Saturday, May 21, 2011

Yucaipa Valley Genealogical Society could use your help.
Surveying Mt. San Gorgonio Memorial Park
We really are going to start up again this month! Would you like to help survey, take photographs and transcribe the local cemeteries? The Society is now in the process of trying to survey the Summit Cemetery District in Riverside County. Please contact Jamie Daniel or anyone on the YVGS Board if you are interested. We could use your help!
jamiedaniel33@gmail.com or 709 792-2962 or P.O. Box 32,Yucaipa, CA 92399-0032
New Website - Family Tech at FamilySearch
Technology tips for genealogists and family historians. Check here for new Technology to help with your family history. http://familytech.familysearch.org/ List this with your favorites.

New Records Added to FamilySearch.org
Over 30 million new records have been added to familysearch.org through indexing efforts in the last few months. Records from the following countries have been included: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, El Salvador, England, France, Germany, Guatemala, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, United States, Venezuela, Wales, and Zimbabwe. In addition, the 1881 England and Wales Census index has received significant enhancements.

Exciting Developments in FamilySearch Forums
We are excited to announce that beginning on April 12, you will be able to log into the FamilySearch Forums with your LDS Account. This is the last FamilySearch website in English to switch to the new user account system, so with this change, all of your English language FamilySearch websites and programs are accessible with this single user name and password. If you are a current Forums user, there will be a “merging” process so that the information in your old account can be merged into your new account, similar to how it has been done for other programs. If you have any questions or problems, there will be prompts on the website to help you know what to do. If you need more information, visit the FamilySearch Help Forum, or call FamilySearch Support.

Important Milestone for new.FamilySearch.org
In March 2011 the new.familysearch.org website registered its one-millionth user. Recently a limited number of members of the general public have been given access to the Family Tree. This number will gradually grow until access to the Family Tree is open to everyone. Free access to the Family Tree site will bless the lives of millions of people.

RootsTech Update
If you missed the popular inaugural RootsTech 2011 conference, you can now get a sampling of what all the excitement was about. The wildly popular new technology and family history conference held last month in Salt Lake City, Utah, made its keynote addresses and a few other popular presentations available online, free of charge. The six free presentations can be viewed at RootsTech.org. The RootsTech keynote videos are now available online through the RootsTech.org home page, or you can go directly to the video page: http://rootstech.familysearch.org/video.php

Important Indexing News Update
Since 2006, volunteers have indexed 548 million records! It has truly become a volunteer phenomenon and is the largest initiative of its kind. The records can be searched free of charge at familysearch.org. Additionally, FamilySearch indexing recently added its first project in Hungarian, which means projects now cover 12 languages. The new Hungarian project is for Magyarország, Szabolcs—polgári anyakönyvi adatok, 1895–1978 [1. Rész] records. If you can read Hungarian, or know others who can, please help rally the much-needed support for this project. Additional projects will be added as the active volunteer base grows. Register or find out more information at indexing.familysearch.org.

In 2010, FamilySearch indexing posted the following milestones:
· 100+ projects in 11 languages
· Addition of Portuguese and Polish languages
· 40,000 new active indexers (completed a batch of work), for a total of 127,000 active indexers
· Volunteer indexers averaged 2,169 records each
· Arbitrators averaged 17,803 records each
· 186 million records were double keyed and arbitrated

FamilySearch Indexing - Check out this excellent youtube video on Indexing. It is very well done and a great help to beginners. FamilySearch Indexing Quick Start
~Logan FHC Newsletter

New Online Course
A new course on finding and using courthouse records, featuring professional genealogist Christine Rose, is now available under the Learn tab in familysearch.org. Courthouses are places where you can find answers to genealogical problems. They are a rich source of written records created as a result of the laws then in use, the time period, and the personal activities of your ancestors. The steps delineated throughout this course will assist you to be more effective as you visit courthouses in your search for genealogical information. Click here to see the new course, or view a list of other courses.

Tips and Tricks
FamilySearch Research Wiki hint: Every page on the Research Wiki has a link that allows you to “Watch” the page. If you are looking for research hints in a certain place and the information is not complete enough to help you, you can click on “watch,” and you will then automatically receive an e-mail notifying you whenever anything changes on that page or when new information is added.
FamilySearch hint: If you would like to see what new collections have been added, click on the link on the bottom left of the home page called “All Record Collections.” Then just look for the asterisk (*) next to the dates in the “Last Updated” column. All of the newest record sets are flagged with an asterisk like this.
Sharing family names for the temple hint: If you want an easy way to instantly share family names with friends and family, don’t mail them the cards—instead, e-mail the FOR (Family Ordinance Request). It’s simple. As one of the last steps in new.familysearch.org for printing the FOR (part of the name clearing process), you have the option to save the document as a PDF. If you pick that option, you can then send the PDF file you created as an e-mail attachment. If this explanation is confusing or the process seems difficult, just ask a computer savvy youth, family member or friend to walk you through it. By e-mailing the FOR, you can get it to the people instantly, and with the new system they don’t even have to send the cards back if you don’t want them to. The completed ordinance information will show up immediately on new.familysearch.org.
~All info above from “FamilySearch News, Information and Updates” April 2011

