Show Notes: Marriage records are essential to building your family tree. Here are the 5 steps you need to in order to find an ancestor’s marriage record.
A really good Spring cleaning task is to look through your family tree, starting with yourself and working backwards, and just checking to see if you have all the vital records for everyone. Vital records include birth, marriage and death records. Civil marriage records are typically some of the oldest vital records, and offer valuable information.
Step 1: Determine the time and place.
Time and place are critical to marriage record searches. Records like census records can help you get within 10 years of a marriage, and can also help you narrow in on the location of the wedding. Thankfully, all U.S. Federal Census records are free and online at FamilySearch.
Marriage records are typically filed at the county level. However, they can sometimes be found at the town level, particularly in New England.
It’s very important to identify the correct county at the time of the estimated marriage. You can do that using the Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Click on the state and then select the time frame.
Genealogy “guidance” websites pull together information from a variety of sources to aid you in your research in a particular area. Here are two of my favorites:
Click on North America > United States > State. Scroll down the state page and click on the county. Use Alt + F to quickly search for the word marriage.
The wiki will likely also provide you with links and clues as to where to find the records. Remember, it’s not always a comprehensive list, but it’s a great place to start.
If civil marriage records had not yet started when your ancestors married, look for church marriage records. Learn more with my video: How to Use Church Records for Genealogy (Premium)
If those leads don’t pan out, next turn to major genealogy websites. Start with the free FamilySearch, then if you have subscriptions to sites like Ancestry or MyHeritage, use those. (Note: These are affiliate links and we are compensated if you make a purhcase.) Only a fraction of these website’s record collections are included in their hints and suggestions. This means that the card catalog is essential if you want to scour all the records.
Step 4: Contact the jurisdiction that originally created the records
If you don’t get the record that way, you’ll need to do it the old-fashioned way: contact the county or town clerk.
Early vital records are often moved to the state level. That contact information can likely be found on the FamilySearch Wiki page you found, or you can Google: County name, state “marriage records”
Check the following repositories:
State Library
State Archive
State Historical Society
County Historical Society
Other: _________________________________________
Step 5: Google Search
If all else fails, turn to Google to see if there are any other repositories or online resources outside of the largest genealogy websites and archives. Use search operators to focus your search.
Example: Randolph County Indiana “marriage records” 1880..1900
The quotation marks ensure that the exact phrase (Marriage records) is included on each web page result you get.
Two numbers separated by two periods is called a Numrange search. This instructs Google to also ensure that each web page result includes a number (in our case, a year) that falls within that range. It’s a great way to target marriage records from a particular time frame.
Learn more about marriage record research with these two instructional videos:
Here’s an inspiring example of a quick and easy way to tell your story. Every one of us is deeply connected to history through our family stories. In fact, exploring your family history story can help you learn more about your place in history and what makes you, you.
Tell Your Family History Story with Animoto
Were you one of those kids sitting in history class bored to tears? Was the common teenage mantra “what’s this got to do with me?” running through your brain? While the teacher’s lecture may have seemed disconnected, nothing could have been further from the truth. Every one of us is deeply connected to history through our family stories. In fact, exploring your family history story can help you learn more about your place in history and what makes you, you.
(Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. Thank you for supporting the Genealogy Gems blog!)
We all have a story to tell about our place in history and Animoto is an easy and powerful way to tell that family history story. I’ve been sharing my thoughts on creating family history stories on my Genealogy Gems Podcast and in videos on my Genealogy Gems YouTube channel. One of my listeners and viewers, Doug Shirton, has enthusiastically embraced the idea of video storytelling and recently shared his video with me.
Doug says “I have been wanting to do a video for a long time…Animoto was so easy.” Take a few minutes and get inspired by watching Doug’s video Genealogy Journey; Doug Shirton by clicking here.
I love the elements that Doug wove into his video. Not only did he include individual photographs of himself and his ancestors, but he also dragged and dropped into his Animoto timeline a full page family tree chart. Doug used the “Rustic” video style (one of my favorites) which is perfectly suited for his old-timey photos.
He also used music in an innovative way to tell his family history story. Rather than settling on just one song, he used portions of multiple tracks. This technique moves the viewer through the emotional levels he was striving to convey.
