Don’t Miss this Genealogy Record Collection at Ancestry!

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.

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Show Notes

Downloadable ad-free Show Notes handout for Premium Members

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.

Compiled family histories at Ancestry

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 Rotate Right 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.

how to make Ancestry images 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.

how to download Ancestry image with source citation

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.

Resources

Downloadable ad-free Show Notes handout for Premium Members

Genealogy Records Just Keep Coming Online! (and we love it!)

If there’s one thing we want to see coming online every single day, it’s new digitized genealogy records! A genealogical brick wall that has been sitting dormant for years can be broken down if just the right records becomes available. And we never know when that will happen.

This week I’m sharing some of the genealogy records that have come online in the last few weeks. These records comes from across the United States. They include wills and probate, police and mug shots, and cemetery records. Perhaps your ancestor’s record is among them. 

new online U.S. Genealogy Records

Wills and Probate Records

Do you have ancestors’ from Maryland? Search this collection of Wills and Probates at Findmypast to find out the date of their Will.

As confirmed in the introduction of the publication, the Maryland Calendar of Wills was compiled in response to an already “long existent and steadily increasing need for such work, a need not only of genealogists, nor only for Marylanders now living in the State, but also for the large class of persons, whose ancestors are to be numbered among the men and women who took part in the nation-building as begun on Maryland shores, and whose descendants are now to be found in every State of the Union.” 

Each record is available in a PDF format. Use the previous and next buttons at the top of the page to browse through the publication.

The General Index of Wills of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, 1633 to 1900 was compiled by Margaret Roberts Hodges from original indices, the collection of records were published by the Carter Braxton Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

You can also Search this index to more than 107,000 probate records from Maryland between 1634 to 1777 for transcripts and images of both Prerogative Court and County records. The amount of information listed in each record will vary but looking at images is always recommended.

Preceding the implementation of the first Maryland State Constitution in 1777, two sets of probate records were maintained, probate business was conducted at the capital by the central agency which, for most of the Colonial period, was known as the Prerogative Court.

The Commissary General was the presiding officer of the court and a Deputy Commissary was then appointed for each county. The Deputy Commissary recorded each probate record that was brought into their office, periodically they would send the papers filed in their office to the Prerogative Court where they would be recorded again.

Mugs Shots and More Going Back 150 Years

Records from the Indianapolis Fire Department and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department have been digitized and are available online.

Thanks to a $1.8 million grant from the Lilly Endowment, The Central Library in Indianapolis recently unveiled the collection, which includes some items dating back 150-years.

Indianapolis police records

The items have been added to an existing collection of from the Indianapolis Firefighters Museum and include:

  • log books,
  • dispatch recordings,
  • personnel records,
  • newsletters,
  • historical photos and
  • prisoner mug shots

IMPD Deputy Chief Michael Spears said “The City of Indianapolis has a police department of which it can be extremely proud. This collection is the most complete and definitive collection of documents, photographs, videos and other exhibits ever compiled.”

“The Indianapolis Fire Department has a rich and proud 160-year history, and through our partnership with the Indianapolis Public Library, we are preserving that history for future generations,” said Tom Hanify, Professional Firefighters Union of Indiana President.

You can search this unique collection for free at http://www.digitalindy.org/  If you have family history rooted in the Indianapolis area, you’re in for a treat because the website include a wide range of historical content!

118,000+ New Cemetery Records Added 

From Internment.com: Interment.net added 118,768 new cemetery records since our last report (January 2018), covering 49 cemeteries across 14 states.

Interment.net is one the oldest and largest archives of cemetery transcriptions, since 1997, and is still committed to serving genealogists at no cost.
Contained on our website are tens of millions of records, covering tens of thousands of cemeteries, from across the world.
Our records are obtained from databases direct from cemeteries, churches, libraries, and government offices, as well as from complete works of tombstone transcriptions.