Dropbox
Dropbox is a free file sharing program that allows you to share files with others and to sync your files among your computers and handheld devices. By using Dropbox, you will not have to wonder if you are accessing the most current copy of a file. There is a free webinar at Legacy Family Tree Webinars which will explain how to use Dropbox. The webinar description: Are you familiar with Dropbox - a program that provides 2 gigabytes of online storage for free? Learn how to sign up for Dropbox, install the program and get started ensuring the safety and security of your genealogy research data. Seems too good to be true, right? Two gigabytes of online storage for free? And storage that can synchronize files across your computer, your laptop and even your mobile device? It is true, and you can learn how to leverage the power of Dropbox - a free online program to back up your genealogy data and even share files with friends and family.

U.S. National Archives and Ancestry.com Post Civil War Records Online

As predicted in this newsletter two days ago, the National Archives and Ancestry.com have now announced that newly-digitized Civil War records will be available online for the first time, allowing users to trace family links to the war between North and South.

Ancestry.com is publishing the first in a series of Civil War records that have been digitized from original National Archives records on paper. This is a new collection, not available anywhere online previously. The new Civil War collection is highlighted by the Consolidated Lists of Civil War Draft Registration Records, 1863-1865. These nearly 275,000 records are among the most heavily-used records for research in the National Archives Civil War holdings and were previously only available by request in original form at the research center. The public will now be able to easily access these records online without having to travel to Washington, DC.
Continue reading "U.S. National Archives and Ancestry.com Post Civil War Records Online" »
~Dick Eastman’s Newsletter

Free Access to the Civil War Collection on Footnote.com

The following announcement was written by Footnote.com, a division of Ancestry.com:
Bombardment at Fort Sumter Launches US Civil War

When Abraham Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, he feared that civil war was inevitable. Six weeks later, at 4:30AM on April 12, 1861, a mortar shell was fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, justifying his fears. On April 14, after a 34-hour bombardment, Fort Sumter surrendered and the War Between the States began.
Continue reading "Free Access to the Civil War Collection on Footnote.com" »

1911 Scotland Census now online + helpful additional info
HERE IS A VIDEO to help you understand the census and how the population changed dramatically from 1901 to 1911 in Scotland before WWI.
http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/2011/04/1911-scotland-census-now-online-helpful.html

Print Friendly - Makes any web page print friendly. Go to printfriendly.com and enter the URL for any website. PrintFriendly cleans and formats web pages for a perfect print experience. It
removes Ads, Navigation and unnecessary html code leaving just the content you really need. It is free and easy to use. You can print or save as a pdf file. You can also choose to add a bookmarklet to
your browser to keep PrintFriendly handy at all times. There is a little video that helps you use this tool.



Legacy.com to search for a death record.
http://www.legacy.com/NS/about/newspapers.aspx
Legacy.com collaborates with more than 800 newspapers in North America, Europe and Australia to provide ways for readers to express condolences and share remembrances of loved ones. As the leader in the online memorial and obituary market, Legacy.com is visited by more than 14 million users each month. It partners with more than three-quarters of the 150 largest newspapers in the U.S. and features obituaries and Guest Books for more than two-thirds of people who die in the United States.
View our complete list of newspaper affiliates.
~Treasure Maps Genealogy Newsletter

Hamburg Passenger Lists mburg Passenger Lists
Until about 1845 German emigrants generally chose Antwerp, Rotterdam, or Le Havre as ports of departure. By the middle of the nineteenth century, entrepreneurs in the north German ports of Bremen and Hamburg realized they could increase their income dramatically by filling ships with emigrants bound for America and other destinations....It is the listing of the emigrant's birth place that makes these records so valuable. How does a researcher learn if an ancestor is recorded in Hamburg departure lists? Read this article at:
Hamburg Lists
~ ProGenealogists Genealogy Blog,

