy way to gather family clues. 

You can learn about the history of the Sears catalog, which began as a simple mailer in 1888 and has been called one of the most-commonly read books in rural areas, on the Sears website.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010 9:19:26 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]

It’s easy to get tunnel vision when researching an ancestor. But your research is best served by considering your focus ancestor as part of a community. (Emily Anne Croom, author of the best selling genealogy guide Unpuzzling Your Past, call this "cluster genealogy.")

Not only is your great-grandfather a member of his nuclear family, but also of an extended family. When you do reverse genealogy, you go a step beyond him and then research forward, broadening your search to his relatives and even friends. Any of the folks in your ancestor’s “cluster” could have provided him with housing, worked for him, asked him to witness a document or attended his funeral.

Here’s how this can work in a real-life research situation:

Several years ago, I was trying to locate my great-grandfather in the 1880 US census on microfilm without success. I found his parents and his siblings who were still living at home. Since Great-grandpa was 17 at the time, I expected to find him there, too. I searched for his future wife thinking perhaps they married younger than I thought. But she was living with her parents. Great-grandpa was nowhere to be found.

In an attempt to find him, I traced great-grandfather’s father back to the 1860 census, where he was listed in the household with his parents. I noted everyone in the household. Then I systematically researched forward, locating each sibling in the 1870 and 1880 censuses.

Sure enough, in 1880, I found my then-17-year-old great-grandfather living with his uncle (his father’s brother) in a neighboring town. Because of a variation in his name spelling, I probably never would’ve found him in online censuses.

Take a look at this picture of an ancestor’s potential family “cluster.” Every one of these relatives has the potential to help you make progress on researching that ancestor.

Click here to search or browse all the Family Tree University December course offerings. 

Tuesday, November 30, 2010 3:54:27 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [3]

• Today at our own ShopFamilyTree.com, offer code SFT133 gets you 20 percent off your ShopFamilyTree.com order (some exclusions apply, including VIP membership, subscriptions, and products that ship directly from our retail partners). You also can choose a FREE digital download with your purchase. Choose from:
  

1. Beginner's Guide to Genealogy download
2. Discover Your Roots download
3. 101 Brick Wall Busters: Solutions to Overcome Your Genealogical Challenges download

• Subscription records site Footnote is offering 50 percent off an annual all-access membership today only, for a total of $39.95. Click here to get started. 

• Family Roots Publishing is discounting all products by 15 percent on Cyber Monday. See details on the Genealogy Blog.
  

• Genetic testing service 23andMe is offering a $99 DNA test sale (normally $499) that ends today. Details at 23andMe.com. 

• Through tomorrow, Nov. 30, the Utah Genealogical Association (UGA) is giving a free UGA membership to registrants for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (taking place Jan. 10-14). Learn more on Renee’s Genealogy Blog.
  

• On Cyber Monday, you’ll receive 15 percent off Elyse Doerflinger’s e-books Conquering The Paper Monster Once and For All and A Mini-Guide to Being a Part-Time Genealogist. Details at Elyse’s Genealogy Blog.
  

• Genealogist Michael John Neill is offering a 20 percent discount on the Casefile Clues weekly how-to newsletter today only. Details at the Casefile Clues blog. 

• You’ll find discounts on several items at JMK Genealogy Gifts Store. See details and coupon codes here.
  
  
• A late addition to our list: Now through the end of the year, you can book a virtual presentation by Thomas MacEntee of High-Definition Genealogy for your genealogical event at 33 percent off normal rates. Details at the High-Definition Genealogy blog.
  

Monday, November 29, 2010 9:20:04 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• keyword-search the issues to find expert guidance on the family history records, resources and topics you need
  
  
• print any articles you want for quick reference
  
  
• tuck a year’s worth of how-to genealogy advice into your research tote for library trips
  
  
• slip your slim CD case into a mere 1/4 inch of bookshelf space

• Wide Open Spaces (November): 10 ideas for cutting clutter and getting your genealogy stuff under control
  
  
• Census Extravaganza (May): A special section of articles on information censuses collected over the years, getting ready for the release of the 1940 census in 2012, and finding census records from your ancestors’ homeland
  
  
• Undercover Genealogy (July): 10 investigative strategies for locating living relatives
  
  
• Go-Go-Gadgets (March): Seven essential technology tools every genealogist needs, and what features to look for in each
  
  
• Soul Searching (August): Finding your US ancestors in church records
  
  
• Fancy Free (September): Our list of the 101 best free websites for researching your ancestors
  
  
• Heads of State (December): 75 great state websites for finding family across the country
  
  
• Heritage research guides for Scots-Irish, Baltic, Finnish, Italian, Puerto Rican and Dutch roots, as well as tips for crossing the pond to your European forbears

Wednesday, November 17, 2010 5:21:20 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• online access to articles from past issues of Family Tree Magazine, right up through the current issue

• guidance on family history research strategies, finding ancestors in the United States and your ancestral homeland, online genealogy, using a wide variety of genealogical records, preserving family photos and heirlooms, new and improved genealogy resources, and more

• US research tips and state and county resource listings from the recently released Family Tree Sourcebook

• the convenience of being able to keyword-search this genealogy knowledge base 
  

(Of course, many of the articles on our site , as well as all the genealogy forms and cheat sheets, are freely accessible by anyone, and we regularly add new free content.) 

If you become a Family Tree Magazine VIP, you get the Plus membership and:

• a subscription to the print Family Tree Magazine
  

• 10 percent off any Family Tree University course registration
  

• a 10 percent discount at ShopFamilyTree.com (log into your store account before you shop)
  

• our exclusive Family Tree Toolkit of genealogy forms and a frameable decorative family tree chart. 

Click here for FAQs about the Plus and VIP programs and how to use your membership. 

Wednesday, November 03, 2010 9:55:07 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

Maybe you can. State and local archives and libraries, town halls, and the Family History Library (FHL) may have town or county lists of registered voters or those who paid poll taxes.

Search your ancestral state archives website for voting, and try running a keyword search of the FHL online catalog on the town, county or state name and the word voting. You can rent promising microfilm by visiting your local FamilySearch Center. Subscription website Ancestry.com has some voting-related records and digitized books, so if you’re a member, run the same search of its online catalog.

