Episode 205
The Genealogy Gems Podcast
Episode #205
with Lisa Louise Cooke
This episode breaks two huge pieces of genealogy news and shares two great conversations:
FamilySearch ends microfilm lending: how you can get the records you need;
RootsMagic adds Ancestry.com compatibility: sync your Ancestry.com tree to your master RootsMagic file and search Ancestry.com from within the software;
Melissa Barker, the Archive Lady, talks about visiting archives to explore original manuscript record treasures;
Nicole Dyer shares a fun family history activity idea to do with kids?do you have a family gathering coming up that could use this inspiration?
A SURPRISE IN MY MAILBOX!
NEWS
Navigating the end of FamilySearch Microfilm Lending
RootsMagic Adds Ancestry.com Sync and Search
NEW PREMIUM VIDEO!
Lisa Louise Cooke shows you how to use the free Google Earth Pro software to create your own historic map collection customized for your genealogy and family history research. By the end of this class you’ll have a permanent collection of hundreds of gorgeous historic and vintage maps from around the world, organized and ready to use for family history.
Click here to watch a free preview of this full-length video class. Genealogy Gems Premium website members can watch the whole thing: click here to learn more.
The 4th Annual Northwest Genealogy Conference
This episode today is brought to you by the 4rd Annual Northwest Genealogy Conference, hosted by the Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society, north of Seattle in Arlington, WA. Centering on the theme, “Where Does Your Story Begin?” it’s four days PACKED full of genealogy.
There will be well-known and respected keynote speakers, including our friend and genetic genealogist Diahan Southard, speaking on DNA; Kenyatta Berry of Genealogy Roadshow fame, speaking on Caribbean research and using slave schedules in research; and Daniel Earl speaking on Putting History in Your Family History.
Starting off with the Free Day Wednesday afternoon, Speaker Peggy Lauritzen will address beginner’s issues in her Genealogy 101 presentation, which is also a good refresher for the more seasoned genealogists. There will be such great genealogical information for all levels, AND it’ll be lot of fun!
Between classes take a chance to meet a distant cousin with the “Cousin Wall”. Participate in the genealogy-related scavenger hunt, the Wednesday evening meet and greet and the Friday dress-as-your-ancestor day, and much, much more!
Go to www.NwGC.org for details and to register. Check it out now — registrations are limited, so it’s good to get in early. It’s August 16-19, 2017. It’ll be a great show: don’t miss it!
INTERVIEW: MELISSA BARKER, THE ARCHIVE LADY
Melissa Barker is a Certified Archives Records Manager, the Houston http://www.honeytraveler.com/buy-antibiotics/ County, Tennessee Archivist and author of the popular blog A Genealogist in the Archives and bi-weekly advice column The Archive Lady. She has been researching her own family history for the past 27 years.
Preserve your own family archive
Items in danger include original items in attics, basements, etc.
What to preserve first? The most precious and original items you have!
Restoration tips:
- Clean documents and photos with archival sponges. Lay the item perfectly flat. Gently place a finger or hand to hold it steady. Work with the sponge from the center outward, in small sections.
- Keep two-dimensional items as flat as possible.
- Encase fragile items in Mylar sleeves (buy from archival supply companies).
Image courtesy of Melissa Barker and Houston County, TN Archives.
Visiting an archive:
- Call ahead! Don’t trust the operational hours from the website. Ask about parking ? it’s often very limited. Ask ahead about access to archival items of interest.
- Archive etiquette: Follow the rules. Be courteous when working with staff.
- Museums, societies, archives, and libraries may all have collections in back rooms you can’t see?but you can ask for them.
- Vertical Files – in folders in cabinets
- Manuscript Collections – underused in genealogy! Ask for finding aid.
- Loose Records – the working papers of a court case, for example
- Unprocessed Records – not yet incorporated into the official collection
Tips for using your mobile devices in archives:
- Ask for procedures for taking photos with your own device. There may be rules against this or a use fee.
- Capture the source information by photographs: cover page, page number, folder, box number, manuscript collection name, etc.
BONUS CONTENT for Genealogy Gems App Users
If you’re listening through the Genealogy Gems app, your bonus audio content for this episode comes from Melissa Barker, the Archive Lady, with more about finding and using original manuscript records in your genealogy research. The Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users.
Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search historical records on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. RootsMagic is now fully integrated with Ancestry.com, too: you can sync your RootsMagic trees with your Ancestry.com trees and search records on the site.
Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/lisa.
INTERVIEW: NICOLE DYER
Nicole has been researching her ancestors and delighting in their stories for the past 15 years. Nicole volunteers at the Tucson Family History Center teaching a family history story time group for young children.
Lisa suggested the free program Jing for video screen capturing: https://www.techsmith.com/jing.html
(Full disclosure: this podcast blog contains affiliate links. We will be compensated if you make a purchase through our link. Isn’t that an awesome way to help keep the free podcast free?!)
Visit Animoto here and start a free trial
Start creating fabulous, irresistible videos about your family history with Animoto.com. You don’t need special video-editing skills: just drag and drop your photos and videos, pick a layout and music, add a little text and voila! You’ve got an awesome video! Try this out for yourself at Animoto.com.
GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB: A FAMILY HISTORY MURDER MYSTERY!
Journalist Helene Stapinski’s new family history memoir:
Murder in Matera: A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy
A story of poverty and power, love, tragic decisions, and a courageous and desperate woman’s leap for a new life across the ocean
Murder in Matera continues to unravel a past Helene explored in her fantastic first family history memoir, Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History.
Find a whole list of fabulous family history-inspired reading at the Genealogy Gems Book Club!
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer
Sunny Morton, Editor
Vienna Thomas, Associate Producer
Lacey Cooke, Service “Happiness” Manager
Discover the FamilySearch Wiki WOW Factor! (Beginner Tutorial)
Show Notes: The FamilySearch Wiki is like a free encyclopedia of genealogy! In this FamilySearch Wiki tutorial, discover the wealth of information the Wiki has to offer, and learn the secrets to navigating it with ease. We’ll also cover the number #1 reason people get frustrated when searching the Wiki and how to overcome it.
Watch the Video
RootsTech has set the class video to “private”. You can watch it on their website by going to the video page in their on-demand library. You may need to sign in to your free FamilySearch account in order to watch it.
Enjoy this special free tutorial video which was originally presented at the RootsTech conference. Download the ad-free Show Notes cheat sheet for this video class. (Premium Membership required.)
What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a website that
- Allows collaborative editing platform for users
- doesn’t require HTML editing
- has links to both internal and external resource pages
- The FamilySearch Wiki is a lot like Wikipedia. It’s basically an encyclopedia of information. But the exciting part is that it’s specific to genealogy. This means you don’t usually have to worry about including the word genealogy in your searches.
What Does the FamilySearch Wiki Do?
The FamilySearch Wiki is focused on providing information for genealogy research such as:
- how to find data
- where to find data
- how to analyze and use the data
What are the sources of Wiki content?
- Original material was added from the old Family History Library research outlines.
- User added material in their areas of genealogical expertise. The Wiki is constantly being updated by LDS missionaries and other volunteers as new material is discovered or released.
Don’t worry about Contributor info.
You’re going to see many things about wiki creation and management. Not everything is relevant to you when just wanting to find information. In fact, the majority of the Help section is geared to people creating, editing and maintaining pages. Don’t worry about being a contributor. Enjoy being a user.
2 Ways to Access the FamilySearch Wiki
- Going directly to https://www.familysearch.org/wiki. Although you can sign into your free FamilySearch account on this page (in the upper right corner) it isn’t necessary in order to use it.
- Logging in at the FamilySearch website. In the menu under Search click Research Wiki. By logging in and you’ll have access to additional features like participating in discussions, posting and creating watchlists.
The FamilySearch Wiki focuses on records, not ancestors.
Keep in mind that the purpose of the Wiki is to explain where genealogical materials are located and how to get access to them. The Wiki does not have individual ancestor information. If you want to find records, start by deciding specifically what kind of records you want. Identify when and where the ancestor lived at the time the record was created. Then head to the Wiki to figure out what records are available and where they can be found.
The Wiki links to:
- Materials that available at FamilySearch.org or any other online genealogy website.
- Materials that are not available at FamilySearch.org or any other online genealogy site.
- Materials that were previously unknown or newly made available online.
- Strategies and techniques for finding and researching genealogical records.
Types of Searches
Topic Search: When searching for information on a specific topic such as probate records, type the topic into the Search box. As you type, a list of pages with the topic word or words in the title appears below the Search box. If one of the listed pages is the desired topic, highlight and press enter. If you don’t pick from the drop-down list you will get a results list of every page that includes the topic.
