Monday, May 27, 2013

Wednesday's Legacy Webinar

The webinar for May 29 is titled "The New Frontier in Genetic Genealogy: Autosomal DNA Testing." Ugo Perego is the presenter; he spoke on that subject at the national conference.

www.familytreewebinars.com  if you're interested in learning more about DNA testing.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Free Military Records

The following information comes from today's Family Tree Magazine enewsletter.

You can access military records on both www.ancestry.com and www.findmypast.com through May 27 in honor of Memorial Day.

And the website www.myheritage.com is offering some of its most popular military collections through May 28.

Check the websites to find out the particulars.

Have fun!

Monday, May 20, 2013

Archives.com

www.archives.com is a subscription site purchased by Ancestry that has remained a separate entity. This site has a huge collection of vital records, newspapers, etc. One of the recent additions is a database of Lutheran Church records.

You'll also find a tab called "Learn From Experts" that has free articles on all facets of family research. Archives.com has a 7-day free trial to use the site.

(Note the plural in the address, as archive.com is a free site containing those wonderful county histories.)

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Legacy Webinar - May 22

Webinar for Wednesday, May 22: "Ten Hidden Resources Every Genealogist Should Know." The presenter is Lisa Alzo; I recognize her name as a frequent contributor to Family Chronicle and Internet Genealogy. The topic sounds appropriate for everyone.  Reminder: register to watch in real time at www.familytreewebinars.com.   Otherwise, at your leisure for several days following May 22.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Genealogical Pointers

While wandering through the vendor area at the genealogy conference, I picked up quite a few handouts offering memberships, free signups, website ads, etc. I'll present some of them in the next several days. You can make your own decisions...

Genealogical Publishing Company is in the business of selling books, so their online newsletter contains reviews and digests of their products. The newsletter is called "Genealogy Pointers," and following each book section, you may find something that applies to your area of research. This website also contains a link to a blog that I found to be very interesting.The postings are well written and contain much genealogical information.

Check out that blog at www.genealogyandfamilyhistory.com.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Legacy Webinar

Just a reminder: Another Legacy webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, May 15. It is called "Land Records Solve Research Problems." And if you can't watch it in real time, it will be available for about a week afterward.     www.familytreewebinars.com

Saturday, May 11, 2013

National Conference - Final Day

We attended a class during each session again today. This was a great conference; our fifth, and each time I'm energized and ready to try new ideas. Although tonight we're just worn out!

We managed to find a few items for door prizes next year; also purchased books for the club and for personal use.

Dick's impressions today: Roots Magic's Version 6 has many new features, including a research log, to-do list and integrating with GenSmarts. He also heard more about the "new" Family Search.

The first session that I attended today was called Analyzing Deeds and Wills. Elizabeth Shown Mills (the expert on evidence and sourcing) put together two very complicated documents and demonstrated how to analyze each one. I learned a great deal in a class on ePublishing, where the instructor suggested writing immediately about projects or research and publishing as you go. She discussed both publishing in an electronic format and on paper. 

Friday, May 10, 2013

National Conference - Day 3

Information overload is near, but we're still enjoying the conference! Bought three more books today; let's hope we're finished with the vendor area now.

Dick was impressed with a class on using Excel today; he learned some new tricks for sorting information. We both attended a Google session (generally we plan to see separate classes during each time period--seems like we really get our money's worth that way) that showed us how to improve our "search parameters." Can't wait to try some of the suggestions.

Two geography sessions: one concentrated on Midwest migration with lots of maps to illustrate his points; the other demonstrated GIS (geographic information systems). Think of Howard Mathieson's presentations; this class was similar. Many classes demonstrate difficulties with searching because of name changes, spellings, incorrect records, etc. Best advice: don't stop looking!



Thursday, May 9, 2013

Genealogy conference - Day 2

Ran into former club member Patty Foley on check-in day; she's attending her first national conference and says it won't be her last!

I attended a variety of lectures today: Chain Migration from Galicia, Poland (where my grandmother was born), Life After the IGI, Women and the Law, Project Planning and Analysis, Overcoming Spelling Problems to Unlock the Power of Names.

Dick found most intriguing a session about another new feature on Family Search called "Community Trees," described in the syllabus as a "locality-based, lineage-linked, sourced genealogy database." If you'd like to take a look at what they're doing, here's a link.   www.histfam.familysearch.org

We sign up for the noon lunches where we also hear a speaker following the meal. Dick continued his lucky streak, winning one of the door prizes at lunch. No surprise there.

Tomorrow's "track" includes Skillbuilding, Methodology & Research, Religion, Native American Research, The West, Migration, New York, DNA, and Gen Tech. That means all five sessions in each track have a class dealing with that subject. Dick will attend at least two of the New York classes, while I'm looking forward to two different geography-related presentations.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

NGS National Conference - Day 1

So happy to be here in Vegas to attend the national genealogy conference. You'll hear about a few of the highlights each day.

1. Marion Smith talked about her quest to solve the mystery of the person who wrote the Morton Allan Directory, which is helpful for passenger list research. Turns out Morton and Allan were two grandsons of the author, who wanted to remain anonymous.

2. J. Mark Lowe discussed census records before 1850. He has devised an interesting census comparison form to use to figure out all those tick marks. Anyone having trouble with those early censuses can copy his form from my syllabus next year--or find them on Family Search.

3. Dick attended a session on My Heritage's SuperSearch engine, which is available to everyone. The presenter said that information on the site is free unless My Heritage has to pay for it. It sounds like a website we should all try. (Skip has been recommending this for some time!)

4. Dick also attended a Family Search class. Best tip from the lecture: go to the specific collection to search. For example, if you're looking for marriages in Ohio, start with the Ohio record section.

More to come tomorrow...



Sunday, May 5, 2013

National Genealogy Conference

Dick and I will be driving over to Las Vegas on Tuesday to attend the national conference taking place May 8-11. We're looking forward to listening to experts speak on many subjects. I'm planning to blog during the week, so I'll keep you informed about our favorite topics and speakers.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Politicians in Your Past?

Jean Turner shared an interesting website this week. It's the Political Graveyard: "The Internet's Most Comprehensive Source of U. S. Political Biographies."

I spent a little time exploring and checked on the one name in my family that I knew had been elected to office. Sure enough, there he was, listed in Montana as a state legislator. The site's owner did not know his death date or burial location (I didn't find a place to share that information yet). However, many of the folks have spouses and/or children included as part of their bio.

You can search by surname, location, time period, political office, "trouble," death, etc. I found the list of "politicians whose remains were never found" to be interesting. And the short list of Ku Klux Klan members who held political office was disconcerting, to say the least.

So if you have a politician in your ancestry, or this sounds like an interesting way to spend an hour or so, try  www.politicalgraveyard.com

Thanks, Jean!