Here are some examples of the records you can find for various states and counties:

• Every four years from 1803 to 1911, Ohio counted men age 21 and older in various counties to determine voting districts. These quadrennial enumerations are on FHL microfilm and in some local genealogical society collections. An 1863 list of Fallsbury Township voters is part of RootsWeb's free Tax and Voter lists search.
  

• Chicago voter records, which can help you substitute for the missing 1890 census, are available for 1888, 1888 to 1890, and 1892, at the FHL, as is a 1937 voter registration list. Lists for 1888, 1890 and 1892 are on Ancestry.com.
  

• Ancestry.com also has a list of registered voters in New York in 1880, as well as digitized books of poll lists for 1761 and 1765.

• California's "Great Registers" are county voting registers compiled roughly every two years. Early registers included naturalization data and even physical descriptions. The state library has registers from 1866 to 1898 and 1900 to 1944, and reisters from 1900 to 1968 are on subscription site Ancestry.com. They’re also on microfilm by county at the FHL.

• Arizona has similar Great Registers, located at the Arizona State Library and on FHL microfilm.

• In Kansas, members of the New England Emigrant Aid Society are thought to have settled the area in order to influence voting on the slavery issue. A list of those individuals and the territorial citizens deemed eligible to vote in 1856 is free on the Kansas GenWeb site.
  

• The Wyoming state archives’ collection includes poll lists for various counties (type voting into the search box on the home page). You’ll find voting lists for part of Fremont County from 1907 to 1913 on microfiche at the FHL.

• Massachusetts towns kept lists of freemen (landowning men of legal age, usually 21 but as young as 16) who were eligible to vote. An 1890 list of poll tax payers for the town of Maynard is part of RootsWeb's free database of tax and voter lists. The state library has voting lists along with city directories in its special collections.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010 9:16:08 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

That's why I'm pumped about our upcoming Family Tree University class, Source Documentation: How to Cite Genealogy Sources Accurately and Effectively. 

Source citation can sound complicated, but you'll learn that it's just a way of making sure you—or anyone else—can go back to the original source of the genealogical information you've recorded.

Different kinds of genealogy sources—books, census records, online databases, oral histories—require different citation styles. For books, for example, record the title, author, publisher and location, year of publication, where you found the book, library call number (if applicable), and the pertinent page numbers, like so: “Carmack, Sharon DeBartolo and Erin Nevius, eds., The Family Tree Resource Book for Genealogists (Cincinnati: Family Tree Books, 2004), 219-220.”

Our downloadable Source Citation Cheat Sheet has examples of citations for censuses, vital records and other sources. ProGenealogists also has a guide to citing online sources, including databases such as those on Ancestry.com.

Where you cite sources is important, too. Some genealogists include a full citation on the front of every photocopied record so the citation doesn't get separated from the data. Most genealogy software lets you type in citations or link to a digitized record when you add information to your tree. See our article for advice on adding source citations in your genealogy software. 

The classic tome on source citation is Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills (Genealogical Publishing Co.), also downloadable in digital format from Footnote.com.

The Family Tree University course Source Documentation: How to Cite Genealogy Sources Accurately and Effectively, taught by Charlotte Bocage and available for the November session (starting Nov. 8), goes into depth about why to cite sources, how to cite them, including them in genealogy software, and using them in the course of your genealogy research.

(To register, click the “view upcoming course schedule” link or the Register link, then scroll down a little to find the Source Documentation course link.)

Monday, November 01, 2010 3:02:38 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• filling out forms
• calculating cousin relationships
• myths to avoid
• choosing genealogy software
• using popular websites
• researching at the library, courthouse and cemetery
• using genetic genealogy

• a seven-day free membership to Family Tree Magazine Plus
• a seven-day free trial to genealogy records site Archives.com
• $25 off a Family Tree University course
• 15 percent off a purchase at ShopFamilyTree.com

Thursday, October 14, 2010 9:30:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Allison Stacy, Family Tree Magazine’s publisher and editorial director, fills you in on Family History Month events

• Genealogy expert James M. Beidler provides history and research tips from his article "Trace Your Scots-Irish Roots" in the December 2010 Family Tree Magazine. 

• Get started paring down your collection of papers with tips from online editor Grace Dobush on what to keep and what to toss.

• Lisa and I talk about Ancestry.com's acquisition of iArchives, Footnote.com’s parent company, and some questions genealogists are asking.

• Researcher and author Lisa A. Alzo gives you tips for exploring your ancestor’s international origins from her Family Tree University class Tracing Immigrants: How to Research Your Family’s American Arrivals.
  

You can listen to the Family Tree Magazine Podcast in iTunes and on FamilyTreeMagazine.com. You can get the show notes on our website, too.

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010 1:41:35 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• a roundup of German research websites, books and organizations
• how to use Meyers-Orts- (a handbook for tracking down German villages)
• translations of words you’ll see in German records
  

Monday, September 20, 2010 2:54:22 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• country-by-country genealogy resources for Canada, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean

• best websites for learning about history, culture, records and genealogical research (just click each URL to visit the site)

• bibliographies of how-to books and published indexes to relevant records for each place. Book titles link to free online versions when available

• addresses, phone numbers and websites of important repositories

• expert tips for contacting overseas repositories

• our guide to tracing your ancestors to the old country—without having to book a plane ticket

• maps of 53 countries show you major administrative divisions, capitals and large cities

Thursday, September 16, 2010 10:08:23 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Space-saving ideas for your genealogy stuff, from Family Tree Magazine contributing editor Rick Crume

• My update on the new FamilySearch Beta website

• Lisa’s overview of the Digital Library of Georgia website

• Digital photography tips from contributing editor Nancy Hendrickson’s Family Tree University class Digital Photography Essentials 

• Grace Dobush talks about new scanners that are small enough to take along on your next research trip

Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:16:11 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• A summary of genealogy research in every state, with a historical overview, vital records information, tips on other major records to look for and places to begin, and maps showing county boundaries.

• Detailed county-level data telling you which county office to contact for court, probate, vital, and other types of records. Here’s an example:
  
  

• Names, addresses, phone numbers and websites for helpful libraries, archives, and genealogical and historical societies in each state.

