• In our February 2011 Family Tree Magazine Podcast, host Lisa Louise Cooke interviews African-American genealogy experts

• How to get started finding your freed ancestors in the 1870 census—the first step toward solving the mystery of their years in bondage

• How to use the 1850 and 1860 slave schedules to trace your slave ancestors

• How to research ancestors who served in the US Colored Troops during the Civil War

• Learn about the Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy website, which has information on 100,000 slaves brought to Louisiana in the 18th and 19th centuries

• Our African-American Genealogy Toolkit has more websites, books and organizations to help you research your family history

• our Family Tree University course Finding African-American Ancestors in Newspapers: Research Strategies for Success (it's discounted to $49.99 for the session starting Feb. 25!)

• our Jump-Start Your African-American Genealogy Value Pack
  

Monday, February 11, 2013 11:31:46 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• Determine whether you have a daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cabinet card or other type of image
• Use clothing, accessories and hairstyles to help date the image
• Research photographer imprints
• Compare facial features in multiple photos to help identify individuals 
• Interview family members for information
• Use photo props and background to add context

Monday, February 11, 2013 10:53:51 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• PBS has gathered its African-American history content into one place to help you celebrate Black History Month. Watch programs including Freedom Riders and Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr., take a quiz about miletones in African-American history, get ideas for celebrating the month with kids and more.

• Know a young genealogist who could use $500 toward genealogy education, plus a free registration to attend the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree? Applications are being accepted for the 2013 Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant, created to honor the mother of The Family Curator blogger Denise Levenick. It's open to any genealogist who is between the ages of 18 and 25 and has attended school in the last 12 months. The recipient must attend the 2013 Jamboree in Burbank, Calif., to receive the award. Application deadline is March 18, 2013, at midnight PST. Learn more here.

• MyHeritage offering deep discounts on genetic genealogy tests, provided in partnership with Family Tree DNA. The Family Finder autosomal test, for example, is $169 (instead of $289) for a limited period on MyHeritage.com and its websites World Vital Records and Geni.com. Subscribers can get an additional discount. See all the details and available tests on the MyHeritage blog. (And learn more about how autosomal DNA testing can advance your research in the December 2011 Family Tree Magazine) 

• Findmypast.com is giving its registered users the opportunity to watch the BBC show Find My Past, which reveals how ordinary individuals are related to people from significant historical events.  With a free findmypast.com registration, you can watch episodes that first aired during the past 30 days. Thereafter, episodes will be available to the sites subscribing members. Learn more on findmypast.com.

Also new in findmypast.com's World subscription is a collection of 200 British newspapers from England, Scotland and Wales from 1700 to 1950.

Friday, February 08, 2013 3:04:28 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

 When it comes to brick walls, sometimes you need to think outside the genealogy box. Cracking a cold case requires a proven process to guide you through the challenging waters. And in looking for a solid process that could drum up new leads, my thoughts continually returned to criminal investigators. They face many of the same challenges you do, even if your ancestor wasn't a "black sheep."

Genealogical Cold Cases: A Step-by-Step Process is a presentation I've been wanting to do for a long time, and I couldn't be more pleased to to present it at the Virtual Genealogy Conference. I'll draw on some of the best ideas from cold case investigators to create a process that can guide you through the lengthy process of breaking through genealogical brick walls.

In each step, I'll give you a cache of strategies you can put into play right away. Each is designed to keep you organized and focused while generating new leads.

So dig out that old cobwebbed case file you'd just about given up on, and join me in the Genealogical Cold Cases: A Step-by-Step Process class at the Winter 2013 Virtual Genealogy Conference.

The Virtual Genealogy Conference is sponsored by

Friday, February 08, 2013 11:35:12 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• Ultimate Polish Genealogy Collection
• Ultimate Czech and Slovak Genealogy Collection
• Ultimate Hungarian Genealogy Collection

• expertise on how to research ancestors from Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, or Hungary (depending which collection you opt for)
  
• strategies for discovering your ancestor's birthplace
  
• where to find records
• techniques for learning immigrants' original names
• the best websites and offline resources to use
• language help

Thursday, February 07, 2013 9:08:09 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

It went on my genealogy to-do list after a random search of historical newspaper website GenealogyBank resulted in newspaper notices when my third-great-grandmother filed for divorce in 1879 (below), and again when the divorce was granted two years later.

You know when you think something is going to be a big ordeal so you procrastinate, then when you finally get the ball rolling it turns out to be a piece of cake and you wish you did it ages ago?

I had checked FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com and USGenWeb to see if I could get digital or microfilmed copies. Nope. So I thought I’d have to figure out which of the two county courthouses to go to, find time to make the trip, get a babysitter, search out the records, and so on.

When I started planning a visit and called the courthouse (after first checking online for info on old records), the nice lady there said, “Oh, we don’t keep records that far back,” at which point I may have made strange choking sounds. Then she continued, “You’ll have to call the state archives in Frankfort.” 

