by Lisa Cooke | Sep 2, 2018
FOR ANDROID USERS: How to Get the Premium Feed on Your Android Mobile Device
Recommended app: Podcast Addict for Android, available in the Google Play Store.
Follow these steps to set up the Premium Podcast using the Podcast Addict app for Android. Examples shown below are on a tablet, so keep in mind that it may look slightly different on your device.
1. Download the Podcast Addict App
Podcast Addict app
Google Play Store
On your device, go to the Google Play Store and download the Podcast Addict app.
(*Note: If you’ve never used the Google Play store you may be required to set up an account, including payment information. This is unrelated to Genealogy Gems, but necessary in order to download apps from the Google Play Store.)
Recommended app: Podcast Addict for Android, available in the Google Play Store.
Follow these steps to set up the Premium Podcast using the Podcast Addict app for Android.
NOTE: Examples shown below are on a tablet, so keep in mind that it may look slightly different on your device.
2. Add the Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Feed
Tap the + icon to add a feed
Tap “RSS Feed, YouTube/Twitch Channel, Soundcloud URL”
In the “RSS feed URL” field, copy and paste this address to ensure it is exactly correct with no extra spaces at the end (the feed address is case sensitive):
https://lisalouisecooke.com/Premium_Feed/feed.xml
- Check the box for “Authentication (Premium Podcast)”
- Type in your Genealogy Gems Premium Membership username and password. You MUST use your membership username, NOT your email address.
- Tap “Add”
Your Podcast home screen will now have the Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast.
Tap the podcast icon. It may appear yellow like this or it may be our logo) to reveal all episodes, starting with the most recent episode at the top of the list.
3. Downloading Episodes
You can download episodes so that you can listen offline, without an internet connection or using your device’s cellular data. Download an episode by tapping the down arrow icon on the right:
Once the episode is downloaded, a play button will appear that you can click to listen. A small download icon will appear indicating that this episode is downloaded to your device:
3. Listening to Episodes & Viewing Show Notes
When you open the app, tap the Genealogy Gems Premium podcast to access episodes:
You can go straight to the episodes you’ve already downloaded through the app’s menu. Tap the three lines icon:
Then tap Downloaded episodes:
On this screen are only the episodes you have downloaded for offline listening. To return to all episodes just tap the 3 line icon in the upper left corner.
4. Deleting Downloaded Episodes
After you have listened to a downloaded episode, you can delete it to free up the space on your device. (Don’t worry, all of the episodes are still available through the main podcast feed in Podcast Addict.) To delete an episode in the Downloaded Episodes area, tap the 3 dots icon on the episode you want to delete:
(Note: If you want to delete all the episodes that you’ve already played, click the 3 dots icon at the very top of the right-hand corner, and then tap “Delete Played Episodes”)
On the page for that downloaded episode tap the trash can icon to delete it from your device:
Need More Help?
If you’re experiencing error messages or other technical difficulties, please visit our Premium eLearning FAQ page and head to the Troubleshooting section towards the bottom. You’ll find answers to the most common causes of problems and solutions and tips to fix them.
by Lisa Cooke | Jul 23, 2015 | 01 What's New, Ancestry, Census, images, Libraries
HeritageQuest Online is now even more worth the trip to your local library to access for free, now that its new interface is powered by Ancestry.
For the past few months, library patrons have been getting used to a new version of HeritageQuest Online. This online genealogy resource, available only at libraries or through their websites, “has a new interface powered by Ancestry, enriching the search experience and streamlining the research process,” as described by a company press release a few months ago.
“The intuitive interface provides a fresh user experience that will be familiar to Ancestry.com users,” states the release. “A new Image Viewer offers basic and advanced capabilities without any plug-in, making it easy to share images with family and friends. Image resolution…is significantly improved with the addition of greyscale and color. The Research Aids resources for learning opportunities for novice, intermediate, and advanced searchers.”
