Archive for March, 2011

Surname Forum Activity
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Hi to all,

I just thought that you guys should know about this little place I found. I ordered a hardbound genealogy book from them and it was spectacular. It was covered with fabric leather and very strong. I order a lot of genealogy books online for my research and this is by far the best copy I ever received.

I just thought that this info could be helpful.

I am not sure if I am allowed to write down their web address but I will put it down in a way that I hope will not violate the board rules and it is:

AncestralbooksDOTcom

Ta-ta.
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Surname Forum Activity
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Hi Kathleen, do not know what happened, but I am still around, my email is dorsher@speakeasy.net. Tom
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Surname Forum Activity
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Letha & David were my gg grandparents Letha had her last child James, in 1863 and then the family scattered most to Missouri..Her first child Frances Manely was my ggrandmother I do not have information on David or Letha but some of their children
barbhacker@pldi.net would love any info you could share

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News from around the web.
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Keep the St. Patrick’s Day energy flowing with an encore episode of Who Do You Think You Are? featuring Rosie O’Donnell on a search for her family’s Irish roots. Ancestry.com is a sponsor of the show, which airs tonight at 8/7c on NBC. Take note: Rosie’s journey is full of family history detective work in the U.S., Canada and Ireland, where she searches high and low to discover her family’s hometown and more. Rosie even jumps in herself, asking questions, searching online and turning her share of microfilm reels to get the answers she’s looking for. You can catch a preview at NBC.com. And visit www.ancestry.com/whodoyouthinkyouare for tips to making the discoveries featured in Who Do You Think You Are? in your own family tree.

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Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig! (St. Patrick’s Day Blessings!) Thanks to everyone who attended our Irish webinar last night. We had two wonderful presenters and a fantastic audience with lots of great questions. If you weren’t able to attend the class, it’s now available in the Learning Center archive here.

Since it wasn’t possible to answer every question last night, we thought we’d grab a few of the most frequently asked questions and post them here.

Kay asked, “How do we find Irish ancestors that lived in Canada?”
Ancestry.com has some terrific Canadian collections to help you find your Irish-Canadian ancestors. With a World Deluxe membership (or a Canadian membership to Ancestry.ca), you can access Canadian censuses and many other records. You can browse a list of some of our more popular Canadian collections on the Canada place page here. If you’re searching through the search form on the homepage at Ancestry.com, you can check the collection priority box at the bottom of the search box to give Canadian records higher priority and check the box below it to return only Canadian records.

Gary wanted to know, “What’s the difference between a parish, a barony, and a county?”
Once you discover your ancestor’s place of origin in Ireland, it’s important to larn about the names of the various land divisions into which that place fell. The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland has an excellent description of these and other land divisions in Ireland here.

Carolyn asked about a problem many of us will run into with our Irish ancestors, “When I estimate birth years based on ages in census records, I end up with different birth dates from census to census, even though I know I have the right person, living with the same people?”
As Eileen mentioned in her portion of the class, our Irish ancestors were often inconsistent when it came to giving their ages, so you will find some wide ranging answers when it comes to birthdates. Gather than range of dates for the person you’re searching for and pick a year in the center of that range. Using the advanced search form on Ancestry.com, you can specify +/- 1, 2, 5 or even 10 years using the and give yourself a little wiggle room in your searches for other records. Try to locate as many records as you can on the person and you’ll often be able to narrow it down. Also keep in mind that the ages got fuzzier as our ancestors got older. Records created when they were young are more likely to be accurate. It’s harder for a 5 year old to pass for a 14 year old, but may have been easier to believe that a 64 year old was only 55.

Doris inquired about a place in Ireland, “Tullamore – is it in County Kerry or Offaly? I’ve been given both.”
Actually Doris, according to the place names database on the Irish Times website, there are four places named Tullamore—in Counties Clare, Kerry, Offaly, and Tipperary. Try searching Griffith’s Valuation on Ancestry.com and see if the surname you’re researching is more predominant in one of the locations. If you’re working with a not-so-common surname, this could help you zero in on the correct Tullamore. Keep looking for records on this side of the pond as well. You may run across another record of your ancestor, this time with the county listed.

Nanette asked, “Did all the Irish who came to this country go through the naturalization process, and did they have to have passports in order to enter the United States?”
Many of our ancestors were never formally naturalized. That said, immigrants living in urban areas like New York City or Chicago may have been more likely to have been naturalized because political “machines” were keenly aware of large numbers of immigrants arriving in the mid-nineteenth century. In efforts to win the votes of these new residents, politicians were often swift in assisting immigrants in obtaining naturalization so that they could return the favor in the form of a vote cast in their direction—in some cases disregarding the five-year residency requirement.

For the most part, passports were not required of U.S. citizens for foreign travel until World War I, although they were mandatory for a short time during the Civil War (Aug. 19, 1861–Mar. 17, 1862). Immigrants who traveled often requested passports once they were naturalized to avoid hassles when returning to the U.S.

Ancestry.com has millions of naturalization indexes and well over a million actual records online, which can be searched here. There is also a collection of U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 available.

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St. Patrick’s Day is a great time to celebrate Irish heritage, and it’s coming up fast. Whether you’re 100% Irish or just Irish at heart, we know the importance of discovering your family history. So this St. Patrick’s Day, we’re giving everyone an opportunity to celebrate their heritage with our “Wish2Win” sweepstakes.

We’ve begun taking entries on our Facebook page for fans to have the chance to win a World Deluxe Annual Membership to Ancestry.com.