Adding Music to Your Family History Story
All great movies have a soundtrack! Animoto allows you to choose from their music library or add your own. Adding music to your family history video is very simple. To add additional songs, simply click the plus sign under the timeline. Animoto’s “edit song and pacing” feature makes it easy to get everything to fit perfectly.
MUSIC SEARCH TIP: In addition to being able to upload your own songs, Animoto’s robust music library is brimming with songs that will help you hit just the right note. In addition to the filter boxes, don’t miss the handy search field at the very bottom of the list of filters. Enter a keyword to suit your mood and then scroll back up to the top of the page to pick from the results.
Choosing the Focus of Your Family History Story
Family trees are very far-reaching indeed. So many direct line and collateral lines, often spanning the globe. Doug was wise to select one family history story within his tree: his Ontario, Canada pioneer ancestors.
Focusing on a particular line of your family, or a single story makes creating your video more manageable for you and, frankly, more enjoyable to watch for your viewer. Keeping your video fairly short is also a good idea. Doug’s is just 4 minutes and I recommend going no longer than five. This is particularly important when you plan to share it on social media where attention-spans are short.
Family History Story Ideas
Here are a few ideas of stories you could explore:
The story of your most recent immigrant ancestor
A family history story that runs through your family tree, such as three generations of musicians
How one of your ancestral families survived a natural disaster like the Johnston Flood or the Great San Francisco Earthquake
The history of a first name that was used over multiple generations in your family
The idea here is to select a family history story that is short, thematic, and compelling to watch.
Need More Ideas?
Visit my How to Create Family History Videos page for more ideas and step-by-step instructions for videos with Animoto, There’s no better time than now to tell your story! We would love for you to share your family history story video on our Facebook page.
Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!
Show Notes: I’m excited to share with you my favorite new tool at Google Books. This is a game changer for utilizing the information you find on the digitized pages. Plus I’ll show you other new features recently added to Google Books.
Why use Google Books for genealogy? Well, Google Books features over 10 million free digitized books, most of which were published prior to 1927. That makes Google Books a gold mine for genealogy research. And when you visit Google Books, think “published on paper” NOT just books! In addition to books, the collection includes newspapers, magazines, journals, almanacs, city directories, catalogs, court papers and so much more!
Watch the Video
Why use Google Books for genealogy?
Google Books features over 10 million free digitized books, most of which were published prior to 1927. That makes Google Books a gold mine for genealogy research. And when you visit Google Books, think “published on paper” NOT just books! In addition to books, the collection includes newspapers, magazines, journals, almanacs, city directories, catalogs, court papers and so much more!
On the results page look for the filter menu. If you don’t see it, click the Tools
Click the down arrow for Any View
Click Full View
Now your results list only include free fully digitized materials.
If you haven’t been over to Google books for a while, this is going to look a little bit different. A while back they launched a new user interface. They’ve now made some improvements. The main difference is we’re going to see this menu along the bottom of the screen.
My favorite new feature: convert image to text
Before we even look at the new menu, I promised you my favorite item that they have added to Google Books.
In the upper left corner, click the three vertical dots icon. This reveals a menu that gives you access to a lot of items that typically are kind of ‘behind’ the book. If you were to close this book, you would see the catalog entry for it.
New menu at Google Books
My favorite new feature here is View as Plain Text. Click the toggle button to convert the entire book to plain text. This makes the digitized images of the pages usable in many other projects and programs. Google applied optical character recognition to the books to be able to read the words on the images to make the books keyword searchable. In the past, we had to use the clipper tool to capture a bit of the image and convert it to text. The box was really small and inconvenient. This new feature provides the ability to instantly use as much of the text as you want.
Convert digitized books to text in Google Books
Because this book is fully digitized, it’s already been cleared for copyright. These books are in the public domain. They are available to use for free, copyright free. You are free to copy the text and include it in your projects, in your genealogy database, in a family history book, and so on.
Download a book
Back over at the three-dot menu in Google Books, you can also:
download the book as a PDF or EPUB for free,
find the book in a store, if you need a hard copy
find the book in a library at WorldCat.
Keyboard Shortcuts Hot Keys
Another new feature is keyboard shortcuts.
Google Books shortcuts / hot keys
Find Book Catalog Entry
I mentioned that the catalog entry for this book is sort of ‘behind’ the book. To access that, click the X in the upper right corner of the screen. This removes the view of the book. We haven’t lost access to the book. You can still access it by clicking the blue Read free of charge button.
