Archive for August, 2011

News from around the web.
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Got a photo mess like this one on your hands? Old, unlabeled family pictures spilling
out of shoe boxes, falling out of albums and deteriorating in the attic or basement?

Show us your photo mess, and you could win a safe place to store your family photo
archive, plus expert photo preservation advice from Photo Detective Maureen A. Taylor 

To enter, submit a picture of your photo mess along with a short plea (fewer than
150 words) convincing us why you need photo-organization help. You can submit your
photo and short story either of these ways:

• Post it to the Family Tree
  Magazine Facebook wall (like our page, then tag us when you upload the photo
  to your profile)

• E-mail
  it to us.

Family Tree Magazine editors will choose the entry displaying the worst photo
mess and the most-convincing plea for help, as well as two runners-up.

One grand-prize winner will receive $250 worth of archival-quality photo-organization
supplies and a signed copy of the book Preserving Your Family Photographs by
Taylor. Two runners-up will each receive a signed copy of the book.

We’ll announce the winners in the March 2012 Family Tree Magazine. The entry
deadline is Aug. 31, 2011. See
more Photo Organization Contest details here. 

News from around the web.
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FamilySearch has added new records from the
United States and seven other countries—Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Mexico,
Philippines, and Poland—to its record search.

Updates to US collections total 1.8 million records, including the South Dakota 1945
state census, New York court records, Indiana marriage records and Utah Indian Wars
service affidavits.

Note that in many cases, the updates consist of unindexed digitized documents, meaning
you won’t find them using the search on FamilySearch’s
home page. Instead, you’ll need to browse the collections by date or place (however
the records are organized).

Click
here to see a list of the updated collections, whether each one is indexed, and a
link to each collection. 

FamilySearch also has announced it’s launching a YouTube channel Aug. 4. You
can preview it now by watching Genealogy in Five Minutes: Learn From Family (this
one’s actually 6 minutes and 8 seconds long), with tips on talking to relatives about
family history.

The video is part of what’ll be a 24-episode series offering quick tips on various
aspects of genealogy. When the channel launches, you’ll also be able to watch inspirational
videos, those highlighting the lighter side of genealogy, a series on societies and
archives, how-to videos and others.

News from around the web.
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Do you have dents in your forehead from banging it against a brick wall? Our August
Ultimate Collection is designed to save your forehead, your sanity, and your genealogical
motivation with solutions to research brick walls such as

• missing records due to fires, flood and other disasters
• hard-to-find ancestors in censuses and passenger lists
• pre-1850, head-of-household censuses
• ancestors born (or married or died) before vital record-keeping
• not knowing where to look next

The Family
Tree Ultimate Research Solutions Collection has expert advice and ideas for conquering
genealogy challenges, including

• The Family Tree Problem Solver, revised edition, by Marsha Hoffman Rising:
  It has techniques for approaching real genealogy problems, plus case studies so you
  can see the advice in action. This edition includes new information about online research
  and using DNA research. 

• 101 Brick Wall Busters: Solutions to Overcome Your Genealogical Challenges:
  This Q&A book answers research questions from Family Tree Magazine readers. 

• Brick Wall Strategies: Advice and Ideas for Getting Past Research Dead Ends on-demand
  webinar: Learn how to assess your research problems and formulate a plan of attack
  for solving them.

• Reverse Genealogy: Family Tree University Independent Study Course download:
  This course teaches you tactics to research your family tree forward (the opposite
  of what genealogists usually do) to find living relatives.

The Ultimate
Research Solutions Collection is $59.99, a 67 percent discount, during August.
Only 39 (and counting down) are still up for grabs, so get yours while you can!