Monday, July 31, 2017

August's Legacy Webinars

Visit www.familytreewebinars.com for more information. Be sure to check the correct time for your present location.


Wednesday, August 2: "Tracing Your West Country Ancestors" by Kirsty Gray. The presentation is for all levels of research abilities and focuses on the West Country of England.


Wednesday, August 9: "A Taxing Matter: Using Tax Lists in Genealogy" by Judy Russell. Suggested for intermediate level researchers, the topic covers head taxes and taxes on real and personal property.


Friday, August 11: "Using Pictures with Legacy Family Tree" by Geoff Rasmussen. For beginning and intermediate researchers, Geoff will be demonstrating how to add digital photos to your Legacy files.


Tuesday, August 15: "Analyzing Probate Records of Slaveholders to Identify Enslaved Ancestors" by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson. This webinar will provide an overview of the probate process, the genealogical information that can be found in a slaveholding estate, and suggestions for related records. It is geared toward intermediates.


Wednesday, August 16: "Finding Your Ancestors in German Directories" by Luana Darby. Another lecture for intermediate researchers that will explain where to find online directories and how to use the information contained in them. (I heard a similar lecture this past week.)


Wednesday, August 23: "How to do Mexican Research and Be Successful" by Jonathan Walker. Another lecture for all levels of research capabilities that will "cover the availability of resources, research strategies, and where to find help."


Wednesday, August 30: "Getting Started with Evidentia" by Ed Thompson. Here's the lecture description: "A quick overview of using Evidentia software to organize and share your research with Legacy Family Tree software. We will cover entering and cataloging your first source, analyzing your evidence, and exporting that evidence for use in Legacy Family Tree." I have not heard of this product.

Germanic Genealogy Conference

We have spent the past three days attending classes specific to German genealogy. It was so interesting to be part of a conference where everyone had similar interests and almost every conversation began with "and where are you researching in Germany?"

We had time in the vendor area, which means "new books, new books!" I had to be careful how many to add to our collection, since we're traveling by car this summer.

I attended classes on using German directories, Cyrillic parish records, WWI alien registrations, German census records, research in Lithuania, German newspapers, Black Sea Germans, German guilds, Palatine research, online resources for Eastern Europe, baptismal records, and German-Bohemians. I will be posting information about some specific websites in the coming weeks.

Dick has the syllabus on a flash drive and I have the paper copy (of course), so we can share with anyone who is interested during the coming season.


Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Have You Heard?

FamilySearch has announced another big change affecting your research process.

On September 1, 2017, FamilySearch will discontinue its microfilm distribution services. The change is the result of significant progress made to FamilySearch’s microfilm digitization efforts.

Online access to digital images of records allows FamilySearch to reach many more people, faster and more efficiently. To date, more than 1.5 million microfilms have been digitized and are accessible on FamilySearch.org

Any microfilm/fiche orders made before the August 31, 2017 deadline will be filled and sent to your local family history center. If there are any records you had been planning to order, make sure to do it soon.
 




Friday, July 7, 2017

Report from Fort Wayne

We've spent the past two weeks in Fort Wayne enjoying the resources at the Allen County Library. We did find additional information that we'd missed during our last visit about 10 years ago. The library was not very busy with plenty of room to work. That also meant computers were available for longer than the normal 60-minute time limit. Books are all shelved and you access what you need without having to fill out a request sheet.

Some of the resources we used included county histories, vital record and will books and family histories. The library has suggestion sheets for each state with call numbers and library maps to give you an idea of where each state's information is located.

It was still necessary to use FindMyPast to access PERSI, although the website was free to use at the library.

Do you have Indiana ancestors? If so, the photo shows the location of the Indiana shelves with all of the resources arranged by counties... Books for the rest of the states and countries are located in other areas of the library.