Here are the important system and records updates from industry leaders. Each new feature and record offers a new opportunity to learn more about your family history. Let’s get started!
MyHeritage Updates
MyHeritage announced an update their Related Records features on December 16, 2019. Here’s the latest from their blog:
“We recently revamped Related Records in SuperSearch™ to ensure that you don’t miss any important historical records that can lead you to new discoveries.
Related Records, previously known as Record Detective™, shows additional records or family tree profiles that might belong to the person or people featured in the historical record you are currently viewing.
The technology scans the record you’ve discovered in SuperSearch™ and matches it to our entire database of over 10.2 billion historical records and family tree profiles to locate related records.
For example, a birth record could point to a newspaper article about the wedding of the same person, where you could learn about new family members that you weren’t aware of.
To make Related Records more practical and ensure that you won’t miss them, we now show them in a convenient panel on the right-hand side of the record instead of below it.
Related Records are generated by MyHeritage’s record-to-record matching technology, and we’ve just re-calculated these matches, adding hundreds of millions of additional Related Records. This will open the door to many new and exciting discoveries.”
MyHeritage Records
MyHeritage has also been busy adding new records:
Germany, War Graves Index, 1902-1961
An index of 4,234,266 records
“This index of over 4.2 million records containing information on German soldiers and civilians who died in wars or military operations between 1902 and 1961.
Many of the records are for soldiers killed during World War I or World War II. While the amount of information in each record varies, the vast majority of records contain the following searchable data: first and last name, date of birth, date of death, and place of death. Some records also include birth place, burial place, and military rank.
The burial place is seldom recorded, but when available it can provide valuable information about the location of the grave.
While this is largely an early 20th-century military death index, many women are present in this collection.
In the case of soldiers who went missing, the date of death field may refer to the date on which they went missing. Similarly, the place of death may refer to the place from which they went missing.”
Australia, Military Lists and Awards
An index of Australian military rolls.
960,081 records
United States, Index of Burials, 1900-2019
An index of records from various cemeteries located in the United States.
492,002 records
Australia, Index of Burials, 1900-2019
An index of records from various cemeteries located in Australia.
438,587 records
England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Index of Will Registers, 1384-1858
An index of wills proved before the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and other jurisdictions.
979,653 records
United Kingdom, Royal Navy Ratings’ Service Records, 1853-1928
An index of Royal Navy service records for ratings who entered the service between 1853 and 1928.
803,684 records
United Kingdom, Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Royal Navy Reserve Ratings’ Records of Service, 1908-1958
An index of service record cards of Royal Naval Reserves, mainly those who served during the First World War.
129,896 records
United Kingdom, Royal Air Force Officers’ Index, 1918-1919
An index of service records of those who served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the First World War (1914–1918).
101,411 records
United Kingdom, Royal Marines’ Service Records, 1842-1925
An index of service registers of men who joined the Royal Marines between 1842 and 1925.
112,012 records
United Kingdom, Index of Merchant Seamen’s Campaign Medals, 1939-1945
An index of 108,387 records
United Kingdom, Index of Merchant Seamen’s Campaign Medals, 1914-1918
An index of recipients of British War Medals, Mercantile Marine Medals, and Silver War Badges issued to merchant seamen and officers in the First World War.
157,424 records
United Kingdom, Recommendations for Military Honours and Awards, 1935-1990
An index of recommendations for military honors and awards between 1935 and 1990 to British Army personnel and army personnel from British dominions.
78,497 records
United Kingdom, Royal Navy Officers’ Service Records, 1756-1931
An index of service records for officers who joined the Royal Navy between 1756 and 1931.
66,686 records
United Kingdom, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve Index, 1903-1922
An index of First World War service records for officers and ratings of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR).
59,784 records
United Kingdom, Index of Death Duty Registers, 1796-1811
An index of 51,146 records
United Kingdom, Admiralty and War Office: Royal Naval Division: Records of Service, 1914-1919
An index of service records of ratings and officers in the Royal Naval Division (RND) during the First World War.