Other bloggers have commented on the improved user interface, but what caught my eye was a more detailed, mouthwatering description of all the census extras and other new HeritageQuest Online content (from its site):
- “Now available for searching is the entire U.S. Federal Census collection from Ancestry.com including supplements (e.g., 1940 Enumeration District Maps) and several schedules (e.g., non-population schedules) previously not included for searching.
- 20,000 city directories have been added to the existing city directories in the Book collection, increasing the size of the Books collection to more than 45,000 titles.
- Expanded content in the Revolutionary War Collection. The entirety of the NARA Series M804 is now included here, providing access not only to the previously available “Selected Records” (Series M805) but now also to the “Non-Selected” records of each file.”
Finally, four of the six HeritageQuest Online data collections (Census, Books, Revolutionary War, and Freedman’s Bank) have “brand new search pages with limits, exact matching options, and additional fields for searching.”
Resources:
5 Genealogy Resources to Look for at YOUR Public Library
WorldCat for Genealogy: 40 Million Records and Digital Gateway
Genealogy Gems Premium members can learn more about using HeritageQuest Online and other fantastic resources in Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast Episode 125. (Premium membership required: learn more about that here.)
by Lisa Cooke | May 1, 2015 | 01 What's New, Ancestry, British, Church, Findmypast, images, MyHeritage, Records & databases
Every Friday, we highlight new genealogy records online. Scan these posts for content that may include your ancestors. Use these records to inspire your search for similar records elsewhere. Always check our Google tips at the end of each list: they are custom-crafted each week to give YOU one more tool in your genealogy toolbox.
This week: British POWs in World War I, North Carolina marriages, and church records for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and various denominations in Scotland.
BRITISH POWs IN WWI. Prisoners Of War 1914-1920, with over 43,000 records with images at FindMyPast, consists of “10 series of British Foreign Office documents relating to prisoners held by the Ottomans during World War One. They not only include the names of military personnel taken prisoner–both allied and foreign–but also the names of civilians, merchant seamen, fishermen, diplomatic employees and more.” Some documents “contain the names, ranks and locations of PoWs and provide insights into life in the Ottoman camps. They contain details of requests made by inmates for items including footballs and biscuits, details of visits by foreign diplomats and reports on camp conditions.”
NORTH CAROLINA MARRIAGE RECORDS. Ancestry has a new collection of North Carolina “marriage bonds, licenses, certificates, and registers, as well as indexes and abstracts to the various records from 87 North Carolina counties….Of special interest to African American researchers are records of cohabitation, which were required to be recorded in 1866 in order for the marriages of recently emancipated slaves to be legally recognized.” The records span 1741-2011.
SCOTLAND CHURCH RECORDS. Births, baptisms, banns and marriages, deaths and burials are among a slew of newer records searchable on MyHeritage.com. According to the site, “The records in this collection were taken from Kirk Session material of the Church of Scotland, other Presbyterian churches, and also the registers of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). These parish registers cover a wide range of dates (from 17th to 19th century) and many of them are not to be found in any other record source.” Information listed in these records may include names, family relationships, dates and places of events and details of the parish.
U.S. LUTHERAN CHURCH RECORDS. Baptism, confirmation, marriage and burial records from more than 2000 congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (1875-1940) are now on Ancestry. These have been available on Archives.com but have migrated to its parent site. “The information…varies from congregation to congregation (and sometimes from minister to minister). In some ethnic congregations, you may run into records in German, Danish, or some other language….Within the collection you may also find membership records, with some listing the names and dates of admission, communion records, and how they were received into the church.”
Google tip of the week: If you see a record collection online but don’t have a subscription to the website that hosts it, Google the name of the database. See whether a free site (like FamilySearch) or another site to which you do have access also hosts the same data set or a similar one. Can’t find it? Click on the description of the record collection (you can generally read the description even if you can’t search the records themselves) and read its source. It may come from a book or a resource that’s been microfilmed–something you can search for on WorldCat and borrow to a library near you. This tip is brought to you by The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, 2nd edition–fully revised and updated in 2015!
by Lisa Cooke | Mar 6, 2015 | 01 What's New, Brick Wall, Canadian, Cemeteries, FamilySearch, Google, Maps, Records & databases, Research Skills, United States
Every week, we see so many new genealogy records posted online! We highlight major resources in individual blog posts. But sometimes smaller or 
regional collections catch our eye, too. We’ll round these up for you in a post like this on Fridays.