• Bibliographies listing genealogical and historical books that will help you further your research in each state.
  
  
• Special sections on the best websites for state-based research, as well as broader-scope, national resources.
  

Thursday, September 09, 2010 10:35:29 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2]

• Aspects of Pennsylvania history that are essential to doing genealogical research there
• Details on vital records, immigration resources and other records in the state
• Ethnic groups that tended to settle in Pennsylvania and the records they may have left behind
  
• The best websites for doing Pennsylvania research, such as the steadily expanding website of the Pennsylvania State Archives.
  

Thursday, September 02, 2010 9:21:55 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Tips and websites for determining whether you’ve found your Harry Smith (or whomever) from author and professional genealogist Sharon DeBartolo Carmack

• A look at the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness website (where you can request a free library or cemetery lookup in a distant locale) with podcast host (and Genealogy Gems podcast producer) Lisa Louise Cooke. (See our full list of 101 Best Websites for 2010)
  

• Tips for breaking down genealogy brick walls from the Brick Wall Busters: Solutions to Real-Life Stumpers webinar.
  

• A discussion on news from the blogosphere with yours truly

• A sneak peek at the upcoming November 2010 Family Tree Magazine with publisher and editorial director Allison Stacy

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Tuesday, August 24, 2010 4:50:10 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

An 1846 Cincinnati city directory reveals that photographer Charles Fontayne operated a business in Cincinnati in 1845. In fact, in the 1840s and early 1850s he did not live in Cincinnati, but instead one mile across the river in Newport, Ky. However, he did not appear in any US census schedules until 1860. 

William S. Porter's family knew he moved to Cincinnati by 1850, but knew little about him before then, including his reason for migrating to Cincinnati. The 1849 directory reveals Porter's arrival about a year after Fontayne's, and shows Porter becoming Fontayne's business partner in a photography studio.

The photographic method of the time, the daguerreotype, was extraordinarily expensive and could only be supported by a large and prosperous city. Cincinnati was the sixth largest city in the United States, just behind Baltimore, and very cosmopolitan as revealed through the wide range of products, including luxury goods, advertised in the directories. Photographers were an elite group with only eight listed in the 1850 Cincinnati directory.

Applying the cluster strategy to the business associates led to looking for connections between Fontayne and Porter before their partnership in Cincinnati. Baltimore city directories from the early 1840s show Fontayne and Porter as business partners there. We can conclude that Porter followed Fontayne to continue the business, a successful endeavor as demonstrated by their ornate advertisement.

The Fontayne and Porter case study illustrates several of key concepts of delving deeper into city directories:

• Use the cluster strategy with co-workers. Business associates may have worked together elsewhere prior to their arrival in their current city.

• Chain migration—one individual traveling ahead to be joined later by another—can apply to occupational groups.
  
  
• Business location is important and strategically chosen.
  
  
• Business owners may have lived in a different city or state.
  
  
• Read between the years and compare information about the industry and your ancestor.
  
  
• Look to advertisements for further information about the ancestor or company, including its target audience and prosperity.
  
  
• Identification in a city directory points to new leads for genealogical sources.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 9:53:40 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

Mainstream newspapers carried a wide range of stories covering the African-American. A considerable number of white newspapers in both the North and South carried columns or special sections of news specifically for black readership. Stories ranged from items about local residents to those on a state or national scale. The Joliet Evening Herald News in April of 1926, for example, ran an article on the awarding of a charter to the first black Boy Scout troop in the city.

Obituaries or stories reporting the deaths of black community members can be found with regularity. Researchers report great success in finding items such as these on their ancestors. In most cases these ancestors have not lived a life of great acclaim, but have merely established themselves as amicable neighbors.

In general, it's not unusual to find obituaries in mainstream newspapers to be more extensive than those in African-American newspapers. I would guess that this is particularly true in cases when the white paper is published in town, while the black newspaper is national in scope and published elsewhere.

A case in point would be the death of African-American Nancy Greenly of Kankakee, Ill., in 1920. Her death notice in the Chicago Defender on January 17 consisted of one paragraph on page 7, compared to front-page coverage of the event in eight rich paragraphs in the Kankakee Daily Republican.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010 11:07:37 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Tuesday, Aug. 17: 11:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
• Wednesday-Friday, Aug. 18 - 20:  9:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
• Saturday, Aug. 21: 9 a.m.-7:00 p.m.

Thursday, August 05, 2010 9:49:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

• Build a Family Website with Nancy Hendrickson, Family Tree Magazine contributing editor and author of Finding Your Roots Online (Betterway Books)

• Finding African-American Ancestors in Newspapers with Tim Pinnick, author of Finding and Using African American Newspapers

• Exploring City Directories with genealogy librarian Patricia van Skaik

• Writing Your Family Memoir with frequent Family Tree Magazine contributor Sunny McClellan Morton

• Google Tools for Genealogists with Lisa Louise Cooke
• Reverse Genealogy with Lisa Louise Cooke
• US Vital Records with George G. Morgan
• Finding Your Ancestral Village with Lisa A. Alzo
• Digital Photography Essentials with Nancy Hendrickson
• US Military Records with Diana Smith
• Published Genealogies with George G. Morgan
• Find Your German Roots with James M. Beidler
• Tracing Immigrant Ancestors with Lisa A. Alzo

Monday, August 02, 2010 3:21:51 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

• our listing of the 101 Best Genealogy Websites for 2010 (which you can check out online, too)
• six ways a DNA surname study can benefit your research
• our Web Guide to USGenWeb
• help with Finnish research
• six new, free genealogy databases
  
• an Evernote tutorial 

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 4:38:02 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• How to navigate Ancestry.com
• Tricks for finding databases with the genealogical information you need
• Strategies to locate hard-to-find ancestors in the site’s record collections
• Things Ancestry.com doesn't want you to know!

• Participation in the live presentation and Q&A session
• Access to the webinar recording to view again as many times as you like
• PDF of the presentation slides for future reference
• Bonus handouts

Thursday, July 22, 2010 8:37:48 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

Because land doesn't move, it's one of the few elements of our ancestors' lives that we can always count on. Consider an old photograph: Buildings may have changed but the surrounding landmarks such as hills, valleys and rock formations still stand today and can aid in identification.