50,017 records
FamilySearch has also continued to add indexed records. Most are to existing collections, but some are new collections. Here’s what they announced on December 9, 2019.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT—New, free, historical records were added to FamilySearch.org from American Samoa, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, England, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Venezuela and the United States.Over 800,000 records were added from the Cape Province of Africa(1895-1972.)
FamilySearch Adds Ability to Document All Family Relationships SALT LAKE CITY, UT (10 December 2019)
“The FamilySearch Family Tree now provides the ability for users to document all family relationships, including same-sex relationships.”
(FamilySearch) “encourages genealogical accuracy based on original source records and contains over a billion user-contributed lineage-linked records. Patrons are now able to document same-sex relationships, including same-sex marriages and same-sex adoptions.”
“When adding a spouse or parent to the FamilySearch Family Tree, the user can now add a spouse or parent of the same sex. The Family Tree mobile app will also support this new capacity after users install the necessary updates.”
The Genealogy Gems Podcast is the leading genealogy and family history show. Launched in 2007, the show is hosted by genealogy author, keynote presenter, and video producer Lisa Louise Cooke. The podcast features genealogy news, interviews, stories and how-to instruction. It can be found in all major podcasting directories, or download the exclusive Genealogy Gems Podcast app to listen to all the episodes and receive bonus content.
Do you love genealogy, mysteries and puzzle solving? Well in this episode we have not one but two tales of mystery.
The first has a Valentine’s theme centered around a mysterious love letter. Professional genealogist Kathleen Ackerman will be here to share how a love letter that was missing its last page took her on a genealogical journey full of surprises.
Our second story is a mystery full of twists, turns and murder that will ultimately resurrect your faith that what you think is lost, may still be found.
Frank recently wrote in saying that he listened to Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 227 and my conversation with Ran Snir, MyHeritage DNA Product Manager about their genetic genealogy tools The Theory of Family Relativity™ and AutoClusters. This got him thinking about his own test results and a frustration he has had trying to find matches and records in pursuit of this Galician roots.
Frank writes:
“Ancestry’s records are almost non-existent, except for some parish records, but this is the region from which Cuba and Argentina were populated, and the ultimate ancestry of Cubans in the US. I have done the AncestryDNA test but my matches are few and far between.
On the other hand, I have worked with a Spanish genealogist and have some records that go back to the 17th century. Is there any program like Ancestry, 23andme, or My Heritage, that can do Galician (Spanish) genealogy well.”
Regarding DNA matches and testing pools:
DNA companies test all types of people and because testers can download their results and upload them to other companies, their pools of people are becoming more similar. Generally, they don’t focus on particular groups. They just report the results based on the pool they currently have.
Regarding genealogy records:
Start with the FamilySearch Wiki page on Galicia includes links to records within each province.
Conduct a Google Search: Galician (Spanish) genealogy “Galicia”. Click here to see the Google search results.
Additional Resources:
The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox Third Edition by Lisa Louise Cooke available in the Genealogy Gems Store.
Available in the Genealogy Gems Store.
Lisa’s video classes and handouts on Google search are included in Genealogy Gems Premium Membership. Learn more here.
Click to learn more about Genealogy Gems Premium Membership.
From Linda:
“I am a regular listener to your podcasts. And I am the family historian. I recently received a trove of documents from my Uncle who had been working to chart the family for 25 years. He passed away last year. His most recent quest was to find as many old family pictures as possible and I have continued to reach out to distant relatives. I enjoyed the recent podcast about the New York photographer website and hope it will help me identify people in some of these very old pictures.
(Episode 236 – Interview with David Lowe, Specialist for the Photography Collection at the New York Public Library on a free tool they provide that can help you identify your old photos. Also a discussion of how to find unindexed records at Ancestry.com.)
My question: a friend of mine has inherited all of her family’s old family pictures. The pictures are from the late 1800’s. She doesn’t know who most of the people are. She is not interested in learning and apparently there aren’t any members of the family who have taken the role of family historian. Is there anything to do with these pictures other than to dispose of them? It makes me sad to know that no one is interested. When I learned a branch of my family tree had tossed all of their old family pictures, I felt awful and it has taken me some time to accept that I might not ever find replacements for this branch.”
