Legacy's January 2021 Webinars

Legacy has a few location specific webinar series, such as the "Down Under Series." This year they are adding the "O Canada Series."

We will include that selection each month along with the regular offerings. Visit www.familytreewebinars.com to register to watch each presentation in real time. You can also view the sessions FREE for a week following the original presentation.

Tuesday, January 5 - "Where else to look? When matches don’t reply" by Michelle Patient.  Intermediate

Wednesday, January 6 - "Genealogy Unplugged: When Offline Records Are the Best" by James M. Baker.  Intermediate

Wednesday, January 13 - "Do You Have an Artificial Brick Wall?" by Robyn Smith.  Intermediate

Friday, January 15 - "From Grandmother to First European Landowner of Canada" by Liane Kruger.  Beginner

Tuesday, January 19 - "Death and Burial Practices in World War I and WW II" by Rick Sayre.  Intermediate

Wednesday, January 20 - "Another 50 Websites Every Genealogist Should Know" by Gena Philibert-Ortega.  Beginner, Intermediate

Wednesday, January 27 - "Genealogy Escape Room" by Thomas MacEntee.  Beginner, Intermediate    (Imagine you are trapped in an archive and the only way out is to solve a series of genealogy research puzzles. Are you up to the challenge? Are you ready for Genealogy Escape Room? Based on the popular escape room concept, Genealogy Escape Room turns the typical webinar format upside down! Each registrant will receive a Case Review File used to solve a series of online research tasks BEFORE the live webinar takes place. The webinar is the “reveal” where a step-by-step review of each puzzle, task, and clue all the way to the final “key” to open the door. Genealogy methodology concepts will be summarized before announcing who escaped first!)

City Directories

There was a short article about finding city directories in the Family Tree Magazine newsletter this week. We know they can be used to locate ancestors between various censuses and also to find them in that vast 20 year period between the 1880 and 1900 censuses. The point of the article was a list of free sites where city directories might be found.

Public Libraries: check to see whether they've been digitized and placed online.

My Heritage: in a free section called "Compilation of Published Sources."

Internet Archive

Google Books

"Online Historical Directories" (Google the term)

World Cat

Linkpendium and Cyndi's List

Free Stuff on Ancestry

Ancestry has over 1800 free databases, but you will need to create a free Ancestry.com account to access them. With that free account you can build a tree, connect with other researchers and read how-to help.

To find a list of those databases, use the keyword "free" in the card catalog. You can also narrow the search by combining free with other words such as New York or immigration.

A DNA Research Tale

This week we heard about Susan's research into her grandfather's origins. This brick wall in her genealogy information has been nudged slightly by using DNA. Of course, the first step is locating all available records that might help in the search. This would be followed by constructing a timeline for the family, including using maps to pinpoint where they lived in England. 

Susan looked at matches with a common ancestor to see where names are repeated. At about this time in the research process, she was contacted by a person in England who had similar matches. They have been working together to eliminate and document possibilities. 

Susan finds that creating spreadsheets can provide a picture of the information that is easier to understand. We'll be waiting to hear more about this ongoing research.

Thanks, Susan, for presenting an interesting case study! 

Records from the National Archives

Dick Eastman's enewsletter has an interesting suggestion this week. If you've been putting off ordering a Civil War pension file, now might be the time. Go to https://gopherrecords.com/de/ to learn more about a website that will locate and send you records from the National Archives for a lower cost than dealing directly with NARA. 

Bob Velke, the owner of Gopher Records, says, "NARA is closed for COVID-19 but we are taking advanced orders now. When  NARA opens, orders will be processed in the order that they are  received. Best of all, you won’t be asked to pay until your documents  are ready to be delivered to you."

Here's the information from the home page of Gopher Records. You can also access a price list there. The 50% reduction in cost deal expires on December 31, 2020. 

"We specialize in the retrieval of Civil War and other 19th-century military records from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), including service records, pensions, medical records, Court Martial records, Bounty Land records, and others. We will duplicate the records of your choice and deliver them faster and at a much lower cost than if you ordered them directly from NARA.  If you need records, we will gopher you!"

Researching in State Archives

This week Melanie presented a surprising story about "Belgian Jenny." Melanie began researching this woman following a request for information on a man involved in her death. She learned that Jenny had been a madam in several Arizona mining communities.

A few of the various records used to document Jenny's life included her will and probate, deed books, assessment rolls, newspaper articles, historical photographs of Jerome, county inquest proceedings, superior court records, etc. Melanie was able to build a picture not only of Jenny's life, but also life in a mining community in 1890s Arizona.