by Diahan Southard | Oct 8, 2014 | 01 What's New, Beginner, Collaborate, Social Media, Volunteer
What Has Replaced Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness? It’s a question on many family historians minds, include Genealogy Gems Podcast listener Richard who wrote in with this question:
“Many years ago Bridgett Schneider hosted the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness website (RAOGK). This was one of the best sites to get assistance from people willing to give back at a free or very nominal cost (reimbursement). I know someone has attempted to create the same type of page using Wikia (RAOGK wiki) and I have just started working with it, but there are not many volunteers for this site yet.
I was a volunteer for the original RAOGK and will attempt to do the same with the wiki page, but I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for any other types of pages like this. I depend on others so much because my parents’ families are from all over the U.S. My father was career Navy, joining in Minnesota going to Colorado, where my parents met, then moving to Washington DC area, Florida and back to DC. My mom’s family are all from the Minnesota and Oregon areas, so traveling to find information is not always easy. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.”
Here’s the scoop on RAOGK:
You’re right, no other website has really taken hold to replace RAOGK. And that’s because Facebook has filled the bill. Genealogists are joining in droves, and many create Facebook accounts strictly for their genealogy efforts. You certainly don’t have to have personal information posted in order to take advantage of the “genealogical crowd sourcing” ability of Facebook.
By “friending” other genealogists you start to build a group of ‘genealogy friends’ you can turn to with questions. But when it comes to specific areas, I go to the Facebook search box and search for Facebook groups on the topic I’m interested in.
For example, I am researching the Munns, Bax and Dixon families of Margate, Kent, England. A search or “Margate History” brought up a fantastic group devoted to the history of Margate. They have amassed an unbelievable amount of shared info, photos, postcards and documents. Not everyone is a genealogist, but everyone is interested in the history of Margate. It’s the first place I would go to post a question or request for help, and inevitably someone will have the answer or be in a location where they can help me.
Although the Margate group is “history” focused, you can also search adding the word Genealogy to your location search for a group.And if you don’t see a group that meets your needs, create one! From your Facebook account:
1. on the left side of the page under GROUPS click “Find New Groups”
2. Here you can join groups (Facebook will likely recommend some based on your profile interests)
3. In the upper right corner click the green + CREATE GROUP button
4. Give your group a name and select whether it is public or private
5. Start posting content to your group page
6. Start promoting the page on your profile page while also friending other genealogists and soon you will likely have a vibrant group that can assist each other based on a shared interest.
Bottom line: Facebook is the new RAOGK. And the upside is that Facebook expands the resources to folks who may be in a position to help through a shared interest while not necessarily being a genealogist.
I hope that helps. Let me know how it goes, and thanks for being a part of the Genealogy Gems community.
by Lisa Cooke | May 23, 2014 | 01 What's New, MyHeritage
MyHeritage has signed on to sponsor The Genealogy Gems Podcast! Their support helps us to continue to bring you free multimedia content to inspire and inform your genealogy journey.
Our editorial team has spent several months getting to know MyHeritage.com. We think you’ll love their…
International membership. MyHeritage serves over 70 million members worldwide in 40 languages. Did your English-speaking ancestors originate in the British Isles? Are you discovering Sephardic roots in Spain? MyHeritage members may be your cousins—or know something about them. Check out their world membership map here.
24/7 record searching technology. MyHeritage uses a unique and powerful search system called Record Matches to constantly cull 5 billion historical records for your family. It’s the only family history interface out there using semantic analysis to search newspaper articles, books, and other free-text documents. It is also the first to translate names between languages. I personally like that matches from MyHeritage’s historical newspaper collections show up toward the top. It’s a great way to find obituaries!
Millions of trees. MyHeritage can search over 1.5 billion records in their own 27 million trees and recently-acquired Geni.com’s unified tree. From a single screen, members can search all those trees plus WikiTree and other trees. But you don’t even have to search. MyHeritage’s unique Smart Matching technology intelligently matches each family tree to hundreds of millions of profiles in other family trees. Members are alerted when new matches appear on the site.
Offline software companion. Family Tree Builder 7.0 is free software that allows you to keep a master copy of your family tree offline. Read my blog post on that topic here.
Great app. The MyHeritage app for iPhone, iPad and Android 2.2 helps you research, record and share your family history on the go. You can browse records, photo-share, and show off your tree in its beautiful display.
Genealogy Gems will continue to bring you news and gems on a wide range of genealogy topics and companies, not just MyHeritage. But we do encourage you to get to know MyHeritage.com. We choose our advertisers carefully and are very proud to partner with them!
by Lisa Cooke | Jul 23, 2016 | 01 What's New, Findmypast, Records & databases |
Have you met PERSI? You should! PERSI is the Periodical Source Index. Use PERSI for genealogy and you may discover your ancestors in thousands of articles you never knew existed.
