“Journey through Generations” – A Conference for the Nation’s Genealogists
June 10, 2013 – Austin, TX. Discounted early-bird registration for the 2013 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference will continue only until July 1. Early registrants receive a $50 discount for the full four days, or a $20 discount for any single day. Details at http://www.fgsconference.org.
The conference will be held 21-24 August 2013 in Fort Wayne, Indiana at the Grand Wayne Convention Center. This year’s conference theme is “Journey through Generations,” and the local hosts are the Allen County Public Library (ACPL) and the Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana (ACGSI). Platinum sponsors are FamilySearch, FindMyPast.com and Ancestry.com.
The conference offers opportunities for all who are interested in researching their family history, with over 160 educational sessions on records, strategies, and tools for genealogists at all levels. The exhibit hall features over 70 vendors offering a wide range of genealogical products and is open and free to the public.
Luncheons, workshops and special events provide additional opportunities for networking and learning. Make sure the get your tickets to these conference “extras” early to guarantee your spot.
Ancestry.com indexes aren’t always right, making it more difficult to search successfully for your ancestors in old records. In many cases, you can correct those errors and help others find it in the future. Here’s how to do it. When the announcement was...
After publishing the Evernote for Genealogy Premium Video I told you that I planned on covering using Evernote for Genealogy more in the future. And we are starting with this episode!
MAILBOX:
This first email comes from Alex in Alabama who writes:
“One of the reasons I’ve become involved in genealogy is that I have the interesting aspect of researching my father, Fletcher Harvey, and my mother, Ann Harvey Harvey. Yes, she was a Harvey, too. How would you suggest setting up those initial surname folders? Just one big ol’ Harvey folder? Maybe Fletcher’s family and Ann’s family?”
Lisa’s Answer: The trick to the hard drive organization system is to stay consistent, and to fashion it after the Census – that is by “head of household”.
While it would seem logical to create two Harvey files – one for Fletcher and one for Ann – stick to head of households. So the first folder would HARVEY and the first name of Fletcher’s dad who was the head of the household. Ex: HARVEY JOHN
For Ann’s side you would have HARVEY and her father’s first name, because he was the head of the household. Ann was born a HARVEY but moved on to become a different “HARVEY”. In my system, women’s records are filed under the surname they held at the time the record was created – either their maiden name, or their married name.
Here’s a quick tip from Premium Member Christine in Houston:
I had a recent disaster where not only did my computer hard drive fail, but the backup drive was damaged as well and NONE of the contents were saved. Bye bye three years of hard work. But, I had shared with a close cousin on one side and he is gradually helping me with some of the lost bits. Luckily my main tree is also on Ancestry, but what I lost was documentation.
I was interested in the hard drive organization podcasts. I figure I might as well start over doing a little better with citing and organizing. Actually much of what you had suggested I was already doing. But I found one feature on the MAC which I would add to your suggestions.
MAC (and I’m sure Windows as well) allows you to color code both files and documents. After thinking about it a while I would suggest doing this at the great grandparent level. Just makes for a few fewer files all one color. (MAC has seven colors-or so plus uncolored that makes 8 family branches)
If you are very visual, like me, you can look at the color on the folder or the file label and tell just where it came from. I also did this AS I CITE. So I know which things have been properly cited because they are already colored.”
Watch the Hard Drive Organization videos in the Premium Video section of this website
I find that color coding can really speed up finding your way through folders on your computer. I did cover this top in Premium episode 86.
and in that episode I mentioned a freeware add-on for Windows called Folder Marker.
Folder Marker Free lets you do color code folders on the fly from the right-click menu of a folder. So there is no need to go through additional dialogs boxes! Simply select the folder you want to mark, right-click on its icon and select a color-coded icon from the drop-down menu. The icon will be assigned to the folder at once.
You can also mark several folders at a time. Simply select a group of folders with the mouse and assign a new icon from the right-click menu.
You can also assign certain logos to your folders such as “high priority”, “half-done work”, “important files” and so on. It even lets you upload a few of your own icons if you’d rather use them instead.
If you want to go full throttle with visual folders, there is a really nifty little utility program that you can use to take any picture that is BMP, JPG, or PNG file format and convert it into an ICO format. Using this program, you can take your favorite picture of an ancestor, let’s say, and convert it into a Windows Icon.
You can take an image and save it as an icon in all of the different sizes: 16×16, 32×32, 48×48, and 64×64. For you genealogy bloggers out there, the 16×16 size can be used to give your web site a logo in the IE address bar. For example, in Blogger while writing a post, you can see the orange icon in the address bar.
