REDLANDS-YUCAIPA
MULTI – STAKE
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 8 August 2010
Phone Number: 909-794-3844. Located at 5th and Wabash in Redlands.
Hours: Tuesday thru Saturday—9:00 to 1:00 Tuesday and Wednesday Night—6:00-9:00pm
Closed Sunday Nights except the 4th Sunday before the Research Class
Record Search Update: 100 million records in 6 mos.
FamilySearch Indexing is excited to announce that our dedicated volunteers have completed 100 million records in the first half of 2010, and is on track to complete a targeted 200 million by the end of the year. Patrons can search the completed indexes and images at http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#start
Indexing Update
A project to index Freedmen Letters from North Carolina is now available. This is the second Freedmen’s Bureau collection FamilySearch has worked on with the National Archives. These records provide the earliest major compilation of information on many emancipated slaves, freed Blacks, and Black Union soldiers, including names, marriages, education and employment information, and receipt of rations, health care, and legal support. Click here for the latest Indexing projects, news, and updates
Check out our Popular Collections Page World Vital Records Looking for some databases to search on WorldVitalRecords? Check out our Popular Collections page. This page includes our most popular databases including the Everton Library, U.S.Navy and Marine Registers, U.S. Air Force Registers, Revolutionary War Databases, and our Photo Collections. Try a few new databases on WorldVitalRecords by browsing the Popular Collections Page.
DAR Library
While many genealogists are familiar with the genealogical holdings of institutions like the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah or the Allen County Public Library, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, fewer may be aware of the rich resources available through The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Library. While originally founded in 1896 to be used as a resource by staff to verify genealogies submitted by potential members, since 1900 the Library has been open to the general public wanting to learn more about their Revolutionary ancestor in America.
While a researcher would need to travel to Washington D.C. to benefit from all that the library has to offer, some of their information is now available online through their website.
Through their Online Research section you can utilize The DAR Genealogical Research System. According to the Website this System, "is a combination of several databases created in recent years to organize the large quantity of information that the DAR has collected since its inception in 1890."
Information included in this database is of Revolutionary Patriots whose "service and identity have been established by NSDAR." So this will not be a complete list of patriots but it is a good starting point for your research. After conducting a search on a patriot's name you may find such information as the patriot's date of birth, "name of spouse/s, residence during the revolution, rank and type of service, and the state where the patriot served." You will also see the DAR membership numbers of women who have joined DAR using information from that patriot. You may also see an indication that supporting documents or a descendant list is available. If you are having difficulty using or understanding the database, don't hesitate to check out the help section. This provides detailed answers about the database and what information it provides.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will celebrate Independence Day on Sunday, July 4th, with its annual ceremony, its first ever National Independence Day Parade float, and a brand new logo. Here is a fun video of the celebration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4WVmCoewIo&feature=channel Do you want to know more about NARA? Here is another video to watch http://www.youtube.com/user/usnationalarchives#p/c/9C64D8D2FD4C281D/2/ Thanks Marcia
JewishGen and MyHeritage.com Establish Collaboration
The following announcement was written by MyHeritage.com and JewishGen.org:
JewishGen and MyHeritage.com collaborate to build the Family Tree of the Jewish People
Tel Aviv, Israel; London, UK and Los Angeles, US – MyHeritage.com and JewishGen.org are now working together to invigorate the Family Tree of the Jewish People (FTJP) project.
Under this collaboration, family trees built with a special version of MyHeritage.com available at http://www.myheritage.com/jewishgen, with the consent of the tree creators, will be transferred periodically to the FTJP for digital safekeeping. Privacy controls, using the MyHeritage.com tools, can be set according to the wishes of the tree creator. Data of existing MyHeritage.com users will not be transferred.
Continue reading "JewishGen and MyHeritage.com Establish Collaboration" »
Release of the 1940 Census
Circle this date on your calendar: Monday, April 2, 2012.
Less than two years from now, all genealogists will be able to access the 1940 U.S. Census Records for the first time. Title 13 of the United States Code governs how the Census is conducted and mandates the confidentiality of information concerning individuals. Aggregate information, including statistical models, may be released, but any information about individuals must be kept confidential for 72 years. The 1940 census was conducted on April 1, 1940 so the information cannot be released until April 1, 2012.
1940 Census Training is Now Online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cImIlPSuyR8&feature=player_embedded
Search Engines by Gena Philibert Ortega
We all have our favorite search engines. But sometimes it can be helpful to try out a different search engine to see if there are any additional results that can enhance your research. The following are a list of search engines that you may want to consider.
Google
http://www.google.com/
Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com/
Bing
http://www.bing.com/
Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com/
Ask
http://www.ask.com/
Cuil
http://www.cuil.com/
Search Smarter - Many larger genealogy sites (e.g., Ancestry or Footnote, offer a global site search that allows for searching across multiple databases. But there's a caveat: the global search form doesn't always give you the specific search fields appropriate for each individual database. If you're trying to locate your grandfather in both the 1920 and the 1930 censuses, search each individual census directly. Or if you're looking for him in the Social Security Death Index, search it separately. In addition, try search tools to help with specific
databases, such as the free One-Step Webpages designed by Dr. Stephen Morse, http://stevemorse.org/ (the tools are free, but you will need to be registered and/or
have access to the databases where the results appear to see actual records). For
example, his Gold form lets you do "Sounds Like" searches, not just on immigrants'
first and last names, but also by town name. Try some "power searching" of databases. Use MyHeritage.com's Megadex technology to search multiple databases for multiple spelling variations http://www.myheritage.com/ , or use LiveRoots, http://www.liveroots.com/ .
Internet Genealogy, Oct/Nov 2009, "Help! My Ancestors are Hiding", pg 14-
Illinois Research
"Illinois Harvest" is a free web site with some good possibilities for researchers. It is the result of a project of the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, which is digitizing selected books from their print collection of over eleven million volumes. On the home page enter "genealogy" in the keyword box. One hundred sixty-six titles are listed under this topic, including several portrait and biographical records of Illinois counties. Some other examples are Immigration and Emigration (89), county and local histories (567 books), notable Illinoisans (117 books). There is a separate home page for military history. There could be some things here that will help you with your family research. From Will/Grundy Counties, Illinois Genealogical Society Newsletter, Feb.,2010 http://illinoisharvest.grainger.uiuc.edu/
Thanks to Carole Cross
Reached a Brickwall? Check these compiled sites and see if you missed anything.
United States Genealogy Sleuth
http://www.progenealogists.com/genealogysleuthb.htm
International Genealogy Sleuth
http://www.progenealogists.com/genealogysleuthi.htm
Thanks to Marcia Green
Updated FamilySearch.org to Bring New Features Under One Roof
Breanna Olaveson, “Updated FamilySearch.org to Bring New Features Under One Roof,” Ensign, July 2010, 74–76
An update to familysearch.org, available now at beta.familysearch.org, will make the site a hub of genealogical activity. Users can visit the site and provide feedback for developers before the beta version replaces familysearch.org later this year.
The site brings together many of the tools FamilySearch provides, including FamilySearch Indexing, new.familysearch.org, user-generated and -edited wikis, and forums. To create a more seamless user experience, a single username and password will allow users to log in once and gain access to all areas of the site.
New.familysearch.org, which replaced TempleReady last year and includes the Family Tree feature, will be integrated into the updated site. The beta site also includes new record collections currently available at pilot.familysearch.org. As developers bring these various tools together, feedback from users is a valuable asset in helping prepare the site for a worldwide audience.
“In the past, using all the FamilySearch tools has been like visiting separate, distinct buildings. The goal of the beta site is to create a sense of visiting different rooms in the same house,” said Robert Kehrer, senior product manager for the site.
With the remodel, the site’s search capability, collaboration tools, and overall simplicity will help put valuable information closer to the user’s fingertips.
Search Capability
The Church is digitizing billions of records stored at the Granite Mountain Records Vault and adding them to the documents already available online. A new image viewer feature allows users to search digital images of microfilm and view them as they would using a microfilm reader at a family history center, only without the hand crank and eye fatigue. The image viewer enhances the legibility of record images and provides access to published records online. With so many records becoming readily accessible, an easy process for sifting through information is essential to a useful family history site.
In searching for ancestors, beta.familysearch.org’s search engine goes beyond requested documents and provides users with other information that might also be helpful in research. A search for an individual’s birth certificate, for example, will return historical documents but may also return information from Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource File, forums, the Family History Library Catalog, and other sources.
To help organize results, search pages include a “Record Type” box. Here, records are organized as Birth, Marriage, and Death; Census and Lists; Military; Probate and Court; Migration and Naturalization; and Other. The new site will also allow members to access select collections on third-party Web sites.
Collaboration Tools
The improved familysearch.org will also provide several forums for collaboration that will enable family members to share and compare information without leaving the site.
Forums on specific localities, a blog, and similar communication areas are accessible now on the beta site, with more functionality to come in the future.
“The name family history implies that this isn’t a work to be done in isolation. We are laying the foundations of a site where families can collaborate on finding their ancestors,” Brother Kehrer said.
Users can read and contribute to wiki pages dedicated to specific localities through the “Learn” tab on the beta site. These pages provide forums where users can share information pertinent to a certain place, share research tips, and include external links to helpful Web sites.
In time, familysearch.org will be able to notify users when certain information of personal interest is edited or added. These alerts will help ensure changed information is accurate and encourage family members with similar information to compare sources and reach sound conclusions.
Simplicity
Even with so many new features, the beta site is designed to simplify family history work. The site’s usability saves visitors time as they find and prepare names to take to the temple.
One of the goals of beta.familysearch.org is to help novice researchers get started quickly and make meaningful contributions to family history work without a lot of training. The site is structured to make it easy for casual volunteers to learn what information is already available, find out what needs to be done, and help by finding sources of information and establishing credibility of information.
Even individuals whose family history is largely completed can help with family history by making records available for others. For example, users can transcribe information from online images such as census records on a personal computer in a process called indexing. After records are indexed, they can be searched digitally. The indexing application is currently housed on indexing.familysearch.org, but will be part of familysearch.org later this year.
Indexing is one way to help with family history, but it certainly isn’t the only way.
“Each person has different interests and skills that they can contribute to family history,” Brother Kehrer said. “We are building a site that gives users a lot of options for becoming engaged in the work.”
Help is also available on the Web site. Users can ask research questions and find information on getting started, understanding historical documents, researching specific localities, and other helpful hints under the “Learn” tab on the site.
With the coming improvements, familysearch.org makes family history work easier and helps further one of the great purposes of the Church in the latter days. President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said, “Family history work has the power to do something for the dead. It has an equal power to do something to the living. Family history work of Church members has a refining, spiritualizing, tempering influence on those who are engaged in it. They understand that they are tying their family together—their living family here with those who have gone before” (“Your Family History: Getting Started,” Liahona and Ensign, Aug. 2003, 12).
Bringing the Family Together
Beta.familysearch.org, which will replace familysearch.org later this year, will be home to the following:
· • Family Tree and temple preparation features currently available on new.familysearch.org
· • Search capabilities currently available on pilot.familysearch.org
· • FamilySearch Indexing functions currently available on indexing.familysearch.org
· • User forums currently available on forums.familysearch.org
· • Family History Library Catalog and other information
· • Family History blogs
· • Wiki pages that provide research help and guidance currently available on wiki.familysearch.org
· • Help features
The FamilySearch.org Web site will soon be replaced. Visit the beta site for FamilySearch.org at beta.familysearch.org.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
REDLANDS-YUCAIPA
MULTI – STAKE
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 7 July 2010
It is with deep regret and sorrow that we announce the passing of our friend, Samuel Maxwell, who has worked with us in the Family History Center, maintaining the computers and serving us all. We will miss him.
More Collections added to RecordSearch
Twenty two (22) new collections were updated or added this week - 6 June through 11 June - at FamilySearch.org—over 11 million new, free indexed names and images from original source records!
· Brazil, Paraiba, Registro Civil [Part 2] 53,2000 New imagesBrazil, Santa Catarina, Civil Registration 665,000 New imagesCanada,
· British Columbia, Deaths 1872-1986 [Part 4] 5,000 Updated index
· Canada, Nova Scotia, Antigonish Diocese 1823-1905 92,000 9,000 New index and images
· Czech Republic, Trebon, State Regional Archive Church Records 1650-1900 [Part 2] 112,552 New images
· Guatemala, Sagrario, Catholic Church Records, Baptisms, 1898-1920 19,000 2,000 New index and images
· Mexico, Yucatan 1930 Census 35,000 New index to published images
· Spain, Barcelona, Vich, Civil Registration 11,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Barcelona Civil Registration Pt 2 1,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Barcelona Civil Registration Pt 3 2,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Cordoba, Civil Registration 4,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Málaga, Civil Registration 22,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Ripoll (Girona), Municipal Records 53,000 Images & WP
· US Federal Census, 1910, Arkansas 1,421,000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, Connecticut 955,000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, District of Columbia 35,6000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, Indiana 295,7000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, Nevada 91,000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, New Jersey 267,0000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, Texas 4,000,000 Index only
· US, Massachusetts, Death Records, 1913 v. 50-53 2,000 2,000 New index and images
· US, Minnesota, Probate Court Wills 1849-1918 - Part 1 37,000 Updated index
FamilySearch Maps - Are you aware of the new http://maps.familysearch.org ? It's
interactive maps of England. . You can find the political district in a number of areas. It will also do radius searches and a number of other helps including printing.
What is Inferential Genealogy? This presentation was given at the NGS Conference in Salt Lake City. Take this online class and increase your understanding of this subject. Go to www.familysearch.org click on Free Online Classes. Scroll down to Inferential Genealogy sponsor: Thomas W. Jones, PhD, CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA, FNGS. As you scroll notice all the different Genealogy Classes that are available.
Want a syllabus of the Conferences in Salt Lake?
For a syllabus of the FamilySearch Presentations at NGS 2010 go to https://wiki.familysearch.org Type in NGS 2010. This will take you to FamilySearch Wiki:Userboxes/Gallery. Click on the first User Box under Conference and Events.https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Presentations_at_NGS_2010
For a syllabus of the BYU Computerized Conference go to https://wiki.familysearch.org
Type in BYU 2010. The first entry is FamilySearch Presentations at BYU 2010
There are great classes at this conference.
OCUPSYSHUN - CENCUS TAKER
I am a cencus takers for the city of Bufflow. Our city has groan very
fast in resent years & now in 1865, it has become a hard & time
consuming job to count all the peephill. There are not many that con
do this werk, as it is nesessarie to have an ejucashun, wich a lot of
pursons still do not have. Anuther atribeart needed for this job is god spelling, for
meny of the pephill to be counted can hardle speek inglish, let alon spel there names.
Memory Album - I made a memory album of my late brother for each of his three daughters. I took the few pictures that I had of him as a child and spread them throughout the album along with pictures of the two houses he lived in as a child, the old theatre where we spent many Saturday afternoons, the "main drag" of our neighborhood, and other pictures that pertained to his life. I included some journaling
throughout the album, illustrating with photos and stickers the memories that I had of his years growing up and of our mother who is also deceased. These stories would be lost to them otherwise and I think this album will give them a deeper understanding of their dad. Our local library was very helpful with pictures of the things and places I wanted from the 1930s and the 1940s. Along with this, I included a genealogy chart, which I think will be fascinating to them. It will be a thrill for his grandchildren to see where they fit into our history, and perhaps encourage them to dig deeper into their past. ---Nancy Dow
Family History Tips
Before you visit a library, visit it online. This can help you save time in three ways:
1. Check the basic information about the facility, including its location and hours. You don't want to plan a trip for the wrong time.
2. If the Web site contains an overview of the collection, it may help you determine if the library is one you actually wish to visit.
3. You may be able to access the library's card catalog through their Web site. Searching the catalog from home before your trip may save significant amounts of on-site research time, allowing you to spend more time with the materials you came to see.
Print one bibliographic page for each book or source you plan to use.
Enter all information from each source or record at the same time. - Data entry is not fun, but it makes information analysis and pattern recognition much easier. When entering information from records, don't sift through all your records looking for information on one person. Instead, enter all information from each source at the same time. Data entry with most software programs is easier if you enter information about one document completely before starting on another one, and you may be able to copy and paste repetitive information during the data entry process. If you aren't constantly flipping through documents while entering data, you also reduce your chances of making errors.
Source: " Time-Saving Tips for Genealogists", by Michael John Neill, Genealogy.com
As you prepare for your Research trip you might want to look at GOOGLE MAPS. Google Maps is really more than just a tool for finding an address. Goggle Maps has become a tool for not only finding an address but viewing a picture of what is at that address. Google maps can be accessed from the Google home page by clicking on the link “Maps” at the top left hand side of the screen. Once you are at the Google Maps page, click on the button that says “Street View” You will see an United States map that has camera graphics all over. These cameras indicate places where Google has sent cars with cameras to photograph the streets and structures on the street. What does this mean for your genealogy? As Google photographs more areas, you will be able to put in your ancestor’s address and see if their house is still there. So here’s how it works. Type in an address in the Google box next to the button “Search Maps”. I went ahead and used an address for one of my ancestors that I found while looking over their California Voter Registration. You will then be shown a box with the address and if there is a picture available you will see a little thumbnail of that picture that you can then click on and look at. Now, these pictures are not high resolution so zooming in will not necessarily provide you with a clear image. Also, you can turn the image so that you can see basically the whole street at a 360-degree view. Please note that the address you type in may not be the picture pf the exact house you are looking for. I know in the case of my house and a few others I talked to, our addresses brought up neighbor’s two houses up from us. But overall this is a great tool for “visiting” your ancestor’s home and neighborhood. For more on using this feature see http://local.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=68476 .
From class on Google given by Gena Philibert Ortega last November at “Novemberfest 2009”
BITS AND PIECES
German Genealogical Website - This site is a treasure trove of information for German research. It includes a beginner's guide and hundreds of links: http://www.germanroots.com/
From Logan FHC Newsletter
Famine Irish Collection - The U.S. National Archives has two online databases of
information on immigrants who came to America from Ireland during the Irish
famine, covering the years 1846 to 1851. The "Famine Irish Passenger Record Data
File" has 605,596 records of passengers arriving in New York, about 70% of whom
came from Ireland. The second database, "List of Ships that Arrived at the Port of
New York During the Irish Famine," gives background detail on the ships that brought them over, including the total number of passengers. Free.
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/ (Click on Passenger Lists under the Genealogy/Personal
History category)
Canadian Genealogy Centre
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html
New images and webpages at the Canadian Genealogy Centre at the Library and Archives Canada website. Ocean Arrivals 1919-1924 have been digitized and are available online through the Microform Digitization online research tool.
GEN TIP -Genealogy Book Links
Genealogy Book Links, is a resource of the freely available digital books of interest to genealogists with links to 15,000+ online history, records, biographies and family genealogies gathered from more than 24 sources. Also, links to additional resources can be found in black at the top of the pages. Books are organized by name, subject and state laid out in an easy to use browseable format. Biographies and family genealogies are arranged alphabetically by name. Just click on the first letter of the name you're seeking and you'll find a three column table with the last name, source link, and title. Scroll down until you find the name and click on the link. Some names with a large number of volumes such as Smith, Clark, Johnson, Williams, etc. are on individual pages. There is also a Google site search towards the bottom of the homepage.
Some states such as Penn, NY, and Mass, are more developed then others. The free available Massachusetts town vital records books are a subtopic of the Mass page. Genealogy Book Links is also a good source of civil war regimental histories. The site is maintained with titles added weekly. Currently the site map is being updated.
Ways to Walk in Your Ancestors' Shoes
Want to find out what was happening on or about an important event in your family’s history? These sites can help:
History.com's This Day in History: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
You’ll see a top story from on today’s date in history; click View Calendar to select another date.
Any Day in History: http://www.scopesys.com/anyday/
Pick a date and get a list of famous people’s birthdates, holidays and a timeline of historic happenings on that date.
New York Times On This Day: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/index.html
Find events on today’s date, or click the tiny Go To previous date link for a clickable list of dates..
BrainyHistory: http://www.brainyhistory.com/ Select a year range, then a year, and get a list of events that happened on most days of the year.
Library of Congress Today in History: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html
Get a look at some library materials related to historic events on today’s date. Click archives to enter another date.
On This Day in History: http://www.historyorb.com/on-this-day.php
Pick a date and see events, births and deaths that happened on that day.
