Archive for October, 2011

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If you haven’t already seen, we are celebrating 15 years of Ancestry.com with 15 days of free access and daily prizes. With the special access to some great collections, we wanted to pass along a video update with what you might have missed over the past 10 days. Make sure you check out the celebration and head to our Facebook Page, where we are offering daily videos about each collection. You can also leave comments and questions beneath each one, as some of them might get responded to personally by video.

Day 1: Social Security Death Index
Discover vital information like birth and death dates, a home address and additional personal facts that can help you discover more about your family in other collections:
 

Discover more information on the SSDI and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 2: Ireland, Griffith’s Valuation 1848 – 1864
Find out if your ancestors were among the million-plus individuals who occupied property in Ireland between 1848 and 1864, a time from which no Irish census survived:

Discover more information on the Griffith’s Valuation and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 3: California Marriage Index, 1960 – 1985
Search details from more than 4.8 million marriages performed in California from 1960–1985 to find bride and groom names, the county where they were married and more:

Discover more information on the California Marriage Index and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 4: Bavaria, Germany, WWI Personnel Rosters, 1914 – 1918 (in German)
Explore personnel rosters of soldiers who served in Bavarian Army units during World War I (1914–1918) to discover a soldier’s name, rank, details of service and much more:

Discover more information on the WWI Personnel Rosters and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 5: 1920 U.S. Federal Census
Find out what the census taker wrote down after knocking on your family’s door in 1920. Discover names and addresses, details of family relationships, languages spoken and more:

Discover more information on the 1920 U.S. Federal Census and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 6: Australian Electoral Rolls, 1903 – 1980
Search select Australian electoral rolls compiled during election years 1903–1980 and you could find a voting family member’s name, gender, address, occupation and more:

Discover more information on the Australian Electoral Rolls and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 7: Texas Birth Index, 1903 – 1997
Find a full name, gender, birth date and more details for a family member whose birth was among the 15 million recorded in Texas between 1903 and 1997:

Discover more information on the Texas Birth Index and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 8: Sweden, Births from the Swedish Death Index, 1947 – 2006 (in Swedish)
Search this collection of birth details for more than 5.1 million individuals who died in Sweden between 1947–2006 to find a family member’s full name, birthdate and birthplace:

Discover more information on the Swedish Death Index and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 9: World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917 – 1918
Learn if your relatives were among the 24 million U.S. men that completed World War I draft registration cards in 1917–1918 and discover their birthplace, nearest relative and more if they were:

Discover more information on the World War I Draft Registration Cards and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

Day 10: England & Wales, Birth Index, 1916 – 2005
See what you can discover about family members who were born in England and Wales with helpful details like their full name, mother’s maiden name, districts/counties of birth and more:

Discover more information on the World War I Draft Registration Cards and leave your questions and comments as well by clicking here: http://ancstry.me/pLLZ2G

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Family Tree Magazine and Family Tree University are celebrating Family History
Month by giving away great genealogy supplies all month long!

Each day at 4 pm ET, 3 pm Central, 3 pm MT and 1 pm Pacific, we’ll announce the winner
of that day’s giveaway and reveal the next day’s giveaway. Plus, for that day, each
daily prize will be on sale for a fantastic price.

Congratulations to the winner of today’s giveaway, the book My Life & Times:
A Guided Journal for Collecting Your Stories: The lucky person is Roy
Dakin of Kansas City, Mo.

And now for the deal: Get
the Genealogist’s Google Toolbox book download by Lisa Louise Cooke for just $9.99—that’s
30 percent off.

In this PDF book, genealogy podcaster Cooke helps you stuff your genealogy toolbox
with FREE state-of-the-art online tools that are built to search, translate, message,
and span the globe.

The price is good until midnight ET today, Oct. 14. Click
here to get the deal!

The daily giveaway for tomorrow, Oct. 15, is The Family Tree Problem Solver book
by Marsha Hoffman Rising. Click
here to sign up now on our Daily Deal & Giveaway page. (Note: Even if you
signed up for a previous giveaway, sign up again to put yourself in the running for
this one.)

Then just come back here tomorrow at 4 pm ET to see if you’ve won. Good luck!

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• Archives.com is sharing an interesting infographic for Family History Month, showing US
  immigration numbers through the years and stats on the origins of immigrants from
  1910 to 1919 and from 2000 to 2009, among other information. Check
  it out on the Archives.com blog.  

• The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG),
  taking place Jan. 23-27, 2012, is having a contest for genealogy bloggers. Just blog
  about why you would like to attend SLIG before Sat., Oct. 15 at midnight (Mountain
  Time) and you could win free tuition. See
  entry details here. 