The program also lets your transform the images. You can scale the image to make it smaller or flip it horizontally or vertically. And if you don’t care to save the image as an icon, you can convert between any of the three formats: PNG, JPG, or BMP. Simply drag a picture into the colored area after configuring your settings and the picture is automatically converted!
You can change the settings by click on the Options menu item. Icon Settings allows you to pick the size of your final icon. Image Transform lets you pick the transformations you want if you are converting between picture formats (JPG to PNG).
GEM: Evernote VS. One Note
Genealogy research requires a lot of note taking, and it doesn’t take long for notes to pile up everywhere: stacks of paper on your desk and floor, sticky notes surrounding your computer monitor screen, and binders full of organized pages.
Migrating to a digital note taking system will save you time, space and headaches. But which one should you use? The two top contenders are Evernote and OneNote, and one question I get asked a lot is which one should I use?
In this gem Evernote and OneNote go head to head in a comparison match. If you already have a favorite then you’re good to go because the good news is they are both great programs. But for those on the fence, it can help to look a bit closer at what each offers so you can pick the one that’s right for you. Both programs are noteworthy – the choice really comes down to your computing needs and work style.
Evernote vs One Note Comparison
What is it?
Evernote: A suite of downloadable software (desktop client), mobile apps, and Web based services focused on note taking, web clipping, and archiving.
OneNote: A Microsoft software program designed for note taking, organizing, and integration with Microsoft software. Mobile apps also available.
Types of Notes
Evernote: Allows you to create a wide range of notes including typed text, web clippings (customized screen shots using the Web Clipper), audio, video, photographs, and tables. Evernote’s free Skitch program and app lets you annotate your notes and do free hand drawing.
OneNote: Allows you to create a wide range of notes including typed text, web clippings, audio, video, photographs, “Inking” (free hand drawing with your finger or stylus), tables, and Excel spreadsheets.
Cost
Evernote: Free account allows you to download the Evernote program and provides you with 60MB of free synchronized cloud storage per month.
For $5.00 per month or $45.00 per year Evernote Premium gives you much more uploading capacity, greater sharing options, access to note history, PDF searching, faster image recognition, and no ads.
OneNote: OneNote is included in the Microsoft Office software suite along with programs such as Word and Excel. You may already have it on your PC. Check under Programs in your PC’s Control Panel. New version slated for 2013.
Sign up for a free SkyDrive account for cloud storage (7GB free, additional storage available for a fee.) Available as a stand alone software program for $79.95 at www.microsoft.com/office/onenote
Operating System
Evernote: PC and Mac
OneNote: PC Only
Apps
Evernote: Free iOS and Android Apps. Loads of additional apps that integrate with Evernote are available in the “Evernote Trunk” at trunk.evernote.com
OneNote: Free iOS and Android Apps. The OneNote app has very limited capabilities compared to software program.
Web / Screen Clipping
Evernote: Yes – When the Evernote desktop client program is open on your computer the web clipper can be found in your Task Bar by right-clicking the Evernote icon. You can also download a web clipper plugin to your favorite browser.
OneNote: Yes – The screen clipper is built into the program. You will find it under the Insert menu.
Cloud Synchronization
Evernote: Automatic synchronization through the Evernote system when connected to the Internet.
OneNote: OneNote syncs with SkyDrive and SharePoint (must be signed into a Microsoft account or a Microsoft Online Services ID)
Unique Strengths
Evernote:
Tagging allows sorting of notes regardless of which notebook they reside in.
Web sharing flexibility including unique URL links, and social media
Alphabetical organization of notebooks
OCR technology applied to images making text searchable
OneNote:
You can mix note taking mediums (that is include typed text, scribble “ink” notes, graphics, etc.)
Integration with other Microsoft software programs
SHOW NOTES: Episode 294 of the Genealogy Gems podcast shines a spotlight on 15 under-the-radar websites that serious genealogists should know about. Lisa Louise Cooke reveals powerful resources like AI tools capable of deciphering old handwriting in unindexed records, clever ways to hunt for unique family artifacts and ephemera online, specialized digital libraries perfect for finding memoirs, how obscure fashion archives can help date your mystery photos, and cutting-edge map sites that let you search text within the historical maps themselves. Plus, stick around until the very end for a special bonus tech tip to make your research even smoother!
