Archive for July, 2010

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

Let’s be honest. When we’re researching our family history, there are always more places to check. The records of our ancestors’ lives don’t rise and set with the census, do they? I know that for me, one of the problems I run into is simply not knowing where to look.

For example, my Russian great grandfather didn’t immigrate until 1917, so I exhausted census and immigration records for him pretty quickly.

Then, while looking for something in The Source for work, I found myself browsing the newspaper chapter. I’d never thought much about newspapers; it seemed like such a long shot that any of my people would be listed. But The Source opened my eyes to historical newspapers and showed me ways my great grandfather could indeed be found there.

As it happens, Ancestry.com had just added the Greeley Daily Tribune, the very paper I needed. So, following the guidance of The Source, I searched and sure enough, I found him. Of course, most of the listings were notices that he’d been fined for breaking the law (burning trash), but here was something about my ancestor I would never have found without broadening my horizons.

Since it’s based on The Source and Red Book, the Ancestry.com Family History Wiki is all about helping you broaden your horizons. It’s about helping you find new places to look and about helping you make better use of your current strategies.

So what are you working on right now? Have you checked the wiki to see if it can offer any help?

We don’t have articles on everything (yet!), but there’s a lot there, just waiting to help. For now, our content is focused mainly on record types and locality searches. Below, I’ve linked to some good places to start browsing. Or, you can type a topic in the main search box on the left side of the wiki.

I’d love to hear what you find. In the comments, let me know if you found anything interesting or useful. And more importantly, let me know if you didn’t find anything. That way we can know better where to focus our efforts.

Places to Start

• Browse through articles about record types
• Learn more about research in a specific state
• Explore our county pages
• Try a random page and be surprised

Happy family history.

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

You’ve likely heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to creating source citations in your family tree, it is so true. 

We have recently added the ability to associate pictures and scanned documents to source citations you have created in your family tree:

• Birth Certificates
• Death Certificates
• Marriage Certificates
• Headstones
• Obituaries
• Immigration & Emigration records
• Court, Land, Wills & Financial records
• Newspaper clippings
• Etc.

These items not only add color and interest to your work, but also help to document your work and show off your evidence and sources.

Here is how it can work for you.  Say you have an event in your timeline that doesn’t have a source.  In this case I have an “illness” event in my timeline for John Kennedy. 

 

 

I can select a media file I’ve uploaded, and use that to create a source citation for this event.

The image then becomes the beginning of a source citation that I can apply to the “illness” event on my timeline.

Then when others look to see how I know this information about John Kennedy, they will see the scanned image I uploaded.  You can also add media to the source citation directly from this page.

An additional change we made is to show all source citations on the overview section of the person profile, rather than just the attached historical records from Ancestry.com  The goal with this change is to make it more clear what evidence supports the facts in the timeline.  We’ve received some early feedback on this that raises concerns on the implementation, and so we are reviewing this section and will update you on changes we make to it.

Also a few folks have mentioned that URLs in sources are not working as they were before–we are now aware of this bug and are working on a fix.

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

We  listened to your feedback and we are updating our search pages (New Search only). We gathered input from members through many sources and consolidated your feedback.  You asked for improved navigation, maps, shortcuts to your favorite data collections, easier access to recent searches and more browsing options. You can see screenshots of these new and updated features listed below.

Here’s what you will see:

New search homepage
The new search homepage will have updated navigation, maps, and access to both recent searches and recently viewed data collections.

Map on search homepage
You will be able to browse the data collections that are unique to or related to specific places.

 

Example of a place page
There will be thousands of new place pages for countries, states, territories, provinces and counties. For those of you who use old search, you may recognize that we have updated and improved the place pages you have seen in old search.

You can view the data collections Ancestry has for each location.  For many locations you can find links to extra resources and a history of the important events that occurred in that place. Look for the “history” and “resource” buttons.

Example of recent searches and recently viewed data collections
The new search homepage will provide access to your recent searches and to a new page that contains a list of the data collection homepages that you mostly recently visited.  These features will be displayed on the new search homepage after you do a search or after you visit a data collection homepage.