What happened in my birth year?: http://whathappenedinmybirthyear.com/ Type in your birth year (or any year) and you’ll see a countdown and get an essay—letter by letter—about what life was like and what happened that year. This cool tool only goes back to 1900, though.
Timelines.com http://timelines.com/ Find out what happened this week in history and browse timelines such as American history, technology, famous people and sports. At the bottom of the page, click What Happened On to select a date.
Don’t forget Google News Timelines (We talked about this last month)
To Access the Google News Timeline
1. Launch your web browser software and visit www.google.com
2. Conduct a search for the phrase google news timeline
3. The first result should take you directly to newstimeline.googlelabs.com
(Keep in mind – this is a prototype under construction, so be patient)
Sources vs. Notes
– Venita Roylance
In the genealogy world at large there is a big difference between notes and sources. Notes are meant to explain or expand the genealogical data you put into the name, dates, places fields. They are also to provide supporting data such as exact quotes, extracted census data, obituaries, etc., etc. Sources, on the other hand, are meant to be concise references to where you found the data you put in the name, dates and places fields. Ideally, a source will tell the reader where to find the exact information (the original document) that you found, fifty years and more from now. That's why there are fields for notes and fields for sources.
A member wrote the following in a FHCNET note: “ I have been using individual notes’ or ‘family notes’ for my sources. I just copy and paste from my notes in PAF. There so far seems to be no limit on space. I haven't seen any comments on doing this so maybe I've been wrong, but it is a comfort to have my sources there for all to read. The source fields in the various database programs have always been a problem for me. They are too complicated and time consuming for me and they do not transfer between programs very well.”
Editorial response from Venita: Church members in general have a weak reputation in the genealogy world at large because we choose to not follow the research rules that other family historians adhere to. While our ultimate goal is to free the prisoners by doing proxy temple work for them, it would be a laudable bonus if we would also be excellent researchers, recorders, and source's of their personal data. We would surely also gain more respect among our peers outside the church membership rolls if we did so.
Ogden Family History Center Newsletter
Bogus Genealogy
A company called The Historical Research Center has ads plastered all over the Internet and on late-night television, claiming to sell you the history of your family name. The company even claims to provide your “family coat of arms” on wall plaques, coffee cups, and other such mementos. There's only one problem – it's all bogus. Chris Rodda, from the Ogden Family History Center did some research into the Historical Research Center and found some interesting facts. For one, there is no such thing as a family coat of arms. (Any advanced genealogist could have told you that). As you’ve probably guessed by now The Historical Research Center is a pseudo-genealogy franchise business. Don't be taken in!
MULTI – STAKE
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 7 July 2010
It is with deep regret and sorrow that we announce the passing of our friend, Samuel Maxwell, who has worked with us in the Family History Center, maintaining the computers and serving us all. We will miss him.
More Collections added to RecordSearch
Twenty two (22) new collections were updated or added this week - 6 June through 11 June - at FamilySearch.org—over 11 million new, free indexed names and images from original source records!
· Brazil, Paraiba, Registro Civil [Part 2] 53,2000 New imagesBrazil, Santa Catarina, Civil Registration 665,000 New imagesCanada,
· British Columbia, Deaths 1872-1986 [Part 4] 5,000 Updated index
· Canada, Nova Scotia, Antigonish Diocese 1823-1905 92,000 9,000 New index and images
· Czech Republic, Trebon, State Regional Archive Church Records 1650-1900 [Part 2] 112,552 New images
· Guatemala, Sagrario, Catholic Church Records, Baptisms, 1898-1920 19,000 2,000 New index and images
· Mexico, Yucatan 1930 Census 35,000 New index to published images
· Spain, Barcelona, Vich, Civil Registration 11,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Barcelona Civil Registration Pt 2 1,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Barcelona Civil Registration Pt 3 2,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Cordoba, Civil Registration 4,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Málaga, Civil Registration 22,000 Images & WP
· Spain, Ripoll (Girona), Municipal Records 53,000 Images & WP
· US Federal Census, 1910, Arkansas 1,421,000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, Connecticut 955,000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, District of Columbia 35,6000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, Indiana 295,7000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, Nevada 91,000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, New Jersey 267,0000 Index only
· US Federal Census, 1910, Texas 4,000,000 Index only
· US, Massachusetts, Death Records, 1913 v. 50-53 2,000 2,000 New index and images
· US, Minnesota, Probate Court Wills 1849-1918 - Part 1 37,000 Updated index
FamilySearch Maps - Are you aware of the new http://maps.familysearch.org ? It's
interactive maps of England. . You can find the political district in a number of areas. It will also do radius searches and a number of other helps including printing.
What is Inferential Genealogy? This presentation was given at the NGS Conference in Salt Lake City. Take this online class and increase your understanding of this subject. Go to www.familysearch.org click on Free Online Classes. Scroll down to Inferential Genealogy sponsor: Thomas W. Jones, PhD, CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA, FNGS. As you scroll notice all the different Genealogy Classes that are available.
Want a syllabus of the Conferences in Salt Lake?
For a syllabus of the FamilySearch Presentations at NGS 2010 go to https://wiki.familysearch.org Type in NGS 2010. This will take you to FamilySearch Wiki:Userboxes/Gallery. Click on the first User Box under Conference and Events.https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/FamilySearch_Presentations_at_NGS_2010
For a syllabus of the BYU Computerized Conference go to https://wiki.familysearch.org
Type in BYU 2010. The first entry is FamilySearch Presentations at BYU 2010
There are great classes at this conference.
OCUPSYSHUN - CENCUS TAKER
I am a cencus takers for the city of Bufflow. Our city has groan very
fast in resent years & now in 1865, it has become a hard & time
consuming job to count all the peephill. There are not many that con
do this werk, as it is nesessarie to have an ejucashun, wich a lot of
pursons still do not have. Anuther atribeart needed for this job is god spelling, for
meny of the pephill to be counted can hardle speek inglish, let alon spel there names.
Memory Album - I made a memory album of my late brother for each of his three daughters. I took the few pictures that I had of him as a child and spread them throughout the album along with pictures of the two houses he lived in as a child, the old theatre where we spent many Saturday afternoons, the "main drag" of our neighborhood, and other pictures that pertained to his life. I included some journaling
throughout the album, illustrating with photos and stickers the memories that I had of his years growing up and of our mother who is also deceased. These stories would be lost to them otherwise and I think this album will give them a deeper understanding of their dad. Our local library was very helpful with pictures of the things and places I wanted from the 1930s and the 1940s. Along with this, I included a genealogy chart, which I think will be fascinating to them. It will be a thrill for his grandchildren to see where they fit into our history, and perhaps encourage them to dig deeper into their past. ---Nancy Dow
Family History Tips
Before you visit a library, visit it online. This can help you save time in three ways:
1. Check the basic information about the facility, including its location and hours. You don't want to plan a trip for the wrong time.
2. If the Web site contains an overview of the collection, it may help you determine if the library is one you actually wish to visit.
3. You may be able to access the library's card catalog through their Web site. Searching the catalog from home before your trip may save significant amounts of on-site research time, allowing you to spend more time with the materials you came to see.
Print one bibliographic page for each book or source you plan to use.
Enter all information from each source or record at the same time. - Data entry is not fun, but it makes information analysis and pattern recognition much easier. When entering information from records, don't sift through all your records looking for information on one person. Instead, enter all information from each source at the same time. Data entry with most software programs is easier if you enter information about one document completely before starting on another one, and you may be able to copy and paste repetitive information during the data entry process. If you aren't constantly flipping through documents while entering data, you also reduce your chances of making errors.
Source: " Time-Saving Tips for Genealogists", by Michael John Neill, Genealogy.com
As you prepare for your Research trip you might want to look at GOOGLE MAPS. Google Maps is really more than just a tool for finding an address. Goggle Maps has become a tool for not only finding an address but viewing a picture of what is at that address. Google maps can be accessed from the Google home page by clicking on the link “Maps” at the top left hand side of the screen. Once you are at the Google Maps page, click on the button that says “Street View” You will see an United States map that has camera graphics all over. These cameras indicate places where Google has sent cars with cameras to photograph the streets and structures on the street. What does this mean for your genealogy? As Google photographs more areas, you will be able to put in your ancestor’s address and see if their house is still there. So here’s how it works. Type in an address in the Google box next to the button “Search Maps”. I went ahead and used an address for one of my ancestors that I found while looking over their California Voter Registration. You will then be shown a box with the address and if there is a picture available you will see a little thumbnail of that picture that you can then click on and look at. Now, these pictures are not high resolution so zooming in will not necessarily provide you with a clear image. Also, you can turn the image so that you can see basically the whole street at a 360-degree view. Please note that the address you type in may not be the picture pf the exact house you are looking for. I know in the case of my house and a few others I talked to, our addresses brought up neighbor’s two houses up from us. But overall this is a great tool for “visiting” your ancestor’s home and neighborhood. For more on using this feature see http://local.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=68476 .
From class on Google given by Gena Philibert Ortega last November at “Novemberfest 2009”
BITS AND PIECES
German Genealogical Website - This site is a treasure trove of information for German research. It includes a beginner's guide and hundreds of links: http://www.germanroots.com/
From Logan FHC Newsletter
Famine Irish Collection - The U.S. National Archives has two online databases of
information on immigrants who came to America from Ireland during the Irish
famine, covering the years 1846 to 1851. The "Famine Irish Passenger Record Data
File" has 605,596 records of passengers arriving in New York, about 70% of whom
came from Ireland. The second database, "List of Ships that Arrived at the Port of
New York During the Irish Famine," gives background detail on the ships that brought them over, including the total number of passengers. Free.
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/ (Click on Passenger Lists under the Genealogy/Personal
History category)
Canadian Genealogy Centre
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html
New images and webpages at the Canadian Genealogy Centre at the Library and Archives Canada website. Ocean Arrivals 1919-1924 have been digitized and are available online through the Microform Digitization online research tool.
GEN TIP -Genealogy Book Links
Genealogy Book Links, is a resource of the freely available digital books of interest to genealogists with links to 15,000+ online history, records, biographies and family genealogies gathered from more than 24 sources. Also, links to additional resources can be found in black at the top of the pages. Books are organized by name, subject and state laid out in an easy to use browseable format. Biographies and family genealogies are arranged alphabetically by name. Just click on the first letter of the name you're seeking and you'll find a three column table with the last name, source link, and title. Scroll down until you find the name and click on the link. Some names with a large number of volumes such as Smith, Clark, Johnson, Williams, etc. are on individual pages. There is also a Google site search towards the bottom of the homepage.
Some states such as Penn, NY, and Mass, are more developed then others. The free available Massachusetts town vital records books are a subtopic of the Mass page. Genealogy Book Links is also a good source of civil war regimental histories. The site is maintained with titles added weekly. Currently the site map is being updated.
Ways to Walk in Your Ancestors' Shoes
Want to find out what was happening on or about an important event in your family’s history? These sites can help:
History.com's This Day in History: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
You’ll see a top story from on today’s date in history; click View Calendar to select another date.
Any Day in History: http://www.scopesys.com/anyday/
Pick a date and get a list of famous people’s birthdates, holidays and a timeline of historic happenings on that date.
New York Times On This Day: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/index.html
Find events on today’s date, or click the tiny Go To previous date link for a clickable list of dates..
BrainyHistory: http://www.brainyhistory.com/ Select a year range, then a year, and get a list of events that happened on most days of the year.
Library of Congress Today in History: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html
Get a look at some library materials related to historic events on today’s date. Click archives to enter another date.
On This Day in History: http://www.historyorb.com/on-this-day.php
Pick a date and see events, births and deaths that happened on that day.
What happened in my birth year?: http://whathappenedinmybirthyear.com/ Type in your birth year (or any year) and you’ll see a countdown and get an essay—letter by letter—about what life was like and what happened that year. This cool tool only goes back to 1900, though.
Timelines.com http://timelines.com/ Find out what happened this week in history and browse timelines such as American history, technology, famous people and sports. At the bottom of the page, click What Happened On to select a date.
Don’t forget Google News Timelines (We talked about this last month)
To Access the Google News Timeline
1. Launch your web browser software and visit www.google.com
2. Conduct a search for the phrase google news timeline
3. The first result should take you directly to newstimeline.googlelabs.com
(Keep in mind – this is a prototype under construction, so be patient)
Sources vs. Notes
– Venita Roylance
In the genealogy world at large there is a big difference between notes and sources. Notes are meant to explain or expand the genealogical data you put into the name, dates, places fields. They are also to provide supporting data such as exact quotes, extracted census data, obituaries, etc., etc. Sources, on the other hand, are meant to be concise references to where you found the data you put in the name, dates and places fields. Ideally, a source will tell the reader where to find the exact information (the original document) that you found, fifty years and more from now. That's why there are fields for notes and fields for sources.
A member wrote the following in a FHCNET note: “ I have been using individual notes’ or ‘family notes’ for my sources. I just copy and paste from my notes in PAF. There so far seems to be no limit on space. I haven't seen any comments on doing this so maybe I've been wrong, but it is a comfort to have my sources there for all to read. The source fields in the various database programs have always been a problem for me. They are too complicated and time consuming for me and they do not transfer between programs very well.”
Editorial response from Venita: Church members in general have a weak reputation in the genealogy world at large because we choose to not follow the research rules that other family historians adhere to. While our ultimate goal is to free the prisoners by doing proxy temple work for them, it would be a laudable bonus if we would also be excellent researchers, recorders, and source's of their personal data. We would surely also gain more respect among our peers outside the church membership rolls if we did so.
Ogden Family History Center Newsletter
Bogus Genealogy
A company called The Historical Research Center has ads plastered all over the Internet and on late-night television, claiming to sell you the history of your family name. The company even claims to provide your “family coat of arms” on wall plaques, coffee cups, and other such mementos. There's only one problem – it's all bogus. Chris Rodda, from the Ogden Family History Center did some research into the Historical Research Center and found some interesting facts. For one, there is no such thing as a family coat of arms. (Any advanced genealogist could have told you that). As you’ve probably guessed by now The Historical Research Center is a pseudo-genealogy franchise business. Don't be taken in!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
REDLANDS-YUCAIPA MULTI-STAKE
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 6
June 2010
Phone Number: 909-794-3844. Located at 5th and Wabash in Redlands.
Hours: Tuesday thru Saturday—9:00 to 1:00 Tuesday and Wednesday Night—6:00-9:00pm
Closed Sunday Nights except the 4th Sunday before the Research Class
COMING EVENTS
Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 1:00pm at the Yucaipa Valley Genealogical Society at the Yucaipa Branch Library. Speaker will be Charlie Frye, Chief Cartographer at Environmental Systems Research Institute in Redlands, and president of the Sons of the American Revolution in Redlands, “More than dates and places: Tracing the paths of Revolutionary War Ancestors in GIS”
Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 7:00pm Family History Research Class at the Redlands Stake Center High Council Room. Subject: “Accessing and Using Censuses” Presenter: Leslie Johnson.
National Archive, Pacific Region (formerly known as Laguna Niguel) is now open. http://www.archives.gov/pacific/riverside/ “The National Archives regional archives is located at 23123 Cajalco Road in Perris, California. We are open from 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Monday through Friday and the first Saturday of each month (except Federal holidays). No appointment is necessary. We hold only records of the Federal government. This, of course, includes commonly used genealogical records such as the U.S. census for all states and all years available, military records, passenger lists and naturalization records, tribal censuses and other sources of interest to Native-Americans, and Federal land records relating to southern California and Arizona. Since our holdings include nearly 70,000 boxes of original records relating to southern California, Arizona, and Clark County, Nevada and 70,000 rolls of microfilm containing images of records held at the National Archives facilities in Washington, D.C. and College Park, Maryland, we have records on a large number of other topics, and other areas of the United States, besides those I have listed. In addition, we offer Ancestry.com and Footnote.com free at our facility and any copies people may wish to make from these services are free as well. Our email address for sending us reference inquiries is riverside.archives@nara.gov. Our telephone number is (951) 956-2000.” From an email from Mr. Kerry Bartels, archivist at the Nation Archives regional archives. There is a map that shows how to get there on the website.
INFORMATION AND TIPS FROM FAMILYSEARCH
FamilySearch invites you to become a member of the FamilySearch online community. The community resources will become invaluable as you do your own family history work or help others with theirs. In addition, community members’ experience and assistance is needed in building online help for family history enthusiasts and newcomers.
COMMUNITY RESOURCES
FamilySearch Research Wiki
On the Research Wiki you can:
· Find information about resources available for family history research in a
particular geographic area.
· Determine where best to look for records from a specific time period.
· Add information about a place that you’ve been to or researched.
· Add information about records or archives that will help others.
You can access the Research Wiki by clicking this link: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Main_Page . You do not need to register in order to contribute to the site if you already have an LDS Account.
FamilySearch Forums
On the FamilySearch Forums site, you can find answers to any question that you may have. Here you can ask about:
· Specific ancestors that you’re trying to find.
· Which records are best for a particular time period.
· Locations of resources.
· Features of new.familysearch.org.
· Any other FamilySearch product or Web site, such as the Indexing site.
To access the FamilySearch Forums, click here: http://forums.familysearch.org . If you register on the site, you will need to set up a user name and password because the Forums site has not yet converted to the LDS Account system. Hint: It is recommended that when you register for Forums, you choose the same user name and password that you use for your LDS Account so that you will not have to change your user information later.
Email received from FamilySearch, May 11, 2010
“Tweets” from the opening session of the National Genealogical Society conference held last week in Salt Lake City. (Editor’s note: I would call these “notes”)
Opening Session - Jay Verkler, CEO of FamilySearch, is talking about technology and how it is advancing so fast.
Verkler is showing a video of the Granite Mountain Vault outside of Salt Lake City The microfilm in the vault holds about 3.5 billion images!! And there is more room to grow!
Some records in the vault are the only copies that exist! Now they are working on digitizing these records.
Digitization was going to take over a century, but with new technology it will take about 10 years!! (Editor’s note: This is probably the most important note of all)
Over 300,000 registered indexers that help with the digitization process!! Learn more at familysearch.org 300 million new records on FamilySearch!!
FS(FamilySearch) has been working on a collaboration effort called Family Tree
Even "deep experts" need to collaborate with other "deep experts"
Now talking about the FS Wiki. "Fundamentally designed for sharing"
Encourages to contribute to the wiki. Learn more at wiki.familysearch.org
Register at beta.familysearch.org
MORE NEWSPAPER SITES
GenealogyBank http://www.genealogybank.com ($)
Ancestry http://www.ancestry.com ($)
WorldVitalRecords http://www.worldvitalrecords.com ($) (Free at the Portal)
NewspaperARCHIVE http://www.newspaperarchive.com ($)
Google News Archive (1840 – current) http://www.google.com/archivesearch
Google News Timeline Labs http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com/
Chronicling America http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
ICON: the International Coalition on Newspapers
Click the Database link on the menu and select “ICON Newspaper Database”, and “Links to other Databases.”
Lisa’s Top 5 Newspaper Tips
TIP #1: Only A Fraction of Papers Are Visible Online
TIP #2: Create Your Go-To Bookmark File
TIP #3: Newspapers Are Secondary Sources
Tip #4: Look To The Future! Many newspapers run or have run columns that feature articles from decades earlier. Lesson: Don’t just search the year of the event.
Tip #5: Ask For Help Be sure and use that “Contact Us” link you find on library and archive websites to ask questions about which newspapers existed, where they are located, etc. Answers from the experts can save you from going on a wild goose chase for a newspaper that doesn’t exist. Lisa Louise Cooke’s Webinar
NEW: GOOGLE NEWS TIMELINE
This product presents search results in chronological order, including current and historical news, scanned newspapers and magazine articles and other data sources – all displayed on a graphical timeline. By using a host of customization options, you can quickly filter through results to obtain those that have greater relevance for your research. I am giving you a link to a youtube video presented by Lisa Louise Cooke showing how to use this site and how it will help you with your genealogy. It is about 5 min. long.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GenealogyGems#p/u/13/wrn1gt_CvN0
Free Access to Historical Newspapers on Footnote.com
Footnote.com is offering free access to all the historical newspapers on the company's web site. On Footnote you will find newspapers ranging from small towns to major cities and dating back to the 1700’s. Whether a historian or a genealogist, historical newspapers are one of the best resources that provide a unique window into the past.