Let's start using Google Earth by searching for an address that you probably have to get a feel for what I mean by this: the house where one of your sets of grandparents lived.

1. In the Search panel type the address in the Fly To box and click the magnifying glass icon.
2. The globe in the 3D viewer will start to turn and very quickly will zoom in to that location.
3. Place a placemark on that location so you keep track of the exact spot by clicking the Placemark button in the Viewer Toolbar.
4. When the New Placemark box opens, label the placemark with the exact street address and your grandparents' names.
5. Click OK.

You have now located your first ancestral home on Google Earth. Great job! 

Friday, June 25, 2010 12:49:02 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• When you get stuck in the early 1800s, make the last known county your adopted home—that is, camp out with the microfilmed deeds, probates and other records for that place and look at all the people with your ancestral surname.

• Middle names came into common usage around the 1790s. If you see earlier folk recorded with middle names in compiled genealogies or other family charts, be suspicious of their accuracy.

• Have a New England immigrant who didn’t naturalize? Many New England tombstones have the deceased’s specific places of origin inscribed on them.

• If you suspect an ancestor died at sea, look for a “cenotaph”—a memorial (e.g., marker) for a deceased person whose body is not at that site.
  
  
• Military pensions provide much useful detail about your ancestors, but generally won’t name a soldier’s parents.

Friday, June 18, 2010 9:35:04 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• How to analyze your research problem and break it into manageable chunks

• Ways to surmount common brick-wall scenarios

• Professional genealogists’ favorite methods for conquering research challenges

Thursday, June 10, 2010 9:24:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

A new feature in Google Earth is Historical Imagery. Click the clock icon on the Tool Bar and a slider bar will appear at the top of the map indicating how far back map images are available for your location. In the case of San Francisco we can turn the hands of time back to 1946 image. To return to modern day just unclick the clock icon or move the slider back up to the current year.

Go to Image Search and look for a portrait of a historical figure such as George Washington. In the results pages you'll see many faces of George Washington. However, as you move on through the search results, soon you'll come across other things, like a photograph of George Washington’s false teeth. Not exactly what you were looking for.

To eliminate the unwanted images and narrow in on the desired images, go back to the search box and click the Advance Image Search link. You'll see a blue box near the top and then a white box below. Within that box the first option is Content Types: return images that contain. Click on Faces and click the Search button again.  

Now every search result is a facial image. It might be a portrait on a stamp or on a coin, but it will be a face. We have succeeded in narrowing the original search results down from 6.7 million images to 548,000 images. Think how well this might work with an ancestor who is not quite is famous as George Washington!

Tuesday, June 08, 2010 4:55:14 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Professional genealogists such as Sharon DeBartolo Carmack and Lisa Alzo
• Top website gurus such as Joe Bott of the Dead Fred web site and Dusty Rhoades of GeneTree.
• Leading librarians and archivists such as Curt Witcher of the Allen County Public Library and James Sweany of the Library of Congress

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Tuesday, June 08, 2010 3:12:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• 10 best websites for military research
• Military records toolkit
• Four resources for military ancestors
• Common abbreviations in military records
• Civil War genealogy toolkit
• WWI genealogy resources
• Military Records category of this Genealogy Insider blog
  

• Online Military Records: Document Your Family's Service webinar recording
• May 2008 Family Tree Magazine with our guide to online military records
• July 2007 Family Tree Magazine (available as a PDF digital download) with our Civil War research guide
• The Everything Civil War Book By Brooke C. Stoddard and Daniel P. Murphy, PhD

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 10:13:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4]

• Finding Ancestors in the US Census: Online and Offline Research Strategies, taught by Jana Sloan Broglin
  
  
• Land Records 101: Using Deeds, Plats, Patents and More, taught by Diana Smith
  
  
• Tracing Immigrants: How to Research Your Family’s American Arrivals, taught by Lisa A. Alzo
  
  
• US Vital Records: Researching Births, Marriages, Deaths and Divorces, taught by George G. Morgan
  
  
• Reverse Genealogy: Working Forward to Break Down Brick Walls, taught by Lisa Louise Cooke
  
  
• Digital Photography Essentials: Techniques to Capture and Preserve Your Family History, taught by Nancy Hendrickson
  

Wednesday, May 05, 2010 10:27:47 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• searching the online catalog ahead of time and printing the listings of books and microfilmed records you need (see our tips for searching the online catalog).

Note that catalog listings with the notation “Vault” mean that particular roll of microfilm is kept in the Granite Mountain Records Vault. You’ll need to call or e-mail at least three days ahead of time to have these items sent to the library (for contact numbers and the e-mail address, click this link and see tip number 6).

• preparing a prioritized research to-do list. Put book look-ups near the top, since these don’t circulate to your local FHL branch Family History Center (FHC). In my FHL research sessions, I’ve found doing book lookups a nice break when microfilm scrolling gives me a headache.

• updating your family tree charts (whether on paper or in software you plan to take along on your laptop, PDA, USB drive or other device). Also gather paper or digital copies of the records you’ll need to refer to.

• familiarizing yourself with the FHL’s hours, floor plan and researcher guidelines. Photocopier information is here. Also study the FHL’s advice on preparing for a visit.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010 4:57:53 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Search census records. You may see an orphanage resident referred to as “inmate” in the census. The name of the institution is usually written at the top of the schedule that lists the residents. Typically, the census taker didn’t talk to each child. Instead, he’d transcribe names from the home’s records (which is why residents may be listed in alphabetical order).

If your orphan ancestor was around during the 1880 census, he or she may have been listed in the special schedule of “Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes.” You can download a PDF guide to finding these records from FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

• Run a Google search on the name of the institution. My grandfather lived in the Corsicana State Home in Texas. From the online Handbook of Texas, I learned which entity has authority over the home—the Texas Youth Commission—so I visited the commission’s website and found out how to request records related to my grandfather. If you find the state home where your ancestor lived has been shut down, chances are any surviving records were sent to the state archives.

For an orphanage run by a religious group, search online for denominational archives. You also may find historical records of homes affiliated with churches or other private organizations at state and local historical societies, local libraries, or on Family History Library microfilm.