Arlington National Cemetery Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast 158 Chronicling America tutorial

Here’s the list of cemetery records published recently:

Quebec, Canada
Brome County, Saint-Cajetan Cemetery, Mansonville, 722 records
Arthabaska County, Lorne Cemetery, Kingsley Station, 63 records
Arthabaska County, Trout Brook Cemetery, Tingwick, 127 records
Temiscouata, Cabano Cemetery, Temiscouata-sur-le-Lac, 2,117 records

Ontario, Canada
Bruce County, Culross and Teeswater Cemetery, Teeswater, 2,268 records

Ireland
County Wexford, Ballyhuskard Graveyard, Ballynastraw, 120 records

Alaska
Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Bayview Cemetery, Ketchikan, 5,291 records

Arizona
Apache County, St. Johns Cemetery, St. Johns, 1,400 records

California
Monterey County, Holy Trinity Cemetery, Greenfield, 500+ records
Monterey County, Oak Park Cemetery, Greenfield, 500+ records
Napa County, Pioneer Cemetery, Calistoga, 950 records
Los Angeles County, Fairmount Cemetery, Azusa, 250 records

Michigan
Genesee County, Garden of Peace Cemetery, Swartz Creek, 56 records
Genesee County, Swartz Creek Cemetery, Swartz Creek, 261 records
Clinton County, Rose Cemetery, Bath Township, 1,442 records
Clinton County, Pleasant Hill Cemetery, Bath Township, 1,806 records

Minnesota
Carver County, Chanhassen Pioneer Cemetery, Chanhassen, 850 records
McLeod County, Oakland Cemetery, Hutchinson, 8,755 records
Anoka County, East Bethel Cemetery, East Bethel, 100 records
Anoka County, Old East Bethel Cemetery, East Bethel, 178 records
Anoka County, Oak Leaf Cemetery, East Bethel, 650 records

Missouri
New Madrid County, Evergreen Cemetery, New Madrid, 2,500 records (approx)
New Madrid County, Davis Cemetery, Kewanee, 14 records
New Madrid County, East Side Cemetery, New Madrid, 128 records
New Madrid County, Cedar Grove Cemetery, New Madrid Township, 25 records
New Madrid County, A.C. LaForge Cemetery, New Madrid Township, 4 records
New Madrid County, Augustine Cemetery, New Madrid, 2 records
New Madrid County, Byrne-Howard Cemetery, New Madrid, 32 records
St. Louis County, Eberwein Family Cemetery, Chesterfield, 9 records
St. Louis County, Harugari Cemetery, Manchester, 21 records
St. Louis County, St. Mary’s Cemetery, Hazelwood, 1,071 records
St. Louis County, St. Monica Cemetery, Creve Coeur, 801 records
St. Louis County, St. Peter Cemetery, Kirkwood, 3,589 records
St. Louis County, St. Ferdinand Cemetery, Hazelwood, 3,426 records
St. Charles County, Ste. Philippine Cimetiere, St. Charles, 369 records
Jefferson County, St. Vincent Cemetery, Fenton, 33 records

Nebraska
Scotts Bluff County, East Lawn Cemetery, Mintare, 1,900 records

New York
Allegany County, Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Houghton, 724 records
Allegany County, Caneadea Cemetery, Caneadea, 430 records
Allegany County, East Caneadea Cemetery, Caneadea, 102 records

North Carolina
Nash County, Rocky Mount Memorial Park, Rocky Mount, 4,192 records

Ohio
Montgomery County, Happy Corner Cemetery, Englewood, 600 records

Oklahoma
Comanche County, Ft. Sill National Cemetery, Elgin, 6,093 records

Pennsylvania
Elk County, Denison Family Cemetery, Jay Township, 3 records

South Carolina
Anderson County, M. J. “Dolly” Cooper Veterans Cemetery, Anderson, 2,811 records
Richland County, Fort Jackson National Cemetery, Columbia, 5,548 records

Tennessee
Lawrence County, Richardson Cemetery, Centerpoint, 55 records

Texas
Swisher County, Rose Hill Cemetery, Tulia, 6,107 records
Hays County, San Marcos City Cemetery, 6,391 records

Washington State
King County, St. Patrick’s Cemetery, Kent, 760 records
Cowlitz County, Longview Memorial Park, Longview, 17,335 records
Kittitas County, Cacciatori D’Africa Cemetery, Roslyn, 25 records
Klickitat County, Stonehenge WWI Memorial, Maryhill, 14 records

Wisconsin
Marinette County, Forest Home Cemetery, Marinette, 22,800 records
Marinette County, Calvary Cemetery, Marinette, 48 records
Marinette County, Woodlawn Cemetery, Marinette, 2,400 records

Search these records at Interment.net.

