Workshop - March 25

Nancy did a great job with a difficult task! Every Canadian province has different regulations regarding vital records, and she managed to give us a clear understanding of the "whats" and "wheres" of those records. 

Her best suggestion is to start at the FamilySearch Wiki, where you can learn where to find online records, understand the requirements about privacy and link to websites where you can order copies of your ancestors' birth, marriage, and death records.

Nancy used several examples from her own research that demonstrated what information might be available on a particular record.

Thanks, Nancy, for that educational class.

Using Maps for Genealogy

Tuesday's topic was all about maps. Annie provided several reasons for using maps in your research, including confirming boundaries, surveying your ancestors' neighborhood, finding ancestral addresses, plotting the family property lines and identifying migration routes.

We looked at state and county boundary maps, topographic maps, Sanborn maps, military maps, panoramic maps and demographic maps. Other examples were Google maps, plat maps for both the U. S. and Canada, migration routes and railroad maps.

Most of these maps can be found on the Library of Congress website, but there are many other specialized sites for map research. Googling the type of map is another good idea. 

Workshop - March 11

Beth gave us a comprehensive view on migration from Ireland to Canada. She talked about some of the reasons, including the Great Famine, economic hardship, the colonial connection because of the British Empire and incentives offered by British and Canadian authorities. Beth also discussed where and why the Irish settled in each province.

Part of the presentation explained what travel across the Atlantic was like, particularly during the early 1800s, when Beth's ancestors arrived in Canada. Most interesting was her family information about travel and settlement.

Thanks, Beth, for educating us about immigration from Ireland!

Roots Tech Report

I hope many of you enjoyed at least one of the classes provided by Roots Tech this year. The first year it was an online event most of the classes were required to be from 5 to 20 minutes (to accommodate short attention spans?). I'm happy to report that most of the presentations are now back to about 45 minutes with questions at the end. Some of the shorter classes (20 minutes each) had two parts.

Unlocking German Ancestry: three presenters. One covered German research in the U. S., a second reviewed research in Germany including many helpful websites, and the third talked about resources to help interpret the records in German, including handwriting suggestions and German word lists.   Excellent

Mining the Census: two parts. A basic primer and great for beginners.

I also watched several classes that covered pre-1850 research, cluster research, analyzing records, etc. All gave me some new ideas about my own searching. All of the presentations included printable handouts.

Research in Ireland

This past week Maureen did an excellent job of taking the complicated topic of Irish genealogy and explaining the most helpful steps to begin research. She used her own ancestral history to demonstrate how the research can be accomplished.

She stressed gathering all information possible in U.S. or Canadian records before trying to move on to any records available in Ireland. Name issues, location variabilities and Irish history are three problems facing us. Possible areas of research include civil records, church records and various census substitutes such as Tithe Applotment Books and Griffith's Valuation.

There is more information online than in previous years and using the FamilySearch Wiki will help you to reach Irish websites. John Grenham's book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors (as well as his website) can be very helpful.

Maureen says she only covered the very top portion of the "bowl of Irish research." Thanks for a great presentation!

Roots Tech 2025 Reminder

Roots Tech 2025 begins Thursday, March 6 and runs through Saturday, March 8. All online sessions are free and you can register by Googling Roots Tech 2025. I have created a library of classes and am looking forward to watching them in real time OR at any time after the conference. Here are some of my Thursday selections:

Mining the Census: Are You Finding Every Clue?

Beyond the Brick Wall: Strategies for Pre-1850 Research

Unlocking German Ancestry: Expert Strategies for Finding and Interpreting German Records

Best Practices for Working in FamilySearch's Shared Family Tree

Same Name, Different Person: Effective Record Sorting

Finding Migrating Families: How to Trace Elusive Ancestors Using Cluster Research

FamilySearch Full Text is Even Better

and more... 

Workshop - February 25

This week's topic was online newspapers. Annie suggested several steps to facilitate researching for our ancestors in historical newspapers.

1. Use Chronicling America to locate all possible published newspapers and determine where to find them.

2. Use Chronicling America to find the digitized newspapers available on that website.

3. Access Ancestor Hunt, Wikipedia, Old Fulton New York Postcards and state archives to find other newspaper locations.

4. Look for U. S. or Canada Newspapers on the FamilySearch Wiki.

5. Visit state archives or local libraries to read microfilm of those papers not digitized.  

 

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