There are ways to make real progress identifying photos. I’m going to be covering more of this on upcoming episodes. I would start by asking your friend to write down states / counties / towns where she thinks her family lived, as well as her direct ancestors as far as she knows (even if it’s just grandparents or great grandparents.) With some basic genealogical info on the most recent members of the family and some possible locations, you could then post at least some of the photos on Deadfred.com.
This is a site where people search on families and locations and other identifying information to find unidentified photos of their family members. Many, many photos have made their way to family historians through DeadFred.
If you don’t have time to post them on DeadFred, and you do know the county where some of the photos came from, you could offer to donate them to the local genealogical society. They might be willing to take them, and their volunteers might be willing to do it.
I agree with you, it would be such a shame to toss them because you can be sure there is someone out there who would treasure them and may even hold answers.
Learn more about how to blog about your family history. It may just lead to a treasure like it did for Bill. Here is a collection of articles at Genealogy Gems on family history blogging.
Learn more about how to set up your own blog by watching the videos on how to blog at my Genealogy Gems YouTube channel.
Kathleen Ackerman graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of General Studies: Family History degree in April 2012. She now has her own research company, Finding Ties that Bind. She is also working on a Master’s Degree in Genealogy, Paleography and Heraldry from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland.
Kathleen Ackerman
Kathleen is the director for the Cave Creek Arizona Family History Center. She loves to help others as they learn about their family history. For seven years, she served as the Treasurer and British Institute Director for the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History. Besides her volunteer and school work, she spends most of her free time either working on her husband’s English and Scottish lines or playing with her granddaughter.
“In 2010, my mother found three pages of a letter addressed to “Mamie” among my grandparent’s things. My grandmother has passed away and my grandfather did not remember who Mamie was or why they had the letter. My mom sent me the letter in hopes that I could figure it out.”
Miriam (Mamie) Smith Patelzick 1891-1911 (Photo courtesy of Kathleen Ackerman)
The last page which may have contained the writer’s signature was missing. This is where Kathleen’s search began.
The first three pages of the love letter. (Courtesy of Kathleen Ackerman)
Kathleen turned to census records from the time period, and Google Maps to verify where Medicine Lodge was in comparison to Small, Idaho, the place from which the letter was sent. No such town could be found.
She then turned to old maps to see if the town had once existed. She used maps on the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection website. She found a map of Idaho from 1909, that showed Small, Medicine Lodge river and Reno (all mentioned in letter). They were all in Fremont County, Idaho. Her confidence that she had the right person grew.
1909 Idaho map published by Geo. F. Cram, Chicago (DavidRumsey.com)
The search moved on into vital records. A marriage certificate for Mamie and William Patelzick in Dec 1910 was located.Perhaps they had eloped?
Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t listened to the episode yet. The next image reveals the writer of the letter.
Later, Kathleen’s mother surprisingly found the final page of the letter:
Found! The last page of the love letter. (Courtesy of Kathleen Ackerman)
A surprise indeed, and a mystery solved!
Thank you to Kathleen Ackerman for sharing her story! You can visit her at her website, Finding Ties that Bind.
Announcing the Next Generation of Google for Genealogy
The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox By Lisa Louise Cooke
Discover the answers to your family history mysteries using cutting-edge Google search strategies. A comprehensive resource for all of Google’s free tools, this easy-to-follow book provides the how-to information you need in plain English. You will first gain a strong foundation in how to search quickly and effectively. Then you’ll dig deeper into solving real-life challenges that genealogists regularly face. This book will show you how to flex your new Google muscles by mining each of the free tools to deliver satisfying and enlightening results. You will develop a mastery of Google that will serve you now and for years to come.
This book features:
Step-by-step clear instructions and loads of images that help you easily follow along.
Tips for searching faster and achieving better results to solve the real challenges that genealogists face.
How to go beyond Google search by using the wide range of powerful free tools that Google offers.
Cutting-edge technology like Google Earth to tell your family’s stories in new and exciting ways!
Ready to start your Australian genealogy research? A Legacy Tree Genealogist walks you through essential Australian history, geography, genealogical record types and online resources to trace your family tree “down under.”