Continue reading "Free Access to Historical Newspapers on Footnote.com" »
Findmypast.co.uk to take over worldvitalrecords.com.au The following announcement was written by http://www.findmypast.co.uk/home.jsp Australian online service will be relaunched as findmypast.com.au supported by Gould Genealogy & History. The National Genealogical Society Conference in Salt Lake City provides the backdrop for a joint announcement today by three leading players in the world genealogy market. FamilyLink.com, Inc.’s WorldVitalRecords Australasian operation is to be taken over by leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk and run in partnership with Gould Genealogy & History of Australia.
The website currently known as WorldVitalRecords.com.au will be relaunched next month under the new name of findmypast.com.au. It will initially provide subscription access to mainly Australian and New Zealand content. The plan is then to fully integrate both content and features from the findmypast.co.uk website as soon as possible.
World Vital Records -Enhancement to our Find a Grave Results, Find A Grave Photos
WorldVitalRecords brings together various content providers in one place to make it easier to find your ancestors. One of our partners is the website Find A Grave, http://www.findagrave.com/. Part of your search result on WorldVitalRecords may include the photos from Find A Grave. This new database, Find A Grave Photos found at http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/ helps you easily find a gravestone photograph and learn more about it at Find A Grave's website. You can also browse or search this database through it's homepage. The first installment of 150,000 images is currently available on WorldVitalRecords. This database as well as the Find A Grave database, are free to all visitors of WorldVitalRecords.
Need a scout project? How about digitizing a cemetery. Take pictures of tombstones. If the graves have not been entered on Find A Grave, upload the pictures with the information on the tombstones.
BITS AND PIECES
Ancestry has launched a new wiki that includes two books - The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy and Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources. The wiki can be found at the Ancestry Wiki. This is still a beta site.
Pennsylvania researchers might want to check out the Ancestor Tracks website, which has free township warrantee maps for many counties and other resources for learning about early Pennsylvania landowners. You can get the full maps, atlases and more on Ancestor tracks’ Early Landowners of Pennsylvania books and CDs.
At the National Genealogical Society conference, we came across a site called ShipIndex.org. It indexes historical resources that refer to ocean and river vessels. If you search or browse on the site to a page for a vessel, you’ll get citations to find more details in resources such as Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia by Lincoln P. Paine. You can subscribe to the site for additional resources.
“How to Use New Familysearch Correctly” by George W. Scott. New FamilySearch Instructor at Lindon Utah FHC. Can be downloaded free or purchased at Stevenson’s in Provo for $3.95. Google “George Scott – New FamilySearch” for further information and additional video tutorials or click on http://www.usingfamilysearch.com/
Submitted by Jack Moser
Genealogical Tip
Print one bibliographic page for each book or source you plan to use.
Documenting your research is extremely important. However, it frequently slows down on-site research. To allow you to spend more time with the materials when you go to a library or archive, create one sheet for each book or record you plan to search. If you've used the online card catalog, copy and paste the bibliographic information into a word processor, using one sheet for each book. Make research notes on the sheet for use at the library or archives. Then when at the facility, you can make additional notes regarding the success (or failure) of your search. If you make copies from the source, attach them to the sheet for ease in tracking sources and entering data when you return home.
Source: "Time-Saving Tips for Genealogists", by Michael John Neill, Genealogy.com
Thank you to Marsha Green
Genealogy Tip of the Day
If someone walked up to you and said "Hi, I'm your third cousin, once removed," would you know what they meant? Most of us don't think about our relationships in such exact terms ("cousin" seems good enough), so many of us aren't very familiar with what these words mean. When working on your family history, however, it's important to understand the various types of cousin relationships.
First cousins are the people in your family who have two of the same grandparents as you.
Second cousins have the same great-grandparents as you, but not the same grandparents.
Third cousins have in common two great-great-grandparents and their ancestors.
When cousins descend from common ancestors by a different number of generations they are called “removed.”
Once removed means there is a difference of one generation. Your mother's first cousin would be your first cousin, once removed. She is one generation younger than your grandparents and you are two generations younger than your grandparents.
Twice removed means that there is a two-generation difference. Your grandmother's first cousin would be your first cousin, twice removed because you are separated by two generations.
Just to complicate matters, there are also many cases of double cousins. This situation usually occurs when siblings from one family marry siblings from another family. The resulting children, grandchildren, etc. are double cousins, because they share all four ancestors in common. These types of relationships can be difficult to determine and it is usually easiest to chart them one at a time (through one family line and then through the other line).
To Google or Not to Google
We are all familiar with the many large genealogical databases that we can join to search their resources, but what if we want to find resources on our own without joining a website?
Many of the resources we can get through genealogy databases can be found for free if we know how and where to search. A search engine such as Google will help your search be a productive one. I personally like to use a search engine that has an "advanced search" screen. The advanced option makes filtering your search results easier. You are given fields such as "All these words", "Exact phrases", "Any of these words", or "None of these words". Sometimes this is not important but if you are searching for Jeffery Mason Massachusetts, you may get every stone mason in Massachusetts named Jeffery and these are added results that can make finding the correct information more tedious. I searched for Jeffery Mason Massachusetts with a regular search box with no extra tools and found 280,000 search results. I could see that most of these did not have anything to do with Jeffery Mason. I added "Genealogy" to that search box and trimmed the results down to 35900. Still too many to find what I need. I then went to the advanced search option in Google. And moved "Jeffery Mason" to the field that said "this exact wording or phrase" and searched. This returned 174 results. Much better. I then added "stone brick mortar" to the field "But don't show pages that have any of these unwanted words:" Now the results were 10. You can change the combination any way that you like.
You might reverse the name phrase to "Mason, Jeffery" and this would bring different results. If the person lived in various towns, you might enter "Boston, Worcester, Salem" in the field "one or more of these words:". This would give your search a variety of words to include. As you can see, using a search engine to search is only limited by your imagination for entering search combinations...
Source: Paula Vilburn, Ogden Regional Family History Center Newsletter, April 2010
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 6
June 2010
Phone Number: 909-794-3844. Located at 5th and Wabash in Redlands.
Hours: Tuesday thru Saturday—9:00 to 1:00 Tuesday and Wednesday Night—6:00-9:00pm
Closed Sunday Nights except the 4th Sunday before the Research Class
COMING EVENTS
Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 1:00pm at the Yucaipa Valley Genealogical Society at the Yucaipa Branch Library. Speaker will be Charlie Frye, Chief Cartographer at Environmental Systems Research Institute in Redlands, and president of the Sons of the American Revolution in Redlands, “More than dates and places: Tracing the paths of Revolutionary War Ancestors in GIS”
Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 7:00pm Family History Research Class at the Redlands Stake Center High Council Room. Subject: “Accessing and Using Censuses” Presenter: Leslie Johnson.
National Archive, Pacific Region (formerly known as Laguna Niguel) is now open. http://www.archives.gov/pacific/riverside/ “The National Archives regional archives is located at 23123 Cajalco Road in Perris, California. We are open from 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Monday through Friday and the first Saturday of each month (except Federal holidays). No appointment is necessary. We hold only records of the Federal government. This, of course, includes commonly used genealogical records such as the U.S. census for all states and all years available, military records, passenger lists and naturalization records, tribal censuses and other sources of interest to Native-Americans, and Federal land records relating to southern California and Arizona. Since our holdings include nearly 70,000 boxes of original records relating to southern California, Arizona, and Clark County, Nevada and 70,000 rolls of microfilm containing images of records held at the National Archives facilities in Washington, D.C. and College Park, Maryland, we have records on a large number of other topics, and other areas of the United States, besides those I have listed. In addition, we offer Ancestry.com and Footnote.com free at our facility and any copies people may wish to make from these services are free as well. Our email address for sending us reference inquiries is riverside.archives@nara.gov. Our telephone number is (951) 956-2000.” From an email from Mr. Kerry Bartels, archivist at the Nation Archives regional archives. There is a map that shows how to get there on the website.
INFORMATION AND TIPS FROM FAMILYSEARCH
FamilySearch invites you to become a member of the FamilySearch online community. The community resources will become invaluable as you do your own family history work or help others with theirs. In addition, community members’ experience and assistance is needed in building online help for family history enthusiasts and newcomers.
COMMUNITY RESOURCES
FamilySearch Research Wiki
On the Research Wiki you can:
· Find information about resources available for family history research in a
particular geographic area.
· Determine where best to look for records from a specific time period.
· Add information about a place that you’ve been to or researched.
· Add information about records or archives that will help others.
You can access the Research Wiki by clicking this link: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Main_Page . You do not need to register in order to contribute to the site if you already have an LDS Account.
FamilySearch Forums
On the FamilySearch Forums site, you can find answers to any question that you may have. Here you can ask about:
· Specific ancestors that you’re trying to find.
· Which records are best for a particular time period.
· Locations of resources.
· Features of new.familysearch.org.
· Any other FamilySearch product or Web site, such as the Indexing site.
To access the FamilySearch Forums, click here: http://forums.familysearch.org . If you register on the site, you will need to set up a user name and password because the Forums site has not yet converted to the LDS Account system. Hint: It is recommended that when you register for Forums, you choose the same user name and password that you use for your LDS Account so that you will not have to change your user information later.
Email received from FamilySearch, May 11, 2010
“Tweets” from the opening session of the National Genealogical Society conference held last week in Salt Lake City. (Editor’s note: I would call these “notes”)
Opening Session - Jay Verkler, CEO of FamilySearch, is talking about technology and how it is advancing so fast.
Verkler is showing a video of the Granite Mountain Vault outside of Salt Lake City The microfilm in the vault holds about 3.5 billion images!! And there is more room to grow!
Some records in the vault are the only copies that exist! Now they are working on digitizing these records.
Digitization was going to take over a century, but with new technology it will take about 10 years!! (Editor’s note: This is probably the most important note of all)
Over 300,000 registered indexers that help with the digitization process!! Learn more at familysearch.org 300 million new records on FamilySearch!!
FS(FamilySearch) has been working on a collaboration effort called Family Tree
Even "deep experts" need to collaborate with other "deep experts"
Now talking about the FS Wiki. "Fundamentally designed for sharing"
Encourages to contribute to the wiki. Learn more at wiki.familysearch.org
Register at beta.familysearch.org
MORE NEWSPAPER SITES
GenealogyBank http://www.genealogybank.com ($)
Ancestry http://www.ancestry.com ($)
WorldVitalRecords http://www.worldvitalrecords.com ($) (Free at the Portal)
NewspaperARCHIVE http://www.newspaperarchive.com ($)
Google News Archive (1840 – current) http://www.google.com/archivesearch
Google News Timeline Labs http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com/
Chronicling America http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
ICON: the International Coalition on Newspapers
Click the Database link on the menu and select “ICON Newspaper Database”, and “Links to other Databases.”
Lisa’s Top 5 Newspaper Tips
TIP #1: Only A Fraction of Papers Are Visible Online
TIP #2: Create Your Go-To Bookmark File
TIP #3: Newspapers Are Secondary Sources
Tip #4: Look To The Future! Many newspapers run or have run columns that feature articles from decades earlier. Lesson: Don’t just search the year of the event.
Tip #5: Ask For Help Be sure and use that “Contact Us” link you find on library and archive websites to ask questions about which newspapers existed, where they are located, etc. Answers from the experts can save you from going on a wild goose chase for a newspaper that doesn’t exist. Lisa Louise Cooke’s Webinar
NEW: GOOGLE NEWS TIMELINE
This product presents search results in chronological order, including current and historical news, scanned newspapers and magazine articles and other data sources – all displayed on a graphical timeline. By using a host of customization options, you can quickly filter through results to obtain those that have greater relevance for your research. I am giving you a link to a youtube video presented by Lisa Louise Cooke showing how to use this site and how it will help you with your genealogy. It is about 5 min. long.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GenealogyGems#p/u/13/wrn1gt_CvN0
Free Access to Historical Newspapers on Footnote.com
Footnote.com is offering free access to all the historical newspapers on the company's web site. On Footnote you will find newspapers ranging from small towns to major cities and dating back to the 1700’s. Whether a historian or a genealogist, historical newspapers are one of the best resources that provide a unique window into the past.
Continue reading "Free Access to Historical Newspapers on Footnote.com" »
Findmypast.co.uk to take over worldvitalrecords.com.au The following announcement was written by http://www.findmypast.co.uk/home.jsp Australian online service will be relaunched as findmypast.com.au supported by Gould Genealogy & History. The National Genealogical Society Conference in Salt Lake City provides the backdrop for a joint announcement today by three leading players in the world genealogy market. FamilyLink.com, Inc.’s WorldVitalRecords Australasian operation is to be taken over by leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk and run in partnership with Gould Genealogy & History of Australia.
The website currently known as WorldVitalRecords.com.au will be relaunched next month under the new name of findmypast.com.au. It will initially provide subscription access to mainly Australian and New Zealand content. The plan is then to fully integrate both content and features from the findmypast.co.uk website as soon as possible.
World Vital Records -Enhancement to our Find a Grave Results, Find A Grave Photos
WorldVitalRecords brings together various content providers in one place to make it easier to find your ancestors. One of our partners is the website Find A Grave, http://www.findagrave.com/. Part of your search result on WorldVitalRecords may include the photos from Find A Grave. This new database, Find A Grave Photos found at http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/ helps you easily find a gravestone photograph and learn more about it at Find A Grave's website. You can also browse or search this database through it's homepage. The first installment of 150,000 images is currently available on WorldVitalRecords. This database as well as the Find A Grave database, are free to all visitors of WorldVitalRecords.
Need a scout project? How about digitizing a cemetery. Take pictures of tombstones. If the graves have not been entered on Find A Grave, upload the pictures with the information on the tombstones.
BITS AND PIECES
Ancestry has launched a new wiki that includes two books - The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy and Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources. The wiki can be found at the Ancestry Wiki. This is still a beta site.
Pennsylvania researchers might want to check out the Ancestor Tracks website, which has free township warrantee maps for many counties and other resources for learning about early Pennsylvania landowners. You can get the full maps, atlases and more on Ancestor tracks’ Early Landowners of Pennsylvania books and CDs.
At the National Genealogical Society conference, we came across a site called ShipIndex.org. It indexes historical resources that refer to ocean and river vessels. If you search or browse on the site to a page for a vessel, you’ll get citations to find more details in resources such as Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia by Lincoln P. Paine. You can subscribe to the site for additional resources.
“How to Use New Familysearch Correctly” by George W. Scott. New FamilySearch Instructor at Lindon Utah FHC. Can be downloaded free or purchased at Stevenson’s in Provo for $3.95. Google “George Scott – New FamilySearch” for further information and additional video tutorials or click on http://www.usingfamilysearch.com/
Submitted by Jack Moser
Genealogical Tip
Print one bibliographic page for each book or source you plan to use.
Documenting your research is extremely important. However, it frequently slows down on-site research. To allow you to spend more time with the materials when you go to a library or archive, create one sheet for each book or record you plan to search. If you've used the online card catalog, copy and paste the bibliographic information into a word processor, using one sheet for each book. Make research notes on the sheet for use at the library or archives. Then when at the facility, you can make additional notes regarding the success (or failure) of your search. If you make copies from the source, attach them to the sheet for ease in tracking sources and entering data when you return home.
Source: "Time-Saving Tips for Genealogists", by Michael John Neill, Genealogy.com
Thank you to Marsha Green
Genealogy Tip of the Day
If someone walked up to you and said "Hi, I'm your third cousin, once removed," would you know what they meant? Most of us don't think about our relationships in such exact terms ("cousin" seems good enough), so many of us aren't very familiar with what these words mean. When working on your family history, however, it's important to understand the various types of cousin relationships.
First cousins are the people in your family who have two of the same grandparents as you.
Second cousins have the same great-grandparents as you, but not the same grandparents.
Third cousins have in common two great-great-grandparents and their ancestors.
When cousins descend from common ancestors by a different number of generations they are called “removed.”
Once removed means there is a difference of one generation. Your mother's first cousin would be your first cousin, once removed. She is one generation younger than your grandparents and you are two generations younger than your grandparents.
Twice removed means that there is a two-generation difference. Your grandmother's first cousin would be your first cousin, twice removed because you are separated by two generations.
Just to complicate matters, there are also many cases of double cousins. This situation usually occurs when siblings from one family marry siblings from another family. The resulting children, grandchildren, etc. are double cousins, because they share all four ancestors in common. These types of relationships can be difficult to determine and it is usually easiest to chart them one at a time (through one family line and then through the other line).
To Google or Not to Google
We are all familiar with the many large genealogical databases that we can join to search their resources, but what if we want to find resources on our own without joining a website?
Many of the resources we can get through genealogy databases can be found for free if we know how and where to search. A search engine such as Google will help your search be a productive one. I personally like to use a search engine that has an "advanced search" screen. The advanced option makes filtering your search results easier. You are given fields such as "All these words", "Exact phrases", "Any of these words", or "None of these words". Sometimes this is not important but if you are searching for Jeffery Mason Massachusetts, you may get every stone mason in Massachusetts named Jeffery and these are added results that can make finding the correct information more tedious. I searched for Jeffery Mason Massachusetts with a regular search box with no extra tools and found 280,000 search results. I could see that most of these did not have anything to do with Jeffery Mason. I added "Genealogy" to that search box and trimmed the results down to 35900. Still too many to find what I need. I then went to the advanced search option in Google. And moved "Jeffery Mason" to the field that said "this exact wording or phrase" and searched. This returned 174 results. Much better. I then added "stone brick mortar" to the field "But don't show pages that have any of these unwanted words:" Now the results were 10. You can change the combination any way that you like.
You might reverse the name phrase to "Mason, Jeffery" and this would bring different results. If the person lived in various towns, you might enter "Boston, Worcester, Salem" in the field "one or more of these words:". This would give your search a variety of words to include. As you can see, using a search engine to search is only limited by your imagination for entering search combinations...
Source: Paula Vilburn, Ogden Regional Family History Center Newsletter, April 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
REDLANDS-YUCAIPA MULTI-STAKE
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 5
MAY 2010
National Genealogical Society Conference Among the many activities in Salt Lake City during the last week in April was the announcement: "FamilySearch Shares Plans to Digitize Billions of Records Stored at Granite Mountain Records Vault". Go to and read more. http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/familysearch-shares-plans-to-digitize-billions-of-records-stored-at-granite-mountain-records-vault
NEWS FROM FAMILY SEARCH
The new face for FamilySearch.org will probably be showing up early in June. Record Search is now being beta tested. The name will be changed to Historical Records and we will be able to sign in to more records. They are looking to add 5 billion more records including some “Super Collections”. Family Tree (formerly New Family Search) will only be accessible through the new site. The question everyone asks is “When will Family Tree be available to non members?’ The answer is sometime before the end of this year.
Bryce Roper, Product manager for Family Search
Bryce’s Top Tips for Getting the Most Out of FamilySearch:
1. Try putting in less information in your search
2. Search the appropriate record group
3. Start with the most recent record
4. Try searching a name without dates
5. Try different spellings
6. Use the filters on Record Search up at the top in the blue bar
7. Keep in mind that many records have been digitized but not yet indexed. Try
browsing them. (They do however include meta data)
8.Look at the list of collections and see if it says “Images Only”
FAMILY SEARCH INDEXING UPDATES (April 28) From 168 Collections to 341 Collections and Still Growing Go to http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html and then click the "Search or Browse our Record Collections" in blue below the input boxes. When the next screen opens click on the green box "Browse Collections".
Here is a list of a few of the NEW amazing ones:
CANADA - 12 BRAND NEW COLLECTIONS
Canada Births and Baptisms 1859-1932
Canada Deaths and Burials 1664-1955
Plus many more
UNITED STATES - 67 BRAND NEW COLLECTIONS
7 in Arizona
Delaware Marriages 1713-1953
Idaho Births and Christenings, 1856-1965
Idaho Deaths and Burials, 1907-1965
Idaho Marriages, 1978-1898 - 1903-1942
United States Census, 1910
Unites States Deaths and Burials, 1867-1961
United States Marriages, 1733-1990
Utah Births and Christenings, 1892-1941
Utath Deaths and Burials, 1888-1946
Utah Marriages, 1887-1966
Wyoming Marriages, 1877-1920
EUROPE - MANY IN EACH COUNTRY
Austria, Belgium, Channel Islands, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Iceland..... Can you imagine ~ Iceland Marriages 1770-1920 and Births and Baptisms, 1620 - 1881; Isle of Man, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Wales, Argentina, Bahama, and MORE and MORE
ORGANIZING YOUR FILES Did you know that FamilySearch has suggestions for organizing your files? To access the organizing materials:
1- Go to http://www.familysearch.org/ >Research Helps tab >Click on Articles > Go to “O” > Scroll down to Organizing Your Genealogy Using Computers [Description], [PDF] Organizing Your Paper Files [Description] [PDF], Organizing Your Paper Files Using File Folders [Description] [PDF] or
Organizing Your Paper Files Using Binders (Notebooks) [Description] [PDF]. Hint: Every time you see “Example” click on it to bring up a picture.