Listen to the Podcast Episode
To Listen click the media player below (AUDIO ONLY):
You know how OCR technology lets computers read typed text on old documents? For years, which didn’t work well for handwritten records. But FamilySearch is changing the game! Their Full-text Search project, available through FamilySearch Labs, is training AI to decipher historical handwriting. The exciting part? More and more handwritten records that once required tedious page-by-page Browse are becoming keyword searchable. Dive in and explore the collections currently using Full-text search.
2. Calculating Cousins with FamilySearch
Ever get tangled trying to figure out if someone’s your second cousin once removed, or… something else entirely? Take the guesswork out of cousin relationships with the fantastic Cousin Chart blog post on FamilySearch. It pulls together some of the best tools – a handy visualization chart, a ‘Cousin Calculator’ tool, and even a math-based method. Bookmark this one – it’s a lifesaver!
3. Ancestry.com – Just How Far Back Can They Go?
We know Ancestry.com lets you filter searches way back, even to the 1600s. But is that the limit? Not even close! According to Ancestry themselves, their oldest documents are the Mühldorf Deeds from Germany, dating back to the 1300s! And thanks to modern tech, even these incredibly old documents can be surprisingly legible and searchable. Visit Ancestry.com’s Card Catalog.
4. Get Organized with Family Tree Magazine
Feeling buried under piles of papers or drowning in digital files? Getting your genealogy organized is a common goal, and Family Tree Magazine has a fantastic resource page to help you finally conquer the chaos. Their Organize Your Genealogy page gathers their best guides on everything from taming paper clutter and digital files to organizing photos and your workspace.
5. Newspapers – Veridian Collections
Many of us were sad to see the newspaper site Elephind.com go. But the good news is, the company behind it, DL Consulting, is still helping libraries digitize their collections using their Veridian software. Why does this matter to you? Because you can browse the fascinating, digitized content from their clients – including many unique and free newspaper collections – directly through the Veridian website.
6. In Search of Memoirs at FamilySearch Digital Library
Imagine discovering a detailed, personal memoir written by an ancestor born over 170 years ago! That actually happened to me. For decades, I knew my husband’s great-grandmother, Minna Boettcher, born in 1853, had written about her pioneer life, but the book was lost. Then, just recently, my sister-in-law found it while downsizing! It’s filled with incredible details. This experience is a reminder to talk to your relatives – you never know what family history treasures might be hiding in their homes! But while you wait (hopefully not 40 years like me!), try searching for memoirs in the FamilySearch Digital Library. I recommend using the Advanced Search, putting ‘Memoirs’ in the Title field and a surname in the Keyword field.
7. Shopping for Family History at eBay
Time for some retail therapy – genealogy style! You might be surprised what family history treasures you can find on eBay.com. Think beyond records – I’m talking about artifacts! Over the years, I’ve snagged things like catalogs and tools from my husband’s great-grandfather’s hardware store, an old stock certificate signed by an ancestor, photos, yearbooks, postcards, even a tablecloth embroidered with family names and dates! My pro tip: Run searches for family names, ancestral businesses, or hometowns, and save those searches. eBay will then notify you when matching items pop up!
8. Giving Back: Birth Parent Finder
Navigating searches related to adoption often requires specialized help. BirthParentFinder.com is a resource dedicated to this, combining investigative expertise with DNA analysis to help reunite birth parents, siblings, and adopted children across the US. They offer a fantastic free blog with strategies and success stories, and they’ve recently launched the ‘Finding Family DNA with Chris and Jay’ podcast. Don’t miss the episode featuring Family Tree Magazine’s own Andrew Koch!
9. The New Chronicling America
Next up, a long-time favorite that just got a major upgrade: The Library of Congress’s Chronicling America newspaper site! It’s always been a go-to for free historical newspapers, but the new Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers collection website is fantastic. It boasts a completely redesigned interface built to handle its massive, growing collection. Key upgrades include better search refinement, an improved image viewer, and updated advanced search options. But one of the coolest new features, especially if you’re a visual person like me, is the ability to explore newspapers geographically. The interactive map lets you zoom into specific areas and click blue dots to see available digitized papers. Plus, there’s a time slider to filter by date. They add new content weekly, so keep checking back!
10. MyHeritage’s New OldNews.com
Broaden your newspaper horizons with MyHeritage’s dedicated newspaper site, OldNews.com. Launched recently, this site already contains hundreds of millions of pages from small-town papers to major international ones, effectively doubling the newspaper content previously on MyHeritage. And they plan to add millions more pages monthly, so it’s a rapidly growing resource!
