There is no time like the Present!

As I was looking at my own family tree this morning I realized that I had not completed the family tree information for my own generation. I have my information in but not the information for my first cousins. This information will be very difficult for the next two generations to complete unless they have genealogist or packrats in their immediate families.

More and more libraries are closing, more records are online only, more families are moving away from hometowns earlier and more often. When you combine these trends with privacy concerns; the chances of obtaining accurate information for the current generations, in the years to come, becomes less likely.

Take time NOW to complete the vital records sections for your generation and for those who came after you. Include pictures, notes, and remembrances. It’s likely that anyone in your family who knows you ‘do genealogy’ assumes you already have all of this information “filled in” and also expect that you will provide it to them whenever they or their children need it.

I did not fill this information in, yet, because it’s all in my head. Well, the older I get, the more I realize that that’s not as reliable as I would wish.

So – now is the time to fill in the current events. Your descendants will thank you. (keep in mind that you should not post information on living individuals. Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker will privatize any posted trees to help prevent your accidentally posting this private data.)

Happy Hunting!

Helping others while helping yourself

I’m working with some other genealogy club members on a local figure’s family history project. I did not think I had enough time to do my own research to make time for yet someone else’s genealogy but I was wrong!

Working on another family’s genealogy has already (in two weeks) taught me a lot about my own family research. First – I assume too much when doing my own research. Second – I need more maps. {I will include other observations in future BLOGs.}

Specifically – I found that in my own family research I’m too quick to assume that a family with the same surname and many of the same givennames in the same colonial town is mine. When I am working on the project’s family: I want PROOF! I should be as picky with my own family.

In my own family I know where the places are that are in my line. In the project’s family – I did not know the counties. I went to a few places in addition to Google Maps to find historic county lines. Don’t forget that many, many records are only available at the county level so knowing which county someone lived in at the time they lived there is critical. I also went to some other sites to find historical county lines.

Boy was I surprised to find the reason I could not find some records was because the county did not even exist for the time period I was researching. I should have checked this information FIRST!

Here are some of the resources I used:

Wiki.familysearch.org

Ncgenweb.us

And the most fascinating was:

http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp/

I started with then “interactive map” for the area we are researching. You need to spend some time with the interface and make sure you refresh the map after you change selections. There is supposedly a way to download the shape file of the historical boundaries for a specific year and overlay a Google Earth Map with the data but I’ve not figured that out, yet.

I found the files – I’m just not certain how to use them.

This site also has county chronologies and historical boundary dates for existing and extinct counties.

In the meantime, though, helping on this project has given me insights into my own family research so the time I thought I had given to the project actually was time well invested – not spent!

Happy Hunting!

Ancestry Adds New Census Viewer

I'm in love. Ancestry has introduced a new census viewer. Just this week I was lamenting the difficulty of following a census line across a page and easily finding my place as I scrolled. I also had to refer to other documents or screen in order to see the census headings. Ancestry came through!

Remember those rulers with the highlighted areas for focusing on a computer print out? Well, Ancestry has added that function to the census viewer! It even puts the yellow bar in the center and the blue/green bars around it. Then if you pause your mouse over a cell the full contents are typed out including the column data. You can even browse to other lines in the same record and the search result stays highlit and the browse line highlights in pale red for easy comparison. Now I just need the same tool for my computer and I'll be a happy camper!

Happy Hunting!

click on "Try Now"

CELEBRATE!

Proofreading your genealogy

Proofreading something you have written is a matter of checking for spacing, punctuation, spelling, grammar, and clarity. Proofreading your family tree is more complex than that.

I have some paper records for my family trees but most of my information is in Family Tree Maker and has been about 6 years. Somehow (little gremlins using my computer at night) errors have crept into my records. I’ve noticed the same problem with other family trees that I’ve seen.

What problems? Well, I have an ancestor that had children after she died and one that had a child before she was born. I have a sneaking suspicion that there are mistakes in there, somewhere! I also have one family that I created from some census records and now that I have more information from some online resources, it looks like I’ve combined two families with the same name. The clue was that the children were born in very diverse areas that did not make sense. Yes, some families move around a lot but not every 2 years into 3 different states without some further proof.

What do I plan to do about it? Well – I tried breaking it down on the computer but what really ended up working was to break out the paper and create manual family group sheets and correct the entries. I even had to delete a few people! That’s a tough decision, though, so I documented my thought process and am keeping that along with the family group sheets, in case I have to go back. I will also keep notes in my software.

I’m sure all YOUR family trees are not subject to these errors but you may know someone else who could benefit from a little family tree proofreading.

Happy Hunting! 

