by Lisa Cooke | Feb 1, 2015 | 01 What's New, Apps, FamilySearch, iPad, Mobile, Photographs, Technology, Trees
Do you ever wonder whether you’re missing something when you browse iTunes or Google Play for genealogy apps? Well, FamilySearch has created a 
space JUST for family history apps: The FamilySearch App Gallery.
According to a FamilySearch press release, the gallery helps people “more easily find the right application from FamilySearch’s many partner applications, or services, to enhance their family history efforts. With just a few clicks, patrons can now begin to search partner apps to find those that meet their specific need.”
For example, you can search the App Gallery by:
- what the app does (family tree software, find ancestor, photos and stories, charts and tree views and tree analyzing);
- platform (web, windows, Mac OS, Android, iPhone/iPad and Windows phone);
- price (free for everyone, one-time payment, subscription, or free trial);
- language (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and more);
- and FamilySearch compatibility (reads from FS, updates into FS or FS account not required).
Remember, the nature of apps is usually very specific. The BillionGraves for Android (or iOS) app, for example, lets you image and index gravestones for the BillionGraves website. But you may not have ever come across some of these apps before–and may find them very useful for your current or future research. For example, Historic Journals lets you run your own indexing project with your own group. You can tag, index, share or archive historic documents in a public or private environment.
I’m pleased to report that the Genealogy Gems Podcast app for iOS and Android are in the FamilySearch App Gallery! In case you don’t already know about the Genealogy Gems Podcast app, it brings the free Genealogy Gems Podcast to your smart phone or tablet along with exclusive bonus material. And in January the app celebrated it’s 5th anniversary! In addition to getting access to the show, you’ll also receive access to special features like PDFs with tips and ideas from the show; Genealogy Gems wallpaper; bonus audio and video content; the ability to follow the show on Twitter; and call-in audio comment feature (iPhone only). (Not all features available for all episodes.)
While the FamilySearch App Gallery is a great resource, it isn’t a comprehensive home for ALL family history related apps. And a lot of genealogy-friendly apps aren’t categorized as such in Google Play or the App Store. Learn more about TONS of apps to further YOUR family history in Lisa’s book Turn Your iPad into a Genealogy Powerhouse. This book introduces you to the tablet/iPad way of “thinking” (it’s different than how you use a computer). It gives you an in-depth look at over 65 genealogy-friendly apps, 32 fabulous tips and tricks and links to online videos where you can watch things for yourself. Got a tablet? No problem–apps available in Google Play are included, and the tips include clues about features to look for in your brand of tablet.
by Lisa Cooke | Jun 24, 2016 | 01 What's New, Records & databases
We have a new title for our Friday series, but it is still your go-to list for new and updated genealogical records! Here is this week’s suggestions for Australia, North Carolina, and Florida. Happy hunting!
AUSTRALIA – MILITARY
Fold3.com has added WWI Service Records for Australian soldiers to their website. This collection contains service dossiers for the Australian Imperial Force, Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force, Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train, Australian Flying Corps, and the Australian Army Nursing Service. It also has depot records for those serving at home. Records found in this collection are administrative files that only provide a general overview of the individual’s service. Further information may include details about casualties, wills, medals, pensions, mail, and personal effects.
UNITED STATES – NORTH CAROLINA – LAND GRANTS
Ancestry.com now offers the North Carolina, Land Grant Files for 1693-1960 for those researching this area. Organized by county name, these records offer warrants, surveys, and sometimes a hand drawn map. Additional information may include:
- Certificate number
- County
- Name of grantee
- Number of acres
- Date the grant was issued
- Entry Book and page number
- Location description
UNITED STATES – FLORIDA – PASSENGER LISTS
Florida, Passenger Lists, 1898-1963 is a record collection provided by Ancestry.com. It is an index-only of passenger lists of ships and airplanes arriving from foreign ports to various Florida ports. The names found on this index are linked to images of the passenger lists, which were copied from the NARA microfilm. Information you might find on these indexed records include:
- Given name and surname of passenger
- Age, sex, and ethnicity/nationality
- Birthplace and last residence
- Name of friend or relative
- Final destination
- Port of departure and/or arrival
- Date of arrival and/or departure
RESEARCH TIP:
Many passenger list forms from the twentieth century are two pages long. You should click the Previous and Next buttons to make sure you are seeing the all the information.
by Lisa Cooke | Dec 30, 2016 | 01 What's New, Records & databases
End 2016 on a high note with these new and updated genealogical record collections. Lisa soaked in Christmas tunes of Harlan County Kentucky’s pride and joy, Jordan Smith (winner of The Voice,) in a concert over the holidays. Harlan County can also be very proud of their incredible genealogical records. Today we are highlighting their county GenWeb page. This U.S. county GenWeb page has gone above and beyond in making Harlan County, Kentucky records accessible to the masses. Also this week, United Kingdom apprenticeship records, parish records, and Scotland mental health and prison records.