• British genealogy site GenesReunited has
  added more than 35 million baptism, marriage and burial records for England and Wales
  dating back to 1538. The parish records include Boyd’s Marriage Index 1538-1840 and
  Boyd’s 1st Miscellaneous Series 1538-1775, supplied by the British Society
  of Genealogists. You can view the records on a pay per view basis or Genes Reunited
  Platinum members can add one or more of the record sets to their package.

• Blogger Dick Eastman wrote about a neat site called Old
  S.F. with 13,000 historical San Francisco photos plotted on a Google map. Read
  Dick’s post here and visit the site here.
  

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies announced
  its new board members and directors, including George G. Morgan (Family
  Tree Magazine’s Document Detective columnist) as Vice-President Membership,
  Curt D. Witcher as Vice-President Development, Loretto “Lou” Szucs as Director, Kim
  Kasprzyk as Treasurer, Polly Fitzgerald Kimmitt as Director, Angela Walton-Raji as
  Director and Randy Whited as Director.

• The National Genealogical Society also
  announced a new board member: Teresa Koch-Bostic, of Mineola, NY, a professional genealogist
  in addition to her extensive background in business.

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Family Tree Magazine and Family Tree University are celebrating Family History
Month by giving away great genealogy supplies all month long!

Each day at 4 pm ET, 3 pm Central, 3 pm MT and 1 pm Pacific, we’ll announce the winner
of that day’s giveaway and reveal the next day’s giveaway. Plus, for that day, each
daily prize will be on sale for a fantastic price.

Congratulations to the winner of today’s giveaway, the book My Life & Times:
A Guided Journal for Collecting Your Stories: The lucky person is Callie Larsen
from Syracuse, Utah.

And now for the deal: Save on two new titles for jogging memories and recording your
history. Purchase both My
Life & Times and Remember
That? for just $29.99. This price is good until midnight ET today, Oct. 13.

The daily giveaway for tomorrow, Oct. 14, is the Genealogist’s Google Toolbox book
download by Lisa Louise Cooke. Click
here to sign up now on our Daily Deal & Giveaway page. (Note: Even if you
signed up for a previous giveaway, sign up again to put yourself in the running for
this one.)

Then just come back here tomorrow at 4 pm ET to see if you’ve won. Good luck!

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Google has given genealogists some very helpful tools—Google
Earth, Book Search and News
Archive to name three—but maybe you’re nonplussed by Google+.

This new social networking tool has taken the genealogy world by storm, and we won’t
let you be left out if we can help it. Our next webinar, Google+
for Genealogists, will show you how to use Google+. Your registration for
the live event even includes 30 days of one-on-one tech support from instructor Kerry
Scott.

You’ll learn how to get started, set up your “circles,” and take advantage of the
genealogical possibilities on Google+. Here’s a sampling of tips Kerry will share:

• Fill out your profile and upload a picture before you start adding friends. If you
  don’t, people may mistake you for a spammer.

• Most genealogists will add you to their circles even if you’re a complete stranger
  … but only if your profile indicates that you’re into family history.

• You can have people in multiple circles. Is Aunt Millie into genealogy? Add her to
  your Family and Genealogy circles, so she sees the cute kid pictures and the big research
  breakthrough you had at the library last weekend.

• If you’re posting something to a specific circle to keep it from being public, make
  sure you use the “lock this post” feature to prevent others from sharing it. Otherwise,
  one of your carefully selected circle members can share it with anyone.

The hour-long webinar takes place Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 8 p.m. Eastern (that’s
7 Central, 6 Mountain, 5 Pacific).

In addition to the month of tech support, attendees will get access to the webinar
recording to view again as many times as they want,plus a PDF of the presentation
slides.

Learn
more and register for the Google+ for Genealogists webinar at ShopFamilyTree.com (for
a limited time, our Early Bird registration special saves you 20 percent!).

News from around the web.
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Family Tree Magazine and Family Tree University are celebrating Family History
Month by giving away great genealogy supplies all month long!

Each day at 4 pm ET (3 pm Central, 3 pm MT, 1 pm Pacific), we’ll announce the winner
of that day’s giveaway and reveal the next day’s giveaway. Plus, for that day, each
daily prize will be on sale for a fantastic price.

The winner of today’s giveaway, all seven of Family Tree Magazine‘s 2010 issues
on CD, is Ellen Fox.

And now for the deal: You can get the Family Tree Magazine 2010 CD—that’s 608
pages of fully searchable, hyperlinked how-to genealogy guidance—for just $15! This
price is good until midnight ET today, Oct. 12. Click
here to buy now.

The daily giveaway for tomorrow, Oct. 13, is one of our newest books: My Life &
Times: A Guided Journal for Collecting Your Stories by Sunny Jane Morton. Click
here to sign up now on our Daily Deal & Giveaway page. (Note: Even if you
signed up for a previous giveaway, sign up again to put yourself in the running for
this one.)

