by Lisa Cooke | Sep 30, 2014 | 01 What's New, Ancestry, Census, Collaborate
There are lots of ways to find historical records about your ancestors online. Did you know there are also ways to learn who else has added that record to their trees–or who else is researching the same people you are? Here are two ways:
1. On Ancestry.com, when you are looking at an image of a record, there’s a sidebar to your right called “Related Content.” Click on it. Below other suggested records you will see a list showing anyone who has saved this record to their trees. You’ll see a link to that username and you can contact them. This is what it looks like: 
2. On LostCousins.com, you can enter the names of relatives whose names appear on specific censuses. Their database will search for others who are looking for the same people. This is a great resource for people with British Isles roots, as the site originates from there. Here are the censuses they support:
- England and Wales, 1841, 1881, 1911
- Scotland, 1881
- United States, 1880, 1940
- Canada, 1881
- Ireland, 1991.
Basic membership at LostCousins.com is free, but has limited functionality. You can only contact new people during certain windows of time during the year. With a £10 annual subscription, you can make new contacts anytime. 
Looking for more ways to find living relatives? Genealogy Gems Premium members can click here to access my full-length video class, Unleash Your Inner Private Eye to Find Living Relatives. Not a member? Click here to join.
by Diahan Southard | Jul 1, 2014 | 01 What's New, Blogs, Family History Podcast
Family History: Genealogy Made Easy
with Lisa Louise Cooke
Republished July 1, 2014
with Lisa Louise Cooke
https://lisalouisecooke.com/familyhistorypodcast/audio/fh38.mp3
Download the Show Notes for this Episode Welcome to this step-by-step series for beginning genealogists—and more experienced ones who want to brush up or learn something new. I first ran this series in 2008-09. So many people have asked about it, I’m bringing it back in weekly segments.
Episode 38: How to Start a Genealogy Blog, Part 1
Have you ever thought about starting your own genealogy blog? Or, if you have, have you wished you could get some expert tips on making it better? In these next few episodes, we’re going to talk about sharing your research and/or your thoughts on the research process by blogging. But even if you don’t plan on starting a blog anytime soon, I know you will enjoy the seasoned genealogy blogger I’ve invited to start us off. The Footnote Maven’s passion for genealogy is contagious, and you’ll enjoy her sense of humor, and words of wisdom.
I caught up with the Footnote Maven at the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree. She has been blogging for quite some time now and has much to share on the subject. Her two very popular blogs, FootnoteMaven and Shades of the Departed, are widely read by genealogists everywhere.
In this episode, she shares:
- specific tips for getting started, how she prepares her blog posts
- what she would have done differently if she could start all over again
- 9 tips for getting readers to leave comments.
But first, a Mailbox Moment:
A reader writes in to comment on Episode #36 and questions regarding Family Tree Maker and Ancestry.com. He sends this link, which shows how to use both websites to search for a female who has married. As you suggested, entering the Birth Name in the database, but how to locate that person using Family Tree Maker’s Web Search feature at Ancestry.com. This specific example is for a census record, but other records can also be found using this same technique.
Family History Blogging with the Footnote Maven
According to her website, a “footnote maven” is someone who is dazzlingly skilled at inserting a citation denoting a source, a note of reference, or a comment at the foot of a scholarly writing.
Footnote Maven’s thoughts on getting started with your own genealogy blog: Go look at several genealogy blogs. What do you like? What do not like? Design wise and content wise. Ask yourself what kind of blog you want to write. Who is your audience? What will you offer them?
Biggest piece of advice: You don’t want to be someone else – be yourself! Everybody else is already taken! “There is something wonderful in all of us – we just have to determine what that is and showcase it.” Pick your niche and stay there. And love doing it, because you’ll never get rich at it! She says, “It is the breath I take…It’s the reason I get up in the morning.”
What She Would Do Differently If She Could Have:
- 25 posts in draft ready to go allowing more editing time
- I would tinker more with the look of my blog until it was the way I wanted
- Invite a few friends to test drive it
And she’ll tell you what was even harder for her than starting her first blog!
Now that the genealogy blogging community is established, people don’t comment as frequently. Footnote Maven shares these for getting comments on your blog:
- Thank people for the comments they leave on your blog
- Go to their blog and read it
- Tell the blogger the positive points in what they are doing
- Host a “Carnival” on your blog
- Post “off the wall” stuff once in a while
- Have good, creative titles for your posts – something that’s going to spark the interest
- Use a word in your title that folks haven’t heard before to catch attention
- Tag your posts and images
- Include “keywords” such as “genealogy.”
by | Mar 20, 2014 | 01 What's New, Newspaper, Records & databases
More obituaries gleaned from newspapers are going online. This is welcome news for those researching their genealogy.