United States – Harlan County, Kentucky Records
This is not a new collection, though it may be new to you. Discovering the many U.S. GenWeb sites dedicated to genealogy is a great help to many. This week, we wanted to give a special hat’s off to the amazing work that Harlan County, Kentucky has done on their GenWeb page.
You will find digital images of people, places, schools, and newspaper clippings, but the best part is their extensive birth, marriage, and death indexes. The marriage records begin as early as 1818 and end about 1925. The birth record index begins in 1852 – 1940, though some years are missing. Lastly, the death records begin in 1852 – 1959, with a special collection on coal miners deaths.
In addition to these great findings, the Harlan County Kentucky GenWeb also has:
- Censuses
Christian music superstar Michael W. Smith accompanies Jordan Smith singing “O Holy Night” in Dallas, Texas. 2016.
- Court records
- Tax records
- Deeds
- Wills
- Military records
- Bios
- Family files
United Kingdom – Gloucester – Apprenticeship Records
The Gloucester Apprentices 1595-1700 at Findmypast contain over 20,000 apprentices, masters, and their relatives who were listed in the Calendar of the Registers of Apprentices of the City of Gloucester 1595-1700. The calendar has been digitized with optical character recognition (OCR), which allows you to search images of text for your ancestor’s name or a keyword.
Each record will list the apprentices trade, residence, the name of their father, the name of their master, the name of their master’s wife, the length of their term and the amount they were paid at the end of their training.
These records will be particularly helpful for those unable to find civil or church records regarding their ancestors.
United Kingdom – Kent – Parish Records
Also at Findmypast this week, over 36,000 new additions have been made to the Kent Parish Records collection. Specifically:
· Over 14,000 additional baptisms
· Over 1,000 additional banns records
· Over 11,000 additional marriages
· Over 9,000 additional burials
These new records date as far back as 1538 and cover the parishes of Wrotham, Stansted, Wouldham, Southfleet, and Leybourne.
Scotland – Mental Health Records
The Scotland Mental Health Institutions Admissions 1857-1859 at Findmypast include over 1,000 records from over 50 mental health institutions including asylums and poorhouses. Though these records tell a sad story, they may help you to piece together the family story.
Each record includes a transcript of an original document and may provide your ancestors’ birth place, birth date, former residence, and the institution they were sent to and the date of their admission.
Scotland – Prison Registers
You can search over 17,000 transcripts of prison registers in the Findmypast collection titled Scotland Prison Registers Index 1828-1884.
Each record lists the prisoners age, birth year, birth place, occupation, former residence, offence and place of imprisonment.
Start the New Year off Right
Here’s a New Year bargain you can’t ignore – 10% off 12 month premium subscriptions to Findmypast. Today is the last day to save! They have over 2 billion (yes, that’s billion with a B!) records and more are added every day. Make 2017 a year full of fascinating family history discoveries by clicking on this image link below.
by Lisa Cooke | Jun 11, 2015 | 01 What's New, African-American, Ancestry, Beginner, Census, FamilySearch, History, images, Records & databases, Research Skills, United States
Sample census detail image from Ancestry.com.
Imagine taking a standard U.S. census form, translating it into Spanish, administering it to a newly-American population whose racial identity is highly politicized, translating the results back into English and trying to make sense of them 100 years later.
That’s what happens when you’re looking at 1910 census in Puerto Rico.
I stumbled on this story when my dad, a FamilySearch indexer, called my attention to a current project to index previously-missed parts of the 1910 census. A lot of the missing data was for Puerto Rico. The forms are in Spanish. My dad asked my help translating some of what he was reading, since I speak some Spanish. He was concerned that the computer was interpreting some of the abbreviations in English when they were likely Spanish abbreviations. I looked into it and what I found reminded me of these lessons:
From “The US Census and the Contested Rules of Racial Classification in Early Twentieth-Century Puerto Rico,” by Mara Loveman, in Caribbean Studies, 35:2 (July-Dec 2007), 3-36. Click image to go to the paper.