You may have heard me talk in the past about PERSI. In case you haven’t…PERSI is not a person—it’s the acronym for the Periodical Source Index. PERSI is THE master index for periodicals with over 2.7 million entries. Thousands of magazines, newsletters, journals, and other periodicals from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Ireland, and Australia are indexed here.
PERSI is maintained by the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They have the equivalent of 6 full-time staff who are dedicated to subject-indexing every issue of every known genealogy or historical periodical and even the tiniest society newsletter.
Curt Witcher, who runs the Genealogy Center at Allen County and who has been a guest on the podcast in the past, estimates that if you don’t consult periodicals in your research, you could be missing up to 30% of your research leads! That’s a lot of leads! PERSI has long been a staple resource for advanced and professional genealogists to help them break through brick walls. With its help, you can much more quickly locate articles like biographical sketches of ancestors (or people they knew), transcribed indexes to naturalization or probate records, church records, school records, and the like. There might be just-what-you-need histories of places or the organizations your ancestors belonged to.
These key articles are often buried so deep in back issues of little local genealogy newsletters that you may never come across them on your own. Sometimes, they’re what we call “orphaned” content: articles we’d find in totally unexpected places.
HOW TO SEARCH PERSI ONLINE
PERSI used to be searchable on Ancestry, but it isn’t there anymore. The current version of PERSI is exclusively on Findmypast and they’re doing something really cool with it: they are gradually adding digitized articles to the index! They are doing this by signing contracts with each individual society or journal publisher, so it’s not a fast process. The vast majority of entries on PERSI do not have digitized articles linked to them yet. It’s a bonus when you do find them.
To search PERSI at Findmypast you do not actually need a subscription. They allow anyone to search and see the list of results. To see details about specific search results (including any digitized images), you will need a subscription OR you will need to purchase their pay-per-view credits. Findmypast does offer a 14-day free trial. You can also use Findmypast at Family History Centers and at many libraries that have institutional subscriptions.
Once you have located an article, it’s inexpensive to order a copy directly from the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Simply download the order form PDF from their website, fill it out, and mail it in. Last we checked, you can request up to six articles for only $7.50, which you pre-pay and then they bill you separately for copies at 20 cents per page.
Sometime soon, why not take 15 minutes—or your next lunch break at work–and search PERSI for your top surnames and locations? Again, the database is PERSI, it is at Findmypast, and the chance to discover is all yours.
MORE GEMS ON PERSI
PERSI Digitized Collections Gaining Ground
New FindMyPast Hints Help Find Records
The Genealogy Gems Podcast Premium Episode 135: Comparsion of Google Scholar & PERSI (Premium Member Subscription Needed)
by Lisa Cooke | Dec 22, 2023 | 01 What's New, Immigration, United States |
VIDEO & SHOW NOTES: Discover how to search for ancestors who may be included on the Ellis Island Immigrant Wall of Honor, and learn how you can honor ancestors’ by adding them to the list.
Watch Now:
Resources:
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Show Notes: Ellis Island Wall of Honor
Millions of our ancestors came through Ellis Island in New York. Mine certainly did. So it’s a great place for genealogists to explore and learn new things about their family history. Well, there have been some changes and things happening over at the Ellis Island Foundation. And here to tell us more about it is Suzanne Mannion. She’s the Director of Public Affairs have the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation.
The American Immigrant Wall of Honor-Courtesy of Paul Seibert Photography
About the Ellis Island Wall of Honor
From Suzanne: The American immigrant Wall of Honor was introduced in 1990, when the Ellis Island Museum opened, originally, it was after the foundation had restored Liberty Ellis Island. It was a way to support the foundation. But more importantly, it was a way to celebrate people’s individual family immigrant experience.
Primarily it was Ellis Island immigrants and or their descendants whose names are on the on the wall for the start. Then over the years, it expanded. It’s now open to everyone, regardless of your immigration story or timeline.
It’s really been so well received. There are more than 800,000 names on the original wall of honor. So, that actually filled up and we had to turn people away and say, sorry, we’re filled up. Then through our partnership with the National Park Service, we were able to expand the Wall of Honor, which we just announced earlier this year.
The first round of names on the expanded wall are being submitted right now, and through the end of this year (2023). Those names will be unveiled in the summer of 2024. We were so excited that the Park Service gave us this opportunity, because people were disappointed thinking they had missed their chance to include their ancestors. So many people want to celebrate whether it’s themselves, their parents, or a loved one. They want to celebrate the immigrant experience, because that’s what Ellis Island is all about whether your family came here like mine in the in the mid-1800s or last year. It’s all about the celebration.