Thank you to Legacy Tree Genealogists for providing this guest post.
Australian genealogy can be straightforward, but you do need to know a time period and a place, as well as the family name you are researching. Australia has only been a single country since 1901; before that there were colonies and territories beginning with the first European settlement in 1788. Even today the individual states and territories have their own governments and record systems with no single combined place to research. Therefore, knowing the time period and place where your ancestors lived is essential.
Australian history and geography
European settlement began with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, which included both male and female convicts and military and naval personnel. The colony became known as New South Wales, and occupied the eastern half of the continent of Australia including Tasmania (previously known as Van Diemen’s Land). The western half of the continent was never part of New South Wales and was originally known as the Swan River Colony, and later Western Australia.
With the exception of Western Australia, the other states and colonies were originally part of New South Wales. Victoria was known as the Port Phillip settlement before it became self-governing in 1851, and Queensland was the Moreton Bay settlement until 1859. Early records for both of those colonies will be in New South Wales, so it is important to know when the individual colonies and territories were established.
Australia in 1856 – image courtesy Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Australia)
Similarly, a knowledge of geography is essential, as Australia is a huge continent with most of the population along the coastline. Another complicating factor is that there may be places with the same name in one or more colonies/states. For instance, if researching ancestors from Maryborough, it would be necessary to identify whether you should be researching Maryborough in Queensland or Maryborough in Victoria.
To make matters even more confusing, some places changed their name! For instance, until 1911 Innisfail in Queensland was called Geraldton, not to be confused with Geraldton in Western Australia on the other side of the continent. Bendigo was originally known as Sandhurst, and many of the goldfield towns in central Victoria were known under the broader name of the Mount Alexander goldfield. Knowing the history and geography will help you immensely as you embark on your Australian genealogy research.
Getting started with Australian genealogy research
If you have Australian genealogy there are many wonderful free online Australian resources that will give you a head start in researching your ancestors and learning more about their heritage. Wikipedia – Australia is a good starting place for an overview if you are unfamiliar with Australian history and geography. Depending on where your ancestors were, read the appropriate sections of history and geography. For example, convicts were sent to New South Wales and Tasmania until 1842 when the colony was opened up for free settlement, but Western Australia only received convicts from 1850 to 1868. The gold rushes in Victoria in the 1850s attracted thousands of people, as did later rushes in Queensland in the 1860s and Western Australia in the 1890s.
Many immigrants were looking for their own land and a better life for their families. Each of the colonies had their own immigration schemes in a bid to attract as many people as they could. Most colonial passenger lists are now indexed and can be searched online at the various state archives. Some states have even digitized the passenger lists, which may be viewed freely online. State archives are a wonderful free online resource, and include offices such as the Queensland State Archives, Public Record Office Victoria, or the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
A free useful portal site is CoraWeb – helping you trace your family history in Australia and elsewhere. It is divided up into categories such as archives, cemeteries, convicts, maps, probate and will records, shipping, migration, and other genealogy-related topics.
Australian birth, marriage, and death records
Like everything else, you need to know an approximate date and place before you begin to research birth, marriage, and death records. Prior to civil registration there are some church records which consist of mostly baptisms and marriages, with a few burials. Civil registration started at various times, and different colonies collected different information at different times, with South Australia having the least information on the certificates.
Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania) was the first to introduce civil registration in 1838, with Western Australia following in 1842, South Australia in 1842, Victoria in 1851, and New South Wales (including Queensland at that time) in 1856. Most states have online indexes available for searching, but only Queensland and Victoria provide digital copies of certificates for download after purchase. Western Australia still requires researchers to mail their applications with no online ordering.
Tasmania is perhaps the most helpful – with their early church records and births, marriage, and death certificates indexed, and digital copies online for free through the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office. The Tasmanian Name Index includes free indexed and digitized copies of various genealogical resources.
Federation in 1901 and the National Archives
The individual colonies voted to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, and since then there has also been a Commonwealth (later Federal) government. This took over some government functions such as the military, immigration, citizenship, and naturalization, although some states continued to have their own immigration schemes. This means that post-1901, researchers need to use the National Archives of Australia, as well as the various state archives.