Some notes:

1. We will not be launching any changes to the new search forms on Wednesday night. We will release some changes to the new search forms in a short while.
2. Old search will not be updated; these changes only apply to new search.
3. A preview to the updated pages is located at http://landing.ancestry.com/search/tour/.
4. On Thursday, if your search page does not look like the pictures in this blog post, you may be using old search.  You can switch to new search by clicking on the “new search” link at the top right corner of the search homepage.

 

I will post more details on each new feature in more blog posts. I hope you enjoy using these new search pages and find navigating Ancestry.com has improved.

Best regards,

Laura Dansbury

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

Compact File. You may have noticed this option on the Tools menu. But what it is? As you work in your trees you will add and delete quite a bit of data. However, even when data has been removed from a tree, the file may still remain at a larger size. You can use the Compact File Tool to compress your tree file, remove unnecessary items, and reindex the file. This tool will optimize the software’s performance and is a useful tool to run periodically.

1. Click Tools>Compact File.
2. If you want to back up your file before you compress it, click the Back up file checkbox (recommended).
3. Click Compact. If you have chosen to back up your file, the Backup window opens. Change any options as necessary and click OK.

When the process is finished, a message shows how much Family Tree Maker reduced the size of your file. Because file compression happens behind the scenes, you won’t necessarily see any changes in your tree, but you should notice better performance and a smaller overall file size.

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

Rejected.

I knew that’s what the R in the top-right corner stood for when I found Captain James Frost’s file in the new Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files database on Ancestry.com. An S meant a petition had been filed by a veteran (a “survivor”); a W indicated a veteran’s widow. An R meant the claim, whoever had made it, got no love.

You can get more background on these records at the new Revolutionary War landing page, but one item in particular makes the Frost file an interesting case study. James, who died in 1815, didn’t file for a pension. Neither did his wife, Isabella Van Dyke, who passed away in 1837. This application was initiated 10 years later, in 1847, by their daughter, Rachel Britt.

Making a Case
The application was made to “obtain the benefit of the 3rd Section of the Act of Congress of the 4th July 1836,” which broadened the availability of widows’ benefits. To receive the money, a widow had to prove her husband’s Revolutionary service, that she married him before the end of the war, and that she had remained unmarried after his death. This is what the bulk of the James Frost file is about. There is no application form, but the file contains depositions from Rachel, a son-in-law, and a neighbor who attempt to prove the required facts by recounting details about James and Isabella’s lives.

Calling All Witnesses
The deponents explain how James and Isabella married about 1769 and came to North Carolina from Pennsylvania around 1775 with two sons: Ezekiel and Jonas. They settled first in either Stokes or Guilford County, relocating to Johnston County in 1795 or ’98 so James, an experienced ironworker, could work “a rich iron mine.”

He was a man of “respectability of character,” fought at Ramsour’s(?) Mill and Guilford Court House, and once, when the men chose their captain by marching across a field and lining up before the candidate they wanted to lead them—like teams picking captains instead of the other way around—the whole company lined up to follow James Frost.

The Payoff
Files can range from one page to a couple of hundred (James’s has 17), but this gives you some idea of what you might uncover in the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files: names, dates, places, moves, occupations, family members.

In the Frost file, Rachel explains that Isabella never applied for benefits because she didn’t know anything was due her, so Rachel was filing to claim the widow’s benefits her mother had been entitled to under the 1836 law.

I don’t know yet why the claim was rejected (maybe one of you has an idea?). The process went on for 10 years, and I imagine it may have cost more in paperwork than the claim would have paid out. In any case, Rachel got no money, but I say the trail she left behind was worth every penny.

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

In case you haven’t heard, Ancestry.com has a wiki. (You can read the original announcement here.) We launched in beta in April at the conference of the National Genealogical Society (NGS) and since then, there’s been a lot going on.

Before getting into that, however, let me introduce myself. My name is Matthew Rayback and I am a senior editor for Ancestry.com and am the overseer of the wiki. I wrote the silly little Bad Baby Names: The Worst True Names Parents Saddled Their Kids With, and You Can Too! , but more importantly,  I was one of the editors who worked on the third edition of The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, which is one of the foundational sources of content for the wiki. I’m very excited about this wiki and I hope we’ll all have a lot of fun making it great together.