Names Expanded to All Immigrants
From Lisa: You might be really surprised to realize that many of the names that are on the wall are not people who came through Ellis Island. Normally at an historic site you would expect to see plaques and signage only referring to those involved with that site. So, I’m interested, when did that decision get made? When did it change from a wall of honor Ellis Island to including everybody?
From Suzanne: It was probably in the early 2000s. So, as you know, the Ellis Island database was launched in April of 2001.
Passenger Database Search
And so, with that people were celebrating the Ellis experience. Whether or not it’s true, I say oh, we should take some credit for helping genealogy become such a popular pastime! So, with that people came in, and even those visiting who didn’t have roots through Ellis Island, they felt the connection to America’s immigration story. So, people started asking if they could add their names to it. And it made complete sense.
Our goal is to continue expanding our database, so it has more ports of entry. And with that, we’re at the National Museum of Immigration.
So, we thought, let’s tell the whole story. So yeah, it’s been, I would say, well over a decade that the immigrant didn’t have to have come through Ellis Island to be included. I’m loving seeing and hearing other people’s stories and these different countries because it was very much a European thing like that. And now, they’re from all over the world.
Searching the Wall of Honor Database
From Lisa: You mentioned that there is a database. Before we try to submit a name, we’d like to check and see if the name is already there. Where can they search this database on the website, and would include any more information on that particular database besides just the fact that the names on the wall?
From Suzanne: Yeah, there’s two different databases. There’s the Ellis Island database through which one can trace family or anyone who came to the port of New York Between 1820 and 1957.
Ellis Island Passenger Database Search
And then the Wall of Honor database
Ellis Island Wall Of Honor and Database Search
In there you can see the name of the person who’s on the wall, and the person who submitted the name. So, some people do it for themselves. But it could be from Suzanne, “in honor of her great, great, Grandfather Michael Mannion.”
How to Add a Name to the Wall of Honor
From Lisa: What’s the process for adding our ancestor’s name? You mentioned that there might be a deadline. We’re recording here in 2023. Can they continue to add names into the new year?
From Suzanne: The opportunity is continuous. But what we do is we only put up a new panel once a year. So, from January 1 to December 31, people submit their names. Then at the beginning of the following calendar year, we create a new panel, and then we unveil it in early summer.
Add a Name to the Wall of Honor
So, if you want to make it onto that first panel of the wall expansion, then please submit the name or names by the by the 31st of December, 2023. But you can certainly participate after that.
Foundation Fundraiser and Cost
From Lisa: I believe this is a fundraiser for foundation correct?
From Suzanne: It is such a great way to show support for the foundation and the work that we do in restoring and preserving the two monuments. The cost starts at $275 for a one-line inscription.
Add a Name to the Wall of Honor
The website explains the process and the pricing. There are higher levels such as Steward levels, if you want more lines. That provides additional support for the foundation. Also, if you join, become a member at a certain level, that includes a wall of honor inscription. So, there are many ways to support the work that we do.
The History of the Foundation
We’ve been around since 1982. President Reagan asked Lee Iacocca to head up the effort to not only raise money, but to oversee the restoration of the statue and of Ellis Island for their Centennials. We’ve continued to work closely with our partners at the National Park Service.
In 2019 we opened the Statue of Liberty museum on Liberty Island.
Statue of Liberty Museum
It’s a small museum but with a big, big impact. There are beautiful visuals, and her original torch lives right there.
We don’t take government money to do any of the projects at the islands. It’s all through donations and has been since our inception. And we’re very proud of that.
From Lisa: I remember back in high school when Lee Iacocca was taking this on, and my grandmother was so excited because her parents had come through Ellis Island. It was in really tough shape back then. What stands there today is just amazing. It’s a wonderful experience. I encourage everybody watching to at some point make the visit because it really is heart touching.
EarthCam at Ellis Island
From Suzanne: Yes, and check out our website. We have some amazing views ! We are partnering with a company called EarthCam. You can see different views from the statue, and learn more
State of Liberty EarthCam
How Donated Money is Used
From Lisa: In the spirit of good stewardship, how is the money used? Does it only support the creation of the Ellis Island Wall of Honor? Or are there specific projects that you’ve had in mind this year that this money goes directly to that we can maybe look forward to in the future?
From Suzanne: Yeah, I can’t say right now. But I would love to come back in a few months to talk about a project we’re planning over on Ellis Island.
The donations that come via the Wall of Honor support the foundation’s mission in general, to restore and preserve the two monuments. And that includes maintaining the wall of honor.
Another thing that may inspire people to add the name this year is because costs are going up to not only create this new expansion and to maintain the wall, there will be a $25 increase in inscription starting January 1, 2024.
From Lisa: Suzanne, it’s always great to talk to you. Thank you so much for sharing this news. And I look forward to new and more news next year.
Resources:
Download the ad-free Show Notes cheat sheet for this video here. (Premium Membership required.)