In 1911 the final changes to the map of Australia took place, with the separation of the Northern Territory from South Australia, and the establishment of the Australian Capital Territory within southern New South Wales.
With the centenary of World War One, the National Archives of Australia has digitized all army dossiers and made them freely available online. RecordSearch is the main database, and it can be searched in a number of ways including a “Name Search” and “Passenger Arrivals.” While not every record series is indexed by name, it can be useful to search for an individual’s name, especially if they arrived post-1901 or served in the military during either World War.
Australian Newspapers and Photographs
In Australia, digitized newspapers are freely available online through Trove, which is maintained by the National Library of Australia. Along with newspapers, Trove also includes government gazettes, books, articles, maps, manuscripts, photographs, archived websites, and other resources. If you are interested in what a place looked like at the time your ancestors lived there, then try an image search in Trove. Remember that it is continually being added to, so it is essential that you revisit your searches from time to time. (Click here to read another Genealogy Gems article about Trove.)
Christoe Street, Copperfield Queensland in 1876 when my ancestors lived there. Image courtesy State Library of Queensland via Trove.
Individual state libraries also have genealogy sections with online guides to various family history topics. These can be a good place to start, and most participate in the ‘Ask a Librarian’ where you can get advice and information. However, they cannot do individual research – just answer questions.
About Legacy Tree Genealogists
EXCLUSIVE OFFER for Genealogy Gems readers!Receive $100 off a 20-hour+ research project from Legacy Tree Genealogists with code GGP100.
Legacy Tree Genealogists is the world’s highest client-rated genealogy research firm. Founded in 2004, the company provides full-service genealogical research for clients worldwide, helping them discover their roots and personal history through records, narratives, and DNA. To learn more about Legacy Tree services and its research team, visit the Legacy Tree website.
Disclosure: This article contains offers with affiliate links, which may expire without notice. Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!
A ton of genealogy and family history research can be done for free. In this episode I’ll share 15 fabulous free websites and what I love about them. These are essential for everyone serious about saving money while climbing their family tree.
(Get your ad-free Show Notes Cheat Sheet at the bottom of this page in the Resources section.)
LISA’S SHOW NOTES: Get your ad-free downloadable handout in the Resources section at the bottom of this page.
Tip: Use the Tools button on the results page to reveal the filter menu. Filter your results down to just full digitized and searchable books by selecting Full View.
Snagit Clipping Tool: Here’s our link for purchasing your copy of Snagit (screen clipping tool) Thank you for using our link. Use coupon code GENEALOGY15to get 15% off. (We will be compensated at no additional cost to you, which makes the free Elevenses with Lisa show and notes possible.)
“Cooperative effort between the National Park Service and several public and private partners whose goal is to increase Americans’ understanding of this decisive era in American history by making information about it widely accessible.
11. Soldiers and Sailors Database
Features:
Men who served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War.
Histories of Union and Confederate regiments.
Links to descriptions of significant battles.
Selected lists of prisoner-of-war records and cemetery records.
Here’s our link for purchasing your copy of Snagit (screen clipping tool) Thank you for using our link. Use coupon code GENE15 to get 15% off.(We will be compensated at no additional cost to you, which makes the free Elevenses with Lisa show and notes possible.)
You’re going to learn:
What Snagit does and the problems it can solve for you as a genealogist!
How to screen capture using Snagit
Amazing advanced new features you didn’t know Snagit had and how to use them.
How to do scrolling and panoramic screen clipping (perfect for family trees, historic maps, long web pages and so much more.)
How I specifically use it for my genealogy research.
Add my YouTube channel to your “Favorites” list on YouTube:
Click here to add my channel to your YouTube favorites. Clicking the red “Subscribe” button at the Genealogy Gems YouTube channel will add my channel to your YouTube library which makes it super easy to return to my channel and Elevenses with Lisa any time you’re on YouTube.
How to Use Snagit
One of the things that we all work really hard to do is solve family history mysteries. And as we do that, we are finding all kinds of goodies. But the trick is that we have to capture them. Right? If we don’t, then we may end up losing the trail.
