Category: Resources Page 8 of 17

Quick Tip: FamilySearch County Wikis

On 4 May 2015

I know I have mentioned FamilySearch’s wikis before but I want to emphasize their county pages. Above you see the Wiki main page for FamilySearch (click here to go there or you can click on search and then choose Wiki). You can click on any country to get information on that area. Is the information complete and accurate? Well that will depend.

What is a Wiki

I’m positive that most of you know of wikipedia. The thing that is the best (in my opinion) about wiki’s can also be the worst – they are collaborative pages that users can edit and add to. This can be great because there are many people out there with a lot of great knowledge as well as being able to update information as it happens!. If you think about that genealogically, that means that someone can add all the information they know about a specific place, group, record, etc, as well as when events may make the records no longer available. This is a wonderful idea!

Of course, this is also a bit iffy. We all know by now that not all that information is correct. However, it’s up to the community of users to find that information and correct it when that happens. Wikipedia has gotten much better at catching that mis-information over time, even closing some pages due to the conflicts but tends to also opens a forum for discussion on the conflict. It helps that you can add where the information came from (citing your sources!) so people can verify the information on their own.

FamilySearch Wiki

The FamilySearch wiki has specific pages that can be adopted by certain groups but anyone who has a log-in can enter and change the information. Since this community is one of sharing knowledge, I do believe that the majority of this information is accurate and there are links normally placed throughout the site so you can verify the information.

Searching on the Wiki

The main page (shown above) has a map where you can click on your area of interest. Since I’m talking about counties, I’ll focus on the United States. So you’ll click on North America on the map, then the United States on the next page.

Scroll down the US page until you see this map:

Then click on your state of interest. You’ll see a county map of the state next (all states have this, I checked). Click your county of interest and viola! You’ll see a page (hopefully) filled with wonderful information:

This is the St. Joseph, Indiana page. As you can see it was adopted by the Indiana Genealogical Society who put in the first bits of information on the county. As the county genealogist for St. Joseph County, I have also added information on what you can find here and added information from the local society.

The information is wonderful! You can see when the county started to keep their vital records, boundary change information, record loss information, and where are specific records. This is an amazing resource and tends to be my first stop when I enter in to a new county for research.

How You Can Help

Of course, not all information will be complete. Sometimes all that will be there is what the FamilySearch volunteers have added, which include what records they have for the county/state. However, sometimes there can be nothing at all:

A borough of Alaska

Grant it, this is a borough of Alaska that may have next to nothing as far as records go anyway (please correct me if I’m wrong here!). I’m just using this as an example of where you can step in and help.

Check out your county (or one you are very familiar with) and log in (easy to create a free account if you don’t already have one). Then add in the information that you know of and spread the word! Share this wiki with others you know are interested, your local society, historical groups, etc. and it will soon be filled with lots of goodies for people researching that area!

The best part of wiki’s to me is the community effort that is involved, and genealogy is a great community that really works on sharing that information. So check out your county and those you are interested in! Spread the word 🙂

Happy hunting!

Tips on Searching on FamilySearch.org

By Nichelle Barra

On 28 April 2015

In Resources

One of my favorite discoveries when I was just getting into genealogy was familysearch.org (it was a different name then!). This wonderful website is free and is provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (you can read more about them and the website here). If you are a member of that church, I’m positive you are aware of the website but for those you who aren’t, you want to add this to your genealogy resources if it isn’t there already!

FamilySearch has worked tirelessly over the years microfilming MANY records. There is so much you can find in their 3.5 billion images online; not to mention their amazing records that aren’t online that you can find in their massive library in Salt Lake City, Utah as well as Fort Wayne, Indiana. Not everything is indexed, so be aware of that. There are times when I’ve had to look page by page but I have had successful searches that way!

Searching

You can search right away by putting in names and information:

That’s on the left hand side of the screen. Most people use that and are quite successful. I love to use this site along with Ancestry.com. They use different search algorithms and they have different indexers, so you’ll often have different results.

I do want to bring your attention to the right hand part of the screen though. THAT is where I feel many treasures lay hidden!

You can either click on an area on the map and then select the area you are interested in or click on the browse all published collections link. If you click the browse link you’ll get a LARGE amount of collections that you can then narrow down by place, date, collection, or only collections with images.

There you can also filter by collection name but be aware that that means you are looking for a word in the title. So if you’re looking for anything on probate records, they may be in a collection that does not have the word probate in the title. So expand your search a bit to see if you can find more.

