Blog

Date Published: Dec., 309, 2010

Click here to download the Show Notes pdf

NEWS:

The Library of Congress
The Chronicling America website recently added 440,000 digitized newspaper pages

Ancestry
Ancestry has announced some of the records they are working on for 2011

FamilySearch
FamilySearch has launched their first Polish Indexing Project.  if you would like to help index this new Polish project contact FamilySearch by email at support@familysearch.org. 

Who Do You Think You Are? is Coming to DVD

MAILBOX:
Jeanette wrote in looking for a work around for a genealogical road block
New York Vital Records Statistics Office states that only a spouse or child could obtain a copy of a death certificate.   Jeanette’s Blog

Jim Beidler, author of the State Guide to New York for Family Tree Magazine  suggests “requesting to see the estate file in the surrogate’s court, because a copy of the death certificate is usually with that file.”

Margel Soderberg sent me and email about some holiday fun for genealogists.

“My brother loved it ,and it has decorated the shelf above his computer for the past year.  It will be sad to see it go.  But, I wonder what he has in store for me??”


GEM: Google Earth for Genealogy Projects
Premium member Will Haskell wrote in to say “one of the things I have started is using Google Earth for is my cemetery research…Right now I am actually adding placemarks for gravestones and adding a weblink that takes me to the gravestone on FindAGrave. Check out the attached KMZ file which has a few gravestone locations in a cemetery in New Gloucester, Maine.“

Google Earth for Genealogy volume II DVD addresses the Sketchup 3D Warehouse. Do a search on keywords like  Grave, grave stone and tombstone you’ll find that there are many out there already created by other modelers that you can download into Sketchup, and edit them from there.

Post your Google Earth KMZ files on the new Message Board in the Premium Message Forum called Google Earth for Genealogy KMZ Files. It’s a place to post and share your projects.

GEM: Thinking Historically
Family History: Genealogy Made Easy podcast
Using the Genealogical Proof Standard in Episode 20

Update: The Video: What is Historical Thinking? is no longer available on YouTube. Still interested? Search for <historical thinking> at YouTube.com.
5 Aspects of Historical Thinking

1. Multiple Accounts and Perspectives 
No single account written from one perspective captures the complexity of the past.

2. Analysis of Primary Sources
Learn how to read question, contextualize and analyze these different sources as they tell different stories about the same event.

3. Sourcing
Identifying and asking questions about the origins of the source.  The authors purpose and perspective.  Who it was created for.  It’s agenda.

4. Understanding Historical Context
The center of Historical thinking: Who are they talking to? What purpose? What was the climate at that time?

5. Claim-Evidence Connection
“When we write histories we tell stories and answer questions. To be called history, these stories must be supported by evidence…These are integral to understanding how we know what we know about the past.”

Thinking historically can make us better family historians!

GEM: Look What You Can Find In Newspapers Online!
Article from the Winona Daily Republican newspaper dated Dec. 26, 1900.
Winona Newspaper Project website