Last week, we talked about citing the sources that we find. This week, we’re going to be capturing our findings in a very visual way, and actually incorporating those source citations. And we’re going to be doing it with the tool that I really absolutely use every single day. And that’s Snagit.
The Image-Capturing Challenges that Genealogists Face
To understand the value of a tool we need to make identify the problems we face and see how it solves them. Here are some of the challenges genealogists face when it comes to capturing images:
We don’t need or want to save the whole page. (Why waste all that ink printing it or storage space saving it?) We may not want to download or copy an image from an unknown website. (No one wants to accidentally put a virus on their computer!)
The page in its entirety is blurred when printed. (This often happens with newspaper pages.)
We need to capture a very long or wide page that can’t be displayed in its entirety on the screen.
We want to annotate or add a citation to the source image.
It takes extra time to save to items to your computer and then add them to other documents in other programs.
Do you identify with some of these challenges? I sure do.
Let’s say that you find an article, a document, or something else, and you want to add an annotation. Maybe you want to add the source citation, a watermark, or just notes to yourself directly onto the image.
It would be time-consuming to clip the image with perhaps the free snipping tool that comes on your computer and save it to your hard drive, and then pull it into another program to annotate it. I don’t know about you, but there’s never enough time for family history so anything that we can do to save time, means we’re going to be able to spend more time with ancestors.
The solution is using Snagit.
Snagit Functionality
Here are just some of the things that Snagit can do:
“Capture” items that appear on your screen
Create videos with audio (Create > Video from Images)
Edit images (You can edit clipped and imported images and photos. You can also send screen shots automatically when using your computer’s snipping tool.)
Convert text on an image to typed text (Grab Text)
Create documents using templates (Create > Image from Template)
“Share” items to other programs with one click.
I have found that snag is so robust, and it has so many different options, I still can’t exhaust all the things that it offers me. But it’s also simple. It’s simple in the way that you use it. It certainly solves simple, everyday problems. And most importantly, it is a program that I can use not just for genealogy, but also for my business and personal use. I like to have tech tools that serve me across the board, if possible, because it takes time to get up to speed on any program. If you’re just getting programs that are only for genealogy, then you end up needing a second program to be able to do similar things in other parts of your life. Why not find tech tools that can serve you across the board. That’s what certainly Snagit does. So, while I’m focusing on showing you genealogical applications for using Snagit, just know that if you’re new to family history, or you stumbled across us this article, and you don’t do genealogy, you’re going to be able to use Snagit for just about everything.
How to Get Started with Snagit
Purchase the software
Download and install
Open it and let it run in the background so you have easy access from your task bar
Yes, there may be a snipping tool built into your computer, and you can use Print Screen. Snagit can blow them away.
How to Capture a Screen Image with Snagit
Display the desired page on your screen
Click the orange Snagit icon in your task bar (Snagit should be running in the background on your computer.) This is the Capture If you don’t see it, click the blue Snagit icon to open the editor and then click the red circle Capture button at the top of the program. After your first capture, the orange Capture icon will then be open and available in your task bar.
Select the Image tab
Set the Selection to Region
Click the large red Capture button
Use your mouse to draw a box around the desired area. You may see flashing arrows. If you click one you will be ablet to scroll that direction to capture more of the page.
When you release your mouse the image will appear in the Snagit editor.
Sometimes we find an item that is larger than is visible on the screen. The page may scroll side to side or up and down. Use Scrolling capture to capture everything in one piece.
How to Scrolling Capture with Snagit
Display the desired page on your screen
Click the orange Snagit icon in your task bar
Select the Image tab
Set Selection to Scrolling Window
Click the large red Capture button
You will see flashing arrows. Click the arrow pointing in the direction that you want to scroll in Snagit will automatically scroll down and capture. Click Stop at any time if you don’t want to capture the entire page.
When you release your mouse the image will appear in the Snagit editor. You can then trim all sides by simply grabbing the handles and dragging.
In some situations you will need more flexibility in your scrolling. Panoramic capture allows you to select the region and then scroll manually, capturing exactly what you want to capture. Think of it as image capture and scrolling capture merged together. Panoramic capture allows you move both up and down and side to side.