Now if you clicked on a place on the map and choose a state, you will have different records show up then if you hit browse all published collections, then clicked United States of America, and then your state of choice. That’s because the browse option will bring up only those records that deal strictly with your state of choice. Clicking the map and choosing a state will also bring up United States records that deal with many different states:

Those are the un-indexed images and you want to be sure to check those out too!

FamilySearch.org Wiki

Another favorite thing about familysearch.org is their wiki. This is a wonderful resource when you’re looking into a state or county and want to know when they began keeping records and where to find them. Of course, as a wiki, these aren’t always complete. If you feel you have information about an area you are more than welcome to create an account (free by the way – and you can start a family tree with that too) and edit a wiki.

To see an example, check out St. Joseph County, Indiana. The Indiana Genealogical Society did adopt that page which means they also update it when they update their records that include St. Joseph County. Also, as the county genealogist, I added in information about what you can find in the county. It’s a great resource!

Indexing

You can help improve the familysearch website by editing wiki’s but also by volunteering to index records! You’ll want to create an account and then you can get started right away! You pick projects by their location or just pick a project at random.

This is a great way to contribute and to give back to a wonderful resource that I’m sure you’ll enjoy! Not to mention, it’s a lot of fun.

Anything you want to add about FamilySearch? Or anything you love about the site? Comment below!

Happy hunting!

National Archives’ Online Public Access (OPA)

By Nichelle Barra

On 27 April 2015

In Resources

Don’t forget about the book giveaway that ends May 1st!!! Go here to sign up!

I had a wonderful weekend in Terre Haute for the Indiana Genealogical Society’s conference! Judy G. Russell was the main speaker and she was as amazing as one would expect! I also got to meet Amy Johnson Crow! It was a bit like meeting a celebrity for me! She is incredibly nice and I loved chatting with her about ideas for society management. She recognized me too! Now that was unexpected but pretty awesome!

One item that was mentioned in one of the sessions I was in was OPA – NARA’s new online public access. I cannot tell you what it used to be for the life of me… if you know, please leave a comment!

What Is It

What is OPA? In the words of NARA, it is “the online public portal to our records and information about our records.” It allows someone to search several of NARA’s resources at one time, which is lovely!

To be more specific, here is what you can find in all the results that come up:

Online Holdings: these are records from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) and have digital copies you can download
Description Only: these are records with no digital copy and is only a description of the record (good for pre-research if you plan on going to NARA)
Archives.gov: from the Archives.gov website
NARA’s Authority Files: these tend to contain organizational histories and personal biographies.

For more information on using OPA, go here.

How It’s Useful for Genealogy

Obviously this will depend on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for information on a specific area or time, this will be a great place to start, especially if you’re looking for information on the 1940 census enumeration districts.

Looking for an individual’s name can also work but obviously it will mostly come up with those most well-known people in most cases. Most of our regular, every-day ancestors won’t show up, however, there is a casualty list from some of the wars (like World War II and the Korean War) that could be very useful. So searching for a surname could bring up some interesting results and is worth a shot! For example, when I typed in Witherell, I found a record in the description only results that involve a court case from 1789! I do not know if that Witherell is related to me but that is still neat to find.

You can also refine your searches by the data source, the level of description, the type of archival materials, the file format (if you wish to download something), the location, and the date.

My favorite part of this search is probably the pictures! With searching for Saginaw, I found a lot of pictures from the annual smelt run in the 1970’s – who knew?!

Examples

I typed in Saginaw in the basic search and got this:

I clicked on the view online holdings the top results were all 1940 census enumeration district descriptions! This can be wonderful if all you know is where an ancestor lived but couldn’t find them in the 1940 census. This way you can at least pinpoint what census record they would be in and you can do a line by line search in the correct place to see if the name had just been completely butchered beyond recognition.

These items are also downloadable, as mentioned. For example, a few pages in to that search I found The Indian School Journal, Volume 7, Number 9 from Sept 1907. One click, and it’s a PDF file on your computer, which also means it’s word searchable!

I refined my search to Saginaw County and looked at more than just the digital holdings. Some of them were really quite interesting!