Then just come back here tomorrow at 4 pm ET to see if you’ve won. Good luck!

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Thanks to all who entered our family
history publishing contest with Abbott Press. We enjoyed hearing your unique family
stories!

It was beyond difficult to narrow the field, but we did it. These winners’ entries
left us wanting to read more about their ancestors:

• Grand-prize winner Shirley Booth-Byerly of Robertsdale, Ala., wins a complete
  publishing package from Abbott Press. 

• First runner-up Karen Merrill Martin of Manzanita, Ore., will receive the Writing
  Your Family Memoir Family Tree University independent study course.
  

• Second runner-up Julie B. Cosgrove of Fort Worth, Texas, has won My
  Life & Times: A Guided Journal for Collecting Your Stories by Sunny Jane
  Morton (Family Tree Books). 

I hope the contest got more people thinking about sharing their family history with
relatives. If you’ve been putting off getting your family’s story down, here
are five common excuses and why they won’t cut it. 

If you’re not ready to tackle a family history writing project, try
these six ideas on for size: They’re shorter-but-still-meaningful
ways to share your family stories.

But if you’ve been dreaming of recording your ancestors’ tales, you can get in-depth
help in the Family Tree University course Write
Your Family History: Create a Captivating Record of Your Family’s Story with Sunny
Jane Morton.

Need inspiration? My favorite family history is called Family by
Ian Frazier (I got to interview him for Family Tree Magazine, and I was a nervous
wreck). Here
are some other family histories you’ll enjoy. 

News from around the web.
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Family Tree Magazine and Family Tree University are celebrating Family History
Month by giving away great genealogy supplies all month long!

Each day at 4 pm ET (3 pm Central, 3 pm MT, 1 pm Pacific), we’ll announce the winner
of that day’s giveaway and reveal the next day’s giveaway. Plus, for that day, each
daily prize will be on sale for a fantastic price.

The winner of today’s giveaway, a Family Tree Magazine digital subscription,
is Kenneth Nichols.

If you didn’t win, you can get a great deal on a digital subscription: seven
issues for just $14.99! This price is good until midnight ET today, Oct. 11. Click
here to buy now.

The daily giveaway for tomorrow, Oct. 12, is a Family Tree Magazine 2010 CD! Click
here to sign up now on our Daily Deal & Giveaway page. (Note: Even if you
signed up for a previous giveaway, sign up again to put yourself in the running for
this one.)

Then just come back here tomorrow at 4 pm ET to see if you’ve won. Good luck!

News from around the web.
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The War of 1812 is sometimes called “the forgotten war.” Though it inspired the “Star
Spangled Banner,” this war is often overshadowed in American minds by the longer Revolutionary
and Civil wars.

A PBS film called “The War of 1812”
is demystifying this conflict with re-enactments, exlanatory animation and the commentary
of history experts. That’s a trailer for the show, above.

It premiered on TV last night, but you
can watch it online here if you missed it. 

If you have a smartphone, you also can download
a mobile app with more videos, guides to battlefields and historic sites, and
more. 

Those with War of 1812 ancestors also will be interested in the Federation of Genealogical
Societies’ Preserve the Pensions project to
digitize pension files for War of 1812 soldiers. Many
of these records are already available at Fold3.com. 

You can get more help finding War of 1812 ancestors with these related resources from Family
Tree Magazine:

• Timeline
  of US military campaigns (free article)
  
• War
  of 1812 records online (free article)
• Find soldiers
  in 10 lesser-known wars (for Family
  Tree Plus members)
  
• Military
  Research Guide CD from ShopFamilyTree.com 

News from around the web.
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Family Tree Magazine and Family Tree University are celebrating Family History
Month in October by giving away great genealogy supplies all month long!

Here’s how it works: Each day at 4 pm ET, 3 pm Central, 3 pm MT and 1 pm Pacific,
we’ll announce the winner of that day’s giveaway and reveal the next day’s giveaway.

Each daily prize also will be on sale at ShopFamilyTree.com for that day only—so if
you don’t get the giveaway, you can still snatch up a fantastic deal on tools to advance
your research!

The winner of today’s giveaway, the Life in Civil War America digital book,
is Mildred Russoniello. Congrats to Mildred!

If you didn’t win, you can get a great deal on the Life in Civil War America digital
book. The special price of $9.99 (that’s 56 percent off!) is good until midnight ET
today, Oct. 10. Click
here to get the deal now.

The daily giveaway for tomorrow, Oct. 11, is a Family Tree Magazine 1-year digital
subscription! Click
here to sign up now on our Daily Deal & Giveaway page. (Note: Even if you
signed up for a previous giveaway, sign up again to put yourself in the running for
this one.)