Now on to the good stuff.

Since NGS, we’ve been working hard and making improvements, both to functionality and to content. Check out these highlights:

• You can now register to use the wiki. Note that if you are already an Ancestry.com member, then you are already registered: if you are logged into your Ancestry.com account, you’re logged into the wiki as well. Make sure you’re logged in before you make any changes or add any content.
• We have created county pages for every county in the United States. These pages use information found in the extensive tables in Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources and are now “stub” articles, waiting to be fleshed out.  User “Tinauofa01″ started this ball rolling by adding some great stuff to the page for Pima County, AZ. For more information about what we’re looking for on county pages, read our suggestions.
• We’ve updated the homepage, making it cleaner and hopefully easier to use. Let us know what you think.

This is just a smattering of what’s been going on here at the wiki and you can expect more changes and improvements going forward, so keep your eyes out for my posts on the Ancestry.com Blog.

And don’t worry. I know there are a number of questions about moderation and quality. These are issues we’re well aware of and have a plan to address. Watch for a future blog post on this subject.

For now, go explore the wiki if you haven’t already. Make some changes. Add some stuff. You can get there using the “Learning Center” tab on Ancestry.com or by simply clicking here.

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

Have you forgotten how to assign a portrait to an individual? Or have you attached a photo to the wrong person and can’t remember how to unlink them? In part 2 of “How Do I Do That?” I’ll give some quick tips to help with your media items.

Assigning a Portrait to an Individual

You can choose which photo or image will appear for an individual in the People workspace and in charts and reports.

1. Go to the People workspace. Make sure the individual you want to assign a portrait to is the focus of the Family tab or Person tab.
2. In the editing panel, right-click the silhouette image. If the photo you want is already in your tree, click Link to Existing Picture; if you need to add the image, click Add New Picture.
3. Do one of these options:

• If you are linking to an item, click the item and then click OK.
• If you are adding a new item, use the Look in drop-down list to find the folder where the image is located. Click on the image you want and then click Open.

Creating a Media Category

1. Go to the Media workspace.
2. In the right-hand panel, click the Edit button.
3. In the Categories window that opens, click Add.
4. Enter a name for the new category and click OK.
5. Click OK again to close the Categories window.

Renaming a Media Item’s File Name

When you click on a media item, the right-hand panel displays the caption, date, and description you’ve entered for an item. Beneath that, you’ll see the image’s file name and its location on your hard drive.

If the file name isn’t descriptive or you want to change it, right-click the item in the Media workspace and click Rename Media File. Enter a new file name and click OK. The file name is changed not only in Family Tree Maker but on your computer hard drive as well.

Unlinking a Media Item from an Individual

You can unlink a media item in a couple different ways.

• On the People workspace, access an individual’s Person tab. Then click the Media tab at the bottom of the window. Click the media item you want to detach from an individual and click the broken link icon in the media toolbar. Click Yes to unlink the item.
• On the Media workspace, click the media item you want and then click the Detail tab. On the Links tab at the bottom of the window you’ll see all the individuals the media item is linked to. Click the name of the individual and then click the broken link icon in the media toolbar. Click Yes to unlink the item.

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

I was hoping after last week’s devastating revelation that I could improve the Rudd
family morale by verifying the myth that we are descendants of the Mayflower pilgrims.
Like the Uncle
Sam rumor, this one has been purported by my mother’s family, so instead of blindly
trusting the research (see below), I set about to prove it on my own.

I began optimistically after reading an About.com
article that said, “It has been estimated by Gary Boyd Roberts, of the New England
Historic Genealogical Society, that there are some 30 million descendants of the Mayflower
families.” With 30 million descendants, my chances were looking good!

I started by tracing back through Hazel Silverberg, my great-grandmother. Using Ancestry.com,
I traced her grandparents, Charles Russell Hall (b. 1853, New York) and Alice Roberts
(b. 1865).

