Weekend Webinars

How many of you were able to find time to watch some of the free webinars on Legacy over the past weekend? "Are You My Grandpa? Men of the Same Name" was my first choice, and the suggestions provided for analyzing information to differentiate between those men were very helpful.

I also watched "Ten Brick Wall Tips for Beginners" and "Ten Brick Wall Tips for Intermediate Researchers," both presented by Marian Pierre-Louis. She was such an interesting speaker that I found another topic from her list called "Plan Your Way to Research Success." We haven't talked much about creating research plans, and they do help to focus your searches.

There are so many webinars available, and not all of them are free and easy to access. Geoff Rasmussen and Legacy are doing the genealogy world a wonderful service.

Free Legacy Webinars

Legacy reached the milestone of 500 webinars this week. To commemorate the achievement, they are providing free access to all 500 webinars during the coming weekend. Here's part of the announcement:

The free period starts on Friday and runs through Sunday evening. All Legacy asks in return: “Just visit www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com and browse or search for any topic or presenter and enjoy! Then, tell us about what you learned. And if you LOVE what you are learning, consider joining us for a month or for a year to enjoy the memberships even longer.”

I hope you all have some free time during the weekend to watch one or more of those excellent presentations.

Alberta Research

Our Canadian members know that vital records research in Alberta has been difficult. Nancy Archibald reports that this has recently changed. Her message follows:


The Alberta Provincial Archives has just released Birth, Death, and Marriage record Registries. They have not indexed individually, but they are searchable by alphabetical lists and year. Once you get the number from the list and know the year of the event you can order documents that show more detail from Alberta Provincial Archives. This is pretty clear on the website. (If the year is before about 1914 on the death records, there is a code with letters. There is a sheet that will let you know what letter represents what year.) If you make a mistake they will email you and let you know what you have done wrong. If you do a large number of requests in one day they will bunch them so you don't have to pay so much for shipping and handling. It is a good idea to call to make sure. It is $3.00 in Alberta and $0.35 per copy. The link to Alberta Provincial Archives is below.

http://provincialarchives.alberta.ca/how-to/find-birth-marriage-death-records/request-form/default.aspx


Thanks for the information, Nancy!

April Webinars from Legacy

Visit www.familytreewebinars.com to register or read more about the following topics.

Wednesday, April 5 - "Preserve, Share, and Search Your Digital Pictures with Google Photos" by Geoff Rasmussen.  (Beginner & Intermediate)


Wednesday, April 12 - "Your Whiteboard in the Cloud: Trello for Genealogists" by Lisa Alzo. (Beginner)


Friday, April 14 - "Complete Photo Restoration in 4 Easy Steps" by Eric Basir. (Beginner)


Tuesday, April 18 - "The Genealogy in Government Documents" by Rick Sayre. (Intermediate & Advanced)


Wednesday, April 19 - "Neighborhood Reconstruction: Effective Use of Land Records" by Mary Hill. (Intermediate)


Wednesday, April 26 - "Finding and Using Land Ownership Maps" by Rick Sayre. (Intermediate)


Friday, April 28 - "Researching Criminal Records" by Ron Arons. (Beginner)

Scots Irish Addition

Howard's presentation included surname maps of Scotland and Ireland. Because he explained that the Scotland maps were based on the 1901 British census, Carolyn Stone decided to check that database for her surname. She was surprised to find that her ancestor's surname was concentrated in the same county in Scotland. That gives her a starting point for research. This step would be particularly helpful with an unusual surname, but it is worth a try in any case. Thanks for the information, Carolyn!

Genealogy Club Homework

During our final workshop of the year we talked about ways to further our research before returning in the fall. Many members already had plans to use some of the following ideas.


Suggestions included visiting a research facility such as the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the Allen County Library in Indiana, or the Midwest Genealogy Center in Missouri. As most of us travel during the summer, we could easily visit the home town of an ancestor to use the local library, visit the historical society or walk the cemetery.


Maureen also suggested that we visit FamilySearch and learn how to assist in their indexing project. With more indexers helping, digitized records will be posted online even faster than they are now.


Without traveling researchers could visit a virtual cemetery on FindAGrave, use the message boards on Rootsweb, continue to check for new databases on FamilySearch, and visit our club blog at www.palmcreekgenealogy.blogspot.com.


HOMEWORK

1. Reread all of your notes!

2. Organize those census sheets.

3. Make a list of problems, questions, or brick walls.

4. Bring your "stuff" back in the fall.

Bits and Pieces

Find My Past: You still have two days to take advantage of FindMyPast's offer of free access to their Irish records. According to Maureen, they are offering this access to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Good luck if you have time to take a look. The offer is good through March 17.


March 14 Workshop: We had a chance to listen to examples of some of the writing group's efforts this week. Whitey reported on his breakthrough (with some help from Annie in Winnebago County) with the Fitscher name. Maureen shared her plans for writing for her grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Nancy showed us the fictional history of her grandmother's French origins, complete with photographs of Lille during various periods of history.

We finished the evening by sharing some successes of the past season and providing comments on this year's presentations. Some items mentioned were the FamilySearch app for adding photos, discovery of an Australian branch of the family, a suggestion to include the FamilySearch ID number in your genealogy software program, using plat maps to solve a brick wall problem, and examples of different name spellings/changes.


Genealogy Club Library: We have two new books in our library. Grant Villetard has donated Forensic Genealogy, which discusses photo identification, analyzing vital records, and DNA. The other book explains the county record offices in Great Britain and how to locate records there. We also have a new collection of newsletters from the Germanic Genealogy Society in Minneapolis.

War of 1812: Canadian Perspective

Our presentation for March 7 was given by Rick Wood, who took us through the events of the War of 1812 from a Canadian point of view. We heard about many mistakes made by both sides. It is sometimes called "the forgotten war," but there were names and sayings from the era that were certainly recognized by the audience. After more than three years of conflict, nothing really changed in regard to borders or territory.

The handout was a useful list of websites for use if your ancestors might have been involved in this part of our shared history.

Thanks, Rick, for an educational and entertaining presentation.