The nice thing about the book catalog entry page is that it contains all the details about the book such as where you can purchase it, finding copies at the library, and additional editions.
Source Citation Tool at Google Books
Also on the catalog entry page is the Source Citation tool. Click create citation to reveal the options. Click the desired style, and then copy the citation and paste it in your family tree database, or other places where you are referencing this book. So, there’s no reason not to cite your source for any book found at Google Books. Source citation is very important, because down the road you might discover something more about your family and realize that you need to access that book again. Without the source citation you may not remember where you got the original information. The source citation is your breadcrumb trail back to the previous research that you’ve done. Also, if anybody ever has a question about what you have put in your family tree, you can point them to the sources that you used.
New Google Books Menu
The final new feature at Google Books that I wanted to draw your attention to is the main menu for this item. It used to be at the top of the screen, but now you’ll find it at the bottom. At the top of the screen, we now have a search box that allows you to search the entire Google Books collection. But oftentimes, when you’re looking at a book, you’re going to want to be able to search for particular names, places, dates, events, topics. You will find the search field for that in the new menu at the bottom of the screen. Type in names or other words and press enter. You’ll be given all of the pages in the book that mention those words. Also, in this menu are:
zoom buttons,
chapters menu (if available for the book you are viewing)
page views (single, side by side or thumbnails.)
Clip and download an image from a book
Also in the new menu is the clipper tool. The materials in Google Books contain maps, drawings, photos and many other types of imagery that you may want a copy of. Or perhaps you just want an image of a section of text. The clipper tool allows you to capture it and save it to your computer as an image file.
Click the scissors icon, and your mouse cursor will turn into a clipper.
Draw a box around the desired area
In the pop-up box click to copy the link to the clipped image.
Open a new web browser tab and paste the link. (You can also paste the link into notes in your family tree, and other programs and documents.)
Press enter and the image will appear in the browser tab.
Right-click on the image.
Select Save Image As to save it to your computer’s hard drive.
There you have it, some of the exciting new features over at Google Books. There’s never been a better time to search for information about your family history in Google Books.
Live show air date: July 23, 2020
Join me for Elevenses with Lisa, the online video series where we take a break, visit and learn about genealogy and family history.
Get all the past episodes of Elevenses with Lisa and show notes here.
Top Tips for Searching at Ancestry®
Here’s an outline of everything we covered in this episode about Ancestry Hot Keys and Top Tips. If you’re thinking of getting a subscription to Ancestry® learn more here. Thank you for using our links. We are financially compensated at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting this free show and show notes.
Our Usual Starting Place
If you keep looking in the same places you’ll keep finding the same things.
Our usual starting places include:
Search > All Collections
The Hints on Our Family Tree (But Only 10% of Ancestry® Records Appear as Hints)
Add the Card Catalog to your list of usual starting places. You’ll find it in the menu under Search > CardCatalog.
Navigating to Ancestry’s Card Catalog
The Ancestry® Card Catalog Includes Unique Treasures
You will find unique items such as old maps, county and regional histories, postcards, film reels and more.
In the card catalog you can filter in the left-hand column.
Can include photos of county officers, landholders, and some buildings and homes.
You can filter this collection by state. Each collection will have different options for filtering and browsing.
Look for Historic Maps at Ancestry.com
Top Tip: Use Multiple Approaches
Searching by title, keyword, singular and plural all bring up different results. Unless you are looking for something very specific, it’s usually most effective to try multiple approached. Doing so ensures you don’t miss anything. You can also search strictly by filtering. Example: Maps + USA + Virginia.
Searching by filters only.
Regional and County Histories at Ancestry®
You can find county and regional histories by filtering to Stories, Memories and Histories.
This is a browse-only collection of “more than 2,200 volumes of county and regional histories from California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Historic Postcards at Ancestry®
Narrow your search by first filtering down to Pictures.
Ancestry Top Tip: When search on a computer, user Control + F (Win) or Command + F (Mac) to access the Find on Page search box. Enter the word you are looking for to jump straight to it when reviewing a long list.
Press Control + F (Win) on your keyboard to search for words on the page.
WWII Newsreels at Ancestry®
This collection contains all 267 issues of the ‘United News’ newsreels. The films average about 10 minutes each. Go to the Card Catalog and search for “United News” in the title field.
