Don't Keep Quiet About Your Research

Tell everyone in your family you are researching your family history: after all, it’s their history, too! Santa brought a very special gift to me this Christmas. My first cousin once removed – my mother’s first cousin, knew I was doing research so …. He took it upon himself to re-visit the cemetery in Pennsylvania where so much of our family was buried. I’m sure I met him a long time ago but do not remember where or when but he remembered that I was doing research. He had visited the cemetery previously but the office was closed, the gravestones and property were in deplorable condition and we gave up ever finding more information on any of our relatives there.

Well, surprise! The former cemetery owners repurchased the property, re-opened the office, weeded and mowed, and righted the stones! Bill spent quite a bit of time getting all the plot records and even sketched out the plots. Then, the biggest thing – he sent the information to me. I now have 13 burial cards from Montrose Cemetery that I never had before and lost hope of ever seeing.

So – Merry Christmas to me!

I write this to let you know that you, too, may have a relative who still lives in the area of your mutual ancestors and might be willing to do a little leg work for you, too.

The other “take away” is that cemeteries change hands and what might have once been a lost cause can suddenly be a treasure trove of information. So don’t write off any avenue of research forever. It would be wonderful if the same thing would happen in Cobb Creek Cemetery in Philadelphia but I’m not hopeful. Just the same – I’ll keep checking.

Happy New Year and Happy Hunting!

(Regular weekly blogs will now resume.)

Holiday gift giving

Sorry for the posting delay but we were out of town visiting the kids! Arizona was gorgeous this time of year and we visited some amazing historical sites and walked back in time through an old (circa 1000 A.D. cliff dwelling.) I bet there were some stories there!

I wanted to share some gift giving ideas with you – both for other genealogists and your own family. First, many subscription sites have sales this time of year. Either the annual subscriptions are discounted or the subscription terms are extended. Now that the free access for the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is gone, if you are feeling particularly generous, how about giving a gift subscription to Ancestry.com? A six month US membership is $12.95 per month. You don’t have to give the whole world or even a whole year.

Worldvitalrecords.com (now a MyHeritage site) offers annual and monthly subscriptions for 89.99. The annual subscription includes free Family Tree Builder software CD. A month’s subscription is 16.25 so you don’t have to break the bank to give a month’s worth of searching before committing to a year. The 3 day trial is just not enough to figure out what databases you will want to use.

Fold3.com (now part of Ancestry.com) is 79.95 per year and includes the ability to upload your own information for sharing with other researchers. Fold3 refers to the third fold of a flag representing the veterans for the service and sacrifice.

Genealogy Bank is 69.95 for a year and has a lovely 30 day trial. This site is great for printed articles and has one of the most current SSDI’s I’ve seen.

Americanancestors.org (the old NEGHS.org) is great for those of us with New England, New York, and increasingly – just American Ancestors. They even have gift certificates!

OK – that’s enough for the websites, now onto what you can give from your own research. How about a family chart? It’s a little late to order the fancy ones but the office stores like FedEx office will print on large paper. We did a 30” by 6’ family tree roll for some relatives one year. The best thing you can do, though, is set the recipient as the “home” person before preparing the chart so the relationships are specific to that individual. I know that Family Tree Maker software accommodates this very well and won’t mess up your work. Just don’t forget to set it back before you start researching again.

You could also print some of the documents you have to make the family history come alive. If you’ve scanned photos into Picasa, then the movie and CD features can make the gift very special.

Have a great holiday season and Happy Hunting!

We will always remember

For those of us in the United States, this is a memorable day. The attack on Pearl Harbor solidified the US’s involvement in World War II. This anniversary reminds me that our veterans and their spouses are getting old. If you have not taken the time to ask them where they were on Pearl Harbor Day – today’s the day. If you were alive for Pearl Harbor Day – it’s time to write down your remembrances.

Don’t forget that many served on the home front in volunteer capacities not just as enlisted personnel. Get the stories from the women! These are the stories we don’t read about. What jobs did the women hold until the men came home? How did this affect their lives and choices.

The Library of Congress has a Veteran’s History Project: http://www.loc.gov/vets/ for recording your stories. There are even forms and interview questions. Don’t wait. We are losing this opportunity. There are also Honor Flights from across the country to Washington, D.C. for veteran’s to visit the WWII memorial. I’ve read about some of the flights not being able to get enough WWII veterans and so they are filling the flights with Korean Conflict veterans. This is not to belittle the Korean Conflict service but to point out how precious the time is for the WWII stories.

If it were not for a stop by our home on his way to a reunion with his unit,  I never would have heard about my Uncle Jim’s two narrow escapes. The harrowing tale of being shot down behind enemy lines and living off raw rabbit meat for a month in a French cave might have died with him.

If I had not hung around my Dad while he was cleaning out desk drawers one day, I would never have seen and read (and since transcribed) his WWII strike journal which detailed each of his Air Corps missions. The patch below and photo were part of his collection. Dad - Clifford Ralston Beach Jr. is the young man on the left.

Enjoy your genealogy research but don’t forget to preserve the stories for future generations.

Happy Hunting!

YEAH - It's finally HERE!

Ancestry.com’s family tree browser for Android devices is here. It’s in BETA – which means it’s not fully ready for public use but it does what I want. Now I can connect to my family tree on Ancestry.com from my Android based smart phone and Samsung tablet. It downloads whatever tree you want and with just a swipe you can view prior generations. Tap on a person and that person’s data comes up. PERFECT

I bought a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet right after it came out and it’s still my favorite device for web browsing. I bought a stand for it, also. Now with this new application I can view my tree by my computer while I’m doing my online research. I know that is not what everyone would do but it’s perfect for me. I don’t have much room near my desk and switching back and forth between multiple websites and my PC based Family Tree software is just not elegant. Now, with just a glance, I can verify the data I have entered in my Family Tree on Ancestry.com.