11. Fashion History Timeline
Those old family photos hold more clues than you might think, especially in the clothes! Fashion can reveal social standing, hint at activities, and crucially, help date photos. To decipher these clues, check out the free Fashion History Timeline from the Fashion Institute of Technology. It’s an academic resource with searchable databases of publications on fashion history, perfect for pinpointing that unfamiliar style in Grandma’s portrait.
12. The American Immigrant Wall of Honor Database
Did your ancestors immigrate to the US? You might find their names – or add them yourself – to The American Immigrant Wall of Honor at Ellis Island. Originally started in 1990 for Ellis Island immigrants, it’s now open to honor any immigrant, regardless of when or where they arrived. You can search the existing database for free at the Statue of Liberty.org website and even add your own ancestor’s name to the wall through the Foundation’s heritage site.
How incredible would it be to find a lost photo of your ancestor online? Thousands of people have had that exact experience using the free photo archive, DeadFred.com! It’s a repository of user-submitted old photos, many unidentified or partially identified. Search by surname or location – you might get lucky! And if you find a photo of a direct ancestor that’s part of the DeadFred archive itself, they’ll often send you the original for free. It’s also a great place to upload your own mystery photos – maybe someone out there holds the key!
The David Rumsey Map Collection, already an amazing resource, recently launched a Machines Reading Maps tool. It has indexed 100 million words across 57,000 historical maps. Think about searching for terms relevant to your ancestors’ lives: ‘saloon,’ ‘lumberyard,’ ‘winery,’ ‘livery stable,’ or even a specific business name! The Advanced Search lets you combine text searches with map metadata. Hover over results to see the map snippet, and yes, all maps are free to download.
15. Primary Sources at JSTOR
Let’s enrich your family’s story with historical context. JSTOR is a vast digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. While you might not find your great-aunt’s birth certificate, you can find incredible materials that describe the world your ancestors lived in. For instance, I found the incredibly detailed WWII POW journal of Lt. Joseph ‘Ed’ Carter on JSTOR Daily. Reading accounts like this – journals, articles about local industries, social histories – can bring your ancestors’ experiences to life, even if they aren’t mentioned by name. Dive in and see what context you can uncover!
Bonus Tech Tips
Chrome Web Browser: Type @Gemini in the address bar, press the space bar, and then type your question. Press Enter on your keyboard for the answer!
Sign up today here. The Genealogy Gems email newsletter is the best way to stay informed about what’s available with your Premium eLearning Membership.
Show Notes: A compiled history is kind of like standing on the shoulders of the giants of genealogy that came before you. OK, so maybe they weren’t giants, but they did document what they found and they published it so that you can benefit from it. This means that rather than having to start from scratch, you can look at the research that’s already been done. This provides you with clues and information that you can track down and verify for yourself to add to your family tree. In this week’s video, I’m going to show you one of my favorite collections of compiled family histories at Ancestry, and the search strategies you’ll need for success.
A compiled history is kind of like standing on the shoulders of the giants of genealogy that came before you. OK, so maybe they weren’t giants, but they did document what they found, and they published it so that you can benefit from it. This means that rather than having to start from scratch, you have the opportunity to take a look at the research and the work that’s already been done by somebody else before you. This provides you with clues and information that you can track down and verify for yourself to add to your family tree.
Just like online family trees, not every compiled family history is well documented or well sourced. However, they can still be a great help.
Compiled Family Histories at Ancestry
So, where do we find compiled histories? One of my favorite places to find them is at Ancestry.com. They have a particularly terrific record collection called North America Family Histories 1500 to 2000. It’s not going to pop up in your regular search results. You’ll find it through Ancestry’s Card Catalog. It contains nearly a thousand privately published family history books containing over 4 million records. They focus particularly on the 18th and 19th century families, especially with Revolutionary War and Colonial ties. But you’ll also find some European family histories included, and particularly those with some nobility connections, which can take families are way back in time.
Today I’d like to introduce you to this exciting collection. Whether you need a little rejuvenation of your own family history, or you’re just getting started, either way compiled histories are a tried-and-true record collection that all genealogists should use.
How to Find the Collection
On the Ancestry.com homepage on desktop, in the menu click SEARCH > Card Catalog. It’s important to understand that a small percentage of the total records at Ancestry are delivered to you through hints. Therefore, it’s important not to just rely on hints, and take advantage of the entire card catalog. It’s really the best place to go when you know the title of a collection, like this one. You can type in the entire title or just a few keywords, pull up the collection and then search only within that collection.