• Follow request instructions. Orphanage records may be considered sensitive and more-recent records may be restricted. I included with my request copies of my grandfather’s death certificate and my driver’s license. I also provided his name, his parents’ names, and the years I believed he lived there. Months later, I received an envelope with his admission records.

• Keep looking. Further online research yielded TexasGenWeb pages with photos and alumni stories, a panoramic photo on the Library of Congress website, a Flickr image of a historical marker at the home and more. Apparently the home’s school had a yearbook I need to get my hands on.

• Explore orphan trains. If you think your ancestor was on one of the trains that transported orphaned children from Eastern cities to adoptive families in the West, try these sites listed on Genealinks.
  

• Orphan Train Ancestors (free online article)

• Research toolkit for adopted ancestors (free online article)
  

• Early Adopters article on researching adopted ancestors from the February 2007 Family Tree Magazine (available in ShopFamilyTree.com as a digital edition; or Family Tree Magazine Plus members can access the article online)

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 10:19:31 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• A downloadable, one-page PDF Get Started cheat sheet with 10 tips to start tracing your family tree, plus beginner-friendly websites and books. Great for printing and giving out at your “Who Do You Think You Are?” viewing party.
  
  
• A nice, concise online article with 10 steps to start your research
  
  
• A downloadable five-generation ancestor chart, adoptive family tree chart and family group sheet, as well as other basic forms
  
  
• Our genealogy glossary
  
  
• Our Genealogy Insider’s Guide to Acronyms

• The Beginner Genealogist’s Bundle, including several how-to products to help people start their family trees

• Census Secrets CD with in-depth information on one of the most-used genealogical records

• State Research Guides CD, with information on finding ancestors in every state

Thursday, March 04, 2010 10:17:32 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• The Organized Genealogy Bundle: Organize Your Genealogy Life! CD, Organization Made Easy webinar recording, Organize Now! book, 2010 Family Tree Magazine Desktop Calendar

• The Beginner Genealogist’s Bundle: Family Tree Essentials CD, Beginner's Guide to Genealogy Download, and a one-year subscription to Family Tree Magazine

• The Family Legacy Preservation Bundle: Family Tree Legacies book, Heirloom Preservation Made Easy webinar recording, Family Photo Essentials CD

Wednesday, March 03, 2010 4:40:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

As Sherlock Holmes liked to lecture Dr. Watson, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” So consider even the most unlikely possibilities when confronting your brick walls: Could there have been two men by the same name in the county at that time? Might your third-great-grandfather have married his cousin? Maybe your great-grandmother remarried in between censuses, thus changing her name.

Admitting to the improbable—but not impossible—is how I finally broke through the brick wall of my frustrating Ekstroms. I had found Olof Ekstrom's widow, Mary A., in an 1892 Rock Island and Moline, Ill., city directory. She matched my great-great-grandmother Anna Maja Pehrsdotter, who'd married Olof back in Sweden—Anna Maja easily could have been flipped and Americanized to Mary A.

I also found her, already a widow, in an 1885 city directory. But where was she—or Olof, for that matter—in the 1880 census, if she'd emigrated in 1873, as Swedish records indicated? The only Mary in the census who seemed to fit was married to a Bernard Vankirkhoon (actually Van Kirkhove, I later learned), a Belgian gent! Looking closer, I saw that the household included several children named not Vankirkhoon, but Ekstrom—with roughly the right first names and ages.

I kept going back to that census page. It didn't fit any of my assumptions, but it did fit the facts, if I looked at them in a completely different way:

• What if Olof had died soon after immigrating and never made it to Illinois—where I couldn't find any record of his death?

• What if Anna Maja, now Mary A., had then married this Belgian guy?

• And what if the Belgian also had died—between 1880 and that 1885 city directory—and Mary decided to return to her previous married name?

• What if the 1880 Olof Ekstrom in the Vankirkhoon household was the same person as the Oliver Eckstrom I'd found at the same address as the widow Ekstrom in the 1892 city directory—making him my great-great-uncle?

Once I was willing to consider this alternate explanation, I soon found obituaries, passenger manifests and loads of other records that matched the scenario. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place. All I had to do, if you will, was try looking at the picture upside-down.

• Family Tree Magazine Plus members can see the archived article with all of Fryxell’s tips on FamilyTreeMagazine.com

• Seven Steps to Studying Ancestral Places, a free article explaining how focusing on places your ancestors lived could lead to genealogy answers

• Brick Wall Strategies: Advice and Ideas for Getting Past Research Dead Ends webinar recording from ShopFamilyTree.com

• Family Tree Problem Solver by Marsha Hoffman Rising (now on sale for $10!)

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 12:58:04 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]

At libraries and archives on the state level, you'll find birth, marriage and death records, plus state censuses, tax records, business records, county records, maps, family papers, and photographs and oral histories. Most state archives also have programs to microfilm newspapers dating back to the first issues published in the state.

While they usually focus on their own states, many of these libraries and archives also have important holdings for other states. The Sutro branch of the California State Library, for example, and the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) house two of the nation's largest collections of genealogical books. WHS also boasts one of the largest collections of newspapers in the United States and extensive holdings of African-American and American Indian newspapers.

Every state has at least one organization in charge of preserving its heritage. Sometimes, a state library houses books, while a separate state archive stores records and artifacts. Other states preserve all these resources in a single facility, often called a state historical society. In addition to official state-run archives, some states, especially in the East, have other repositories operated by private, nonprofit organizations.

To take the best advantage of state libraries and archives, you'll want to visit in person. But even if you can't, you can still access many of these resources from a distance through interlibrary loan, the Internet and the library's reference services.

Almost every state library and archives has a website packed with useful genealogical information. Some sites, such as the Library of Virginia and the Florida State Archives, feature searchable databases and document images—with just a few clicks, you might find an abstract of your ancestor's will or digitized pages from the family Bible.

Before making a trip to the state capital, check the online library catalog for family histories, local histories and manuscripts. The site also may have a listing of newspaper holdings organized by county and town.

Many state libraries and archives make microfilmed newspapers and some books available for a small fee via interlibrary loan. Read the lending policies on the facility's website, then print the references to items you want to borrow and request them at your local public library.