My alleged Mayflower link is through Charles Russell Hall’s mother, Anne Green Soule
(b. 1826, married to Russell W. Hall). I immediately questioned Anne’s two last names,
Green and Soule, especially as her mother’s last name is reportedly Cady. Where did
“Green” come from? Did she have a previous marriage? If women were remarried after
being widowed or divorced, did they keep their name?

On this page of research (date: 12/10/89), Anne Green Soule has a * next to her name,
and written below: “is already verified by some other researcher. They let me see
it, but it’s against the rules.” Um, what?

It also says, at the bottom, “Anne Green’s birth and death must be confirmed somehow
and then we can be official Mayflower descendants.”

So it would seem—to my astonishment—that there is no actual evidence that we are Mayflower
descendants. Great.

My online search of records for Anne Green Soule and Russell W. Hall was fruitless.
All I uncovered was an 1860 Census record that listed Russell Hall and Anna Hall (b.
1827, NY)—no mention of Green or Soule. At this point I changed my strategy. Knowing
of the abundant literature on Mayflower genealogy, I started Google-ing.

I confirmed my relative’s research from the Mayflower pilgrim (George Soule) to Coomer
Soule, Anne Green Soule’s alleged father.

I hit a roadblock when—in the
only Mayflower family tree I found that listed Coomer Soule’s children—they were
listed:

i. JOSEPH CADY SOULE, b. 27 Jan 1805; m. JULIA KEACH.
ii. LUCY SOULE, b. 11 Aug 1808, Woodstock, Windham County, Connecticut; m. NATHAN
BROWN.
iii. EMILY SOULE, b. Abt. 1811
iv. ELIZABETH SOULE, b. 22 Mar 1815; m. LYMAN HAWKS.

Well… where’s Anne? And it doesn’t look like any of those daughters married a “Hall.”

I needed help, so I started digging around Ancestry.com’s message boards when I stumbled
upon this posting from January 3, 2000:

“Looking for the daughter of Coomer Soule and Nancy Cady who is believe to have married
Russell Ephraim Hall, Children William Coomer Hall b. 12/8/1857, m. 12/25/1891 Hattie
Alma Cone in Hartford, Windsor Co, VT. William d. 12/29/1938.”

This (nameless) poster seems to share my dilemma. He (or she) is implying that there
was a daughter who married a Russell Hall. This couldn’t just be one of my aunts though,
because William Coomer Hall is a different child than (perhaps the brother?) my Charles
Russell Hall.

Unfortunately, my luck stopped there. None of the responses had valuable information.
Help me out, Genealogy Insiders! Where should I go from here?

(My mom’s abandoned Mayflower Society application from 2002).

News from around the web.
Go to Source
—

I blogged
last year about my ancestor’s 1944 petition for naturalization, and how it refers
to his 1918 filing of “first papers” (a declaration of intent to naturalize)—for which
he apparently never filed second papers.

It even gave a document number for those first first papers. But the papers
are mysteriously missing both from databases of digitized naturalization records and
from microfilm
of naturalization records from the US District Court for the Northern District of
Ohio, Eastern Division, Cleveland, 1907-1946.

So I got all excited when I found a Fadlallah Haddad in a naturalization index from
Chicago. Unusual name, right? It had to be him. But when I looked at the record, some
of the details were slightly off. And why would he be in Chicago?

Next, I tried a tip from “Finding Mr. Right” by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack in the September
2010 Family Tree Magazine, and searched for Fadlallahs in other records.
And there was one in Chicago in the 1930 census, with a household of unfamiliar names.
In that census, my Fadlallah was living with three of his children in Cleveland.

So my momentary bubble burst, but at least I’m not chasing after the wrong ancestor.

The September 2010 “Finding Mr. Right” article has much more on how to tell the difference
between two same-named people in the same place, even when their ages and other details
are similar: how to create an ID table and a chronology of each person, for example,
and researching the best records for distinguishing the individuals. Even handwriting
and witnesses on documents can be clues to whether a particular person is or isn’t
your man.

Other goodies in this issue:

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

… and lots more. The
September 2010 Family Tree Magazine is available now on newsstands and as a digital
download from ShopFamilyTree.com.