Record collections have different searchability. Some may have an index, some may not, and some are just browsable. When searching, keep in mind that any deviation from the actual words in the title can cause it not to appear in the results. If you don’t see what you expected to find, double check your keywords. Even something like whether a word is singular or plural and affect the results. If you don’t have a specific title in mind, but you just want to browse, try a variety of synonyms, or reduce the number of words.
On the results page, you can hover over the title to get a little overview description. Click the title and you’ll find two ways to search the collection: the Browse this Collection column and the Search form.
Browse this Collection Column
Have fun and explore the collection using the Browse this Collection column. Select the first letter of a family surname, and then under Subject you’ll see an alphabetical listing of books with surnames. Click the title of a book to view the entire digitized compiled family history.
This brings up an important point. the Browse feature is just for the titles themselves. So, when you look for a surname, don’t be discouraged. If you don’t see it listed. It’s very possible that a branch of your family by that surname could be included in a book that is focused on a different surname.
The Search Form
The search form allows you to get really specific in your search with a variety of search parameters. It can also find names within a book regardless of whether the name appears in the title or description. Try it out for yourself. Get a feel for home many people appear in the collection with a particular surname, or with a first and last name. From there you can narrow down further.
Each result includes a View Record and a View Image icon. View Record provides you with some details about that person to help you determine if it’s your relative. You’ll find a variety of details depending on the amount of information available in the book. Take a moment to learn a little more about the book by clicking the Source tab. Investing a few moments up front to get familiar with the source that you’re looking at can be extremely helpful. It’s going to give you some context about who wrote this book, what it covers and possibly where a physical copy can be found. Click Learn More and scroll down the page. There you’ll find more specific information about what you might be able to find within the pages of the compiled family history. In addition to names, compiled histories may include birth date and place, baptism date and place, marriage date and place, death date and place, burial date and place and name of parents and spouses.
It’s also very handy on the search form that Ancestry will auto-populate people from your family tree based on the surname you enter so that you can fill in their information and search with one click.
Navigating within a Compiled Family History at Ancestry.com
Click the View Image icon on any search result to gain access to the digitized book. The scanned page will be zoomed in to the place on the page where the person you searched for is located. Adjust your view with the Zoom in and out tool on the right side of the screen.
Example of a page from a compiled family history at Ancestry.
At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find the filmstrip. This displays all of the individual pages of the book in order. If you want to dedicate the entire screen to the book page, click the filmstrip X to close it. If you want to return to the filmstrip, click the filmstrip icon.
The current image number (not necessarily the same as the page number) will be displayed. Learn more about the book by going to the title page. The easiest way to do that is to type “1” in the image number box and click Go. The title page and the pages immediately following it can provide you with important source information. You may also find introductory pages including the background of the author, how the book is organized and instructions on how to interpret the content within the book.
Oftentimes, at the end of the book, you will find an index. Again, the easiest way to get there is to look at the total number of pages of the book listed in the film strip bar, and then enter that number into the image field and click Go. This will jump you to the end. Use the left and right arrow keys to navigate as needed.
Improving Ancestry Images
Depending on the condition of the book and the quality of the original scanning, some books may have pages that are a little unclear or muddy-looking. You can improve the look of these pages. Click the Tool Menu icon on the right side of the screen. Here you’ll find several options. For improving the way the image looks.
If a page has a horizontal image or photo turned vertically, use the Rotate Left and RotateRight tools.
To make the page easier to ready, try Invert Colors. Black type on a white page then becomes white type on a black page which often makes it much easier to read.
Tools Menu > Invert Colors
Downloading a Compiled Family History at Ancestry
You can print or download pages from the compiled family histories at Ancestry. Having a digital version means you can read it offline and even if you no longer have an Ancestry subscription. In the Tools menu, click Download to click the current page you are viewing as a JPEG.
To print the page on paper or save it as a PDF, select Print in the Tools menu. A big advantage of the Print option is that you can opt to Also print index and source data. This will give you the page, the information specific to the person you searched for that was indexed by Ancestry, and the source information.
Use the Print to PDF function so that you can include the indexed information and source details.
Explore More Compiled Family Histories
The North American Family Histories Collection 1500-2000 at Ancestry is such a wonderful goldmine of information. If you dig into this collection, it’s going to whet your appetite to track down more compiled family histories on other websites, in your library, and at the archives.