Just like local public libraries, state libraries and archives offer a range of reference services. Staff may accept research requests by phone, mail or e-mail. Usually, there's no charge to answer a simple question, such as “Do you have Clay County court records from the 1880s?” But you may have to pay a fee to get an archivist to check indexes and make photocopies. Keep your question brief, and be sure to include a name, place and date, for example: “Can you check the index to the book Old Tioga Point and Early Athens by Louise Welles Murray for the name William Parry, and copy the pages where he's mentioned? He lived in Athens from 1822 until the 1850s.”

Some state library websites have a form for submitting research questions. If you need more-extensive research than staff can handle, they may have a list of area researchers for hire.

Faced with budget cuts, many state libraries and archives are reducing their services and need your support. Let your elected officials know that you value these services and want them to continue. Of course, the best way to support state libraries is to use them.

• State Libraries Directory, Alabama to Lousiana
  (these directories of state libraries are free articles)

• State Libraries Directory, Maine to Nevada

• State Libraries Directory, New Hampshire to North Dakota

• State Libraries Directory, Ohio to Utah

• State Libraries Directory, Vermont to Wyoming
  
  
• State Research Guides available on ShopFamilyTree.com as digital downloads, in a book or on CD
  

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 9:45:31 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

• Tips for phrasing your searches
• How to tailor your searches to fetch what you're looking for
• Hints to take advantage of tools such as Google Books and News Archive

Thursday, February 04, 2010 10:20:57 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

Nothing could be duller than federal government studies, reports and investigations—unless the local history of your ancestral hometown is buried in those bureaucratic papers. For example, the US Congressional Serial Set is a collection of more than 14,000 volumes containing House and Senate reports and documents from the 15th Congress through 1969.

The reports tend to be studies and investigations of congressional committees; the documents span a broad range of topics, including private citizens' petitions before Congress, as well as reports by executive departments and independent organizations. (The papers of the first 14 Congresses were published as the American State Papers.)

When you click the Search button to search either collection, on the next page, be sure to choose the collection from the pull-down menu under "NOTE."

For years, family historians have been finding genealogical clues in these federal papers. But not finding an ancestor's name in the US Serial Set Index doesn't mean there's nothing of value here. These 14,000 volumes are chock full of information about people, places and events throughout the country.

Searching the index for the name Ring, for example, I found nothing. But searching under Mississippi resulted in a rich source of Issaquena County history: Mississippi in 1875: Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875, with the Testimony and Documentary Evidence.

Senators interviewed dozens of Mississippians, whose testimony provides a vivid picture of their communities during the decade following the Civil War. I found interviews with former slave Henry P. Scott, sheriff of Issaquena County at the time, and other neighbors of Ring, including his attorney, W. D. Brown. Discussed at length were freedman Noah B. Parker, the justice of the peace in my ancestor's neighborhood, and a host of events there.

Excerpts from the testimony of just one witness demonstrate what a deep well of information Mississippi in 1875 holds about Issaquena County:

W. D. Brown — sworn and examined
Q. What is your occupation? — A. I am engaged in planting; I am also an attorney at law.

Q. What is the chief crop of your country, sir? — A. Cotton is the chief product.

Q. To clean the lint from the seed you must take it to the gin-house? — A. You must take it to the gin-house; yes, sir.

Q. Is the packing-press, the baling-press, near by there? — A.
It is generally inside the gin-house now. The old-fashioned press was exterior to the gin; the press is now in the rear portion of the gin-building …

Q. In these isolated houses, do the people have any means of extinguishing a conflagration when it is once started? — A. We have nothing to depend upon. That mode of revenge is regarded as the surest…

The Rings often engaged Brown's legal services, yet when their neighbors were arrested in connection with the destruction by fire of the Ring & Co. store and the deaths of five people sleeping in the living quarters upstairs, Brown represented the defendants!

Given the size and breadth of the US Congressional Serial Set, chances are good you'll come up with some document containing information about the neighborhood of your forebears. You may also get lucky. If an ancestor, through his or her senator or congressman, petitioned the US government for something—a widow's pension or financial reparations for some grievance against a federal agent—that petition will appear in the set.

• Seven Steps to Studying Ancestral Places: This free article gets you started researching ancestors’ hometowns.

• State Research Guides: You can purchase individual state guides as digital downloads, or get them all on CD or in a book.
  

Wednesday, February 03, 2010 10:45:58 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]

University libraries are particularly noted for special collections of government documents, microfilm, microfiche, local history materials, ethnic resources, and rare books and manuscripts. Some universities have archives housed separately from the general library. Here's a sampling of microform collections especially interesting to family historians:

• American Culture Series, 1493-1875 (University Microfilms): publications on all aspects of American life. Here you'd find, for example, History of the Old Cheraws, about South Carolina, 1730-1810, originally published in 1867. The American Farrier and Family Medical Companion, published in 1852, gives advice on popular medical remedies.

• Confederate Imprints (Research Publications): official and unofficial publications of the Confederacy. It contains such items as the organization of the army, instructions for mail carriers, hymn books and sheet music.

• History of Women (Research Publications): publications by and about women up to about 1920. An Essay on the Education and Genius of the Female Sex (1795) and The Good Housekeeper (1839) are just two examples.

• Western Americana (Xerox University Microfilms): publications about and contemporary with each successive frontier. The Navigator: Containing Directions for Navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers …, published in 1814, was a guide for travelers. Miners and Business Men's Directory for the Year Commencing January 1st, 1856 could help trace a participant in the gold rush.

Special collections often aren't indexed in the library's catalog. Be sure to ask a reference librarian about any special holdings that may aid your research.

• Links to key online library catalogs, including several academic ones, so you can plan your research session
  

• Finding your ancestors’ college records (for which you’ll want to go to the school's library)
  

• Family Tree Magazine Plus members can access the full college and university libraries article on our website.
  

Thursday, January 28, 2010 8:47:10 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [6]

Leave no stone unturned. Many types of records provide clues that are often overlooked. Take what I call the “Doberman” approach to your genealogy research: Latch on to a fact and don't let go until you've gotten everything out of it. Squeezing every single scrap of information from a record as a clue to other research will pay big dividends. “Ask” every document these questions:

• Why was the document created in the first place?

• Are you looking at the original or a copy?

• To whom does the document pertain?

• How close to the original event was the document created?