Nonprofit Helps Jewish Families Trace Moravian and Bohemian Ancestors
Julius Müller started a nonprofit Jewish family history center based in Prague, the Czech Republic, called Toledot, the Hebrew word for "descendents." The organization's goal is to coordinate genealogy projects, develop Jewish genealogy databases and preserve Jewish heritage for future generations. The center offers research tools for people looking for information on their Moravian and Bohemian ancestors.
Continue reading "Nonprofit Helps Jewish Families Trace Moravian and Bohemian Ancestors" »
~Dick Eastman’s Genealogy Blog

Bits and Pieces
What Was There - This website encourages everyone to upload old photographs of any place in the world. Viewers can browse to different locations on a map and see photos of how that place used to look. With each photograph there are details that you can view to obtain further information. Sections of the photographs can be magnified to get a better look at those old photos: whatwasthere.com
~ Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter,

The Dead Librarian
http://www.thedeadlibrarian.blogspot.com/
Helping South Carolina family historians find free, online information

Tech Tip of the Week - Doing remote research at a family history center or library?
Don't forget that a small flash drive can save you time. By putting your electronic findings on the drive you don't have to make costly copies of documentation or microfilm print outs. These small drives can cost as little as $10 and are even storable on your keys you carry every day!
~Tony Bandy, Internet Genealogy Newsletter

Genealogy Gems YouTube channel featuring interviews with many of the experts who attended the RootsTech conference. Be sure and check all the other video’s by Lisa Louise Cooke.

Cloud Computing: What It Is and How It Has Been Used
By Brian Pugh of FamilySearch

A question about working with Ancestry and Rootsmagic:
Bruce Buzbee of Rootsmagic says: If only a few people are changing up on Ancestry, the downloaded file can be imported into a new blank database in RootsMagic. That file can then be opened side by side with the existing RM database. You can then drag and drop a modified person from the newly imported database into the existing RM file. If you drag a person from one file and drop them on the same person in the other file, RM will merge the two records, keeping only the unique information between the two (in other words it doesn't duplicate information that is the same in both records).

Discrepant Sources - If the sources don't match, don't assume that the information
they provide is incorrect. If you have two different dates of birth, is it possible there were actually two different people? There are many reasons records can give differing information, but keep yourself open to the possibility that records you think are for the same person are actually for two different people.
~ Michael John Neill, Genealogy Tip of the Day

How to Enlarge Text on Web Sites
Can't read a web page because the words are too small? Here's a quick tip to increase the font size:

· Click the Control (Ctrl) key at the same time you click the plus ( + ) sign. Each click will increase font size.
· To decrease font size, click Control (Ctrl) and the minus ( - ) sign. Each click will decrease font size.
· You can also enlarge the entire Web page or document by pressing the Control key as you turn the scroll wheel on your mouse.
Note that changing font size won't work for words that are part of images (such as company logos).
~This tip is from the Family Tree University

How to straighten out NFS after you have separated out the records you can do and also after you have contacted those submitters who have put in bad information to see if they will change it.

First, select feedback (sometimes in small print at the bottom of screen or in big print at the top on certain screens), and indicate the problem, i.e. two individuals combined, wrong parents, wrong information, computer combining error, or the father showing both as parent and son. The first e-mail response is computer generated with case number. When FS Support contacts you with a solution to the problem and you really need them to address it, send the scanned document or documents as an attachment. Some problems you can correct yourself by separating out the records--you need to do this one at a time. However if bad information has been combined all in one record, you will need
them to separate it.
~FHCNET- Thank you Dianna Rounds

Swedish Church Records on Ancestry.com
Last summer, Ancestry.com acquired Genline AB ('Genline'). This means that Genline including the websites, Genline.com and Genline.se, is part of the Ancestry.com family of websites.
Ancestry is adding the Swedish Church Records' archive to Ancestry's World Deluxe Edition for individuals. Most of the Swedish Church Records are now available through the Ancestry.com site as well as Genline.com. On the Ancestry.com sites, you will find the Swedish Church Records archive in the collection: Sweden Church Records 1500 - 1937. Although there are some differences in the search method between Ancestry and the Genline FamilyFinder, the records are the same on both sites. The Genline FamilyFinder platform will continue to exist and be supported.
Click here for more information about Ancestry...
~Thank you Dawna Lund

Family History Internet Sites
Kip Sperry has compiled a list of links to family history sites that would be very helpful in researching your ancestors. Check out this extremely helpful list of blogs, forums, libraries, archives, maps, records, technology, tips, etc.
http://sites.google.com/site/familyhistoryinternetsites/
~ Logan FHC Newsletter

Fun Simple Free Ancestry
Dan Smith has created a website, FunSimpleFreeAncestry, a basic collection of links, for beginners, to free ancestry resources with examples of how to use the sites.
http://sites.google.com/site/funsimplefreeancestry/home
~Logan FHC Newsletter