Always read the record itself and seek to understand it. Don’t just rely on the index! The published images of this census on Ancestry interpret “B” in the race column as “Black,” but a little research (thank you, Google Scholar!) reveals that the census takers entered the race in Spanish–so “B” was for “blanco” (read about it in this academic paper).
When you see someone’s race change over the course of a lifetime, consider the historical context. Puerto Rican census data from the early 1900s “show a population becoming significantly whiter from one census to the next” because of “changes in how race was classified on census returns,” says the same paper. Not only were there changes in the official instructions, but the enumerators increasingly didn’t follow them. In fact, on several thousand census entries in 1910 and even more in 1920, “individuals’ racial classifications were manually crossed out, and a different ‘race’ was written in. These post-enumeration edits, it turns out, were done by a select group of Puerto Ricans hired to supervise and ‘correct’ the work of fellow Puerto Rican enumerators.”
This little historical trivia is not so trivial if you’re wondering why your ancestor may be identified by a different race than you expected. Learn more about finding academic papers like the one quoted here in The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox by Lisa Louise Cooke. Her book shows you how to search Google Scholar for gems like this that make your family history more clear!
by Lisa Cooke | Apr 3, 2015 | 01 What's New, African-American, Ancestry, Australian, British, Canadian, Cemeteries, FamilySearch, Findmypast, Military, Records & databases, United States
Each Friday we share a list of selected new genealogy records online. Watch for records in which your ancestors might appear–and get inspired by the 
kinds of records that may be out there waiting for you to discover. This week: Australian cemetery records, British military officer deaths, various U.S. passenger lists and North Carolina marriage records.
AUSTRALIAN CEMETERY RECORDS. Two million indexed records have been added to the free Australia, Queensland Cemetery Records, 1802–1990 dataset at FamilySearch.org. According to the site, “The records include an index which combines several other indexes, cemetery transcriptions, burial and other records from cemeteries in Queensland….Cemetery records are especially helpful for identifying ancestors who were not recorded in other records, such as children who died young or women. They may also give clues to finding more information. In Australia, the first cemetery is reported to have been in Sydney in 1788.”
BRITISH MILITARY OFFICER DEATHS. FindMyPast’s new dataset, Royal Artillery Officer Deaths 1850-2011, lists the details of over 17,000 commissioned officers who were killed or died during the campaigns in Kosovo, Bosnia, Borneo and Iraq as well as the First and Second World Wars. It is estimated that since the regiment’s formation in May 1716, over 2.5 million men and women have served with the regiment. Each record includes a transcript of details found in the original records.
US PASSENGER LISTS. Browsable images were added to several existing US immigration records. Click here (and then scroll down) to view a table that has links directly to these datasets:
- For San Diego, CA:Airplane Passenger and Crew Lists, 1929–1954 and an apparently segregated Chinese Passenger and Crew Lists, 1905–1923;
- San Francisco, CA Passenger Lists, 1893–1953;
- Key West, FL Passenger Lists, 1898-1945;
- Minnesota Passenger Lists, 1910-1923;
- New York City, NY Passenger and Crew Lists Soundex (meaning an index based on how a name sounds), 1887-1921; (this is actually a new image collection)
- North Dakota Manifests of Immigrant Arrivals, 1910-1952 (this is also new).
NORTH CAROLINA (US) COUNTY MARRIAGES, 1741-2011. This new dataset on Ancestry “includes images of marriage bonds, licenses, certificates, and registers from 87 different counties.” According to an Ancestry blog post, some marriages have multiple records in this collection, like a bond and an indexed marriage record. This record set may be particularly useful for those tracing African-American marriages, as they “reference the joining of couples living as man and wife dating back to 1820, and possibly earlier…. Sometimes they also include the names of their former owners.” There’s a free, similar-looking dataset at FamilySearch, but the dates aren’t as extensive (it covers 1762-1979).
Tip: When searching within record sets like these, read the record collection description! Sometimes you are just seeing a partial collection that is being updated on an ongoing basis. Some years or locales may be missing from an otherwise complete record set.
When you have questions that aren’t answered in the record collection description online, Google them! Use keywords like the type of record (“marriage records”) and the missing locale (“Burdett County”) to see whether other sites can lead you to these records or confirm that they don’t exist. Learn more about advanced Google searching for genealogy in the fully-updated 2nd edition of The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox by Lisa Louise Cooke.