• Who are the witnesses, informants or other persons mentioned in the document?

• Are any family relationships stated or implied?

• Did the person executing the document sign with a signature or mark?

• Is the information reliable, usable, or simply a clue to further research?

• What's the full citation for the document?

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 4:53:34 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]

• Participation in the live presentation and Q& A session

• Access to the webinar recording to view again as many times as you like

• PDF of the presentation slides for future reference

• Bonus handout (webinar attendees will receive a post-webinar e-mail with a link to download the bonus material as a PDF)

• a Family Tree Magazine 2010 Genealogy Desk Calendar (which has coupons for monthly savings at ShopFamilyTree.com)

Friday, January 15, 2010 1:14:25 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• Scan a bunch of family photos and share them with relatives. Be specific— resolve to scan a photo every Saturday, for example. Learn three ways to speed up the scanning process.

• Organize your records—on your computer and in your file drawer—in a way that makes sense for you. Schedule 30 minutes once a week or once a month to file accumulated papers. (For serious assistance, consider our Organize Your Genealogy Life! CD.)

• Digitize your genealogy records and back them up online, on an external hard drive or on a CD. Read Dick Eastman’s post about online backup services.

• Back up your digitized photos, too (in the May 2010 Family Tree Magazine, we’ll recommend several photo-sharing websites for backing up family photos).

• Finally call great-aunt Betty and ask to talk about your family history.

• Pick a family and, for each place they lived, run a place search of the Family History Library online catalog. Copy information on any promising microfilm title.
  

Resolve to rent one title a month through a nearby Family History Center. You can get more advice on using FamilySearch in our FamilySearch Essentials Webinar recording.

• Go through your attic and closets and catalog your family heirlooms. You can use our heirloom recording forms to note the items' original owner, provenance, and other important information. 

• Commit an hour or so a week to volunteering for a records indexing project. Try FamilySearch Indexing or Ancestry.com’s World Archives Project, or see if your local library or historical society could use your indexing assistance.

• Join a genealogical society and/or attend a family history class at your library.

• If you’re a beginning family historian, resolve to search the 1930 census (the most recent one available) for every relative who was alive at the time. See our census search tips, and visit a large library to use census microfilm, HeritageQuest Online or Ancestry Library Edition.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010 12:29:49 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

• Identify the "connector" at the gathering—the relative who knows everyone and starts conversations. Get this person curious about your research by sharing a genealogy discovery or a photo related to his or her ancestor. 

• Show off a photo of an ancestor who looks remarkably like a relative who'll be there.
  

• Over dinner, ask about family recipes, for example, “Where did Grandma learn to make pie like this?”

• Bring up a Thanksgiving from your childhood: “Remember the time Aunt June used salt instead of sugar in the sweet potatoes?”

• Mention changes to an old family home you drove past recently—maybe it’s on the market, or someone built an addition.
  

• You probably have at least one relative who’s interested in your research. Arrange to show that person some genealogy records at the Thanksgiving gathering, and you may arouse others' curiosity (but be prepared for people to ask for copies).

• If your child or grandchild is working on a family history project for school or scouts, let him bring his blank ancestor chart and ask relatives for help filling it in.

• 20 questions for interviewing relatives (free article)
  
  
• 13 Tips for oral history interviewing (free article)
  
  
• Using photos to generate stories (free article)
  
  
• Oral Support: key steps for planning, executing and preserving oral history interviews (Family Tree Magazine Plus article)
  
  
• Getting the Word: How to focus on why, how and what instead of who, when and where (Family Tree Magazine Plus article)

Monday, November 23, 2009 8:58:20 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]

• Military Records Toolkit: Web sites, books and organizations for military research
• At Your Service: use this chart to determine which conflicts an ancestor may have served in, depending on his birth date
• US Military Campaigns: A timeline of conflicts from the Powhatan Wars through World War II

• A House Divided: Nine steps for researching Civil War soldiers in your family tree
• Over There: How to trace your ancestors in records of World War I
• Operation Online Records: Join the march to military records on the web.

• The Everything Civil War Book, 2nd Edition: Everything You Need to Know About the Conflict That Divided a Nation by Brooke C. Stoddard and Daniel P. Murphy, PhD

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 10:22:36 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

• I realized (duh!) that I had the 1930 census schedule for my great-grandfather and three of his children, but one wasn’t listed with the family. I found him lodging in a nearby town.

• I realized my great-grandfather didn’t check in at the state prison until after his sons were placed in an orphanage. That's the reverse of what was on my mental timeline.

• It occurred to me that I should see if the Lions Club that sponsored part of my grandfather’s college education has minutes from the meeting he attended to thank the group.

• How to create a research journal
  
  
• How to create a timeline for your ancestor
  
  
• Books on writing about your family from ShopFamilyTree.com

Monday, November 02, 2009 4:26:56 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [7]

• The My Genealogy toolbar has dropdown menus of categorized links to genealogy websites. Download it from here or here. It works with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

• The Malhamdale Local History Group of Yorkshire, England, created a toolbar with links to the group’s site and other genealogy websites. It works with Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox (though Firefox users are directed to a help page).

• The Manchester and Lancashire (England) Family History Society launched a genealogy toolbar that provides links to more than 200 useful British genealogy sites. It’s regularly updated, and you can configure settings such as which web site categories to display.

• The Family Genie toolbar works with Firefox (it’s supposed to work in Internet Explorer, but CNET reviewers couldn’t get it to). It has first- and last-name search boxes and a single dropdown menu of search engines, as well as a menu of bookmarked genealogy sites.

• If you’re an Ancestry.com member, you can download the Ancestry.com toolbar for quick access to links on Ancestry.com. It also lets you easily save links and add photos and text from any web page to your Ancestry tree.

• Google is a handy genealogy tool for searching on ancestors’ names, getting language translations, locating addresses and more; and you can make more use of it than ever with help from resources such as our Googling Your Genealogy webinar and the book Google Your Family Tree by Daniel M. Lynch. The Google toolbar isn't just for genealogists, but you'll appreciate the shortcuts to the search engine’s features.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 9:35:46 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [10]

• For example, if a relative went to Drexel University in Philadelphia, see the Archives and Special Collections blog. You can pick a type of record from the category list, or browse by decade, century or letter of the alphabet. You’ll learn about resources such as the Programs and Invitations Collection, 1862 to 1965 (graduation programs, banquet invites and the like), or People Photographs 1880-2000.