How to Panoramic Capture with Snagit
Display the desired page on your screen
Click the orange Snagit icon in your task bar
Select the Image tab
Set Selection to Panoramic
Use your mouse to draw a box around the desired area
When you release your mouse a panoramic capture bar will appear. Click the Start button to being your panoramic capture.
Click in the captured image area and drag the image as needed. The more precise you are in your movement the better the final image will be. You can move in any direction.
When you release your mouse the image will appear in the Snagit editor. You can then trim all sides by simply grabbing the handles and dragging.
Panoramic captures work great for large items like maps, online family trees and newspaper articles just to name a few things. If you zoom out in order to capture these types of items in their entirety you will end up with a blurry item when you zoom in for a closer look. Panoramic solves this problem.
Let’s discuss a few more options for capturing hard to clip items like newspapers. Sometimes, the article you need is continued on a different page or column. With Snagit you can capture the individual pieces and then combine them.
How to Combine Captured Images with Snagit
Capture each section of the article individual using Image Capture (Region)
In the Snagit editor press Control / Command on your keyboard and click each item you want to be included in the combined image.
Press Control + Alt + C on your keyboard or at the top of the screen click Create > Image from Template.
Select the desired page layout. Custom Steps or Steps Portrait works well for articles.
Click on any items (such as numbered steps) and press delete on your keyboard to remove them.
The combined image can then be saved to your computer or shared to another program.
Editing and Highlighting Images
There are many ways to annotate and edit images (both captured and imported) in Snagit including adding:
arrows
text (perfect for adding source citations directly onto the image
call outs
shapes
stamps (Images on images)
lines
squiggles and drawing
step by step numbering
You can also modify images by cutting out portions, blurring and erasing areas, and even magnifying an area on the image!
Snagit Advanced Features and Strategies
Once you’ve mastered the basics there are many more ways to use this tool to power-up your genealogy research. Here are a few more ideas we covered in the video.
How to Grab Text from an Image with Snagit
Option 1 – Grab text from existing image:
Select the image in the editor so that it is displayed in the editing area
In the menu Edit > Grab Text. This will grab all of the text that appears in the image. If you only want a portion of it, click the Selection tool at the top of the screen and draw a box around the area you want to grab the text from.
The converted text will appear in a pop-up window
Copy the text to your computer’s clipboard by clicking Copy All.
Paste wherever you want the text to appear (another document, etc.)
Option 2 – Grab Text While Clipping:
Display the desired page / item on your screen
Click the orange Snagit icon in your task bar
Select the Image tab
Set the Selection to Grab Text
Click the large red Capture button
Use your mouse to draw a box around the desired area. You may see flashing arrows. If you click one you will be ablet to scroll that direction to capture more of the page.
When you release your mouse the image will appear in the Snagit editor. The converted text will appear in a pop-up window
Copy the text to your computer’s clipboard by clicking Copy All.
Paste wherever you want the text to appear (another document, etc.)
Grab Text from Windows Not Easily Copied
We’ll use the example of copying the titles of computer folders into an Excel spreadsheet. Open your file explorer and navigate to the desired folders. Since a mouse can’t be used to copy all the names in one swoop, we will use Option 2 – Grab Text While Clipping instructions above.
Create Videos with Snagit
You can compile separate images into a video and add voice narration.
In the editor select Create > Video from Images
Click to select the first image in the tray
Click the microphone button in the video recording bar if you want to record narration.
Click the Webcam button if you want to appear on screen
Click the red Record button to begin recording.
Click each image in the order desired for the amount of time you want it to appear on the screen.
Press the Stop button when done.
How to Create a Timeline with Snagit Templates
In the editor add images either by importing (File > Import) or capturing
Select the images to be include by holding down the Control / Command key and clicking on them
Create > Image from Template
Select the timeline template
Add a title and captions as desired
Click the Combine button
Productivity with Snagit
One of my favorite features of Snagit is how easy it is to share items to other programs directly instead of having to save them first to my computer. It’s easy to do. Simply select and display the image to be shared and in the menu go to Share > and select the program.