Military

The Department of Veterans Affairs and National Cemetery Administration has created a new platform that creates digital memorials for all veterans in national cemeteries.

According to the website, the Veterans Legacy Memorial is “an online memorial space for Veterans managed by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). NCA manages 136 national cemeteries as shrine spaces to honor our Nation’s Veterans and extends memorialization of the 3.7 million Veterans interred in NCA cemeteries to this digital memorial space, providing a VLM profile page for each.

To find the memorial profile of a Veteran, please enter the name of your Veteran in the format of First Last with no commas (“John Doe” not “Doe, John”). To search with additional information (branch of service, cemetery name, etc.), please click on Advanced Search.”

Visit and search the Veterans Legacy Memorial here. 

More Genealogy Records Coming Next Week

We report on the newest genealogy records that have come online each week. Subscribe to the free Genealogy Gems newsletter here to get notification, and you’ll also received my free ebook on googling search strategies for genealogy. 

 

 

How to Find Family History on YouTube in 5 Steps

Family history can be found in many places. We turn to steadfast repositories such as libraries, archives and historical societies. And these days we can also search online at free genealogy websites like FamilySearch, and subscription websites like MyHeritage and Ancestry. All have something unique to offer. 

Most importantly, we start our search at home, talking to our oldest relatives and combing through old family papers. We then turn our attention to the family photo albums and scrapbook on the bookshelf, and old home movies if we are lucky enough to have them.

The great news is that the closets in your home are not the only place where you can potentially find old film footage pertaining to your family’s past. The largest online video repository in the world is YouTube (which is owned by Google), and it is the perfect place to look for film. That’s why I’m so excited to share some of my YouTube search strategies from my new book The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, 3rd Edition. These strategies can help you find old home movies (from your family or someone else’s family that came in contact with your family), news and newsreel films, documentaries, amateur and professional film footage, and countless other subjects that can shed more light on your family’s history. 

5 Easy steps to find your family history on YouTube

How to Find Family History on YouTube in 5 Steps

Does finding your family history on YouTube sound unlikely? Believe me, it’s not. YouTube is a treasure trove if you know how to search it. Here are 5 steps from my Google Search Methodology for Genealogy and how to apply them specifically to YouTube. 

Step #1. Create a Search Plan

Just like genealogy research, successful Googling, even on YouTube, requires a plan. Rather than searching willy-nilly, take a few moments to determine what it is you hope to find. Having a search plan will save you a lot of time and frustration!

The key to a good research question and plan is to be specific. This means that instead of just searching for family names or places, you have a specific event, place, and / or time frame in mind.

Below is a great example of searching with a specific plan in mind that I received from one of my Genealogy Gems Podcast listeners a while back. I have bolded the keywords that she incorporated into her YouTube search.

From Carol K.:
“I really enjoyed (Genealogy Gems) Podcast (episode) #223, particularly the segment with David Haas MD. (Editor’s note: that episode covers Dr. Haas’ vast collection of old home movies and his quest to upload them all to YouTube.)

I had tried researching YouTube for something about my family, including where they settled in Connecticut. I had not come up with much when I decide to search my dad’s ship, The USS Tuscaloosa (Image 1).

USS Tuscaloosa CA 37 P. 31 Wautur Clooses Photo Mario D

Image 1: Carol’s father, Mario Ponte, served on the USS Tuscaloosa

My dad, Mario Ponte, served in the Navy from 1936-1939 (Image 2).

  Image 2: Mario DaRin Ponte beside the USS Tuscaloosa – July 27, 1937

I knew he had been on a Goodwill South American Cruise in 1939 (Image 3) as he talked about it often and I even have the Cruise Book from that voyage.

Mario D. Ponte Goodwill Tour

image 3: U.S.S. Tuscaloosa South American Good Will Cruise route April – June 1939

Well, I’ll be if I didn’t find this story and film (on YouTube).

(Here’s the video’s description:)

On a goodwill tour of South America in 1939, three US cruisers found little goodwill in this angry sea. Newsreel cameras aboard the USS San Francisco recorded this epic struggle of the ships which included the USS Quincy and USS Tuscaloosa.

I don’t recall my father ever mentioning this to me, but my husband said he had heard the story. I only wish my dad were here to share this memory with me. At least, I have been able to share this treacherous event with many in my family.