Top Tip: Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts
Use these hot keys at Ancestry to navigate and search quickly. Genealogy Gems Premium Members:Click here to download the Hot Keys cheat sheet image as a PDF for printing.
Ancestry hot keys and short cuts
Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts for Search: r = Refine your search
n = New Search (cleared search fields)
Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts for Records with Filmstrip Navigation: p = previous image
n = next image
f = toggles filmstrip off and on
Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts for Accessing the Record Side Panel: d = Details of the record
r = Related Records
s = Source for that record
(These don’t toggle the side panel)
i = Reveals the Index for the record (toggles)
Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts for Navigating Search Results Lists:
Some results lists can be navigated with hot keys.
j = move forward through the list
k = moves backward through the list
Enter = opens the selected record in the list
Enter a page number to jump quickly to another area of a large collection such as the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog.
Ancestry Top Tips Recap:
Use the Card Catalog
Understand Search and account for variations
Explore Unique Collections
Use Hot Keys to search faster.
Ancestry Top Tips Recap
Adobe Spark Video Follow-up
Watch episode 16 on how to create a family history video with Adobe Spark Video.
Gwynn asked about the app on Android. Adobe has said that the Android version is coming soon. So for now, the website version of Adobe Spark Video is the way to go. Start at my Bargains pagehere and click the Adobe Spark image. In the upper right corner of the landing page you can get a free trial and set up your account, or you can click the 20% off special which will prompt you to create your account and then will give you 20% off the subscription (limited time offer – see website for details.)
Prize Winners:
I received many creative and entertaining video entries and selected two to win a 1 year Genealogy Gems Premium membership. The membership includes over 5 videos classes with handouts, the exclusive Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast (180+ episodes to date) and ad-free downloadable show notes handouts for Elevenses with Lisa.
Winner #1: Suzan Siegel – The first video was a scrapbook of her granddaughter’s Coronavirus memories. The other was dedicated to her ancestor, Hazel Linnie Budd Siegel, called “The Early Years.”
Winner #2: Vicky Fravel – “An Ancestor A Day Keeps Boredom Away”
Resources
Live Chat PDF– Click here to download the live Chat from episode 17 which includes my answers to your questions. Show Notes PDF– Genealogy Gems Premium Members click here to download the show notes PDF for this episode. (Log in required.) Become a Premium Member here. Ancestry Hot Keys Printable Cheat Card – Genealogy Gems Premium Members click here to download the PDF. (Log in required.)
In this episode you will sit in on my consultation with genealogy expert Kate Eakman as she helps me try and bust a brick wall. Will we do it? Tune in to find out and pick up on some great strategies for any genealogy research dilemma. A must watch also if you have Irish ancestry. Plus you’ll learn what you can do to get the most from a professional researcher.
Thank you for Sharing and Supporting this Free Show
If you enjoy this show and you want to keep them coming, you know what to do: click that Thumbs Up icon for me on YouTube. This helps our distribution tremendously. Simply click where it says YouTube in the lower right corner of the player above and it will take you to the video on YouTube where you can click the Thumbs Up icon.
Ever thought of visiting your childhood home? Here’s a story about people who are actually buying theirs back. For the rest of us, here’s how to use Google and Google Earth to revisit your childhood home and relive some memories–without spending a dime.
Your childhood home–or perhaps another beloved family home–is your own personal address on Memory Lane. Who wouldn’t love to stroll up to its doors and recapture some memories?
The image above is of my husband’s great grandfather’s home in Winthrop, Minnesota. It’s a home that I have many photos of, have researched, and have come to feel personally connected to although I’ve never seen it in person. It’s one of many ancestral homes that I yearn to visit one day. So as you can imagine, I really enjoyed this report from The Wall Street Journal about a few lucky folks who are living the dream of not only visiting, but owning and restoring, their childhood home.
Even if you’re not interested in buying back an old family home, many of us are curious about the houses we used to love. Are those houses still there? What do they look like now? What else can we learn about them?
Let’s explore three ideas to help you stroll down memory lane. Then, I’ll share a discovery from a Genealogy Gems Premium podcast listener who recently dropped me a line.