Did I mention – IT’S FREE!

So – if you have a tree on Ancestry.com and an Android smart phone or tablet – check it out at the Android Marketplace.

iPad/iPhone users have had this app for a while already.

Happy Hunting!

Those Who Served

I mentioned the website www.fold3.com in a previous post but this is not the only good place to find military records. If you know what branch of the service or what company your ancestor served with, there are many dedicated websites for service information.

One of my ancestors served for the Union in the Civil War with a Pennsylvania company. I found his pension index record on Ancestry.com and also on other websites but this index card does not tell me much.

Further searching using Google led me to the following website, though. http://www.angelfire.com/pa5/gettysburgpa/23rdpa.html

This website was specifically about his unit. This website includes many obituaries, service notes, soldier cards, battle lists, etc.

I’ve found similar websites for this regiment and another one is: http://www.pacivilwar.com/regiment/23rd.html 

This website includes links to articles and photos.  

Don’t just think it’s the Civil War that has websites for companies and regiments. My father served in WWII and there are websites for his Air Corps division, also. The best one includes pictures and transcribed strike journals! (I have my Dad’s strike journal and pictures but if I did not, this site would have been priceless)

http://www.jollyrogersweb.com/resultDetail.asp?jrID=1619

The point is – we get tied up with looking for our ancestors information on generalized websites and don’t think about the possibility that the information might be on a special, dedicated, FREE website.

I’m sure there are sites for your ancestors who served, also.

Happy Hunting!

Turn off the computer and go outside!

I live in beautiful South Carolina and this past weekend was just gorgeous outside. So … I turned off the computer and visited some heritage events for a taste of past generations. We spend so much time researching to find little tidbits of information about our ancestors and their lives that it is easy to forget about the circumstances they lived in. Their time in history shaped their lives, choices, and families.

Our first event was a sugar cane juicing and boiling celebration in Coward, SC. The Russ Brothers farm was opened to the public and on this crisp Saturday morning the smell of fresh sugar cane being boiled down in 100 gallon vats was intoxicating. They used a piece of equipment from 1905 to press the juice from the cane. It was a real treat to step back over 100 years to this early process for industrialized sugar production. We then were able to sample this syrup on free pancakes, biscuits, and sausage while marveling at how lucky we were to be a part of this local tradition. The day was so enjoyable we decided to venture on to a local living history farm for a full fall farm experience.

Many of my relatives lived on farms through the 18^th, 19^th, and into the early 20^th centuries. I hadn’t been on a farm in years and it was nice to spend the rest of the day there without having to actually do all the work! It was easy to see the need for large families. The L.W.Paul Living History Farm has a sawmill, blacksmith, gristmill, smokehouse, tobacco barn, sugar cane pot (60 gallons), and other barns and out buildings. There is even a small chapel. Last Saturday was particularly active with sugaring, smoking, tool making, plowing, cotton picking, yarn dying, sawing, smoking, and various “putting up” activities. This work would have been vital activities to our ancestors. It was especially interesting listening to one grandmother explain each of these processes to her grandchildren.

I could not help but chuckle as the boys stood wide-eyed when she told them how they used corn cobs for toilet paper. They thought she was kidding until another older gentleman corroborated the story and said he still grabs corn cobs when he goes out hunting – just in case. When I called my mother later in the day she chuckled, too, and then said – Yes, of course, that’s what she used, too, as a child.

So – take some time to visit living history centers and heritage events and absorb some of the daily events your ancestors participated in as part of their daily life.

Happy Hunting!

Why you need a G-mail account for genealogy

Why you need a G-mail account for genealogy.

It’s a free, secure, stable, powerful piece of programming. If you have an Android smartphone or tablet, you will always have your contacts and e-mails. Even if you don’t have a smartphone, you will have secure access to your e-mail and contacts anywhere there is a hot-spot. These reasons work for anyone not just genealogists. So why do genealogists need a G-mail account as opposed to other web-based e-mail accounts?

The answer is iGoogle. iGoogle is another free Google product that lets you create your own custom home page for when you open your browser. This page, combined with the Google toolbar means that your favorite genealogy websites and bookmarks are always with you on the Internet. This process takes three steps. First obtain a free GMail account from www.gmail.com. You don’t have to use this new e-mail account for e-mail at all! You could decide to use it just for genealogy, though, so that when you post to a message board or forum, your e-mail account doesn’t change, even if you move or change Internet service providers (ISP) in the future. It’s really frustrating when I see a post from someone in my family research and their e-mail address is no longer valid when I try to contact them with information they have requested. With a Gmail account, you have a stable address for these posts.

Next, (or first if you already have a Gmail account) go to www.google.com/ig. The “ig” on the end signifies that you want the personalized iGoogle home page. You may have to sign-in to customize and save this page as your own. If you don’t sign-in you can still create a page with gadgets of your choosing, but the personal page won’t be saved. 

Once you’ve designed your page and added the gadgets for your research, you’ll need to set this page as your home page in your browser. Each browser is a little different but the options for re-setting your home page are usually under the tools menu. You can have more than one “home page” on the Internet if you are using a “tabbed” browser. This means that you do not have to give up your current home page just add this one to the list.

Now when you open your Internet browser the iGoogle home page you designed is the first page you see! I have gadgets for weather, g-mail, various genealogy web-sites and blogs, etc. I’ve included some of those gadget choices here. Don’t forget to search for other words like “ancestry” and “family history.”

There is plenty of help for iGoogle on the iGoogle help screens so I won’t go into detail here on how to set-up your pages. The G-mail account and iGoogle make your Internet experience much more personal. Don't forget to test these gadgets. I've found that some gadgets are not as useful as I first though.

Happy Hunting!