When you see the tossing, turning and huge waves in the video, I feel they were lucky to have survived. Just think, if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here to tell this story today. 

Thanks Lisa and David. I’m now convinced that YouTube can be used for genealogy and to add to our stories.”

Carol’s fascinating success can be directly tied to the fact that she developed a research plan focused on specific information.

2. Craft Your YouTube Search Query

As you can see, Carol didn’t just search YouTube for her Dad’s name. In fact, unless your ancestor was famous in some way, that is likely not a strategy that will pay off.

Instead, she assembled the pertinent information and used that in her query. Here are the keywords and phrases I pulled from her email:

  • The USS Tuscaloosa
  • Goodwill South American Cruise in 1939
  • Mario Ponte 
  • Navy from 1936-1939

I included her dad’s name in this list because it never hurts to run your ancestor’s name through a search just in case something pops up. You never know what might be on YouTube. For example, perhaps a childhood friend has uploaded an old home movie to YouTube and named him as being in the movie too!

When conducting your initial YouTube search, include all the important information. If the results are unsatisfactory, you can always remove or add search terms. Since we can’t be sure what if anything is on YouTube pertaining to our research subject, we have to be flexible, and that means expecting to run several variations of our search. We’ll talk more about that in step 3. 

In Carol’s case, her research plan was focused on finding a video pertaining to the U.S.S. Tuscaloosa’s Goodwill cruise that her father participated in. She could start with a search such as:

USS Tuscaloosa Goodwill South American Cruise in 1939

The results for this search query are excellent and include the video that Carol found:

YouTube search for family history

Image 4: YouTube search for family history

3. Analyze Your YouTube Search Results

Even though these results successfully delivered the video that satisfied our research plan, we would miss tremendous opportunity if we didn’t take a few extra moments to further analyze the results. You never know what else might be out there!

Here are just a few of the things you should be looking for when reviewing your YouTube results:

LOOK FOR: Should I be more specific in my search query?
Look at our search results (Image 4 above). What stands out to me is that there appear to be many different videos on YouTube about war time ships and cruisers. This is great for family historians, but it means that there are more results to look through than we might have expected.

As you have probably experienced in the past, not all the words in our search query are included in every search result we receive. There is a way to quickly and easily find only videos that specifically mention the words and phrases we want to find. By putting quotation marks around “U.S.S. Tuscaloosa” we can tell YouTube to only give us videos that mention that exact phrase.

When Google searching (and Google is the search engine under the hood of YouTube), quotation marks function as a search operator. They tell Google specific instructions about what to do with our word or phrase. In this case, they tell Google that the phrase is mandatory, and must appear exactly as typed and spelled. The one exception is the periods in U.S.S.  Generally speaking, Google disregards punctuation, so it ignores the periods. It doesn’t matter whether you include them or not.

It is important to note that operators don’t always work as consistently in YouTube as they do in regular searches at Google.com. That being said, it’s great to have a variety of tools that we can use to improve our searches, and they are definitely worth a try. My book includes a wide range of additional search operators and how to use them. 

Running a second search on “USS Tuscaloosa” opens many new video opportunities (Image 5):

Quotation marks search on YouTube

Image 5: Search results for a query containing the quotation marks search operator.

This search not only includes the 1939 tour, but also other videos of the ship that may also be applicable to the family’s history. As you can see, sometimes less words in a search is more!

LOOK FOR: What do the unwanted video results have in common?
Sometimes you may notice that you are receiving many results that are not a good match for what you are looking for. When this happens, take a look at your results and try to come up with words that are associated with the unwanted videos, and have no relevance to your goal. 

Image 6 (below) is an example of search results in YouTube for the following query:

USS Tuscaloosa Goodwill Cruise in 1939

Identify unwanted videos and words in the YouTube search results

Image 6: Identify unwanted videos and words in the YouTube search results

While the results page includes a few good matches, it also includes current videos about quarantines on ships which is a viral topic at the time of this writing. Since these are not applicable to our search plan, we will want to eliminate them, and we will do that in Step 4. 

4. Improve Upon Your YouTube Search Results

In a case like the one above (Image 6) where you are receiving several video results not applicable to your research goal, you can try literally subtract the unwanted words that you identified in Step 3 from your search. In most cases, this should remove the videos that contain those words in their title or description.

