• what types of military records might exist for your ancestors and where to find them
  
• how to track down draft registrations (even if your ancestor never served)
• how to trace ancestors' service in the American Revolution, Civil War, World Wars and other US wars
• the best websites for finding military records, including Fold3, the Daughters of the American Revolution genealogy database and more

Thursday, September 27, 2012 9:59:22 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3]

• Types of records you might find at a courthouse include civil and criminal court records, naturally, but also deeds and mortgages, tax lists,  county commissioner meeting minutes, vital records, business licenses, voter registrations, cattle brand registrations and more.

• But depending on the place your family lived, older records may have been turned over to a local or state archives, historical society or library. Check in advance before you plan a courthouse trip.

• "Keep in mind is that most of these facilities aren't really archives," Russell advised. "They're working offices trying to keep up with the day-to- day business of government. For the most part, they're not set up to do a lot of hand-holding." Find out as much as you can about the records you need—the date, a microfilm number or volume and page number, where they're located, etc.—before you go.
  
  
• More things to know before you go: Check online for courthouse hours, holiday schedules and access information. The court may have limited hours when staff will pull files. Some won't allow personal scanners or cameras. Different types of records might be in different buildings or rooms. The local genealogy librarian and genealogical society are good sources to ask ahead of time about courthouse quirks.
  

• See if the office holding the records you need has a busy season. Russell gave this example: "If the records you really want are the tax records, and the tax office's busy season is October, then going there in October just about guarantees that nobody is going to be available to help you—and they may not even allow record lookups at that time."

• One chat participant advises you to dress nicely—"so you look like you might be a lawyer or paralegal." And if you have allergies to dust or mold, bring medication.

• Look for an online or microfilmed index so you have all the volumes and page numbers you need in advance. Also see whether the Family History Library has microfilm of the records you need or even posted them online at FamilySearch.org.
  

• "Even 'burned counties' have some records," Russell said. "And don't forget many people re-recorded deeds, etc., after a courthouse fire."

Ready to head to the courthouse now? Click here to find out about our downloadable guide to researching in courthouse records, available in ShopFamilyTree.com.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012 10:21:02 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Here in Ohio, the 10-acre Fort Meigs, Ohio's War of 1812 Battlefield in Perrysburg, gives you a look inside the Buckeye State's role in the War of 1812.

• If an ancestor worked for the railroad, try the Western & Atlantic Railroad Tunnel and Museum in Tunnel Hill, Ga., where you can tour the South's oldest railroad tunnel, a museum and the 1848 Clisby Austin house.

• Out West in Nevada, you can step into your Silver State ancestors' shoes at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, which features American Indian artifacts, fossils, a recreated ghost town and underground mine, and more.

• At the Western Heritage Center in Billings, Mont., you can see special exhibits on Montana Women at Work and how the railroad shaped Billings. One of the museum's galleries replicates a 1930s dude ranch lodge.

• Among the many historic sites in Vermont is Burlington's Ethan Allen Homestead Museum, where the home of the Green Mountain Boys' leader has been restored.
  
  
• If you're lucky enough to be in Washington, DC, participating museums include the National Archives Experience, Newseum and National Building Museum.
  

Monday, September 24, 2012 2:02:13 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• This week MyHeritage.com announced the launch of its automatic Record Matching premium service. The service automatically searches the 4 billion records on MyHeritage.com websites (which now include World Vital Records and FamilyLink) for matches to people in your MyHeritage family tree. MyHeritage users will receive weekly email updates of new Record Matches and can visit MyHeritage.com to review, filter, sort, confirm and reject matches.

On his Genea-Musings blog, Randy Seaver has some detailed posts about using Record Matching to find information.

• Genealogy search engine Mocavo has acquired ReadyMicro, a company that develops document digitization technology. On its blog, Mocavo says it's planning several exciting announcements in the coming weeks about offering searchable records and forming partnerships to digitize organizations' records "at a very low cost and even, in many cases, at no cost." Stay tuned ...
  