Organizing Bookmarks and Favorites

Keeping track of the websites I use for genealogy has become a real PAIN. I tried setting bookmarks and favorites but if I were not at my home computer, then I did not have them. Some browsers let you synchronize the bookmarks across multiple computers but not all computers I use have Google Chrome or IE 10 or Firefox and I don’t want to risk leaving my information on public computers.

I tried an Excel spreadsheet and then stored the spreadsheet in the “cloud” but that required me to login in there and keep that up to date, also. At least with Excel, I could organize the sheets by topic. Word lets me keep track of things but not sort them. Then I figured OneNote (my 2^nd favorite application) would do the trick. It’s easily searchable, I don’t have to manually sort things, I can leave notes for myself and it’s available on my computer, the cloud, my phone, and my tablet.  At least Office 2010 lets me synchronize my results automatically to my computer so that part isn’t such a big job. Then I thought – why bother keeping them on my computer at all! Why not use an Internet based solution!

That got me thinking. What is available that is accessible from anywhere online and easy to keep up-to-date? I thought about my own BLOG – the one you are reading now – but that’s too cumbersome. I could e-mail myself lists at my Gmail account but that’s not elegant. I could use one of the free website builders but that’s tough to keep up-to-date. I cannot be the only one with this issue. Greater minds than mine must have surely solved this problem already! AHA – Google to the rescue – AAARGH – there are hundreds of them! Now what!

So I tried a few. I like Delicious.com because it’s been around for some time and I can browse other bookmark lists that other people have shared and uncover some additional genealogy links that I would not have known about, otherwise (over 33000 of them!) Delicious.com also allows me to TAG bookmarks with categories which is much more powerful than organizing them into folders. Some bookmarks are useful for multiple categories so TAGGING makes more sense than duplicating the entries in multiple folders. The search feature also lets me see other possible TAGS in use.

I also like Diigo.com for its annotations and Android app but there are fees involved for the full functionality. Diigo also has extensions for the Chrome browser that let you send parts of pages directly to your Diigo account with automatic sharing to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

I’ve not made up my mind, yet, which I will stay with but both of these options are much better than what I was using before.

I hope you try one of these services and …

Happy Hunting!

NGS Conference - online connections

I can’t be there but I’ll be thinking about all the wonderful happenings at the National Genealogical Society Conference starting next week in Cincinnati. If you are going – congratulations! Last year’s conference in Charleston was wonderful.

Whether you are going or not don’t miss out on the web activities that will accompany the event. There is a daily blog at http://conference.ngsgenealogy.org/.

Additional social media connections are: (from their site)

·        Follow us on Twitter (@ngsgenealogy).

·        Friend us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/ngsgenealogy).

·        Send us a tweet @ngsgenealogy for general information or use the hashtag #ngs2012 for Annual Conference-related tweets.

The hosting organization’s website http://www.ngsgenealogy.org has member’s only areas in addition to free areas that include videos on genealogy in general and information on their well respected home study course.

·        Paths to Your Past (88MB)

·        National Genealogical Society Conferences (27.6MB)

·        National Genealogical Society Home Study Course (17.3MB)

·        Finding Your Family at the National Archives (25.8MB)

·        NGS & NARA (21.4MB)

So, think about attending some of the conference social media connections and as always,

Happy Hunting! 

Just when you thought this blog had gone dormant, I’m back! In reality, it’s just two more weeks until weekly blogs resume. I appreciate your taking time to read my blog and I thank you.

I have been teaching for Coastal Carolina’s Osher Lifelong Learning program and my last few weeks of classes have required more of my time and genealogy has had to wait. By May 1^st, though, the semester will be over (for me) and I can return to my genealogy on a regular basis.

It’s odd that I call it “my genealogy” when it’s truly my family’s genealogy. I wonder why it is that only one person every few generations really feels the call to delve into the family history in the USA. I had the privilege of working with a graduate student from South Korea and he was shocked that I did not know my lineage and he was even more shocked when I did not know the meaning of my name! He explained to me that in his culture it was very important to know both. I’d never even thought about the meaning of my name. I knew who I was named after but not the meaning of my name, itself.

So for those of you with the curiosity I had – http://www.meaning-of-names.com can help you discover the meaning of your given and family names. There are also links there to other sites for more ethnic names that do not often appear in many English based resources. Of course, you could use Google or Bing or some other search engine, too. The site I mentioned, though, showed me the meaning of my given name in four different nationalities. For me, the meaning did not change but I’m sure that is different depending on the name. There were also links for specific genealogy sites based on my family name and, of course, the requsite advertisers of family crests.

Happy Hunting!