SUCCESS STORY “ In your last newsletter I went to the church history site and discovered my 4th great grandfather’s journal excerpt from crossing the plains. Now I have 8 lines of my ancestors that I can definitely identify which company they were in, it was a great experience. I am hip high in finding my non-member mother’s line and it gets frustrating. So…it was wonderful to find this information on my father’s line, those great early church pioneers. It gives me heart to keep plugging along.”
Kim Reichmann
BRITISH NATIONAL ARCHIVES
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
This site has lessons on how to use the site. Click on the above link,. Go to the Features and click on the Quick Animated Guides or click on Education and choose how you would like to learn how to use the site. There are Lessons, workshops, Videoconferences, Virtual Classroom and/or Podcasts.
Records popular with family historians include:
census records for England and Wales from 1841 to 1911
military service records – most of our military service records predate the 1920s, and some date back as far as the 17th century
other records of service, including documents on Metropolitan Police officers, merchant seamen and railway workers
lists of ships' passengers arriving in or departing from the UK between 1878 and 1960, and naturalisation records wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (the senior ecclesiastical court in England) from 1384 to 1858
WORLD VITAL RECORDS
Abstract of North Carolina Wills, 1663 - 1760
This invaluable work of reference contains abstracts of every will found in the office of the Secretary of State of North Carolina. While it covers the period 1663 to 1760, it does contain a few later wills. The work is arranged alphabetically according to the name of the testator. The abstracts give the name of the testator, place of residence, names of wife, children, legatees, witnesses, and probate officers, names of plantations mentioned, and remarkable items or noteworthy passages in wills. The extensive 200-page index contains all the names mentioned in the will abstracts–nearly 20,000! An appendix containing indexes to each of the will books is yet another outstanding feature of this monumental work.
WorldVitalRecords adds Italian Passenger Lists
The Center for Immigration Research created this series to promote access to information about German, Russian and Italians immigrants to the United States. The information was extracted from ship passenger lists in the records of the U.S. Customs Service (NARA Record Group 36).
There are records of passengers who were U.S. citizens or non-U.S. citizens planning to continue their travels, returning to the U.S., or staying in the U.S. Most of the records are of passengers arriving at the Port of New York, although there are some records of passengers arriving at the following ports: Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia. Each of the passenger records may include name, age, town of last residence, destination, and codes for passenger's sex, occupation, literacy, country of origin, transit and/or travel compartment, the name of the ship, the port of departure, date of arrival and the port of arrival.
WorldVitalRecords allows wildcards where you type in the first three letters of a first and or last name and then an asterisk. So a search for John Smith might look like Joh* Smith, Joh* Smit* or John Smi*. With a name like John, the wildcards will help you catch variations like Johnny or Johnnie.
GOOGLE TRANSLATOR You can use Google to translate words, phrases and documents, http://translate.google.com . This online translator is handy for words or phrases. Enter a search phrase in your own language to find information in other languages. A number of languages (from Afrikaans to Hungarian to Yiddish and more) are available for translation. Consider using the Google Language Tools to translate commonly used genealogy term, such as archive, baptism, marriage, cemetery, church, etc., into the native language of your ancestor to gather results posted online from other countries. (Editors note: We had a woman come into the FHC the other day. She was translating a book about the history of the town, her ancestors came from, in Italy.)
BITS AND PIECES
DEAD FRED Dead Fred’s Genealogy Photo Archive is a free, photo genealogy research website (or photobase) devoted to helping you visualize your heritage. Search for images by name, date, location, photographer and other criteria. You can also post your won photos to the archive. The site also has an extensive collection of mystery photos, whish are interesting to browse. It huge, searchable database contains 16937 surnames and 98160 records. It has had 1817 reunions of photographs with their rightful owners. Sign up for a free newsletter to learn about recent updates to the site. http://www.deadfred.com/
Internet Genealogy Magazine
Genealogy Today.com
The other day while browsing around the Internet, I decided to re-visit a genealogy site that has been around since 1999. The longevity of this site says that there is something very right going on. The name of the site is Genealogy Today, www.genealogytoday.com.
The first thing you will notice is the labeled tabs across the top of the site, Getting Started, Family History, Research Tools, Advanced Topics, What's New, and Other Stuff. Each of these areas by themselves are chock full of information, but they are only gateways to much more information. Kathryn Brannigan Walizer
MacFamilyTree 5.7 Released
The following was written by Synium Software:
The modern genealogy software for your Mac is available in version 5.7 now, which sports a great number of useful new features and improvements of existing ones. You'll find yourself being more productive due to our completely renewed Source Management, the Facts pane in the Person Editor and Family Editor, direct Audio and Video recording as well as the improved Kinship Report. MacFamilyTree 5.7 is a free update for all existing version 5 users. Continue reading "MacFamilyTree 5.7 Released" »
OneClickTempleTrip.com Combs LDS Genealogy Database
The following announcement from OneGreatFamily.com will be of interest to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), commonly known as Mormons:
April 1, 2010, Springville UT – OneClickTempleTrip.com is launching today, giving members of the LDS Church a quick and easy way to identify ancestors they can take to the temple for ordinance work. OneClickTempleTrip.com ties directly to new.FamilySearch.org, the well-known and comprehensive genealogy database built and maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), commonly known as Mormons. The new web site has been certified by FamilySearch for temple ordinance work.
Continue reading "OneClickTempleTrip.com Combs LDS Genealogy Database" »
Maryland Archives website http://www.msa.md.gov includes published volumes of Archives of Maryland. Baltimore Historical Society: 1883-1972.
Note from the description that: “The ongoing Maryland State Archives publication series, Archives of Maryland Online, currently provides access to over 471,000 historical documents that form the constitutional, legal, legislative, judicial, and administrative basis of Maryland's government. Online access enables users to research such topics as Maryland's constitutions and constitutional conventions' proceedings, session laws, proceedings of the General Assembly, governors' papers, and military records. This project allows the Archives to place into electronic form and preserve for future generations records that are scattered among a number of repositories and that often exist only on rapidly disintegrating paper.”
WORTH CHECKING OUT American Libraries It has links to digitized books. I found on it an Adams book and a Chipman book. http://www.archive.org/details/americana
From Dianna Rounds
PODCASTS You can listen to these genealogy podcasts, about an hour each. They cover a variety of subjects, interviews and misc. info, etc. They have show notes that cover what they have been talking about and links to what has been discussed, at Genealogy Gems http://www.genealogygems.tv/ or the Genealogy Guys at http://www.genealogyguys.com/ .
Ipod Users, Genealogy Gems and Genealogy Guys Podcasts are free at Itunes.
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 5
MAY 2010
National Genealogical Society Conference Among the many activities in Salt Lake City during the last week in April was the announcement: "FamilySearch Shares Plans to Digitize Billions of Records Stored at Granite Mountain Records Vault". Go to and read more. http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/familysearch-shares-plans-to-digitize-billions-of-records-stored-at-granite-mountain-records-vault
NEWS FROM FAMILY SEARCH
The new face for FamilySearch.org will probably be showing up early in June. Record Search is now being beta tested. The name will be changed to Historical Records and we will be able to sign in to more records. They are looking to add 5 billion more records including some “Super Collections”. Family Tree (formerly New Family Search) will only be accessible through the new site. The question everyone asks is “When will Family Tree be available to non members?’ The answer is sometime before the end of this year.
Bryce Roper, Product manager for Family Search
Bryce’s Top Tips for Getting the Most Out of FamilySearch:
1. Try putting in less information in your search
2. Search the appropriate record group
3. Start with the most recent record
4. Try searching a name without dates
5. Try different spellings
6. Use the filters on Record Search up at the top in the blue bar
7. Keep in mind that many records have been digitized but not yet indexed. Try
browsing them. (They do however include meta data)
8.Look at the list of collections and see if it says “Images Only”
FAMILY SEARCH INDEXING UPDATES (April 28) From 168 Collections to 341 Collections and Still Growing Go to http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html and then click the "Search or Browse our Record Collections" in blue below the input boxes. When the next screen opens click on the green box "Browse Collections".
Here is a list of a few of the NEW amazing ones:
CANADA - 12 BRAND NEW COLLECTIONS
Canada Births and Baptisms 1859-1932
Canada Deaths and Burials 1664-1955
Plus many more
UNITED STATES - 67 BRAND NEW COLLECTIONS
7 in Arizona
Delaware Marriages 1713-1953
Idaho Births and Christenings, 1856-1965
Idaho Deaths and Burials, 1907-1965
Idaho Marriages, 1978-1898 - 1903-1942
United States Census, 1910
Unites States Deaths and Burials, 1867-1961
United States Marriages, 1733-1990
Utah Births and Christenings, 1892-1941
Utath Deaths and Burials, 1888-1946
Utah Marriages, 1887-1966
Wyoming Marriages, 1877-1920
EUROPE - MANY IN EACH COUNTRY
Austria, Belgium, Channel Islands, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Iceland..... Can you imagine ~ Iceland Marriages 1770-1920 and Births and Baptisms, 1620 - 1881; Isle of Man, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Wales, Argentina, Bahama, and MORE and MORE
ORGANIZING YOUR FILES Did you know that FamilySearch has suggestions for organizing your files? To access the organizing materials:
1- Go to http://www.familysearch.org/ >Research Helps tab >Click on Articles > Go to “O” > Scroll down to Organizing Your Genealogy Using Computers [Description], [PDF] Organizing Your Paper Files [Description] [PDF], Organizing Your Paper Files Using File Folders [Description] [PDF] or
Organizing Your Paper Files Using Binders (Notebooks) [Description] [PDF]. Hint: Every time you see “Example” click on it to bring up a picture.
SUCCESS STORY “ In your last newsletter I went to the church history site and discovered my 4th great grandfather’s journal excerpt from crossing the plains. Now I have 8 lines of my ancestors that I can definitely identify which company they were in, it was a great experience. I am hip high in finding my non-member mother’s line and it gets frustrating. So…it was wonderful to find this information on my father’s line, those great early church pioneers. It gives me heart to keep plugging along.”
Kim Reichmann
BRITISH NATIONAL ARCHIVES
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
This site has lessons on how to use the site. Click on the above link,. Go to the Features and click on the Quick Animated Guides or click on Education and choose how you would like to learn how to use the site. There are Lessons, workshops, Videoconferences, Virtual Classroom and/or Podcasts.
Records popular with family historians include:
census records for England and Wales from 1841 to 1911
military service records – most of our military service records predate the 1920s, and some date back as far as the 17th century
other records of service, including documents on Metropolitan Police officers, merchant seamen and railway workers
lists of ships' passengers arriving in or departing from the UK between 1878 and 1960, and naturalisation records wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (the senior ecclesiastical court in England) from 1384 to 1858
WORLD VITAL RECORDS
Abstract of North Carolina Wills, 1663 - 1760
This invaluable work of reference contains abstracts of every will found in the office of the Secretary of State of North Carolina. While it covers the period 1663 to 1760, it does contain a few later wills. The work is arranged alphabetically according to the name of the testator. The abstracts give the name of the testator, place of residence, names of wife, children, legatees, witnesses, and probate officers, names of plantations mentioned, and remarkable items or noteworthy passages in wills. The extensive 200-page index contains all the names mentioned in the will abstracts–nearly 20,000! An appendix containing indexes to each of the will books is yet another outstanding feature of this monumental work.
WorldVitalRecords adds Italian Passenger Lists
The Center for Immigration Research created this series to promote access to information about German, Russian and Italians immigrants to the United States. The information was extracted from ship passenger lists in the records of the U.S. Customs Service (NARA Record Group 36).
There are records of passengers who were U.S. citizens or non-U.S. citizens planning to continue their travels, returning to the U.S., or staying in the U.S. Most of the records are of passengers arriving at the Port of New York, although there are some records of passengers arriving at the following ports: Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia. Each of the passenger records may include name, age, town of last residence, destination, and codes for passenger's sex, occupation, literacy, country of origin, transit and/or travel compartment, the name of the ship, the port of departure, date of arrival and the port of arrival.
WorldVitalRecords allows wildcards where you type in the first three letters of a first and or last name and then an asterisk. So a search for John Smith might look like Joh* Smith, Joh* Smit* or John Smi*. With a name like John, the wildcards will help you catch variations like Johnny or Johnnie.
GOOGLE TRANSLATOR You can use Google to translate words, phrases and documents, http://translate.google.com . This online translator is handy for words or phrases. Enter a search phrase in your own language to find information in other languages. A number of languages (from Afrikaans to Hungarian to Yiddish and more) are available for translation. Consider using the Google Language Tools to translate commonly used genealogy term, such as archive, baptism, marriage, cemetery, church, etc., into the native language of your ancestor to gather results posted online from other countries. (Editors note: We had a woman come into the FHC the other day. She was translating a book about the history of the town, her ancestors came from, in Italy.)
BITS AND PIECES
DEAD FRED Dead Fred’s Genealogy Photo Archive is a free, photo genealogy research website (or photobase) devoted to helping you visualize your heritage. Search for images by name, date, location, photographer and other criteria. You can also post your won photos to the archive. The site also has an extensive collection of mystery photos, whish are interesting to browse. It huge, searchable database contains 16937 surnames and 98160 records. It has had 1817 reunions of photographs with their rightful owners. Sign up for a free newsletter to learn about recent updates to the site. http://www.deadfred.com/
Internet Genealogy Magazine
Genealogy Today.com
The other day while browsing around the Internet, I decided to re-visit a genealogy site that has been around since 1999. The longevity of this site says that there is something very right going on. The name of the site is Genealogy Today, www.genealogytoday.com.
The first thing you will notice is the labeled tabs across the top of the site, Getting Started, Family History, Research Tools, Advanced Topics, What's New, and Other Stuff. Each of these areas by themselves are chock full of information, but they are only gateways to much more information. Kathryn Brannigan Walizer
MacFamilyTree 5.7 Released
The following was written by Synium Software:
The modern genealogy software for your Mac is available in version 5.7 now, which sports a great number of useful new features and improvements of existing ones. You'll find yourself being more productive due to our completely renewed Source Management, the Facts pane in the Person Editor and Family Editor, direct Audio and Video recording as well as the improved Kinship Report. MacFamilyTree 5.7 is a free update for all existing version 5 users. Continue reading "MacFamilyTree 5.7 Released" »
OneClickTempleTrip.com Combs LDS Genealogy Database
The following announcement from OneGreatFamily.com will be of interest to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), commonly known as Mormons:
April 1, 2010, Springville UT – OneClickTempleTrip.com is launching today, giving members of the LDS Church a quick and easy way to identify ancestors they can take to the temple for ordinance work. OneClickTempleTrip.com ties directly to new.FamilySearch.org, the well-known and comprehensive genealogy database built and maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), commonly known as Mormons. The new web site has been certified by FamilySearch for temple ordinance work.
Continue reading "OneClickTempleTrip.com Combs LDS Genealogy Database" »
Maryland Archives website http://www.msa.md.gov includes published volumes of Archives of Maryland. Baltimore Historical Society: 1883-1972.
Note from the description that: “The ongoing Maryland State Archives publication series, Archives of Maryland Online, currently provides access to over 471,000 historical documents that form the constitutional, legal, legislative, judicial, and administrative basis of Maryland's government. Online access enables users to research such topics as Maryland's constitutions and constitutional conventions' proceedings, session laws, proceedings of the General Assembly, governors' papers, and military records. This project allows the Archives to place into electronic form and preserve for future generations records that are scattered among a number of repositories and that often exist only on rapidly disintegrating paper.”
WORTH CHECKING OUT American Libraries It has links to digitized books. I found on it an Adams book and a Chipman book. http://www.archive.org/details/americana
From Dianna Rounds
PODCASTS You can listen to these genealogy podcasts, about an hour each. They cover a variety of subjects, interviews and misc. info, etc. They have show notes that cover what they have been talking about and links to what has been discussed, at Genealogy Gems http://www.genealogygems.tv/ or the Genealogy Guys at http://www.genealogyguys.com/ .
Ipod Users, Genealogy Gems and Genealogy Guys Podcasts are free at Itunes.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
April Newsletter
COMING EVENTS
Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 1:00pm at the Yucaipa Valley Genealogical Society at the Yucaipa Branch Library. Speaker will be Jean Wilcox Hibben.
Topic will be "Communicating in your Ancestors' Homeland: Understanding Other Cultures Can Make or Break Overseas Research".
Sunday, April 25, 2010 at 7:00pm Family History Research Class at the Redlands Stake Center High Council Room. Subject: “FamilySearch Indexing
& Pilot”. Presenter: Yvonne Gadbois
NEW FACE FOR FAMILYSEARCH
Within the next few months you will see a new homepage for Family Search. Right now it is being Beta tested. If you would like to get a feeling for this new look you can go to http://fsbeta.familysearch.org/ Within this new site, under the tab "Search", you will find the Wiki, Forums, Record search, Indexing. New Family Search will become a new tab named Family Tree.
WHAT IS FAMILYSEARCH WIKI?
FamilySearch Wiki, a new Web site at https://wiki.FamilySearch.org, will help you answer difficult research questions. FamilySearch Wiki is developed by the community of users. It is dedicated to helping people throughout the world to find, use, and analyze records of genealogical value. It will include the following:
· Content currently on FamilySearch.org. The wiki will replace the Research Guidance and Research Helps tabs on FamilySearch.org. The Church’s current research publications (research outlinges, foreign word lists, “Finding Records of Your Ancestors”) are in the Wiki with these important changes:
o Long publication have been divided into short articles so users do not need to read a 40 page publication to find answers.
o A Search engine makes the information easier to find.
o Content has been updated with current Web site addresses, contact information for libraries and archives, and other facts.
o Content has been added to cover localities, topics, and records never before covered on FamilySearch.org.
· New content. The community, including staff from the Family History Library, adds new information each day. This allows frequent updates and increased coverage of localities and ethnic, religious, and racial groups. The site currently has limited content in some areas and richer content in others.
The strategy that FamilySearch is recommending is that patrons be taught how to use the Wiki and the Forums. We talked about the Forums in the January Newsletter. This is a way of “social networking” or contacting others who might be working on your same lines.
As people learn to use these helps they can pretty much find any sources they may need to continue with their research. Everything links to a place to search. The new motto for FamilySearch is “Click and you shall receive”
FamilySearch Account or LDS Account FamilySearch Account makes it easier to access FamilySearch sites! Enjoy the convenience of just one user name and password for all participating FamilySearch Web sites, including FamilySearch indexing. Once you register, you can sign in to FamilySearch sites using either a FamilySearch Account or an LDS Account (which is tied to LDS Church membership). The FamilySearch Account/LDS Account is free and replaces your prior user names and passwords. You can register for these accounts at: https://wiki.FamilySearch.org or https://new.familysearch.org Please note: When you sign in to nFS now you will be directed to use your LDS account user name and password.
FAMILYSEARCH AFFILIATES
FamilySearch Certified Affiliates are third-party companies that provide products and services with features that are compatible with FamilySearch programs. Certification indicates the affiliate’s declaration of compliance with FamilySearch requirements. Note that these products and services are independently developed and supported by their respective organizations, not by FamilySearch. To see a list of certified software programs and Internet links to their Web sites, click this link: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/affiliates/index.html New affiliate programs are being certified on a regular basis, so be sure to check this website frequently. Links to affiliate Web sites can be found by following the above link. Some of these affiliates are: Ancestral Quest, Roots Magic 4, Family Insight, MagiKey Family Tree, Legacy, Mobile tree, Note from Larry and Phyllis Pope: Read about the App for Family Search (Ipod phone and Ipod touch) at http://mormontimes.com/print/?id=14005 Photoloom (Go to www.familyphotoloom.com ). Ages-online is an internet genealogy program. Take a look at http://www.ages-online.com
(Update as of Mar. 29. If you would like to see a new list of affiliates go to the sign in page of NFS and click on “More great products”)
The FamilySearch Family History Library is now making its popular classes available at http://www.familysearch.org , where anyone anywhere in the world can access them for free at a time that is convenient for them. The classes have been offered on-site in Salt Lake City for years. Until now, attendance has been limited to those patrons who are fortunate to live in the surrounding community or happen to be visiting the library as part of a research trip. Making the classes available online allows access to many more patrons.