Recently I blogged about BillionGraves’ new Supporting Records feature that allows users to upload documentation relating to ancestors’ deaths. This paves the way for more obituaries to be paired with ancestral tombstones and other resources. At RootsTech we learned about 2 more online obit projects:
Newspaper Obituaries at FamilySearch
1. FamilySearch is spearheading the indexing of millions of obituaries from the U.S., followed by other nations. CEO Dennis Brimhall announced this initiative in his keynote speech at RootsTech. “Estimates claim over 500 million obituaries exist in the U.S. alone,” said Dennis Brimhall, FamilySearch CEO. “The average obituary can contain the names of about ten family members of the deceased—parents, spouse, children, and other relatives. Making them easily searchable online can be an enormous future source for creating our family histories. The number of people who will benefit is incalculable. It could very well be the single largest preservation and access project of its kind, and will no doubt be one of the most used online collections worldwide as it grows.”
The timing of completion depends on volunteer efforts, Brimhall says. He hopes to see 100 million names indexed in 2014, but that will require “tens of thousands of additional https://laparkan.com/buy-prednisone/ volunteers.” (Want to help? Go to FamilySearch.org/indexing.)
Upload Newspaper Obituaries at ObitsAncestry
2. A new website, ObitsAncestry.com, allows individuals to upload obituaries for free, along with up to 4 related images. The obituary webpage is like the memorial pages hosted by many funeral homes, where loved ones can post comments and memories. But there’s no advertising, so it’s very respectful and “quiet.” Anyone searching for that loved one’s name will find the obituary indexed by major search engines. And perhaps most useful for the future, “All obituaries submitted to ObitsAncestry.com will be indexed and linked by familysearch.org for family history and genealogical purposes.” That gives me a little more confidence in the “staying power” of obituaries I would post there. The site just launched during RootsTech, so their database is growing now.
Available at http://genealogygems.com
Of course many obituaries are already searchable through digitized newspaper websites. But the accuracy rate for searching these isn’t as high–I’ve seen it reported it as about 60%. Which is a great start, don’t get me wrong, but I’m so pleased that better searching of obituaries is in the works!
Want to learn more about using newspapers and obituaries in genealogy? Check out Lisa’s book How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers.
by Lisa Cooke | Aug 28, 2013 | 01 What's New, Canadian, Findmypast, Records & databases
If you have Canadian roots, you’ll want to know about a rich new resource now at Findmypast.com. It’s the Canadian Books collection, with 71,000 pages of keyword-searchable histories, vital records, directories, published genealogies and more.
“Dating back to the 1600s, the Canadian Books boast 71,000 pages of items such as military, religious, occupational and immigration records, business directories, published genealogies and BMDs [births, marriages and deaths],” states a Findmypast.com press release. “The books feature a sizeable amount of military records with various nominal rolls and rolls of honour relating mostly to the First World War, such as The Royal Montreal Regiment, 14th Battalion, University of Toronto Roll of Service buy heartworm medication online canada 1914-1918 and 31st Canadian Infantry CEF 1914-1919.”
Though the core content is Canada, the reach of this 200-volume collection extends outside Canada’s boundaries. “With titles such as Sketches of Irish soldiers, The Scotch-Irish of California, and German-Canadian Folklore, the collection is valuable for people with Canadian ancestry and those who can trace their origins back to the UK or Europe.”
This collection comes from the Archive CD Books Canada Project, which has gathered, renovated and reproduced Canadian historical books, documents and maps for over a decade. The 200 volumes are searchable through all Findmypast international sites with a World Subscription and in the U.S. and Canada resources at Findmypast.com.
by | Feb 21, 2014 | 01 What's New, African-American, Ancestry, History
Many Americans have ancestors who lived through the Civil War: many have roots in both the North and South. Few families, whether they sent soldiers away or not, were untouched by this conflict that claimed an estimated 620,000 lives and freed millions of American men, women and children from slavery.
Ancestry.com recently posted a new video webinar to help you begin tracing buy thrush medication your Civil War ancestors. It’s given by noted genealogist Amy Johnson Crow. Check it out:
Here are some more great online resources for Civil War research:
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