Watch for the genealogy records that your ancestors might appear in–but also watch for the kinds of records that may be out there for your kin, which might help you break down your family history “brick walls.”
PRISON RECORDS. Kingston, Canada, Penitentiary Inmate Ledgers, 1913-1916, are now available on Flickr. According to GenealogyCanada.blogspot.com, “The ledger includes frontal and profile mug shots, the inmate’s name, alias, age, place of birth, height, weight, complexion, eye colour, hair colour, distinctive physical marks, occupation, sentence, date of sentence, place of sentence, crime committed, and remarks of authorities.”
CEMETERY HEADSTONES. The Canadian Headstone Photo Project is now also searchable at FamilySearch.org. The original site with over a million headstone photos isn’t new. But some people don’t know about the site, and its search interface isn’t as pretty or flexible. So we think it’s nice that FamilySearch is hosting that data, too. According to FamilySearch, the collection is still growing. “This collection will include records from 1790-2013. The records include a name index of headstone inscriptions, courtesy of CanadianHeadstones.com, which is a family history database of records and images from Canada’s cemeteries.”
HISTORICAL PROPERTIES MAP INTERFACE. The state of Delaware in the United States has launched an updated version of its CHRIS (Cultural and Historical Resource Information System) GIS tool. Use this interface to explore houses, districts and National Historic Landmarks in your ancestor’s Delaware neighborhoods. Maybe a place they lived, worked, shopped, worshiped or attended is still standing!
Not sure how to find record sets like these for YOUR family history? Here’s a tip! Use the “numrange” search operator in Google to locate records from a particular time period. Do this by typing the range of years to search (first and last year) into your Google search box, with two periods in between (no spaces). For example, the search “Kingston Penitentiary” 1900..1920 brings up the ledgers mentioned above.
This tip comes to you courtesy of the book The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, Second Edition by Lisa Louise Cooke–the fully-revised 2015 edition that’s packed with strategies that will dramatically improve your ability to find your family history online.
by Lisa Cooke | Oct 4, 2014 | 01 What's New, Ancestry, Heirloom, images, Inspiration, Listeners & Readers, Memory Lane, Volunteer
Recently my Premium Podcast included a letter from Pat, who was looking for advice on how to return lost or orphaned heirlooms to a family. Ancestry.com had a few family trees posted. Pat didn’t know “whom to contact to get the materials to the most interested, closest family members.” This was my advice–and here’s the inspirational report back.
My advice:
I would first focus on the tree where the tree owner is most closely related to the folks mentioned in the memorabilia. I would probably make copies (depending on what the items are) and offer to all. If I didn’t get a confirmed answer from the first choice in a reasonable time I would offer to my second choice. I would ask the recipient to allow me to pass their contact info on to any others who get around to responding after the fact since it’s everyone’s “family”.
Pat’s response:
“I finally took up the challenge, determined to find a family and offer up the material I had recovered. This material contained old (labeled!) photos, school records, dance cards and letters home to Mom and Dad and seemed potentially quite precious.
It proved difficult to determine which family seemed to have the closest connection, so I decided to offer the material to the person whose Ancestry.com tree contained the most (valid) sources. Fortunately, the tree owner was quick to respond, eager to receive the materials I had to offer. I sent them off and the tree owner is delighted as she is the granddaughter to the original party and believes herself to be the only living descendant of that person!
It feels just right to get those materials back “home”! I encourage other listeners to do the same. It produces a great sense of genealogical balance. So many others have done blessedly wonderful things for me in my research, making it easy to pay it forward just a little bit.
Thank you for the encouragement and the advice. I have loved both podcasts for a number of years now–you are consistently wonderful!”
Thanks, Pat, both for the compliment and for the inspiring message! I love hearing these kinds of stories.