  
• British burial records site DeceasedOnline has added records from London's Charlton Cemetery, opened in 1855. Records include scans of burial registers and some photographs. You can see a list of all the cemeteries included on the site here. You can search the site and get basic search results free; purchase credits to view additional details and records.
  

• Don't forget to enter our giveaway for a year's subscription to our Family Tree eBooks website—it's a digital library of dozens of ebooks on genealogy, history, heirloom identification, sharing and preserving your family history, and more, plus many issues of Family Tree Magazine. Click here to enter by September 30!

Friday, September 21, 2012 2:27:33 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• Many of the common resources for Connecticut research have been published, transcribed, retranscribed, and republished in various formats, so always look for the original source of the information. In the webinar, we'll discuss key resources for tracing Connecticut families, including the Barbour and Hale records collections, which require a bit of sleuthing to use effectively.
  
  
• Connecticut keeps probate records by districts, rather than by counties or towns. But there's a quick way to search all of Connecticut's probate records through one central source! Tune in to the webinar to learn how.
  
  
• Connecticut's shared borders can cause dilemmas for genealogists. We'll talk briefly about the complexities surrounding the western border with New York and ideas for tracing Connecticut families who might've spent time in and around Dutchess County, NY.
  
  
• Subscribe to the Connecticut Society of Genealogists' quarterly The Connecticut Nutmegger. It'll keep you up to date on Connecticut resources and provide book reviews, record abstracts and other guidance.
  
  
• If you have a chance, visit the Connecticut State Library. Although many of its resources are on microfilm (much of it available through interlibrary loan or from the Family History Library), there's nothing like researching on-site and using resources in the original formats.

Thursday, September 20, 2012 10:31:28 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• 30/30 for time management—you work for 30 minutes or another set length of time, then take a break (iPad)
• Ancestry for displaying your Ancestry member tree and doing quick record lookups, though the search capabilities are limited compared to the full version of the site (Android and iPad)
• AroundMe for finding gas stations and food in unfamiliar towns  (iPad)
• CamScanner for digitizing documents and turning them into PDFs (iPad and Android)
• Civil War Today for newspaper accounts, diaries, letters and more from this day 150 years ago (iPad)
• CousinCalc for figuring out exactly how you're related (iPad)
• DropBox for sharing and accessing files across devices (iPad and Android)
• Evernote for taking notes and making them searchable and accessible across devices—you can get Kerry's video class on using Evernote for $10 off in ShopFamilyTree.com (iPad and Android)
• Find A Grave for searching the cemetery transcriptions and info on Find A Grave (Android)
• Focus Time for time management; you work for 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break, with a longer break after four cycles (iPad)
• GoodReader for reading PDF files (iPad)
• Google Translate (iPhone and Android)
• LastPass for keeping and generating passwords (IPad and Android)
• MyHeritage for displaying your MyHeritage family tree and searching the site (iPad and Android)
• PrinterPro for printing wirelessly from iPad to printer (iPad)
• Reeder for managing blog RSS feeds (iPad)
• RestingSpot for adding your ancestor's burial location GPS coordinates to the RestingSpot database (iPhone and Android)
• Scanner Pro for digitizing documents and turning them into PDFs (iPad)
• Symbaloo.com as an iGoogle replacement (iPad and Android)
• Wikipanion (iPad) or Wapedia (Android) for using Wikipedia
• Wolfram Genealogy & History Research Assistant for a variety of tools including historical weather to an inflation calculator (iPad)
• Zite for finding news stories and blog posts about your pet topics, such as genealogy (iPad and Android)

Wednesday, September 19, 2012 12:34:15 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• preventing "sick" sources in your family tree
• documenting genealogy sources
• using DNA testing in your genealogy research

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Tuesday, September 18, 2012 10:12:52 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]