Archive for September, 2012

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Calling genealogists with Connecticut kin: Get help tracing your Constitution State
ancestors in our upcoming Connecticut
Genealogy Crash Course webinar.

Presenter D. Joshua Taylor,
whom you might recall revealing roots information to the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker
and Rob Lowe on NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?,” will share secrets to discovering
your family tree in Connecticut.

What will you learn? Among the strategies Taylor will show you:

• how to find resources such as vital records (going back as early as 1650!), church
  records, censuses, court records and more
• tricks for tracing Dutch, English, Italian, Irish and other ethnic ancestors
• the best places to search for Connecticut ancestors online

You’ll have the chance to submit your Connecticut genealogy questions to Taylor when
you register, and again during the webinar.

Registrants also get copies of the presentation slides plus handouts including Family
Tree Magazine‘s Connecticut State Guide and New Haven City Guide, and they can
to view the webinar again as many times as they like.

Here are the Connecticut
Genealogy Crash Course basics:

• Date: Thursday, Sept. 27
• Time: 7-8 p.m. ET (starts at 6 p.m. CT, 5 p.m. MT and 4 p.m. PT)
• Price: $49.99 (register now to save $10 with our early bird special!)

Click
here to join us for the Connecticut Genealogy Crash Course!

Surname Forum Activity
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The other day I managed to pick up another Manley photo. This time it appears to be a teen girl (best guess) & on the back is written “Sister Mercy J. Manley.” I’ve looked close to make sure the writing isn’t Mary. Even my husband thinks it’s Mercy. It was taken in Ionia, MI.

In doing some checking there are two Mersy Manleys. One from Ohio & she married 3 times. The other one was from Minnesota, living around the same time as the Ohio Mersy.
Which one it might be-I have no idea. The style of the photo & her clothing looks to me as if it was taken very late 1800s, very early 1900s.

I’d like to find family to send it to. Please contact me at: digginroots@yahoo.com for details. Thank you.
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Surname Forum Activity
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As a hobby I rescue old photos that have identification on them. I have one that I’d guess to have been taken l880-1895 or so. It’s of a standing man who is identified as Melford Manley. It was taken in Cedar Springs, Kent County, Michigan.

I’d like to locate family to return the original to. Contact me at digginroots@yahoo.com for details.
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Surname Forum Activity
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Surname Forum Activity
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We are headed into the last few months of 2012.  Kids are headed back to school.  Fall is in the air.  And I thought it was a good time to revisit our goals for the year.  If you remember, I shared mine at the beginning of the year.  Some of you shared yours in the comments.

Setting goals provides focus.  And, if anything needs focus, it’s genealogy.  It is so easy – and sometimes fun – to get distracted as we chase down various branches of the family tree.  Reporting on goals you have set provides accountability and keeps you moving forward.  So here is my report:

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1. Backup, Backup, Backup

I now use Family Tree Maker 2012 for all my genealogy files.  My main family tree is now synced with my online tree at Ancestry.com.  This provides one backup.  At the beginning of the year I set a reminder on my calendar to back up my tree to “the cloud” twice a month.  I have done this faithfully.

What haven’t I done yet?  I haven’t given my parents a copy of my files at all this year.  I think I will send them a link right now so they have access to my cloud backup.

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2. Get More Family Members Involved

In June I did a Barefoot Genealogist episode and wrote a blog post about sharing your family history.  I have two specific projects (with deadlines) in the works.  I am creating a slideshow of digitized family pictures for my grandmother’s 90th birthday later this month.  And, I have created a maternal only family tree for my cousin who is having a little girl in a few weeks.

I have also created a few more ancestor pages on Facebook, connected with some (previously unknown to me) cousins, and tried to share family stories more often.  I have a lot more ideas brewing but maybe they will make good 2013 goals.