To do this, use the minus sign (-) search operator in conjunction with the word. Here’s an example of how we can do that with this search:

USS Tuscaloosa Goodwill Cruise in 1939 -quarantine

This search will remove the results that mention quarantine.

You can subtract multiple words from your query if you wish. Each word should have a minus sign touching it, and there should be a space between each subtracted word as in this example:

USS Tuscaloosa Goodwill Cruise in 1939 -quarantine  -princess  -coronavirus

Googling, whether at YouTube, Google.com or any of the other free Google tools, is an art form, not a black and white science. We need to try variations in order to learn from what works and what doesn’t. To reach our goals, we need to try adding in more of what we want, and removing what we don’t want. In this case I would also try adding to my query that that cruise was in South America, and that the phrase USS Tuscaloosa is mandatory. Here’s what that search query would look like:

“USS Tuscaloosa” Goodwill South American Cruise in 1939 -quarantine

Remember, we’re not going for perfect results, we’re mining all the different “veins” in the YouTube gold mine by running multiple versions of the same basic query. Feel free to experiment with mixing and matching keywords and operators.  The results may be worth it!

Learn more about Google Search operators in my video:

GOOGLE GURU TIP: 
Conduct each variation of your search in a new browser tab. This allows you to compare the results side-by-side while retaining each query, making it easy to return to the queries that are performing the best.

You can also potentially improve upon your YouTube search results by using the Tools button to reveal the secondary filter menu. (Image 7)

YouTube search filter

Image 7: Click “Filter” to reveal the YouTube search filter options

These filters won’t prove useful in every case, but they do offer some handy options for narrowing the scope of your search. 

5. Capitalize on Your Results

When you find a video that meets your research goals, there’s a good chance that the person or company that uploaded and published the video (publishers are called “Creators” by YouTube) may have more videos on that subject. Here’s a quick and easy way to find out. 

On the video page, you will see the name of the Creator right below the video in the left corner. (Image 9)

More videos found on YouTube

Image 9: More videos found on YouTube

Click the YouTube Creator’s name. This will take you to their YouTube channel. Every Creator who has published a video has a YouTube channel. It’s sort of like their own home page for their videos. There you will be able to see and search any additional videos they have published. Click Videos to see all their videos. (Image 10)

More videos on the Creator's YouTube channel

Image 10: More videos on the Creator’s YouTube channel

If the channel has a lot of videos, click Playlists in the channel’s menu to see how they are grouped by topic. You can also search the channel for keywords and phrases by clicking the small magnifying glass icon on the far right end of the menu.

A Bright Future for Family History on YouTube

In Step 3 we analyzed the search results for Carol’s YouTube search. Let’s take another look at those results:

YouTube search results for family history

Image 8: Over time new videos are uploaded to YouTube waiting to be found.

It’s interesting to note that in addition to the video that Carol found which was published 4 years ago, another video on this topic was published a year later. 

It’s estimated that more than 500 hours of video is being uploaded to YouTube every minute. This is up from the 400 hours per minute announced in 2015 by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. 

Among that vast storehouse of film footage I’ve found countless videos that have enhanced my family’s story. And readers just like you email me the gems they unearth. I love receiving these success stories. Thank you to Carol for sharing hers! If you make an exciting discovery using these strategies please share them in the Comments. It will inspire us all to continue our search. 

The bottom line is that the potential for finding your family history on YouTube grows dramatically minute by minute, so don’t wait another minute! 

Resources

The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, 3rd Edition (book)
by Lisa Louise Cooke, print book available at the Genealogy Gems store here.

The Genealogist's Google Toolbox Third edition Lisa Louise Cooke

Lisa’s new book is available at STORE in the menu or go to shopgenealogygems.com

The Google Search Methodology for a New Decade (video class)
1 hour video class and downloadable handout, part of Genealogy Gems Premium Membership. Learn more or subscribe here

Watch the Google Search Methodology for Genealogy

Watch the Premium video class Google Search Methodology for Genealogy

About the Author: Lisa Louise Cooke

About the Author: Lisa Louise Cooke

Lisa is the Producer and Host of the Genealogy Gems Podcast, an online genealogy audio show and app. She is the author of the books The Genealogist’s Google ToolboxMobile GenealogyHow to Find Your Family History in Newspapers, and the Google Earth for Genealogy video series, an international keynote speaker, and producer of the Family Tree Magazine Podcast.

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