1. Find the address for your childhood home
If you don’t recall the street address of your favorite family home, ask a relative or look it up. For U.S. addresses since 1940, you might start with the U.S. Public Records Index, searchable in part or full at Ancestry.com (volumes 1 and 2 for 1950-1993), FamilySearch.org or MyHeritage.com (click here to learn more about that database). Look also in records such as:
Johnstown, PA city directory listing, 1889, digitized on Ancestry.com.
draft registrations and other military paperwork
Social Security application forms, known as SS-5 forms (click here to learn more about them)
deeds
old family letters
newspaper articles (click here for tips on searching digitized newspaper content by address)
For U.S. addresses from 1880-1940, look to U.S. census records, which include street names and house numbers. In the example below from the 1930 census, you can see “Cedar Street” written vertically by the red arrow, and the house number written for each household entry, as shown in blue.
From the 1930 US census, Ancestry.com.
If you can’t find an address on an old record, but you think you could navigate yourself there on a map, it’s time to go to Google Earth and fly yourself there!
2. Use Google Earth to view your childhood home now
Google Earth is your on-ramp to your own personal Memory Lane. Go to the site, enter an address, and watch yourself “fly” to that address. If you don’t know an exact address but you know where to look, enter a street name or even a city. Then zoom in to the neighborhood and street section of interest. Activate Street View, if it’s available. Not sure how to do that? Watch my free Google Earth for Genealogy Video Class to get started.
Once you’ve found the location, take a close look. Is the house still there? What does it look like now? How has the landscape changed? The neighborhood?
You can use Google Earth to revisit your own childhood home or another family landmark, such as an ancestor’s homestead or burial place. (Click here to read about one genealogist’s virtual trip to an ancestor’s business using Google Earth’s Street View, and click here to see how another genealogist used historical map overlays in Google Earth to identify an old home’s location.)
3. Google the address of your childhood home
Googling the address of your family home may produce unexpected and interesting results like these:
a) Sale listings. If your house has been on the market in recent years, you may be able to find a listing with great details, and even pictures of the inside today. Top Google search results from specific addresses often bring up real estate websites with varying degrees of information, such as square footage, current estimated value, year built, most recent sale date and price, and more. Weed through these entries to see whether Zillow or another similar site shows a current or past listing for sale or rent. These may contain more details and may even have interior and exterior pictures of the house as it is now.
Watch closely—Google may bring up houses nearby, not the one you’re looking for. But even a neighborhood listing for a house built on a similar floor plan may jog your memories of the home and may give you a sense of what the area is like now.
b) Historical information. A Google search result may bring up historical news coverage or obituaries from digitized newspaper websites like Newspapers.com (a subscription may be required to view these in full). Or you may find something really fascinating, like a discovery made by Genealogy Gems Premium member Heather. After listening to me talk about this subject in Premium Podcast episode 141 (click here to subscribe), Heather wrote me this email:
“I love listening to the podcasts while driving to and from work, often sharing my own thoughts with you. This happened yesterday while listening to the latest Premium Podcast episode on family homes. I decided that I had to write and share what I managed to find! Since I have deep family roots in Connecticut back to 1650s, I managed to find a few family homes, but I started searching with the more recent generations and addresses that I knew. The two homes where my great-grandparents (Inez Hart and John Milton Burrall) and my great-grand aunts (Mary and Lucy Burrall) lived were written up in an application for the National Register of Historic Places!
The National Park Service is working on digitizing these applications. I found the application with a narrative description of the home and pictures of the interior and exterior. I have found other applications that have also included some genealogy of the family who lived in the home. Here is the website for the National Park Service and the database search page.”
Thanks for sending these in, Heather! And for sending along copies of the applications she found. The multi-page applications (more than 10 pages each!) include historical background on the buildings and former owners, as well as photos and site maps. Above is a photo–and below is an excerpt–from these applications.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase (at no additional cost to you) after clicking on these links. Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!
“I love listening to the podcasts while driving to and from work, often sharing my own thoughts with you. This happened yesterday while listening to the latest Premium Podcast episode on family homes. I decided that I had to write and share what I managed to find! Since I have deep family roots in Connecticut back to 1650s, I managed to find a few family homes, but I started searching with the more recent generations and addresses that I knew. The two homes where my great-grandparents (Inez Hart and John Milton Burrall) and my great-grand aunts (Mary and Lucy Burrall) lived were written up in an application for the National Register of Historic Places!