There are currently 23 Family History Library classes available online, with subjects ranging from European research to United States military records. The most popular offerings are the Beginning Research Series for Ireland and England and a class on descendancy research.
The classes vary in length from 6 to 58 minutes, with most lasting about 25 minutes. The format of the class varies, depending on the content being presented. One type of class shows a video that alternates between the teacher and the PowerPoint slides. Another kind of class integrates video of the presenter, the accompanying PowerPoint slides, and links to supplemental materials all in one screen. Several of the classes are interactive, such as a course on reading German handwriting. In these classes, the teacher is represented with still photographs and audio narration, and the student can actively participate in learning activities, such as matching English and German characters or transcribing selected words from a document. As a student types, the correct text appears in green and incorrect answers appear in red, providing immediate feedback.
FREE TRIALS-Legacy Just go to http://www.legacyfamilytree.com. Here you will find a free download for the basic program. You will need to pay for the deluxe version but the free version will get you started in organizing and printing out family files in book form. Legacy will work on Window 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP, or Vista. Legacy will also run on newer Macs with Parallel, Boot camp or Fusion. It features a complete source citation system which is extremely important. Legacy imports both Personal Ancestral File® information as well as GEDCOM files.
RootsMagic Essentials is available for free at http://www.rootsmagic.com Users of other genealogy software products will find it easy to experiment with RootsMagic Essentials using their own data. Roots Magic Essentials can directly import data from PAF, Family Tree Maker (through 2006), Family Origins, and Legacy Family Tree. It can also read and write data using the GEDCOM format. This is not the full RootsMagic4 version.
Ancestral Quest has a free 60 day trial available from www.ancquest.com Reg. cost $29.95
SOME FAVORITE SITES LISTED AT FHCNET (You may need to copy and paste these in your browser)
www.genuki.org.uk -- THE place to start British research.
www.namethesaurus.com -- will show names that may sound alike -- uses 3 separate coding systems, not including LDS', which is VERY helpful if you suspect a dialect problem.
www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc -- manuscript collection index at Library of Congress.
www.dar.org has recently mounted some data that's available to the public
www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook has been useful on occasion.
www.sachsen.de/en/bf/verwaltung/archivverwaltung/inhalt_archive.html resource of Saxony-German research ...and don't forget the WorldGenWeb.org -- some places are a lot more useful than others, but you owe it to yourself to look.
FOOTNOTE has started an Interactive Census Collection.
Lindon, UT - March 11, 2010 – In order to encourage more people to find their ancestors and connect with family, Footnote.com, the web’s premier interactive history site, is opening all of their U.S. census documents for free to the public for a limited time.
Unlike any other historical collection on the web, the Interactive Census Collection has the unique ability to connect people related to ancestors found on the historical documents. Simply by clicking the I’m Related button for a name on the document will identify you as a descendent and also list others that have done the same. Never before has it been as easy to connect with distant relatives through historical documents. Finding a record featuring an ancestors name provides not only an emotional experience but also a connection with the past. On Footnote.com it’s more than just finding a name on a census record. Interactive tools allow people to enhance the documents by adding their own contributions including: Photos, Stories, Comments, other related documents.
Check out the Interactive Census at Footnote - Free for a limited time.
World Vital Records This month we have some great updates planned.
Web Site Redesign: We are in the process of launching our new site design and are excited for many of the improvements we have made. So keep your eye out for the announcement and please provide us any feedback. New Military Collections: We will be releasing some exciting military collections this month that will include the Air Force Officer Register Collection featuring over 1.65 million names of Air Force Officers who served in the military during 1958-1962.
We are excited for the upcoming improvements and content that will be coming.
WorldCat.org, Google Books and more...
WorldCat.org is a major international connection to over 10,000 libraries worldwide and catalogs over 1.5 billion items. Google Books contains over 10,000,000 digitized books and magazines. WorldCat.org and Google Books are now interlinked. If you search for a book on Google Books and find the item, one of the options is to find the item in a library. Clicking on this option gives you a link to WorldCat.org. The WorldCat search for the item gives you the full citation, a reference to every edition of the item and by entering your zip code, a list of libraries that have the item, including the distance from your own location. Quoting from the OCLC Website
Newspapers on line I personally would not like to go without one of the options to NewspaperArchives. I get a tremendous about of data from them. But I like to enhance my genealogy and make it family history. I love old newspapers because they published every little thing that went on in town. I get obits, marriage announcements, divorces, court cases, parties with family members attending, accidents, awards, pictures of people and even ads. It's a wealth of resources.
http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home
http://news2.nnyln.net/essex-county/search.html
http://digitalnewspapers.org/
http://www.cyndislist.com/newspapr.htm
http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/contentsearch.aspx?&rt=news (Access free at the FHC Portal)
World Vital Records does have some newspapers but not the entire newspaperarchive.com package.
Godfrey Memorial Library has a full subscription to newspaperarchives.com through their subscription site or it is also free at FHCs.(Email from FHCNET)
Bits and Pieces
Vital records - http://vitalrec.com/ If you are looking for vital records (birth, Death, Marriage, divorce degrees, naturalization, adoption and land records) you will need to scroll down and click on the state you are interested in. This site is free for 7 days.
FOOTNOTE.COM LETS PEOPLE CREATE AMERICA’S FAMILY TREE THROUGH THE ONLY INTERACTIVE U.S. CENSUS
Lindon, UT - March 11, 2010 – In order to encourage more people to find their ancestors and connect with family, Footnote.com, the web’s premier interactive history site, is opening all of their U.S. census documents for free to the public for a limited time.
Color-Coding Unverified Data Whenever I receive information that hasn’t been proven, or doesn’t have citations or documentations, I save it for a trail to further my research. No sense reinventing the wheel. But I make sure I put the data in my computer in red type. KAs I’m able to prove the information, I can easily change the color to black. This way my cousins and others know what work I’ve don myself and what’s been “donated” but not proven.
Family Tree Newsletter
Many thanks to Marsha Green for the following items:
Free Online Genealogy Books - This website has extensive links to genealogy books online. It identifies free digitized American biographies, genealogies and history books and categorizes them by state, subject, and material type. This is a site to bookmark! Go to: www.genealogybooklinks.com
Source: Generations Newsletter, March 2010, Washington DC Family History Center [info@wdcfhc.org]
Ancestral Atlas - I just happened upon a website that I find interesting and potentially very useful. It is called Ancestral Atlas and the URL is http://www.ancestralatlas.com/ancestral-atlas-genealogy-mapping-network.php Source: Venita Roylance, FHCNET mailing list, 3/7/2010
Dropbox - You can use this service to automatically backup a subset of files and access them when traveling, easily share files with friends and family, etc. It is easy to use because it appears as a regular folder on your computer. https://www.dropbox.com
Here is a pleasant surprise: the Internet Archive is placing the 1930 U.S. Census online and is making it available at no charge. This is a "work in progress;" but the census records from many states are available now, and the remaining states will be added in the near future. Read more about it at:
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/03/1930-us-census-available-free-of-charge-on-the-internet-archive.html
What You Can Learn From Your Ancestor's SSN - Found an ancestor's Social Security Number using the Social Security Death Index? Here's what you can learn from those nine digits: The first three digits designate the state or territory where the number was issued. The next pair of digits relate to the sequence in which numbers were issued. The final four digits were assigned chronologically as forms were processed. SSNs beginning with 700 to 728 were used for railroad workers in the Railroad Retirement system. You can "decode" your ancestor's SSN using Stephen P. Morse's one-step tool. http://stevemorse.org/ssn/ssn.html
Submitted by Barb DeHart, This tip comes from George G. Morgan's Document Detective column in the May 2010 Family Tree Magazine.
Caution Type: U.S. Census Scam
Method of Delivery: In Person
Primary Region Effected: All Regions (National)
Source: Better Business Bureau (www.BBB.org)
Scam Characteristics:
Beginning March of this year the U.S. Census Bureau's will send out a short questionnaire to every household in the U.S. and Puerto Rico in an effort to collect important demographic data. As a citizen, you are required by law to respond to the 10 short questions. From April to July, those that haven't completed their census will receive a visit at their home address from a census taker.
Identity criminals are taking advantage of the census law and targeting unsuspecting victims in an attempt to steal sensitive information. The scams perpetrated range from fraudulent emails designed to obtain sensitive information to attempts to impersonate census collectors.
Most Citizens don't think twice about sharing personal information with a census worker, and that's why these scams can be very effective. It's important to remember there are distinct differences between a real census worker and an identity thief posing as a census worker.
U.S. Census workers will have identification, a handheld device and a confidentiality notice. But these things can be easily fabricated, so it's important to know what census workers will not do:
They will not ask for your Social Security number or financial information, e.g. bank or credit card accounts.
They will not ask you for money or say that you owe money.
They will not harass or intimidate you.
They will not contact you by email- only by phone, by mail, or in person.
For more information on this scam or variations of it visit the Social Security Administration’s website at www.ssa.gov. Use the search function and enter keywords "email scam".
It is recommended that you follow universal safety rules-- even with U.S. Census workers. For example, avoid inviting strangers into your home, and be suspicious when someone asks for your personal and sensitive information.
To learn more about the 2010 Census and U.S. Census workers, call (800) 923-8282 or visit them online at www.2010census.gov.
Coming Events
April 28–May 1, 2010 Full week of Genealogy Conferences. Highlighted by the National Genealogical Society 2010 Family History Conference, Brigham Young University 2010 Conference on Computerized Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University 10th Annual Family History Technology Workshop, and FamilySearch’s 2010 Developers Conference
If you want to attend the NGS conference classes, price and registration information can be found at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/attendee_registration. For additional information, please visit: http://familysearch.org/ngs2010.
Saturday, May 15, 2010 Hemet Family History Seminar “Harvesting the Family Tree”
Keynote speaker will be Jean Wilcox Hibben. Registration begins at 8am. Classes start at 9am. Pre-registration must be received by May 5, 2010.
No charge for classes. Syllabus $14.00 Lunch $9.00. A list of classes is available at the Redlands Family History Center or contact hemetfhc@gmail.com or call (951)658-8104 for more information
Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 1:00pm at the Yucaipa Valley Genealogical Society at the Yucaipa Branch Library. Speaker will be Jean Wilcox Hibben.
Topic will be "Communicating in your Ancestors' Homeland: Understanding Other Cultures Can Make or Break Overseas Research".
Sunday, April 25, 2010 at 7:00pm Family History Research Class at the Redlands Stake Center High Council Room. Subject: “FamilySearch Indexing
& Pilot”. Presenter: Yvonne Gadbois
NEW FACE FOR FAMILYSEARCH
Within the next few months you will see a new homepage for Family Search. Right now it is being Beta tested. If you would like to get a feeling for this new look you can go to http://fsbeta.familysearch.org/ Within this new site, under the tab "Search", you will find the Wiki, Forums, Record search, Indexing. New Family Search will become a new tab named Family Tree.
WHAT IS FAMILYSEARCH WIKI?
FamilySearch Wiki, a new Web site at https://wiki.FamilySearch.org, will help you answer difficult research questions. FamilySearch Wiki is developed by the community of users. It is dedicated to helping people throughout the world to find, use, and analyze records of genealogical value. It will include the following:
· Content currently on FamilySearch.org. The wiki will replace the Research Guidance and Research Helps tabs on FamilySearch.org. The Church’s current research publications (research outlinges, foreign word lists, “Finding Records of Your Ancestors”) are in the Wiki with these important changes:
o Long publication have been divided into short articles so users do not need to read a 40 page publication to find answers.
o A Search engine makes the information easier to find.
o Content has been updated with current Web site addresses, contact information for libraries and archives, and other facts.
o Content has been added to cover localities, topics, and records never before covered on FamilySearch.org.
· New content. The community, including staff from the Family History Library, adds new information each day. This allows frequent updates and increased coverage of localities and ethnic, religious, and racial groups. The site currently has limited content in some areas and richer content in others.
The strategy that FamilySearch is recommending is that patrons be taught how to use the Wiki and the Forums. We talked about the Forums in the January Newsletter. This is a way of “social networking” or contacting others who might be working on your same lines.
As people learn to use these helps they can pretty much find any sources they may need to continue with their research. Everything links to a place to search. The new motto for FamilySearch is “Click and you shall receive”
FamilySearch Account or LDS Account FamilySearch Account makes it easier to access FamilySearch sites! Enjoy the convenience of just one user name and password for all participating FamilySearch Web sites, including FamilySearch indexing. Once you register, you can sign in to FamilySearch sites using either a FamilySearch Account or an LDS Account (which is tied to LDS Church membership). The FamilySearch Account/LDS Account is free and replaces your prior user names and passwords. You can register for these accounts at: https://wiki.FamilySearch.org or https://new.familysearch.org Please note: When you sign in to nFS now you will be directed to use your LDS account user name and password.
FAMILYSEARCH AFFILIATES
FamilySearch Certified Affiliates are third-party companies that provide products and services with features that are compatible with FamilySearch programs. Certification indicates the affiliate’s declaration of compliance with FamilySearch requirements. Note that these products and services are independently developed and supported by their respective organizations, not by FamilySearch. To see a list of certified software programs and Internet links to their Web sites, click this link: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/affiliates/index.html New affiliate programs are being certified on a regular basis, so be sure to check this website frequently. Links to affiliate Web sites can be found by following the above link. Some of these affiliates are: Ancestral Quest, Roots Magic 4, Family Insight, MagiKey Family Tree, Legacy, Mobile tree, Note from Larry and Phyllis Pope: Read about the App for Family Search (Ipod phone and Ipod touch) at http://mormontimes.com/print/?id=14005 Photoloom (Go to www.familyphotoloom.com ). Ages-online is an internet genealogy program. Take a look at http://www.ages-online.com
(Update as of Mar. 29. If you would like to see a new list of affiliates go to the sign in page of NFS and click on “More great products”)
The FamilySearch Family History Library is now making its popular classes available at http://www.familysearch.org , where anyone anywhere in the world can access them for free at a time that is convenient for them. The classes have been offered on-site in Salt Lake City for years. Until now, attendance has been limited to those patrons who are fortunate to live in the surrounding community or happen to be visiting the library as part of a research trip. Making the classes available online allows access to many more patrons.
There are currently 23 Family History Library classes available online, with subjects ranging from European research to United States military records. The most popular offerings are the Beginning Research Series for Ireland and England and a class on descendancy research.
The classes vary in length from 6 to 58 minutes, with most lasting about 25 minutes. The format of the class varies, depending on the content being presented. One type of class shows a video that alternates between the teacher and the PowerPoint slides. Another kind of class integrates video of the presenter, the accompanying PowerPoint slides, and links to supplemental materials all in one screen. Several of the classes are interactive, such as a course on reading German handwriting. In these classes, the teacher is represented with still photographs and audio narration, and the student can actively participate in learning activities, such as matching English and German characters or transcribing selected words from a document. As a student types, the correct text appears in green and incorrect answers appear in red, providing immediate feedback.
FREE TRIALS-Legacy Just go to http://www.legacyfamilytree.com. Here you will find a free download for the basic program. You will need to pay for the deluxe version but the free version will get you started in organizing and printing out family files in book form. Legacy will work on Window 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP, or Vista. Legacy will also run on newer Macs with Parallel, Boot camp or Fusion. It features a complete source citation system which is extremely important. Legacy imports both Personal Ancestral File® information as well as GEDCOM files.
RootsMagic Essentials is available for free at http://www.rootsmagic.com Users of other genealogy software products will find it easy to experiment with RootsMagic Essentials using their own data. Roots Magic Essentials can directly import data from PAF, Family Tree Maker (through 2006), Family Origins, and Legacy Family Tree. It can also read and write data using the GEDCOM format. This is not the full RootsMagic4 version.
Ancestral Quest has a free 60 day trial available from www.ancquest.com Reg. cost $29.95
SOME FAVORITE SITES LISTED AT FHCNET (You may need to copy and paste these in your browser)
www.genuki.org.uk -- THE place to start British research.
www.namethesaurus.com -- will show names that may sound alike -- uses 3 separate coding systems, not including LDS', which is VERY helpful if you suspect a dialect problem.
www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc -- manuscript collection index at Library of Congress.
www.dar.org has recently mounted some data that's available to the public
www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook has been useful on occasion.
www.sachsen.de/en/bf/verwaltung/archivverwaltung/inhalt_archive.html resource of Saxony-German research ...and don't forget the WorldGenWeb.org -- some places are a lot more useful than others, but you owe it to yourself to look.
FOOTNOTE has started an Interactive Census Collection.
Lindon, UT - March 11, 2010 – In order to encourage more people to find their ancestors and connect with family, Footnote.com, the web’s premier interactive history site, is opening all of their U.S. census documents for free to the public for a limited time.
Unlike any other historical collection on the web, the Interactive Census Collection has the unique ability to connect people related to ancestors found on the historical documents. Simply by clicking the I’m Related button for a name on the document will identify you as a descendent and also list others that have done the same. Never before has it been as easy to connect with distant relatives through historical documents. Finding a record featuring an ancestors name provides not only an emotional experience but also a connection with the past. On Footnote.com it’s more than just finding a name on a census record. Interactive tools allow people to enhance the documents by adding their own contributions including: Photos, Stories, Comments, other related documents.
Check out the Interactive Census at Footnote - Free for a limited time.
World Vital Records This month we have some great updates planned.
Web Site Redesign: We are in the process of launching our new site design and are excited for many of the improvements we have made. So keep your eye out for the announcement and please provide us any feedback. New Military Collections: We will be releasing some exciting military collections this month that will include the Air Force Officer Register Collection featuring over 1.65 million names of Air Force Officers who served in the military during 1958-1962.
We are excited for the upcoming improvements and content that will be coming.
WorldCat.org, Google Books and more...
WorldCat.org is a major international connection to over 10,000 libraries worldwide and catalogs over 1.5 billion items. Google Books contains over 10,000,000 digitized books and magazines. WorldCat.org and Google Books are now interlinked. If you search for a book on Google Books and find the item, one of the options is to find the item in a library. Clicking on this option gives you a link to WorldCat.org. The WorldCat search for the item gives you the full citation, a reference to every edition of the item and by entering your zip code, a list of libraries that have the item, including the distance from your own location. Quoting from the OCLC Website
Newspapers on line I personally would not like to go without one of the options to NewspaperArchives. I get a tremendous about of data from them. But I like to enhance my genealogy and make it family history. I love old newspapers because they published every little thing that went on in town. I get obits, marriage announcements, divorces, court cases, parties with family members attending, accidents, awards, pictures of people and even ads. It's a wealth of resources.
http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home
http://news2.nnyln.net/essex-county/search.html
http://digitalnewspapers.org/
http://www.cyndislist.com/newspapr.htm
http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/contentsearch.aspx?&rt=news (Access free at the FHC Portal)
World Vital Records does have some newspapers but not the entire newspaperarchive.com package.
Godfrey Memorial Library has a full subscription to newspaperarchives.com through their subscription site or it is also free at FHCs.(Email from FHCNET)
Bits and Pieces
Vital records - http://vitalrec.com/ If you are looking for vital records (birth, Death, Marriage, divorce degrees, naturalization, adoption and land records) you will need to scroll down and click on the state you are interested in. This site is free for 7 days.
FOOTNOTE.COM LETS PEOPLE CREATE AMERICA’S FAMILY TREE THROUGH THE ONLY INTERACTIVE U.S. CENSUS
Lindon, UT - March 11, 2010 – In order to encourage more people to find their ancestors and connect with family, Footnote.com, the web’s premier interactive history site, is opening all of their U.S. census documents for free to the public for a limited time.
Color-Coding Unverified Data Whenever I receive information that hasn’t been proven, or doesn’t have citations or documentations, I save it for a trail to further my research. No sense reinventing the wheel. But I make sure I put the data in my computer in red type. KAs I’m able to prove the information, I can easily change the color to black. This way my cousins and others know what work I’ve don myself and what’s been “donated” but not proven.