I checked the Kentucky State Archives’ website and learned it does have divorce records from the time and place I needed, and you can print a request form to fill out and send with a $15 fee. Easy peasy.

A few days later, I had an email from a state archivist. The file was 103 pages(!) and I’d need to send an additional fee for copies of the whole thing.

When I called to pay over the phone, I asked the archivist what’s typically in a historical divorce file, just to make sure I wouldn’t be ordering a bunch of blank pages. She flipped through and said it looked pretty meaty, with lots of depositions. “We’ll get this copied today and sent out tomorrow,” she said.

After a few days impatient days, The Big Envelope was in my mailbox.  The first page had this on it:

I spread out the pages on the counter, squinting at the handwriting and trying to glean all the clues I could—such as my third-great-grandmother's maiden name—while protecting them from my 2-year-old's applesauce splatters.

"Meaty" is an accurate description. So far I've found all the makings of a tabloid-worthy divorce: accusations of cruelty and mental instability (along with a physician's testimony about my ancestor's "cycles"—I guess doctor-patient confidentiality was still in the future), custody fights, and insinuations of an improper relationship between my third-great-grandmother and a younger man.

I'm still going over the papers and I'll blog more later about genealogical clues I discover (that way I can call it work). 

Thinking about researching your ancestors' court records? Click here for FamilyTreeMagazine.com tips on finding the right courthouse.

Then check out our courthouse research guide digital download, available in ShopFamilyTree.com. 

Depending on the type of court records you're looking for, you'll also find in-depth help in our Using Guardianship Records in Genealogical Research video class with Marian Pierre-Louis and our Using Criminal Court Records on-demand webinar with Judy G. Russell.

Tuesday, February 05, 2013 9:11:39 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

I know great genealogists who never share their research because they’re scared of source citations. They dread going back through their files to identify exactly where they learned a birth date or the name of Granddad’s church. They worry they didn’t copy down every little piece of publication information, like a volume number or editor’s name. And formatting footnotes sounds exactly NOT like the way they want to celebrate finding their family.
 
My presentation “Simple Tips for Solid Source Citations” focuses on a process of managing sources all the way through the research process to prevent most of those fears. What I'll show you is a way of thinking that makes us better researchers: more aware of our sources from the get-go, more organized and more confident in our conclusions.
 
First, I’ll talk you through the process of evaluating sources the first time you use them. I’ll talk about what information to gather, both from the source and about the source.

One valuable tip I share is how to find full source information on websites like Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and some less user-friendly data sites. You’ll see different ways of capturing source data, whether you’re a paper-based person or a paperless person (or a combination). I’ll show you how to store source data in a way that links it to the information you found in it, so you don’t scramble years later to put the two together.

Finally, I’ll talk about options when you’re ready to write—yes, we’ll talk a bit about footnotes and Why They Are Not So Scary.
 
By the end, you’ll know how to handle sources well and, better yet, you’ll want to! Don’t miss out on learning this core skill during the Virtual Genealogy Conference.

I love the idea of managing sources from the start—so you can evaluate how reliable the information is, easily create a source citation and keep that citation with the data you found. I'm looking forward to Sunny's video class!

The Virtual Genealogy Conference is sponsored by

Monday, February 04, 2013 9:19:33 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• The National Archives is celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Lincoln issued on Jan. 1, 1863 to free slaves in states that had seceded. You can go online to watch a video about what the proclamation meant and how the document is being preserved, see images of it, and find out about upcoming programs. Also learn about the Emancipation Proclamation’s history at the National Archives; Featured Documents website.

• An interactive online map—a companion to the PBS "American Experience" documentary The Abolitionistslets you explore the story of the abolitionist movement in America. Powered by History Pin, the Abolitionist Map of America has images, documents and videos from dozens of libraries, museums and other institutions.
  
  Cincinnati, located on the boundary of free and slave states, was a major Underground Railroad stop. Our Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County Genealogy Local History Department selected images and recordings on subjects such as the site of local antislavery newspaper the Philanthropist, the focus of two anti-abolitionist riots in 1836; and the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, where the Uncle Tom’s Cabin author lived with her family for various periods of time from 1833 to 1836. 

• Subscription genealogy site Ancestry.com has added collections to its African-American history records including Danish West Indies Slave Records 1672-1917 (these are also part of Fold3's Black History Collection, which is free in February) and U.S., Buffalo Soldiers, Returns from Regular Army Cavalry Regiments, 1866–1916. Explore Ancestry.com's African-American history records here.

• The Cincinnati library's Genealogy and Local History Department also is one of many libraries offering African-American history and genealogy workshops this month, including a seminar (Feb. 9) and a class on Searching for Descendants of African American Civil War Soldiers (Feb. 23).Learn more here.

• The African-American Genealogical Society of Northern California in Oakland has a Black Family History Day on Feb. 10, with classes, one-on-one consultations and more. Learn more here.

• The African American Genealogical and Historical Society of Tennessee in Nashville is holding a research workshop Feb. 16. Learn more here.

Friday, February 01, 2013 1:45:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]