• The Brooklyn Historical Society named its catablog Emma. To see posts, choose a category or browse. In the Business and Industry category, a post on the Bennet Ryder Collection, 1676-1915, tells you it contains wills, deeds, indentures and other documents from the Bennet, Lake, Stillwell and Van Sicklen families of mid-17th century New Amsterdam. The Slavery category has a post on the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims-Henry Ward Beecher Collection, 1847- 1980, which has papers from the abolitionist’s pastorate over the church.

• UMarmot from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is the original catablog, according to Archives 2.0. Choose from categories such as Civil War, Rhode Island, and Immigration and Ethnicity. Posts describe collections including the Simeon Bartlett Account Books, 1792-1867 (business records from a Williamsburg, Mass., freight hauler, farmer and sawmill owner), and Civil War Diaries, 1862-1863.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 4:00:05 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2]

• biographical information such as name, name at arrival and occupation
• relatives' names
• physical description
• arrival date, place and ship name
• membership in clubs and organizations
• whether and where citizenship papers had been filed
• any arrests

Wednesday, September 02, 2009 12:57:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Allen County Community Album: Images at this Allen County Public Library-hosted site portray people and places in Northeastern Indiana. The library’s well-known Genealogy Center also has an Our Military Heritage site with records and photos from researchers across the country.

• Arizona Memory Project: Collections come from the Catholic Diocese of Tucson, Arizona Jewish Historical Society, state archives, City of Glendale, Gila County and others.

• Documenting Arkansas: This site's content relates to the Civil War, 1927 Mississippi River flood and other events.

• Dominion Institute Memory Project: See 85-plus years of military history through first-hand accounts, photos and artifacts from veterans across Canada.

• Greater Cincinnati Memory Project: This site from my hometown shows you historical photos of schools, churches, homes, city scenes, people and special events.

• Maine Memory Network: More than 200 organizations have contributed materials to this site, which also supports similar projects for Maine communities such as Bath and Isleboro.

• Montana Memory Project: Cattle brand books, the Fergus County Heritage Book and Rocky Mountain College yearbooks are a few of the resources you'll find here.
  
  
• Terrace Park, Ohio, Building Survey: A local genealogist maintains this site on the history of buildings in an Ohio neighborhood. It has photos, deeds, census and land records, residents' names and more.
  

• The Valley of the Shadow: Censuses, church records, letters, diaries and newspaper articles detail life in two communities—Franklin County, Pa., in the North and Augusta County, Va., in the South—before, during and after the Civil War.

Thursday, July 23, 2009 8:57:45 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [6]

• Ninety-eight percent of the deaths listed in the Social Security Death Index occurred after 1962, the year the index was computerized. By all rights, my great-grandfather, who died in 1949, shouldn’t be included. Yet he is!
  
  Once I had his SSN, I sent off a request for his SS-5 (the SSN application) and learned his parents’ names and where he lived and worked at the time.
  
  
• The only WWII draft registration cards available for research are from the Fourth Registration or “Old Man’s Draft” of men who were 45 to 64 years old on April 27, 1942. (Privacy laws have closed registrations of younger men.) Eight states’ cards have been destroyed, and online databases (a free browseable one on FamilySearch and a searchable one on fee-based Ancestry.com) aren’t complete. Lucky for me, I found Great-grandpa's card.
  
  
• My dad has a copy of his dad’s resume and a job application from the 1940s. In neat, square writing, my grandfather detailed his employment background. His answer to the criminal offense question tells of a fine he paid after a fender bender with a streetcar. “I was not intoxicated and I don’t drink,” he stated emphatically.
  
  
• My mom's sister was way into genealogy, and before she passed away five years ago, she gave me copies of her microfilm printouts and family group sheets. The family’s home burned down not long after she died; I feel fortunate to have her papers.
  
  
• Once I found my great-grandfather’s obituary in the Cleveland Necrology File, I was able to track down the right funeral home and send an e-mail. Someone faxed his funeral record within days. With today’s privacy hyper-concerns—and the fact I’m not planning to be a customer of the home anytime soon—the response was unexpected.
  

Monday, July 20, 2009 4:43:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [6]

• Follow: bookmarks resources
  
  
• Comment: lets you comments on resources
  
  
• Record: keep a research log of Live Roots and other searches
  
  
• Share: e-mail notices about resources to friends and family

• Recent Activity: a running history of your interaction with Live Roots features
  
  
• Ancestor Notecards: profiles of your brick wall ancestors, which remain are accessible throughout Live Roots (so you don’t have to retype the name every time you search)
  
  
• Related Resources: items you’ve "followed", so you can quickly revisit them; you can search across the transcriptions you’ve followed
  
  
• Research History: your research log
  
  
• Personal Library: catalog your own private collection
  
  
• Research Notepad: a simple way record miscellaneous genealogy notes, such as a to-do list or the phone number for the library in Granddad’s hometown
  
  
• External Resources: lets you configure links to your research activities on other sites, such Flickr or Twitter

Friday, June 26, 2009 10:55:31 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2]

• upcoming genealogy events—just in time for summer conference season
• options for hiring genealogists to help with research tasks big and small
• ways to genealogically capitalize on family reunions
• what’s new at Swedish data site Genline
• the truth behind heraldic myths

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 9:27:53 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Genealogy Freelancers: This site lets you post your project details and get bids from professionals around the world.

• Genlighten: Here, you also can collect bids for research tasks. The focus here is on lookups, record retrieval and similar services.

• Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness: These volunteers have signed on to do simple research favors for free (except expenses such as mileage and photocopying fees). You’re encouraged to return the favor by helping out someone else.

• Repositories sometimes keep lists of nearby professional researchers (contact the genealogy department). For example, if you want to hire someone to copy your ancestor’s Civil War pension file, see the National Archives’ list of local researchers by topic and location.
  
  
• For long or more-complicated research projects, you can find directories of professional genealogists on the Association for Professional Genealogists Web site, ProGenealogists, and the Board for Certification of Genealogists.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 10:59:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4]