Family Tree Newsletter
Many thanks to Marsha Green for the following items:
Free Online Genealogy Books - This website has extensive links to genealogy books online. It identifies free digitized American biographies, genealogies and history books and categorizes them by state, subject, and material type. This is a site to bookmark! Go to: www.genealogybooklinks.com
Source: Generations Newsletter, March 2010, Washington DC Family History Center [info@wdcfhc.org]
Ancestral Atlas - I just happened upon a website that I find interesting and potentially very useful. It is called Ancestral Atlas and the URL is http://www.ancestralatlas.com/ancestral-atlas-genealogy-mapping-network.php Source: Venita Roylance, FHCNET mailing list, 3/7/2010
Dropbox - You can use this service to automatically backup a subset of files and access them when traveling, easily share files with friends and family, etc. It is easy to use because it appears as a regular folder on your computer. https://www.dropbox.com
Here is a pleasant surprise: the Internet Archive is placing the 1930 U.S. Census online and is making it available at no charge. This is a "work in progress;" but the census records from many states are available now, and the remaining states will be added in the near future. Read more about it at:
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/03/1930-us-census-available-free-of-charge-on-the-internet-archive.html
What You Can Learn From Your Ancestor's SSN - Found an ancestor's Social Security Number using the Social Security Death Index? Here's what you can learn from those nine digits: The first three digits designate the state or territory where the number was issued. The next pair of digits relate to the sequence in which numbers were issued. The final four digits were assigned chronologically as forms were processed. SSNs beginning with 700 to 728 were used for railroad workers in the Railroad Retirement system. You can "decode" your ancestor's SSN using Stephen P. Morse's one-step tool. http://stevemorse.org/ssn/ssn.html
Submitted by Barb DeHart, This tip comes from George G. Morgan's Document Detective column in the May 2010 Family Tree Magazine.
Caution Type: U.S. Census Scam
Method of Delivery: In Person
Primary Region Effected: All Regions (National)
Source: Better Business Bureau (www.BBB.org)
Scam Characteristics:
Beginning March of this year the U.S. Census Bureau's will send out a short questionnaire to every household in the U.S. and Puerto Rico in an effort to collect important demographic data. As a citizen, you are required by law to respond to the 10 short questions. From April to July, those that haven't completed their census will receive a visit at their home address from a census taker.
Identity criminals are taking advantage of the census law and targeting unsuspecting victims in an attempt to steal sensitive information. The scams perpetrated range from fraudulent emails designed to obtain sensitive information to attempts to impersonate census collectors.
Most Citizens don't think twice about sharing personal information with a census worker, and that's why these scams can be very effective. It's important to remember there are distinct differences between a real census worker and an identity thief posing as a census worker.
U.S. Census workers will have identification, a handheld device and a confidentiality notice. But these things can be easily fabricated, so it's important to know what census workers will not do:
They will not ask for your Social Security number or financial information, e.g. bank or credit card accounts.
They will not ask you for money or say that you owe money.
They will not harass or intimidate you.
They will not contact you by email- only by phone, by mail, or in person.
For more information on this scam or variations of it visit the Social Security Administration’s website at www.ssa.gov. Use the search function and enter keywords "email scam".
It is recommended that you follow universal safety rules-- even with U.S. Census workers. For example, avoid inviting strangers into your home, and be suspicious when someone asks for your personal and sensitive information.
To learn more about the 2010 Census and U.S. Census workers, call (800) 923-8282 or visit them online at www.2010census.gov.
Coming Events
April 28–May 1, 2010 Full week of Genealogy Conferences. Highlighted by the National Genealogical Society 2010 Family History Conference, Brigham Young University 2010 Conference on Computerized Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University 10th Annual Family History Technology Workshop, and FamilySearch’s 2010 Developers Conference
If you want to attend the NGS conference classes, price and registration information can be found at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/attendee_registration. For additional information, please visit: http://familysearch.org/ngs2010.
Saturday, May 15, 2010 Hemet Family History Seminar “Harvesting the Family Tree”
Keynote speaker will be Jean Wilcox Hibben. Registration begins at 8am. Classes start at 9am. Pre-registration must be received by May 5, 2010.
No charge for classes. Syllabus $14.00 Lunch $9.00. A list of classes is available at the Redlands Family History Center or contact hemetfhc@gmail.com or call (951)658-8104 for more information
Sunday, March 7, 2010
March Newsletter
REDLANDS-YUCAIPA MULTI-STAKE
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 3 MARCH 2010
IRISH GENEALOGY WEBSITES: Start your Irish Research with a class from Family Search (Update) “We are pleased to announce that the Ireland Beginning Research Series has been added to the Research Series Classes Online page of the FamilySearch.org Web site”.
The official website of Irish Genealogy Limited (IGL) was set up in 1993 to manage and market the Irish genealogical Project. This web site is dedicated to helping you in your search for records of family history for past generations. You can view over 1.3 million church records free of charge. http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/
There are over 1000 genealogy links for Ireland, including Irish ships passenger lists, immigrant records, censuses, cemetery lists, etc.
http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/index.html
Family Research - English, Scottish and Irish Genealogy ... An Irish genealogy website, created in Ireland, carrying information on genealogical resources, ...
www.cyndislist.com/ireland.htm
From http://internet-genealogy.com an excerpt from the March edition of the magazine.
“Welcome home. This is the Irish Roots Café where every day’s a holiday and there’s always room for one more.” Mike O’Laughlin begins every podcast with this pronouncement, which is typical of Irish hospitality. O’Laughlin, with personal family roots going back to counties Clare and Kerry, founded his project in 1978, which now includes the popular site, http://www.irishroots.com; a blog, http://www.irishroots.com/blog/; an annual print journal of Irish families (which O’Laughlin is considering transitioning to online only); hundreds of Irish genealogical-related articles and several books; genealogical resources on every county in Ireland (The Irish Families Project); and reprints of some old Irish histories and biographies.
(Note: We have a subscription to this magazine in our FHC.)
Family Search Update
FamilySearch is pleased to announce that it has added two links to the Hispanic Family History Resources page, which is available in both English and Spanish, on its FamilySearch home page at www.familysearch.org. These two links are titled: Hispanic Family History Resources
And Recursos de Historia Familiar (Español)
The information actually resides on the FamilySearch Research Wiki and may be directly accessed at the following research Wiki links:
English: Hispanic Family History Resources
Spanish: Recursos de Historia Familiar (Español)
FamilySearch continues to make progress on indexing the 1910 and 1920 United States Censuses, with five new states released this week. In addition, new international projects
New Projects in the Past Two Weeks
· Deutschland, Baden, Achern- Kirchebucher,. 1810-1869 (Part B)
· Espana, Malaga-Registros Civiles, 1846-1870
· Jamaica – Civil Births, 1878-1899 (Part A)
· Norway-1875 Census (Part B) In partnership with DIS-Norge)
· US, Alaska- 1920 Federal Census
· US, Hawaii- 1920 Federal Census
· US, Illinois – 1910 Federal Census
· US, Indiana – 1910 Federal Census
· US, Iowa – 1910 Federal Census
Church History Library and Archives The collections of the Church History Library and Archives contain materials chronicling the history of the Church from its beginning in 1830 to the present day. The collections contain manuscripts, books, Church records, photographs, oral histories, architectural drawings, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, maps, microforms, and audiovisual materials. The staff creates and maintains catalogs and indexes for accessing this wide variety of information.
Click on Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel (1847-1868) The most complete index of individuals and companies that crossed the plains to Utah between 1847 and 1868. Include transcribed excerpts from trail diaries, letters, and newspaper reports. http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/library/pioneercompanysearch/1,15773,3966-1,00.html
If you have questions, at the bottom of the screen is an “Ask a librarian” link.
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER “PORTAL” UPDATES
Collections added by WorldVitalRecords: City Directories from New York City and Vietnam War Records City Directories for New York, New York (available 1/21/2010)
Directories of residents, organizations, and businesses in New York, New York, 1786-1922 (and some undated). Before the modern phone book, many cities and towns published alphabetical directories of their residents and businesses. These publications contain names and addresses for most adults and businesses in the city and may include references to age, occupation, employer, the name of a deceased spouse, and other information. These directories tended to be published more often than every ten years, so they give a more dynamic picture of a city's population than the decennial US census, in partnership with Footnote.com.
Church Records and City Histories for New York and Connecticut
The Catskill Mountains and the Region Around The Catskill Mountains and the Region Around. Rockwell, Charles. (1867) Records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Port Richmond, Staten Island, Baptisms From 1696 To 1772 Records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Port Richmond, S.I., Baptisms From 1696 To 1772: United Brethren Congregation, Commonly Called Moravian Church, S.I., Births and Baptisms: 1749 To 1853, Marriages: 1764 To 1863, Deaths and Burials: 1758 To 1828: St. Andrew's Church, Richmond, S.I., Births and Baptisms From 1752 To 1795, Marriages From 1754 To 1808. with Portrait of Rev. Melatiah Everett Dwight. Wright, Tobias Alexander. (1909)
The following announcement was written by Footnote.com:
-Over 27,000 Photos And Records Are Added To The Largest Online Vietnam War Collection-
Lindon, UT – February 4, 2010 – Today Footnote.com announced a major addition to its Vietnam War Collection: Army Photos and Unit Service Awards. Now totaling over 100,000 photos and documents, this collection helps visitors gain a better perspective and appreciation for this often-misunderstood event in U.S. History. “Our partnership with the National Archives has proven to be invaluable as we work to make these records more accessible,” explains Russell Wilding, CEO of Footnote.com. “Previously you were required to travel to Washington, D.C. to see these records. Now anyone can access the original records through the internet.”
FAMILY TREE WEBSITES AND BLOGS
MYHERITAGE.COM -With 13 million family trees, 47 million members and 530 million profiles, MyHeritage.com becomes the largest international site dedicated to families on the web. You can upload pictures with little effort; add names and notations about each picture and person. Additionally, this site has a real nice facial recognition program. It searches all of your uploaded photos, finds the faces and catalogs them. You can see all of the faces that the program thinks are the same person, unselect those that are not the same person, and enter the person's name. Once you enter the name of the person in the picture you will see the possible matches in your family tree and you can associate the pictures with the person in your tree. The tree view looks like your typical pedigree layout and is easy to move around in. (Caution: If you are invited to come on the site and add any additional data, DO NOT add your full data base of names. You can get your own MyHeritage site for free!!)
ITSOURTREE.COM - ItsOurTree.com is a similar website. This one is free to use, and allows you to load up your family pictures but no facial recognition capabilities here. You can also invite friends to collaborate with you and help build your family tree. You might want to check out the reviews by Dick Eastman http://tinyurl.com/6alyrs and Renee Zamora at http://tinyurl.com/67uv9a to see what they think of the site.
BLOGS, short for Weblogs, is an on line journal. It is important to note that even in a genealogy blog, genealogy does not have to be the sole focus. Some bloggers highlight their genealogical pursuits or their own family history in only one section of a blog, yet the blog can still be known among genealogist as a useful site. One blogger, Jasia from Creative Gene, (http://creativegene.blogspot.com) started her blog as a creative writing outlet focusing on photography and creative writing as well as the general topic of genealogy, specifically Polish and Detroit genealogy in particular. It quickly went in the direction of genealogy, and she has started a second blog that focus’ on Creative Genealogy (http://creativegenealogy.blogspot.com) which talks about scrapbooking and writing a family history. Two blogs you might enjoy are Jean Hibbens blog, http://circlemending.blogspot.com and Gena Orgega’s blog, http://philibertfamily.blogspot.com Editors note: I have a Family blog which each of my children and grandchildren who have blogs link to and I just recently started a second blog to archive these Newsletters (http://marilynsfamilyhistorynews.blogspot.com).
Some blogs worth looking at are: Crowe’s Nest Genalogy Blog, by Elizabeth Powell Crowe http://blog.epcrowe.com This blog offers a wide range of information that will be helpful to anyone researching family history in North America. Dear Myrtle’s Genealogy Blog, by DearMyrtle, aka Pat Richley http://blog.dearmyrtle.com This is a long-standing genealogy advice column, started way back in the days of electronic bulletin boards. Genealogy Blog by Everton Publishers http://genealogyblog.com You won’t find folksy stories or eloquent essays here, just lots and lots of press releases and news from around the world.
FamilySearch Pilot Database & Documents Now Searchable at LiveRoots
I just got a note from my friend, Illya D’Addezio, telling me that genealogists can now view results from the Record Search pilot from within Live Roots.
“The FamilySearch Record Search pilot include millions of indexed records, and is expanding each month. When you perform a search in Live Roots, you will see a link to the FamilySearch Record Search feature in the “Available Partner Services” section. You also have the ability to search a specific collection within the Record Search pilot from the corresponding resource page. Resources from the pilot are cataloged in Live Roots as soon as they are posted online.”
Since you can search specific sites within live roots by searching individual Live Roots partner databases, I tested the search by going directly to the Live Roots Search & Preview page, and then searching for the surname “Daffern” in the FamilySearch.org Record Search box.
Twelve seconds later, I had numerous hits, including many entries from the Texas Death Certificates, 1900 U.S. Census, 1920 U.S. Census, and England Marriages, 1700-1900. Choosing the entry for Martin L. Daffern, Patty’s cousin, I was able to drill right on down to his death certificate. It took a few seconds to load the Certificate, but when it came up, it was great!
Try it out yourself at: http://www.genealogytoday.com/roots/live.mv?xc=RootsSearchPage&xo=lrdoc&xz=search.htm
(This info from www.genealogyblog.com)
Bits and Pieces
Find A Grave: www.findagrave.com You can search about 10 million grave records, add names and photographs, create virtual memorials, add cyber-flowers and a note to a loved one’s grave, and even search for graves of the famous (and Infamous!) You can also perform cemetery lookups by clicking the “Cemetery Lookup” link, typing in the first name of the cemetery and selecting the country and state. Find a grave is now #6 on the list of 50 most used sites.
Kansas State Historical Society: http://kshs.org/index.htm Don’t skip over this website just because you don’t have Kansas ancestors. This is one of my favorite websites. The Kansas State Historical Society has a large collection of microfilmed newspapers from throughout the United States and best of all you can order them through interlibrary loan. To see the list of newspapers, from the homepage, click on the link for Genealogists and then Newspapers. Go to the drop down menu and click on the state you are interested in. You can the look through a list of what newspapers they have for that state. 32 states are represented plus a few foreign newspapers including Cuba. (From Gena Philbert Ortega’s list of Genealogy Websites in WorldViltalRecords Newsletter)
Google Digitizes the Ottawa Citizen Archives Google has digitized and made available online most of the archives of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, putting about 2.5 million articles at your fingertips, the earliest from 1890. You may be amazed at the speed and ease with which you can find family history. Google's Advanced News Archive Search also contains the contents of a few hundred other newspaper archives and is available free of charge at http://news.google.ca/archivesearch/advanced_search.
Steve Morse and his One-Step Webpages. Some genealogists just seem to be dedicated to helping their fellow researchers. Steve Morse is one of those genealogists. He took his knowledge of technology and uses it to make genealogy searches simpler and more effective.
His website, One-Step Webpages at http://stevemorse.org/, allows researchers to easily search various online genealogy databases in one-step. Thus making searching easy and eliminating the need to make multiple searches. Simply put, his one-step searches take an already existing search engine and makes it better. (Email from Family History Expos, Inc.)
Coming Event: Super Bowl of Genealogy
We want to make you aware that four major family history conferences will all happen in one week in Salt Lake City this spring:
· National Genealogical Society 2010 Family History Conference
· Brigham Young University 2010 Conference on Computerized Family History and
Genealogy
· Brigham Young University 10th Annual Family History Technology Workshop
· FamilySearch’s 2010 Developers Conference
The premier event of the week is the National Genealogical Society’s annual conference. The theme for this year's NGS Conference is “Follow Your Ancestral Trail.” It will be held at the Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, Utah, on April 28–May 1, 2010.
If you want to attend the NGS conference classes, price and registration information can be found at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/attendee_registration. There is an early-bird discount until March 8, 2010.
This promises to be a full week of family history learning and activities that will help you better assist the members in your ward. We hope that you will come and enjoy the conference with us. For additional information, please visit: http://familysearch.org/ngs2010.
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
E-NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 3 MARCH 2010
IRISH GENEALOGY WEBSITES: Start your Irish Research with a class from Family Search (Update) “We are pleased to announce that the Ireland Beginning Research Series has been added to the Research Series Classes Online page of the FamilySearch.org Web site”.
The official website of Irish Genealogy Limited (IGL) was set up in 1993 to manage and market the Irish genealogical Project. This web site is dedicated to helping you in your search for records of family history for past generations. You can view over 1.3 million church records free of charge. http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/
There are over 1000 genealogy links for Ireland, including Irish ships passenger lists, immigrant records, censuses, cemetery lists, etc.
http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/ireland/index.html
Family Research - English, Scottish and Irish Genealogy ... An Irish genealogy website, created in Ireland, carrying information on genealogical resources, ...
www.cyndislist.com/ireland.htm
From http://internet-genealogy.com an excerpt from the March edition of the magazine.
“Welcome home. This is the Irish Roots Café where every day’s a holiday and there’s always room for one more.” Mike O’Laughlin begins every podcast with this pronouncement, which is typical of Irish hospitality. O’Laughlin, with personal family roots going back to counties Clare and Kerry, founded his project in 1978, which now includes the popular site, http://www.irishroots.com; a blog, http://www.irishroots.com/blog/; an annual print journal of Irish families (which O’Laughlin is considering transitioning to online only); hundreds of Irish genealogical-related articles and several books; genealogical resources on every county in Ireland (The Irish Families Project); and reprints of some old Irish histories and biographies.
(Note: We have a subscription to this magazine in our FHC.)
Family Search Update
FamilySearch is pleased to announce that it has added two links to the Hispanic Family History Resources page, which is available in both English and Spanish, on its FamilySearch home page at www.familysearch.org. These two links are titled: Hispanic Family History Resources
And Recursos de Historia Familiar (Español)
The information actually resides on the FamilySearch Research Wiki and may be directly accessed at the following research Wiki links:
English: Hispanic Family History Resources
Spanish: Recursos de Historia Familiar (Español)
FamilySearch continues to make progress on indexing the 1910 and 1920 United States Censuses, with five new states released this week. In addition, new international projects
New Projects in the Past Two Weeks
· Deutschland, Baden, Achern- Kirchebucher,. 1810-1869 (Part B)
· Espana, Malaga-Registros Civiles, 1846-1870
· Jamaica – Civil Births, 1878-1899 (Part A)
· Norway-1875 Census (Part B) In partnership with DIS-Norge)
· US, Alaska- 1920 Federal Census
· US, Hawaii- 1920 Federal Census
· US, Illinois – 1910 Federal Census
· US, Indiana – 1910 Federal Census
· US, Iowa – 1910 Federal Census
Church History Library and Archives The collections of the Church History Library and Archives contain materials chronicling the history of the Church from its beginning in 1830 to the present day. The collections contain manuscripts, books, Church records, photographs, oral histories, architectural drawings, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, maps, microforms, and audiovisual materials. The staff creates and maintains catalogs and indexes for accessing this wide variety of information.
Click on Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel (1847-1868) The most complete index of individuals and companies that crossed the plains to Utah between 1847 and 1868. Include transcribed excerpts from trail diaries, letters, and newspaper reports. http://www.lds.org/churchhistory/library/pioneercompanysearch/1,15773,3966-1,00.html
If you have questions, at the bottom of the screen is an “Ask a librarian” link.
FAMILY HISTORY CENTER “PORTAL” UPDATES
Collections added by WorldVitalRecords: City Directories from New York City and Vietnam War Records City Directories for New York, New York (available 1/21/2010)
Directories of residents, organizations, and businesses in New York, New York, 1786-1922 (and some undated). Before the modern phone book, many cities and towns published alphabetical directories of their residents and businesses. These publications contain names and addresses for most adults and businesses in the city and may include references to age, occupation, employer, the name of a deceased spouse, and other information. These directories tended to be published more often than every ten years, so they give a more dynamic picture of a city's population than the decennial US census, in partnership with Footnote.com.