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3. Digitize, Digitize, Digitize

After much sorting, my mom took over 1500 slides (from both sets of grandparents) to be digitized.  She has the original DVDs that were created.  We copied them to my computer and also backed them up to the cloud.  I’ve spent the last few months meeting with family members – dad, grandma, great-aunt – to make sure I know who everyone is in each of these old pictures.  Now, we just have to share them with the rest of the family.

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4. Make Sure Everything Has A Source

This is probably the goal I have spent the most time working on this year.  I knew it was a huge task.  Sometimes I feel like it will never be done.  However, because I have been working on this, I have pruned over 1200 people out of the family tree over the last few months. I discovered two different branches were there was no documentation to prove a connection and a third where documenting what I had, proved that the connection was wrong.  I think this goal may stay on the list for many years to come.

For those who will ask, I use the notes feature in Family Tree Maker pretty heavily as I work on proving connections in my family tree.  Ancestry Anne has created a couple of videos on sourcing that have helped as well.  You can find them here and here.

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5. Respond to Messages

I set a goal at the beginning of the year to spend a little time every Friday going through message I receive from other Ancestry.com members. I haven’t done that as consistently as I expected.  I have managed to get through most of the backlog of messages.  The problem? I find that when I start to reply to one message I dig into the family they’ve asked about and I’m off doing more research for hours on end.  I need to learn to reply with what I know and not worry about what I don’t know yet.  Any advice on how to do that?

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So, there you have it – my update on my 2012 genealogy goals.  I have a few more things to work on and a few more months left in the year.  That works out well.

For those of you who set goals with me at the beginning of the year, how are you doing?

For those of you who didn’t, it’s not too late.  What would you like to accomplish – genealogically speaking – in the next four months?

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Since 1790, the United States census has supplied our government with important information about changing population trends every decade. Serving as an official population count, the information collected by the census directly affects our House of Representatives, Electoral College and federal funding. While the census was meant to periodically track the overall state of our country, it has also become an amazing source of information for genealogists.

It was just a few months ago genealogy lovers throughout the United States patiently awaited the release of the 1940 census. Due to a strict 72-year privacy restriction, it was the first census to be released in 10 years. One of the most fascinating parts about the 1940 data was that most of us know, were raised, or were influenced by people who were alive when it was taken. Whether it was your parents, grandparents or great grandparents, the 1940 census gave us a window into our family’s daily life following the Great Depression and before World War II. To celebrate its release, Ancestry.com made the 1940 census free to search on their databases through the end of 2013 – and due to the overwhelming popularity, Ancestry.com has decided to take things a step further.

This holiday weekend, you can search all available census records for free on Ancestry.com through September 3, 2012. With a total of 713 million U.S. census records at your fingertips the amount of information you could learn about your family may be endless. By entering any known information about your ancestors – such as full name, birth year and location, location they lived in, other family members, gender, race or nationality – you can trace your family from 1940 to as far back as 1790.

Out of all the records genealogists use to trace their families the census has always been my favorite resource for information. Unlike other records that will give you little more than names and dates, it offers a better look into your family’s life and living situation. It also provides the ability to check in on our ancestor’s progress, following their lives as children to adults with families of their own.

Although the amount of information available changes from census to census, there is a lot that can be learned about your ancestors. The most common pieces of information are the address of their residence at the time the census was taken and the name of the head of household. You may also find a list of other family members living in the home along with their age, place of birth, marriage status, education, occupation, how much they earned and military service. Some censuses even cover immigration and citizenship details.

With the help of census records I have been able to bust through many roadblocks in my research. There have been many times where I thought the maiden name of one of my female ancestors was lost forever, until I found a census record that listed her elderly parents living with her and her husband. They have also helped me discover ancestors who were raised in their grandparents’ homes, which led me to research why they were no longer in the care of their parents.

The United States census gives us the opportunity to meet ancestors we never knew personally and to better understand the world that shaped the older generations we were raised and influenced by. Whether you have been researching your family for years, or you are just getting started, this weekend you have an amazing opportunity to fill in the missing pieces of your family tree. Find your family now.