Vital records Search: FamilySearch recommends using the Guided Search for info on vital records.
Location Search in the search box: When only the name of any country, state in the U.S., province in Canada, or county in England is typed in the Search box you will be taken directly to that Wiki page. For example: If Texas is searched the result is the Texas, United States Genealogy page.
Page Title: If you happen to know the exact title of the Wiki article you want, type it in the Search Box.
How to Overcome the #1 Search Problem
Many people will search for something like marriage records, Randolph, County, Indiana, and they will get a list of results. The results don’t look as clear-cut as Google results, and they may not all be on topic. This is where we can get lost. I think probably the number one reason why people give up on the wiki is they get these kinds of search results. They realize, wait a second, this isn’t even Indiana, it’s talking about Kentucky! Why am I getting all these? It can be frustrating.
This happens because we tried to do it ourselves, with our own keywords. Remember, like most search engines, they’ve indexed their content to make it searchable, so that means they’ve already decided how they want to talk about a particular topic. Rather than just addressing marriage record first, the wiki focuses on the location. Where is this marriage record? So, focus first on the place unless you are just looking for general information on a general genealogy topic such as genealogy software.
Pre-filled suggestions will appear as you type because the wiki is going to suggest what it has in the format it has it. Again, you may want to first go to the country, state or county-level page and then look for the record type.
If you’re looking for marriage records but you don’t see them listed it might be that the word marriage isn’t the keyword the wiki uses. Or it might be that the type of record you’re looking for is a state or federal record.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see what you want listed in the table of contents. It may just be a keyword issue. Let the work that they’ve already done in organizing their materials guide you. You’ll be more successful and also avoid frustration. The FamilySearch Wiki is just too good of a resource to miss.
The FamilySearch Wiki Search box
You can run three main types of searches:
- Single key words,
- phrases,
- and search strings.
Resource: Wiki Search Help Page
Search Operators
- Quotes: Odd Fellows – 49 results versus “Odd Fellows” – 32 results
- Minus sign
- OR
- Word stemming applies: car will also find cars
- Intitle:Dunkards
- subpageof:”Requests for comment”
- Numrange doesn’t work on the wiki
- Use Google site search to search using Google’s engine and search operators!
Map Search
Generally speaking, the map is the best way to search for records and information that is rooted in a location. Start by clicking the button for the continent, such as North America. From there, select the county from the menu, such as United States, then drill down by state. This will take you to the Wiki entry for that state.
Location-based FamilySearch Wiki Pages
If you’re really new to research in a particular location, start with the guided research link on the location’s wiki page. You may also see links to research strategies, record finder, and record types.
Getting Started section – links to step-by-step research strategies and the most popular records.
The county pages are where the real magic happens because many records such as birth, marriage, death, and court records are typically available at the county level. There you’ll find out how to contact or visit the current county courthouse. Look for Boundary Changes on the page. Use your computer’s Find on Page feature by pressing Control + F (PC) or Command + F (mac) on your keyboard to more quickly find words like Boundary on the page.
Exploring Record Collection Pages
Many record collections have their own page on the Wiki. As you type, these pages will populate in the drop-down list. Example: German Census Records. Take a moment to read through the page and you’ll discover some important information that will save you time and headaches, such as:
- When censuses were taken
- National versus local censuses and their various levels
- Censuses in areas where boundaries have changed over time
- Various types of census forms we may encounter
- The purpose behind the creation of census records in Germany
- The kind of information we can expect to find in the German census
- Other types of records containing similar information
- Resource articles (including a handout from a past RootsTech)
- Wiki articles describing online collections
There are a couple of actions we may want to take before going on to search for records. Here are a few:
Click on the Category to see what else is attached to this category – in this case we see some example images that are helpful in interpreting German census forms.
Click the Cite this page link in the left column if we plan to reference the page elsewhere.
Click Printable Version in the left column if we want a printable or PDF version of the page.
Explore related pages by clicking the What links here link in the column on the left. Notice it also shows if there are any other users watching the page.
Learn more about using Family Search
Videos at Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems YouTube channel:
- FamilySearch Search Essentials
- All About GEDCOM (with FamilySearch)
- Get my free weekly email newsletter.