Church Records and City Histories for New York and Connecticut
The Catskill Mountains and the Region Around The Catskill Mountains and the Region Around. Rockwell, Charles. (1867) Records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Port Richmond, Staten Island, Baptisms From 1696 To 1772 Records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Port Richmond, S.I., Baptisms From 1696 To 1772: United Brethren Congregation, Commonly Called Moravian Church, S.I., Births and Baptisms: 1749 To 1853, Marriages: 1764 To 1863, Deaths and Burials: 1758 To 1828: St. Andrew's Church, Richmond, S.I., Births and Baptisms From 1752 To 1795, Marriages From 1754 To 1808. with Portrait of Rev. Melatiah Everett Dwight. Wright, Tobias Alexander. (1909)
The following announcement was written by Footnote.com:
-Over 27,000 Photos And Records Are Added To The Largest Online Vietnam War Collection-
Lindon, UT – February 4, 2010 – Today Footnote.com announced a major addition to its Vietnam War Collection: Army Photos and Unit Service Awards. Now totaling over 100,000 photos and documents, this collection helps visitors gain a better perspective and appreciation for this often-misunderstood event in U.S. History. “Our partnership with the National Archives has proven to be invaluable as we work to make these records more accessible,” explains Russell Wilding, CEO of Footnote.com. “Previously you were required to travel to Washington, D.C. to see these records. Now anyone can access the original records through the internet.”
FAMILY TREE WEBSITES AND BLOGS
MYHERITAGE.COM -With 13 million family trees, 47 million members and 530 million profiles, MyHeritage.com becomes the largest international site dedicated to families on the web. You can upload pictures with little effort; add names and notations about each picture and person. Additionally, this site has a real nice facial recognition program. It searches all of your uploaded photos, finds the faces and catalogs them. You can see all of the faces that the program thinks are the same person, unselect those that are not the same person, and enter the person's name. Once you enter the name of the person in the picture you will see the possible matches in your family tree and you can associate the pictures with the person in your tree. The tree view looks like your typical pedigree layout and is easy to move around in. (Caution: If you are invited to come on the site and add any additional data, DO NOT add your full data base of names. You can get your own MyHeritage site for free!!)
ITSOURTREE.COM - ItsOurTree.com is a similar website. This one is free to use, and allows you to load up your family pictures but no facial recognition capabilities here. You can also invite friends to collaborate with you and help build your family tree. You might want to check out the reviews by Dick Eastman http://tinyurl.com/6alyrs and Renee Zamora at http://tinyurl.com/67uv9a to see what they think of the site.
BLOGS, short for Weblogs, is an on line journal. It is important to note that even in a genealogy blog, genealogy does not have to be the sole focus. Some bloggers highlight their genealogical pursuits or their own family history in only one section of a blog, yet the blog can still be known among genealogist as a useful site. One blogger, Jasia from Creative Gene, (http://creativegene.blogspot.com) started her blog as a creative writing outlet focusing on photography and creative writing as well as the general topic of genealogy, specifically Polish and Detroit genealogy in particular. It quickly went in the direction of genealogy, and she has started a second blog that focus’ on Creative Genealogy (http://creativegenealogy.blogspot.com) which talks about scrapbooking and writing a family history. Two blogs you might enjoy are Jean Hibbens blog, http://circlemending.blogspot.com and Gena Orgega’s blog, http://philibertfamily.blogspot.com Editors note: I have a Family blog which each of my children and grandchildren who have blogs link to and I just recently started a second blog to archive these Newsletters (http://marilynsfamilyhistorynews.blogspot.com).
Some blogs worth looking at are: Crowe’s Nest Genalogy Blog, by Elizabeth Powell Crowe http://blog.epcrowe.com This blog offers a wide range of information that will be helpful to anyone researching family history in North America. Dear Myrtle’s Genealogy Blog, by DearMyrtle, aka Pat Richley http://blog.dearmyrtle.com This is a long-standing genealogy advice column, started way back in the days of electronic bulletin boards. Genealogy Blog by Everton Publishers http://genealogyblog.com You won’t find folksy stories or eloquent essays here, just lots and lots of press releases and news from around the world.
FamilySearch Pilot Database & Documents Now Searchable at LiveRoots
I just got a note from my friend, Illya D’Addezio, telling me that genealogists can now view results from the Record Search pilot from within Live Roots.
“The FamilySearch Record Search pilot include millions of indexed records, and is expanding each month. When you perform a search in Live Roots, you will see a link to the FamilySearch Record Search feature in the “Available Partner Services” section. You also have the ability to search a specific collection within the Record Search pilot from the corresponding resource page. Resources from the pilot are cataloged in Live Roots as soon as they are posted online.”
Since you can search specific sites within live roots by searching individual Live Roots partner databases, I tested the search by going directly to the Live Roots Search & Preview page, and then searching for the surname “Daffern” in the FamilySearch.org Record Search box.
Twelve seconds later, I had numerous hits, including many entries from the Texas Death Certificates, 1900 U.S. Census, 1920 U.S. Census, and England Marriages, 1700-1900. Choosing the entry for Martin L. Daffern, Patty’s cousin, I was able to drill right on down to his death certificate. It took a few seconds to load the Certificate, but when it came up, it was great!
Try it out yourself at: http://www.genealogytoday.com/roots/live.mv?xc=RootsSearchPage&xo=lrdoc&xz=search.htm
(This info from www.genealogyblog.com)
Bits and Pieces
Find A Grave: www.findagrave.com You can search about 10 million grave records, add names and photographs, create virtual memorials, add cyber-flowers and a note to a loved one’s grave, and even search for graves of the famous (and Infamous!) You can also perform cemetery lookups by clicking the “Cemetery Lookup” link, typing in the first name of the cemetery and selecting the country and state. Find a grave is now #6 on the list of 50 most used sites.
Kansas State Historical Society: http://kshs.org/index.htm Don’t skip over this website just because you don’t have Kansas ancestors. This is one of my favorite websites. The Kansas State Historical Society has a large collection of microfilmed newspapers from throughout the United States and best of all you can order them through interlibrary loan. To see the list of newspapers, from the homepage, click on the link for Genealogists and then Newspapers. Go to the drop down menu and click on the state you are interested in. You can the look through a list of what newspapers they have for that state. 32 states are represented plus a few foreign newspapers including Cuba. (From Gena Philbert Ortega’s list of Genealogy Websites in WorldViltalRecords Newsletter)
Google Digitizes the Ottawa Citizen Archives Google has digitized and made available online most of the archives of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, putting about 2.5 million articles at your fingertips, the earliest from 1890. You may be amazed at the speed and ease with which you can find family history. Google's Advanced News Archive Search also contains the contents of a few hundred other newspaper archives and is available free of charge at http://news.google.ca/archivesearch/advanced_search.
Steve Morse and his One-Step Webpages. Some genealogists just seem to be dedicated to helping their fellow researchers. Steve Morse is one of those genealogists. He took his knowledge of technology and uses it to make genealogy searches simpler and more effective.
His website, One-Step Webpages at http://stevemorse.org/, allows researchers to easily search various online genealogy databases in one-step. Thus making searching easy and eliminating the need to make multiple searches. Simply put, his one-step searches take an already existing search engine and makes it better. (Email from Family History Expos, Inc.)
Coming Event: Super Bowl of Genealogy
We want to make you aware that four major family history conferences will all happen in one week in Salt Lake City this spring:
· National Genealogical Society 2010 Family History Conference
· Brigham Young University 2010 Conference on Computerized Family History and
Genealogy
· Brigham Young University 10th Annual Family History Technology Workshop
· FamilySearch’s 2010 Developers Conference
The premier event of the week is the National Genealogical Society’s annual conference. The theme for this year's NGS Conference is “Follow Your Ancestral Trail.” It will be held at the Salt Palace Convention Center, Salt Lake City, Utah, on April 28–May 1, 2010.
If you want to attend the NGS conference classes, price and registration information can be found at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/attendee_registration. There is an early-bird discount until March 8, 2010.
This promises to be a full week of family history learning and activities that will help you better assist the members in your ward. We hope that you will come and enjoy the conference with us. For additional information, please visit: http://familysearch.org/ngs2010.
Monday, February 1, 2010
REDLANDS-YUCAIPA MULTI-STAKE FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
REDLANDS-YUCAIPA MULTI-STAKE FAMILY HISTORY CENTER
NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 2 FEBRUARY 2010
FHC Phone Number: 909-794-3844. Located at 5th and Wabash in Redlands.
Hours: Tuesday thru Saturday---9:00am to 1:00pm. Tuesday and Wednesday Night---6:00pm to 9:00pm
Closed Sunday Nights except the 4th Sunday before the Research Class.
Coming Events:
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010 at 1:00pm. Yucaipa Valley Genealogical Society at the Yucaipa Branch Library. Dianna Rounds will be speaking on the “Resources in the Family History Center”
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010 Hemet-San Jacinto Gen. Soc. is sponsoring Leland K. Meitzler at the Hemet Public Library 9:00am-3:45pm. Pre-Reg. $25. At the door $30. For more information If you are interested go to http://www.yvgs.org/newsletters/jan10.pdf for the registration form.
Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010 at 7:00pm. Redlands Stake Center High Council Room, FHC Research Class. Speaker: Annette Spaulding. Topic: “New Family Search”
African American Heritage Month
February is Black History Month. Take this time to help out some of our members and patrons of African descent with their research. For starters, FamilySearch Record Pilot has the following records online at no cost to patrons: Freedman Bank Records (1865-1974), Freedman’s Bureau Virginia Marriages (ca.1815-1866), and the 1850 US Census Slave Schedule (not yet indexed).
On a podcast at Genealogyguys.com, Eiva asks about good books covering African-American genealogical research. The Guys suggest “Black Roots: A Beginner’s Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree” by Tony Burroughs and “A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your African American Ancestors” by Franklin Carter Smith and Emily Ann Croom.
Digital Library on American Slavery http://library.uncg.edu/slavery . This project is a cooperative venture between the Race and Slavery Petitions Project and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It offers a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders and free people of color. The information was gathered and analyzed over an 18 year period, drawn from petitions to southern legislatures and county courts filed between 1775 and 1867 in the 15 slaveholding states in the U.S. and District of Columbia. The data can be accessed in three ways: a keyword search, a search on a specific individual’s name or you can browse the holdings. Internet Genealogy, Dec/Jan 2010, p.6
What’s new at familysearch labs: Community Trees on FamilySearch Labs Writing in the FamilySearch Labs blog, Ray Madsen describes a newly-added feature:
You may have noticed the Community Trees link that showed up on the FamilySearch Labs home page a few weeks ago. If you’re into family history you’ll probably want to check it out. The Community Trees project allows FamilySearch to publish lineage-linked genealogies that cover a specific place and time. These trees are a genealogists dream. If you’re lucky enough to be doing research in an area covered by one of these trees you’ve just struck it rich. Each tree is searchable with views of individuals, families, ancestors and descendants. They can be printed and usually can be downloaded in GEDCOM format (sometimes licensing requirements don’t allow us to offer GEDCOM downloads). Best of all, each tree is linked to all of the supporting sources. Go to www.labs.familysearch.org and click on Blog for the latest info.
Free Podcast, Webinars and On Line Courses
Podcasts are like a pre-recorded radio program over the Internet. Podcasts do not allow for any interaction between the presenter and the audience. They are viewed at your convenience and are usually free to the viewer. You are able to stop, forward or rewind them. You can listen to them on site or download them to your computer, MP3 player or burn to a CD. Try them at www.genealogyguys.com and at Dear MTRTLE’S Family History Hour www.dearmyrtle.com
Webinars are web-based seminars, transmitted over the Internet, and take the form of a presentation, lecture or workshop. The primary feature of a webinar is its interactive capabilities, generally the ability to give, receive and discuss information live. Ususally they come with a cost but after the webinar is over you can listen to them for free (no interaction). Ancestry is one of these sites. They offer webinars that guide the audience through specific research problems but the older ones are available for viewing to everyone and include such topics as German ancestry, Irish ancestry and using Family Tree Maker. www.ancestry.com (You do not need a subscription for this)
.
OhanaSoftware has some FamilyInsight Tutorial Videos: http://www.OhanaSoftware.com/VideoTutorials also Free Live Webinar Trainings. Sign up, watch and ask questions…all from home. They have one on “How to Find U.S. Birth, Marriage, and Death Records (& Substitutes) on the Internet.” Guest presenter: Rae Lee Steinacker teaches Intermediate and Advanced Internet Research at the BYU Family History Center. To look at the list of past Webinars go to http://www.ohanasoftware.com/?sec=webinars&page=WebinarArchive
Free Online Genealogy Courses:
Family Search, www.familysearch.org, presents a series of research classes available online. These free lessons last approximately 15-60 min. with downloadable videos and a PDF of the class outline, along with class handouts. Go to the “Library” and click on “Education.” There you will find a list of the classes. (Update Jan.8) “We are pleased to announce that the Ireland Beginning Research Series has been added to the Research Series Classes Online page of the FamilySearch.org Web site.”
Another site is Learn Web Skills, www.learnwebskills.com. It offers a self-paced tutorial titled Researching Your Family Tree: An Introduction to Genealogy. This information is designed for beginner genealogists with basic computer and Internet skills. You will research your own family as you learn.
Brigham Young University, http://ce.byr.edu/is/site/index.cfm, extends family history courses through a partnership between the LDS and BYC. These free classes are available in a combination of audio, video and PDF’s with self-administered quizzes after each subject. Areas of study range from Introduction to Genealogy Research, record types and regional and ethnic studies.
Bits and Pieces
Allen County Public Library Goes Digital The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette has an interesting article about the local library. Indeed, visitors from all over the country visit the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne to use its excellent genealogy collection. It is believed to be the second-largest genealogy collection in the United States with more than 350,000 printed volumes and 513,000 items of microfilm and microfiche. According to the Journal Gazette, some patrons are using the library without visiting the library.
You can read this interesting story at http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091129/LOCAL/311299914/1002/LOCAL.
Gen Tip
While at Jo-Ann's Fabric and Craft superstore yesterday, I purchased a 12" by 12" "E-Z Load Memory Book" manufactured by Pioneer Photo Albums. It advertises itself to be of archival quality (acid, lignin, and PVC free). So I now have a place to put the physical photo of my grandparents' family. The size of the pages means that I can use the same album to store originals of other kinds of documents. To Do: Go thru existing files and locate, digitize, and store original documents. Posted by Drew Smith (Genealogyguys.com)
Reunion idea
Fifteen years ago I created a biography for each of my ancestors in the first six generations who hadn’t left one. At first some of the biographies were only a page or two long because all I had to start with was what was on their family group record. I added what photos I had at the time. Then I started giving out CD’s and later DVD’s of the ancestral bios to cousins and other relatives. The biographies are all organized alphabetically by surname. Because some fathers and sons had the same name I put the year of birth in parenthesis after the individuals name. Each bio is the info on the husband followed by the info on the wife. There are four tables in each bio – the family in which the husband was a child, the family in which the mother was a child, the family they had together and at the end of each bio, a table that gives all ordinance dates for each person in the family the couple had together.
As more and more people have learned about this project they have contacted me and sent me both info and pictures of people and documents, which have been inserted into the appropriate bios. Many second and third cousins I didn’t know before have sent so much info that now some of the bios are 60-70 pages long. Just recently my husband put all of the bios online (Dropbox.com) which is free for the first two GB. So I no longer have to make copies of the bios but simply give relatives the info on how to access the biographies. I now feel like I personally knew and will recognize my ancestors (especially those who lived after 1839 when photography was invented) because I have learned so much about them.
The reason for doing this was to help others know them as well as I do which will get them as excited about family history as I am. One daughter told me, “I had absolutely no interest in my ancestors UNTIL I read their biographies.” At one family reunion in Nauvoo we had family members give brief reports on ancestors who lived in Nauvoo. This year our reunion was in Palmyra and we talked about ancestors who lived in that general area.
A SITE TO GO LOOK AT-- The Original Record now has over 9 million entries directly available online. It includes a free unlimited search. All records are hand-indexed (no OCR). You may purchase sets of scans, or buy open access to the surname(s) of your choice, including variants.
FYI- Mac Computer owners who wonder about a genealogy program.
You can make part of your Mac a PC by installing one of the emulation programs (such as Paralells), then buying and installing a Windows operating system, and buying and installing the PC genealogy program of her choice. That's kinda like buying a Lexus then trying to make it into a Ford ...
Or you can use a genealogy program written for Mac - "Reunion." It is very user friendly, easy to learn, and LDS compatable. It does not yet sync with nFS, but you can open Reunion and nFS at the same time, put the windows side by side and compare the data.
My recommendation for any Mac user is to use Reunion. In the long run, it is cheaper than creating a PC on your Mac, and Reunion is the best genealogy program out there, bar none. (Just my opinion, of course.) It is available as a download from their website, or on a disk at your local Mac store, $100. either way. Their website is http://www.leisterpro.com/ If you would like to see the cool web pages it creates (so you can post your data on the internet) feel free to visit my personal website at http://homepage.mac.com/venitar/Genealogy/WebCards/wc_toc.htm
(This was posted on FHCNET recently as an answer to people with MAC’s who are having a hard time with a genealogy program)
FREE FROM OHANASOFTWARE-This page contains genealogy software programs that are freeware or shareware that we thought might be useful to some of our customers. Ohana Software did not develop these programs and so do not provide support for them. For help or support you should contact the developer of the program.
We would like to thank the developers for their time in developing these Genealogy tools and their willingness to share them with others.
PAF Pal by Steve Cannon >> ***NEW Dec 19, 2009
PRFMagnet by PedigreeMagnet Version 1.2.0 >> ***NEW June 9, 2008
PAF5 Multi-Media Packer by Lorin Lund >> ***UPDATED August 2009
GenDB Cemetery Database Creator by Joseph Irvine>> ***NEW Feb 1, 2006
PAF5Snoop by Lorin Lund>> ***NEW Feb 1, 2006
Ohana is also offering FREE – Get My Ancestors. This software can be found at their website, www.ohanasoftware.com. Go to downloads.
Native American research-- Footnote.com has announced that they have the following historical records available--Original records dating back to early 1700s become available on the Internet for the first time-
“Lindon, UT—November 19, 2009—Footnote.com announced today the release of their latest interactive collection of historical records: the Native American collection. Working together with the National Archives and the Allen County Library, Footnote.com has created a unique collection that will help people discover new details about Native American history.”
Footnote is available at the FHC through the FHC Portal on our computers.
NARA has a blog! http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/ A blog about Online Public Access to the Records of the US National Archives.
An index to New York City births 1901-1907 is now available online, thanks to the German Genealogy Group. You can find the New York City Birth Records index from 1901-07 at http://www.italiangen.org/NYCBirth search.asp and at http://www.germangenealogygroup.com/NYCBirthSearch.asp.
War letters, http://www.warletters.com. Founded in 1998, the Legacy Project is a national, all-volunteer initiative that encourages Americans to preserve the personal correspondence of our nation's veterans, active-duty troops and their loved ones. At the site, check out the books that have resulted in the link to digitzed collections of war letters.
Techology Helps FamilySearch
Volunteers Hit Major Milestone
By Heather Whittle Wrigley, Church Magazines
FamilySearch volunteers expect to have transcribed more than 325 million names by the end of 2009, just three years after the organization began its online indexing program.
The milestone was a number once thought impossible to reach in such a short period of time. In 2006, a few thousand volunteers indexed only 11 million names. But thanks to continuing advances in technology and a growing number of volunteers—more than 100,000 across fivecontinents—an estimated half million individual names are indexed each day.
At that rate, Paul Nauta, FamilySearch public affairs manager, expects that 500 million names will have been indexed by the end of 2010. And yet all this work barely makes a dent in the vast stores of historical records throughout the world, which grow by more than 100 million records (each with multiple names) every year. "We are not catching up," Brother Nauta said. "In preserving records alone, there are more records created in one year than we could ever film in decades with current technology." To hasten the work of making important historical records available online, the Church's Family History Department is continually working to develop new ways to preserve records not only as quickly as possible but at the highest quality possible. This has resulted in specially designed digital cameras, innovative scanning technology, and new software and applications. "It is not necessarily that we want to be pioneers in this field and this technology," Brother Nauta said. "But we are compelled to do it.