By Kris Williams
Twitter: KrisWilliams81

 

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I wanted to do a quick post to let you know we’re having a a big
sale—the Fresh
Fall Sale—in ShopFamilyTree.com! You can save up to 50 percent off select genealogy
how-to CDs, DVDs, Video Classes, books and Family Tree Magazine back issues. 

You could get

• on-demand webinars such as Using Probate Records or our Illinois or Michigan genealogy
  crash course
• the Genealogist’s
  Census Pocket Reference to keep handy (it’s full of information and tips, and
  it really does fit in your pocket)
• our Family
  Tree Essentials CD with how-tos on the basic genealogical records you need to
  search for
• any number of Family Tree University Independent Study courses

… and lots more. Plus I’ll let you in on our Friends & Family savings, which
gets you another 15 percent off when you enter code FAMILY (expires Sept. 14) at checkout.

Shop the Fresh
Fall Sale here, now through Sept. 15!

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• The International Society for Family History Writers
  and Editors (ISFHWE) has announced this year’s winners of its annual Excellence
  in Writing competition—and we’re thrilled to report first prize in the articles category
  goes to our own Sunny Jane Morton, for her December 2011 Family Tree Magazine article
  “Blue Collar Breakthroughs.” In this article, Sunny explains how to research employment
  records of workers in the railroad, automobile and other industries. (You can get
  the December
  2011 print issue here or the December
  2011 digital download issue here.)

Congratulations to all the ISFHWE competition winners—you
can see their names here!

• Shazami Design has released a Windows phone app called ThinkGenealogy,
  which aims to guide you through the research process. It features a research “map,”
  shows how important concepts are related, explains the Genealogical Proof Standard,
  provides a glossary of genealogical terms and more. You
  can watch a video about how to use the app on YouTube  and purchase
  the app for $1.99 here. 

• Here’s an interesting new product I saw at last week’s FGS conference: The
  Heirloom Registry offers uniquely numbered labels (starting at 10 for $10) you
  affix to your family heirlooms, then you enter information about each heirloom in
  an online heirloom registry. Anyone who finds the labeled heirloom in the future can
  then go online and enter the number to access the details about it. Click
  here to learn more about how it works.

• The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS)
  has promoted five-year staff member Ryan Woods to NEHGS assistant vice president for
  the website and library. Woods will oversee www.AmericanAncestors.org and
  the Boston-based NEHGS library, bringing those two areas into greater alignment with
  each other.

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Diana Crisman Smith has been researching genealogy since childhood and has served
as a lay librarian at the local Family History Center for more than 20 years. She
has written for numerous genealogical publications, including current regular columns
in the National Genealogical Society’s NewsMagazine and the Association of
Professional Genealogists’ APG Quarterly. In this guest post, she talks about
the two sessions she is presenting at Family Tree University’s Fall Virtual Conference:
“Smarter Online Census Searching” and “Finding Land Records Online”.

I’m Diana Crisman Smith, and I’ve been researching my family since I was eleven
years old. I have been helping others with their research for more than twenty years
through writing, speaking, teaching and volunteering at the Family History Center.
I have roots throughout the US and Europe, but US research is the starting place for
all my family branches. Two of the most useful tools I use in US genealogical research
are land records and census records.

Now that so many of the US censuses are available in online images or indexed
online, researchers have a wonderful opportunity to use these important records. We
all know that they are not perfect, since we can’t always find what we want easily.
Join me to learn some tips to make the best use of these records by searching smarter.

I also love “playing in the dirt” with land records. If your ancestors were farmers,
they are critical for you; if they were city folk, they still may have land purchases
(they bought houses just like we do, which means land records). For those who were
in the “Western states” (essentially west of the original colonies, plus a few special
states), the Bureau of Land Management website is one of the most useful, but little-known,
resources of the Federal Government. Come learn to use some of the great information
available through this source.

Act quickly—the conference starts next Friday, Sept. 14! Register now for the Fall
Virtual Conference and save $20 with coupon code FRIENDSOFDIANA.