Description Only: mostly reports on specific parts of the county
Archives.gov holdings: these were items like World War I Draft Registration cards, census information – these weren’t the actual images but information on the microfilm that the information can be found on
Presidential Libraries: by far the neatest item I found! It had the Daily Diary of President Gerald R. Ford who visited Saginaw County on 16 May 1976, where he visited a school I took dance lessons in during my youth (not in 1976 though… my parents had just married at that point!) It even states that he was there at 2:56pm! So neat and so detailed!
NARA’s Authority Records: these were items on the bar association, the road commission, and the Ridge Road Cemetery to name a few but not a lot of information is given on these groups.

Although using OPA isn’t really the first place a genealogist may look for information, it is a place to think about when making sure you get all the information you can that’s online before visiting say an archive or court house. Just type in Probate in the search and you’ll see what I mean! NARA holds many probate records from a variety of areas in the United States, especially from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It’s always a good idea to check out what is available on NARA – you may be surprised on what you can find!

AncestryAcademy

By Nichelle Barra

On 20 April 2015

In Research, Resources

The other day, I received an email from Ancestry.com announcing AncestryAcademy. Has anyone else seen this? To access it from your homepage you go to Learning Center and it’s the last one on that pulldown menu. If you are using the Beta (like me) it shows up in your extras tab at the top of your homepage. I tried out one course so far and here’s my rundown based on that:

What Is It?

AncestryAcademy has many video courses on a variety of genealogy topics offered by Ancestry.com. These course are for genealogists of any level.

What Kind of Courses Are Available?

New courses are added monthly and so far there are five courses available:

Who is That Tick Mark? Using Early Census Records with J. Mark Lowe, CG, FUGA: This focuses on early census forms from before 1850.
The Buckeye State: Researching Your Ohio Ancestors with Amy Johnson Crow, CG: This focuses on Ohio ancestors and goes into records like tax records, census records, court records, land settlement, etc.
Getting the Most Out of Family Tree Maker with Duff Wilson: For those who use Family Tree Maker and wish to get the most of it, this course focuses on using the program.
Native American Ancestry? Steps to Learn more with Paula Stuart-Warren, CG: This focuses on Native American ancestry and records to look for.
Street Smarts: Finding Your Ancestor in the Big City with Juliana Szucs: This focuses on researching your family when it comes to the city they lived in and what you can learn from looking around them.

What to Expect

I decided to take the Ohio Ancestors one as I have a trip to Fort Wayne planned where I will be focusing on some of my Ohio ancestors and figure this will be a good start.

The 14 videos in this session vary in length from 48 seconds to 7 mins 24 seconds for a total of a little less than an hour.

Each video (besides the intro and outro) have goals for you to learn in the short video. There is also a handout with the slideshow notes, which I appreciate. I do have dual screens so I tend to take notes on one screen while watching the video in the other, but for those who don’t, then you can use this handout to take any additional notes.

You can watch it all at once (the videos just keep going from one section to the next unless you stop that) or you can watch it in small segments (one video at a time). I watched them all at once, however, for some reason it kept skipping a section ahead. I just needed to then manually choose what video I wanted to see instead, but I hope whatever glitch that was will be fixed soon.

After you watch the videos, there is a quick test to take to complete the course and then you can print a certificate if you so choose.

The Downside

It can cost extra from your subscription. However, if you already subscribe to the Ancestry World Explorer Plus, the cost is included in that subscription.

If you do not, here are the costs:

Ancestry Academy Monthly: $11.99/month – unlimited access to all courses and the new ones added monthly
Ancestry Academy Annual: $99.99/year – unlimited access to all courses and the new ones added monthly

The Upside

This can be a great addition to those wishing to learn more about genealogy. Although these courses are for everyone, I feel those who will benefit the most will be the beginners and intermediates.

For the course I took, I did learn about the uniqueness of Ohio’s land records (which I did not know before) as well as where to look for records and what could be available for the time frames I’m looking for. I found the course beneficial to me and that is always a plus!

Overall

The AncestryAcademy is included in the Ancestry World Explorer Plus and I think that’s a great addition to those who have that already. Is it worth those who do not have that subscription? That will be up to the individual to decide. I do wish they’d offer a free trial so that those who wish to try it out could see if it would be worth it to purchase. I feel it really depends on where your strengths and weaknesses lay as a genealogists. The courses they have at the moment, may not be areas where you have interest or you may already feel quite knowledgeable about those areas. I’d say keep watching to see if items are added that you may find worthwhile. Then perhaps, trying it out for a month may be worth it.

I do believe that you can learn quite a bit from these courses and I hope that they will continue to add worthy courses to make the addition something people will benefit from.

Have any of you tried out these courses? What did you think?

Happy hunting!