To enter, simply visit the “Wish2Win” Tab on our Facebook page. On that tab, you’ll be able to enter your wish for who you’d like to find within your family tree. Make a wish and you just might win!

You don’t have to be Irish to have the luck of the Irish! This St. Patrick’s Day, test your luck. Tell us, who do you wish to find?

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St. Patrick’s Day started as a celebration of Ireland’s patron saint. During the 5th century, a shepherd was called to serve the people of Ireland through the Catholic church, taking on the Christian name Patrick.

According to legend, Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, but the island had no
snakes at that time; this is most likely a metaphor for him converting the Irish to
Christianity and driving out paganism. Another myth has Patrick using the Shamrock
to teach the Holy Trinity.

The holiday falls on March 17, because that is the day Patrick died. Saint Patrick’s
Day is a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Newfoundland
and Labrador and in Montserrat. The day is widely celebrated in America as a recognition
of Irish heritage.

Celebrate your Irish heritage with our roots resources:

• Getting into
  Giffith’s Valuation
• Ancestral
  counties in Ireland
• Using
  church records to learn about your Irish forebears
• Finding
  your Irish ancestors online
• Search
  the 1901 Irish Census free online
• Researching Irish
  Catholic nuns
• Irish
  immigration through Canada

For more on St. Patrick’s Day, watch
a video by the History Channel here.

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Jump start you family history search with our Online
Genealogy Crash Course. Stop wasting time aimlessly wandering the web — learn
how to find your roots online in four hour-long video classes. This DVD brings you
recorded webinars with family history experts. Discover valuable tips and tricks for
googling your ancestors, using census and vital records websites, and searching the
grandmother of all genealogy websites, Ancestry.com.

The DVD contains these tutorials:
Search Engine Tips and Tricks

Streamline Google searches with techniques for using search engines efficiently and
effectively. You’ll learn:
    •    tips for phrasing your searches
    •    how to tailor your searches to fetch what you’re
looking for
    •    hints for tools such as Google Books and News
Archive

    •    presented by Lisa Louise Cooke

Online Census Secrets

All US census records are online, but finding your ancestor isn’t as easy as typing
in a name — you need to know where to look and how to make the most of census websites.
You’ll learn:
    •    key facts about US censuses
    •    how to access free online census records
    •    search strategies for locating hard-to-find
ancestors

    •    presented by Allison Stacy and Diane Haddad

Vital Records

Vital records are keys to any genealogical pursuit. We’ll show you the basics of how
to locate vital records online. You’ll learn:
    •    major sites with vital records and indexes
    •    how to get offline records with the help of
online resources

    •    presented by Lisa Louise Cooke

Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com

We’ll show you insider tricks and techniques for teasing out ancestor information
from the site’s tens of thousands of databases. You’ll learn:
    •    tricks for finding the databases you need
    •    tips for finding elusive ancestors
    •    presented by David A. Fryxell

As a bonus, when you order our Online Genealogy Crash Course, you will receive a coupon
for 20 percent off a live webinar. Visit
ShopFamilyTree.com for more information and to preorder this DVD.

News from around the web.
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Ancestry.com has launched a new collection
of Irish records in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

The collection contains records Irish historical documents from the 19th and early
20th centuries, including maps, photographs and land records.


The Irish Collection, 1824-1910 includes:

• Griffiths Valuation, 1847-1864: Over 2.5 million records that provide a snapshot
  of ancestors who rented land or property throughout Ireland in the 1850s
• Tithe Applotment Books, 1824-1837: In 1823, a law was enacted requiring all
  land holders to pay a tithe to the Church of Ireland, regardless of their religious
  affiliation. With details like tithe payer, acreage of their land and amount of their
  tithe, these 600,000 records in effect provide a census of pre-famine Ireland.
• Ordnance Survey Maps, 1824-1846: The first detailed mapping of Ireland undertaken
  during the 1830s and 1840s, the later part of which was produced during the height
  of the famine.
• Lawrence Collection, 1870-1910: This collection of 20,000 photographs showcases
  the length and breadth of Ireland, through the eyes of William Lawrence’s photography
  studio in Dublin.

Click here to search Ancestry.com’s Irish
collection.

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The world’s largest free genealogy search engine, Mocavo.com,
launched today, providing family historians access to free genealogy content on the
web.

Search engines like Google rank results by popularity, how recently the webpage was
posted and how many times the webpage is linked to. But genealogy content may not
be often linked to or refreshed regularly, so it may fall to the bottom of the rankings.
Unlike other search engines, Mocavo.com’s search results are indexed by people who
chose exactly want the engine crawls. This allows users to tap into content that would
be hard to find on Google.

Mocavo.com includes billions of names, dates and places worldwide, seeking to index
all free online genealogy information. Rootsweb, Archive.org, Allen County Public
Library, Library of Congress, National Archives, Ellis Island, Find A Grave, various
U.S. state archives, and tens of thousands of genealogy sites built by individuals
are already searchable through Mocavo.com.

“Mocavo.com has the capacity to index every single piece of free genealogy content
found anywhere on the web, and will be growing by leaps and bounds in the coming months”,
said Cliff Shaw, the online genealogy heavyweight behind Mocavo.com, the Smart Matching
algorithm, GenForum, GenCircles, Family Tree Legends and BackUpMyTree.com. “We expect
Mocavo.com to shortly offer all of the web’s free genealogy information, searchable
and accessible to all — something that has never been done before.”

Mocavo.com also crawls free message boards on Ancestry.com, but does not return results
for premium content, like census images. Mocavo.com is working to index FamilySearch
content.


Click here to search Mocavo.com.