Capturing the Records
Representatives of the Church's Family History Department oversee the effort to acquire records, beginning with prioritizing what records would be most valuable to the public and matching limited human resources to gather them. Employees of the Family History Department then work with various churches, municipalities, archives, and governments to acquire or create copies of those records. Most institutions welcome the Church's efforts. "We have a good reputation as an organization that cares about the records as much as the archivists do," said Steven L. Waters, strategic relations manager for Europe. "In general, they are thankful to have an organization like ours that puts so many resources into preserving history."
In capturing records, an area is set up on-site where special cameras are used to create digital images of the historical documents. The process can take from a few weeks to several years depending on the size of the collection, the type of documents being copied, and the workers' experience levels. With cameras similar to those used by NASA and in other industrial settings, workers produce an image at a high resolution of 50 megapixels, using special software designed by FamilySearch engineers. Adjustments to the cameras, made by Church camera specialists, increase their lifespan from about 300,000 pictures to 500,000 per year for four years or more. Once a project is complete, up to a terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) of images and information is sent to Salt Lake City, where the images will be processed, preserved, copied, and distributed based on the contract specifications. Many images are published on FamilySearch.org; some are published on commercial genealogical Web sites; sometimes the archive itself publishes the work. "In the end, we may or may not get to personally publish the records," Brother Waters said. "But it's about making as many records as possible available to as many people as possible."
A Different Kind of Conversion
One of the most significant advancements for FamilySearch in recent years was put into place in 2005, when 15 high-speed scanners were developed to convert images previously contained on microfilm into digital images. These scanners are converting 2.5 million rolls of microfilm from the Church's Granite Mountain Records Vault into tens of millions of ready-to-index digital images. The scanners are like a camera: as the microfilm unwinds, the images on the microfilm are converted into a long ribbon of high-quality digital images. A computer program quality-checks the ribbon and uses special algorithms to break it up into individual images.
These rolls of microfilm include images of important historical documents gathered from all over the world—birth and death records, hospital records, family histories, immigration forms, historical books, and more. "To our knowledge, there is no company that does the level of vital records preservation that FamilySearch does," said Brother Nauta. "The records FamilySearch contains currently, when digitized, would equal 132 Libraries of Congress or 18 petabytes(1,000 terabytes) of data —and that doesn't include our ongoing acquisition efforts."
Taking It to the World
To make all of these digitized records available to the public, the Family History Department developed FamilySearchlndexing.org. There, anyone can download images of historical documents to a computer and transcribe the information to help create a database of names, dates, locations, and other information—free for all to search online at FamilySearch.org. Anyone can participate in indexing. If a home computer doesn't meet the requirements to run the indexing application (available for download at FamilySearchlndexing.org), the application can be found on computers at any one of the 4,600 family history centers around the world.
Already available in English, French, German, and Spanish, FamilySearch.org indexing added four more languages in 2009—Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish. "We've come from transcribing by hand to delivering digital images on CDs through the mail to Web-based applications where virtually anyone can be involved," Brother Nauta said. "We are quantum leaps from where we began. It's faster, more reliable, and more efficient." With the technological advances and the ever-increasing number of indexing volunteers, the Ellis Island historical records which a decade ago took 12,000 volunteers 12 years to complete—would take three weeks to index today. "That evolution of technology has been remarkable in getting everyone involved everywhere," said Paul D. Starkey, digital information process manager in the Family History Department. "The Internet has been an amazing technology to help this kind of work."
Beyond the Technology
Beyond the innovations in technology, at the heart of the hastening of the work are people. At any given moment, thousands of volunteers from around the world are working with FamilySearch Indexing. A growing number of them are not members of the Church. For some, preserving historical records is a commission to preserve the identity and heritage of a nation, organization, or community. For others, it lends a deepened sense of personal identity. "They confirm that they are part of a larger family fabric that has a rich history," Brother Nauta said. "We quickly learn that life as we know it isn't just about us in the here and now. Knowing the richer context of our family history gives us and our posterity something more to live up to—a legacy to fulfill and pass on after doing our part." For Church members, there is added value in being able to perform saving ordinances for ancestors in the temple. But for all, this growing interest in family history work was foretold. "It's in the scriptures," Brother Nauta said. "The hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers" (see D&C 2:1-2). Ensign Magazine, Dec. 2009, p.76
NEWSLETTER
Vol. 10, No. 2 FEBRUARY 2010
FHC Phone Number: 909-794-3844. Located at 5th and Wabash in Redlands.
Hours: Tuesday thru Saturday---9:00am to 1:00pm. Tuesday and Wednesday Night---6:00pm to 9:00pm
Closed Sunday Nights except the 4th Sunday before the Research Class.
Coming Events:
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010 at 1:00pm. Yucaipa Valley Genealogical Society at the Yucaipa Branch Library. Dianna Rounds will be speaking on the “Resources in the Family History Center”
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010 Hemet-San Jacinto Gen. Soc. is sponsoring Leland K. Meitzler at the Hemet Public Library 9:00am-3:45pm. Pre-Reg. $25. At the door $30. For more information If you are interested go to http://www.yvgs.org/newsletters/jan10.pdf for the registration form.
Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010 at 7:00pm. Redlands Stake Center High Council Room, FHC Research Class. Speaker: Annette Spaulding. Topic: “New Family Search”
African American Heritage Month
February is Black History Month. Take this time to help out some of our members and patrons of African descent with their research. For starters, FamilySearch Record Pilot has the following records online at no cost to patrons: Freedman Bank Records (1865-1974), Freedman’s Bureau Virginia Marriages (ca.1815-1866), and the 1850 US Census Slave Schedule (not yet indexed).
On a podcast at Genealogyguys.com, Eiva asks about good books covering African-American genealogical research. The Guys suggest “Black Roots: A Beginner’s Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree” by Tony Burroughs and “A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your African American Ancestors” by Franklin Carter Smith and Emily Ann Croom.
Digital Library on American Slavery http://library.uncg.edu/slavery . This project is a cooperative venture between the Race and Slavery Petitions Project and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It offers a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders and free people of color. The information was gathered and analyzed over an 18 year period, drawn from petitions to southern legislatures and county courts filed between 1775 and 1867 in the 15 slaveholding states in the U.S. and District of Columbia. The data can be accessed in three ways: a keyword search, a search on a specific individual’s name or you can browse the holdings. Internet Genealogy, Dec/Jan 2010, p.6
What’s new at familysearch labs: Community Trees on FamilySearch Labs Writing in the FamilySearch Labs blog, Ray Madsen describes a newly-added feature:
You may have noticed the Community Trees link that showed up on the FamilySearch Labs home page a few weeks ago. If you’re into family history you’ll probably want to check it out. The Community Trees project allows FamilySearch to publish lineage-linked genealogies that cover a specific place and time. These trees are a genealogists dream. If you’re lucky enough to be doing research in an area covered by one of these trees you’ve just struck it rich. Each tree is searchable with views of individuals, families, ancestors and descendants. They can be printed and usually can be downloaded in GEDCOM format (sometimes licensing requirements don’t allow us to offer GEDCOM downloads). Best of all, each tree is linked to all of the supporting sources. Go to www.labs.familysearch.org and click on Blog for the latest info.
Free Podcast, Webinars and On Line Courses
Podcasts are like a pre-recorded radio program over the Internet. Podcasts do not allow for any interaction between the presenter and the audience. They are viewed at your convenience and are usually free to the viewer. You are able to stop, forward or rewind them. You can listen to them on site or download them to your computer, MP3 player or burn to a CD. Try them at www.genealogyguys.com and at Dear MTRTLE’S Family History Hour www.dearmyrtle.com
Webinars are web-based seminars, transmitted over the Internet, and take the form of a presentation, lecture or workshop. The primary feature of a webinar is its interactive capabilities, generally the ability to give, receive and discuss information live. Ususally they come with a cost but after the webinar is over you can listen to them for free (no interaction). Ancestry is one of these sites. They offer webinars that guide the audience through specific research problems but the older ones are available for viewing to everyone and include such topics as German ancestry, Irish ancestry and using Family Tree Maker. www.ancestry.com (You do not need a subscription for this)
.
OhanaSoftware has some FamilyInsight Tutorial Videos: http://www.OhanaSoftware.com/VideoTutorials also Free Live Webinar Trainings. Sign up, watch and ask questions…all from home. They have one on “How to Find U.S. Birth, Marriage, and Death Records (& Substitutes) on the Internet.” Guest presenter: Rae Lee Steinacker teaches Intermediate and Advanced Internet Research at the BYU Family History Center. To look at the list of past Webinars go to http://www.ohanasoftware.com/?sec=webinars&page=WebinarArchive
Free Online Genealogy Courses:
Family Search, www.familysearch.org, presents a series of research classes available online. These free lessons last approximately 15-60 min. with downloadable videos and a PDF of the class outline, along with class handouts. Go to the “Library” and click on “Education.” There you will find a list of the classes. (Update Jan.8) “We are pleased to announce that the Ireland Beginning Research Series has been added to the Research Series Classes Online page of the FamilySearch.org Web site.”
Another site is Learn Web Skills, www.learnwebskills.com. It offers a self-paced tutorial titled Researching Your Family Tree: An Introduction to Genealogy. This information is designed for beginner genealogists with basic computer and Internet skills. You will research your own family as you learn.
Brigham Young University, http://ce.byr.edu/is/site/index.cfm, extends family history courses through a partnership between the LDS and BYC. These free classes are available in a combination of audio, video and PDF’s with self-administered quizzes after each subject. Areas of study range from Introduction to Genealogy Research, record types and regional and ethnic studies.
Bits and Pieces
Allen County Public Library Goes Digital The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette has an interesting article about the local library. Indeed, visitors from all over the country visit the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne to use its excellent genealogy collection. It is believed to be the second-largest genealogy collection in the United States with more than 350,000 printed volumes and 513,000 items of microfilm and microfiche. According to the Journal Gazette, some patrons are using the library without visiting the library.
You can read this interesting story at http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091129/LOCAL/311299914/1002/LOCAL.
Gen Tip
While at Jo-Ann's Fabric and Craft superstore yesterday, I purchased a 12" by 12" "E-Z Load Memory Book" manufactured by Pioneer Photo Albums. It advertises itself to be of archival quality (acid, lignin, and PVC free). So I now have a place to put the physical photo of my grandparents' family. The size of the pages means that I can use the same album to store originals of other kinds of documents. To Do: Go thru existing files and locate, digitize, and store original documents. Posted by Drew Smith (Genealogyguys.com)
Reunion idea
Fifteen years ago I created a biography for each of my ancestors in the first six generations who hadn’t left one. At first some of the biographies were only a page or two long because all I had to start with was what was on their family group record. I added what photos I had at the time. Then I started giving out CD’s and later DVD’s of the ancestral bios to cousins and other relatives. The biographies are all organized alphabetically by surname. Because some fathers and sons had the same name I put the year of birth in parenthesis after the individuals name. Each bio is the info on the husband followed by the info on the wife. There are four tables in each bio – the family in which the husband was a child, the family in which the mother was a child, the family they had together and at the end of each bio, a table that gives all ordinance dates for each person in the family the couple had together.
As more and more people have learned about this project they have contacted me and sent me both info and pictures of people and documents, which have been inserted into the appropriate bios. Many second and third cousins I didn’t know before have sent so much info that now some of the bios are 60-70 pages long. Just recently my husband put all of the bios online (Dropbox.com) which is free for the first two GB. So I no longer have to make copies of the bios but simply give relatives the info on how to access the biographies. I now feel like I personally knew and will recognize my ancestors (especially those who lived after 1839 when photography was invented) because I have learned so much about them.
The reason for doing this was to help others know them as well as I do which will get them as excited about family history as I am. One daughter told me, “I had absolutely no interest in my ancestors UNTIL I read their biographies.” At one family reunion in Nauvoo we had family members give brief reports on ancestors who lived in Nauvoo. This year our reunion was in Palmyra and we talked about ancestors who lived in that general area.
A SITE TO GO LOOK AT-- The Original Record now has over 9 million entries directly available online. It includes a free unlimited search. All records are hand-indexed (no OCR). You may purchase sets of scans, or buy open access to the surname(s) of your choice, including variants.
FYI- Mac Computer owners who wonder about a genealogy program.
You can make part of your Mac a PC by installing one of the emulation programs (such as Paralells), then buying and installing a Windows operating system, and buying and installing the PC genealogy program of her choice. That's kinda like buying a Lexus then trying to make it into a Ford ...
Or you can use a genealogy program written for Mac - "Reunion." It is very user friendly, easy to learn, and LDS compatable. It does not yet sync with nFS, but you can open Reunion and nFS at the same time, put the windows side by side and compare the data.
My recommendation for any Mac user is to use Reunion. In the long run, it is cheaper than creating a PC on your Mac, and Reunion is the best genealogy program out there, bar none. (Just my opinion, of course.) It is available as a download from their website, or on a disk at your local Mac store, $100. either way. Their website is http://www.leisterpro.com/ If you would like to see the cool web pages it creates (so you can post your data on the internet) feel free to visit my personal website at http://homepage.mac.com/venitar/Genealogy/WebCards/wc_toc.htm
(This was posted on FHCNET recently as an answer to people with MAC’s who are having a hard time with a genealogy program)
FREE FROM OHANASOFTWARE-This page contains genealogy software programs that are freeware or shareware that we thought might be useful to some of our customers. Ohana Software did not develop these programs and so do not provide support for them. For help or support you should contact the developer of the program.
We would like to thank the developers for their time in developing these Genealogy tools and their willingness to share them with others.
PAF Pal by Steve Cannon >> ***NEW Dec 19, 2009
PRFMagnet by PedigreeMagnet Version 1.2.0 >> ***NEW June 9, 2008
PAF5 Multi-Media Packer by Lorin Lund >> ***UPDATED August 2009
GenDB Cemetery Database Creator by Joseph Irvine>> ***NEW Feb 1, 2006
PAF5Snoop by Lorin Lund>> ***NEW Feb 1, 2006
Ohana is also offering FREE – Get My Ancestors. This software can be found at their website, www.ohanasoftware.com. Go to downloads.
Native American research-- Footnote.com has announced that they have the following historical records available--Original records dating back to early 1700s become available on the Internet for the first time-
“Lindon, UT—November 19, 2009—Footnote.com announced today the release of their latest interactive collection of historical records: the Native American collection. Working together with the National Archives and the Allen County Library, Footnote.com has created a unique collection that will help people discover new details about Native American history.”
Footnote is available at the FHC through the FHC Portal on our computers.
NARA has a blog! http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/ A blog about Online Public Access to the Records of the US National Archives.
An index to New York City births 1901-1907 is now available online, thanks to the German Genealogy Group. You can find the New York City Birth Records index from 1901-07 at http://www.italiangen.org/NYCBirth search.asp and at http://www.germangenealogygroup.com/NYCBirthSearch.asp.
War letters, http://www.warletters.com. Founded in 1998, the Legacy Project is a national, all-volunteer initiative that encourages Americans to preserve the personal correspondence of our nation's veterans, active-duty troops and their loved ones. At the site, check out the books that have resulted in the link to digitzed collections of war letters.
Techology Helps FamilySearch
Volunteers Hit Major Milestone
By Heather Whittle Wrigley, Church Magazines
FamilySearch volunteers expect to have transcribed more than 325 million names by the end of 2009, just three years after the organization began its online indexing program.
The milestone was a number once thought impossible to reach in such a short period of time. In 2006, a few thousand volunteers indexed only 11 million names. But thanks to continuing advances in technology and a growing number of volunteers—more than 100,000 across fivecontinents—an estimated half million individual names are indexed each day.
At that rate, Paul Nauta, FamilySearch public affairs manager, expects that 500 million names will have been indexed by the end of 2010. And yet all this work barely makes a dent in the vast stores of historical records throughout the world, which grow by more than 100 million records (each with multiple names) every year. "We are not catching up," Brother Nauta said. "In preserving records alone, there are more records created in one year than we could ever film in decades with current technology." To hasten the work of making important historical records available online, the Church's Family History Department is continually working to develop new ways to preserve records not only as quickly as possible but at the highest quality possible. This has resulted in specially designed digital cameras, innovative scanning technology, and new software and applications. "It is not necessarily that we want to be pioneers in this field and this technology," Brother Nauta said. "But we are compelled to do it.
Capturing the Records
Representatives of the Church's Family History Department oversee the effort to acquire records, beginning with prioritizing what records would be most valuable to the public and matching limited human resources to gather them. Employees of the Family History Department then work with various churches, municipalities, archives, and governments to acquire or create copies of those records. Most institutions welcome the Church's efforts. "We have a good reputation as an organization that cares about the records as much as the archivists do," said Steven L. Waters, strategic relations manager for Europe. "In general, they are thankful to have an organization like ours that puts so many resources into preserving history."
In capturing records, an area is set up on-site where special cameras are used to create digital images of the historical documents. The process can take from a few weeks to several years depending on the size of the collection, the type of documents being copied, and the workers' experience levels. With cameras similar to those used by NASA and in other industrial settings, workers produce an image at a high resolution of 50 megapixels, using special software designed by FamilySearch engineers. Adjustments to the cameras, made by Church camera specialists, increase their lifespan from about 300,000 pictures to 500,000 per year for four years or more. Once a project is complete, up to a terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) of images and information is sent to Salt Lake City, where the images will be processed, preserved, copied, and distributed based on the contract specifications. Many images are published on FamilySearch.org; some are published on commercial genealogical Web sites; sometimes the archive itself publishes the work. "In the end, we may or may not get to personally publish the records," Brother Waters said. "But it's about making as many records as possible available to as many people as possible."
A Different Kind of Conversion
One of the most significant advancements for FamilySearch in recent years was put into place in 2005, when 15 high-speed scanners were developed to convert images previously contained on microfilm into digital images. These scanners are converting 2.5 million rolls of microfilm from the Church's Granite Mountain Records Vault into tens of millions of ready-to-index digital images. The scanners are like a camera: as the microfilm unwinds, the images on the microfilm are converted into a long ribbon of high-quality digital images. A computer program quality-checks the ribbon and uses special algorithms to break it up into individual images.
These rolls of microfilm include images of important historical documents gathered from all over the world—birth and death records, hospital records, family histories, immigration forms, historical books, and more. "To our knowledge, there is no company that does the level of vital records preservation that FamilySearch does," said Brother Nauta. "The records FamilySearch contains currently, when digitized, would equal 132 Libraries of Congress or 18 petabytes(1,000 terabytes) of data —and that doesn't include our ongoing acquisition efforts."
Taking It to the World
To make all of these digitized records available to the public, the Family History Department developed FamilySearchlndexing.org. There, anyone can download images of historical documents to a computer and transcribe the information to help create a database of names, dates, locations, and other information—free for all to search online at FamilySearch.org. Anyone can participate in indexing. If a home computer doesn't meet the requirements to run the indexing application (available for download at FamilySearchlndexing.org), the application can be found on computers at any one of the 4,600 family history centers around the world.
Already available in English, French, German, and Spanish, FamilySearch.org indexing added four more languages in 2009—Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish. "We've come from transcribing by hand to delivering digital images on CDs through the mail to Web-based applications where virtually anyone can be involved," Brother Nauta said. "We are quantum leaps from where we began. It's faster, more reliable, and more efficient." With the technological advances and the ever-increasing number of indexing volunteers, the Ellis Island historical records which a decade ago took 12,000 volunteers 12 years to complete—would take three weeks to index today. "That evolution of technology has been remarkable in getting everyone involved everywhere," said Paul D. Starkey, digital information process manager in the Family History Department. "The Internet has been an amazing technology to help this kind of work."
Beyond the Technology
Beyond the innovations in technology, at the heart of the hastening of the work are people. At any given moment, thousands of volunteers from around the world are working with FamilySearch Indexing. A growing number of them are not members of the Church. For some, preserving historical records is a commission to preserve the identity and heritage of a nation, organization, or community. For others, it lends a deepened sense of personal identity. "They confirm that they are part of a larger family fabric that has a rich history," Brother Nauta said. "We quickly learn that life as we know it isn't just about us in the here and now. Knowing the richer context of our family history gives us and our posterity something more to live up to—a legacy to fulfill and pass on after doing our part." For Church members, there is added value in being able to perform saving ordinances for ancestors in the temple. But for all, this growing interest in family history work was foretold. "It's in the scriptures," Brother Nauta said. "The hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers" (see D&C 2:1-2). Ensign Magazine, Dec. 2009, p.76
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