Category: Review Page 2 of 3

Review: Essential Family Tree Forms

On 20 August 2015

About a month ago, Geneabloggers Genealogy Bargains mentioned the Essential Family Tree Forms Library CD on sale for 25% off (it still is 25% off by the way!). The rave review from Geneabloggers and the price made this a simple decision for me. And this week, it finally arrived!

What Is It?

There are 75 worksheets/checklists/templates included in the CD. They are all a PDF but you can type into them and save the forms (which I love)!

Basic Genealogy Forms
- Includes the usual pedigree (5-generation) and family group sheet but ALSO includes an adoptive family chart, a step-family chart, and a source list!
US Census Extraction Forms
- 1790-1940 – These are really great when pulling information from census records and you can’t for whatever reason download/print the actual image of the census record.
Checklists
- For census records, home sources, military, and just records in general. There’s also a handy cousin-chart and an example for source documentation.
Immigrant Research Forms
- Includes an ancestral village worksheet, customs lists, and passenger lists through the years along with a passenger list search worksheet
Online Research Helps
- Includes an ancestor worksheet for online searches and an online search tracker
Person Worksheets
- Includes an ancestor worksheet, a biographical outline, a living relative search worksheet and a military service record sheet
Photo and Heirloom Forms
- Includes sheets for recording your inventory of archived items, heirlooms, and photos. It also includes sheets for ancestral homes, recipes, helping to identify pictures, who has what and where, etc.
Records Worksheets
- Includes worksheets for: birth, death, marriage index, deed, land, cemetery, news clipping, and burned county information
Research Logs
- A great table of contents chart for your files along with the usual items you’d expect: correspondence log, note taking forms for library research, research items like a journal, calendar, planner, and log.
Research Trip Aids
- Wonderful charts for helping you to research the repository before you go, as well as a great budget planning sheet and a packing list.
Story and Tradition Forms
- Great for family get togethers! These include a family interview sheet (in case you weren’t sure what to ask), a family stories sheet, any family traditions, and a record for your oral interviews.
Surname Worksheets
- Sheets for recording the story behind a certain name, any variations in the spelling of the name along with when and where, and a great surname worksheet where you can keep track of several names (and their variants) in one place.

Pros

The Ancestral Village Worksheet was something I hadn’t thought about until I saw the sheet and I can see how useful it could be! Certain items, like other historical names, are incredibly important to remember when looking for your ancestors!

The Passenger List Search Worksheet is great when you’re looking for someone with a name that could be spelled and transcribed many ways. This sheet has you write down everything you already know in order to help you better search for your ancestor in a passenger list database.

The Online Search Tracker and the Ancestor Worksheet for Online Searches are unique. As a professional, this is a great chart to use when I am quickly doing a surface search for someone, but have not created a tree for them yet and just need some background first. This is a great place to keep the information organized.

The Ancestor Worksheet I could see being very useful when you hit a brick wall. It’s a great place to quickly put all you already know about them in one place and then see what you could be missing.

The Correspondence Log does not need to be just family. I keep one that goes for everyone I’ve asked for information on whomever I was looking for. This includes when I ask societies or libraries. It’s a good habit to get into!

I really enjoy the Research Trip Aid items. They are wonderful and I can already tell I’ll be using the budget one frequently. The set up for the repository worksheet is great as well as it includes things people may not think about right away like are they closed for lunch? What restrictions are there for electronics? Or is anything stored off-site? All great questions you should know before you go!

Cons

While useful, I don’t know that I’d create checklists for things like JUST census records or military records. I tend to look at one person and see what I have for them, so that makes the records checklist probably the most beneficial for me.

I am a proponent of citing something instead of nothing so the included citation cheat sheet will help with that. However, it is missing a few components that I feel are important (like who you are specifically looking at), but for those who haven’t cited before, it is still a great start.

Some items, like the Photographic Record, Heirloom Recording Form, the Military Service Record, and the Recipe History Recorder are nice for presentation. If you aren’t going to present that information in some way, I don’t find them incredibly useful. All that information can be recorded elsewhere (although the Heirloom and Recipe Recorder do leave room for memories/stories about said heirloom/recipe).

As mentioned, the Correspondence Log is a great habit to get into but this one lacks information I would want to include. Besides the basic columns in the log (date, who to, address, information received, sent, or requested), I also like to include information on the person I’m researching, the specific question I had, if I sent money, and then the result. Since this is just a family log, I suppose it doesn’t need as much detail, but I just use a bigger one that I created.

Overall

I’d say this was a sound purchase! The price was great and I already see many worksheets/templates/checklists that I will be using in the future. This may be less of a value to someone who has been in genealogy for a while and may have already created similar documents. I hadn’t yet though and I find many of these to be quite beneficial!

Tuesday’s Tip: For the Genealogy Professional Or Those Thinking About It

By Nichelle Barra

On 28 July 2015

In Resources, Review

By Mackenzie Kosut (Flickr: Brooklyn Home Office, Minimized, At Night) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I only wish my home office had such a view or was as nicely clean and laid out as this one! 🙂

Yesterday I posted on my facebook page that Thomas MacEntee of GeneaBloggers is starting a new series this week on the genealogy profession.

I think this is fabulous! As this is a recent profession for me (I officially started my business in September), I have counted on blogs and people like Thomas MacEntee to help get me started. And he really has! Not only did his website GeneaBloggers introduce me to an amazing group of genealogy bloggers that I now take a part in, but I’ve also used his GenBiz Solutions website as well!

The GenBiz Solutions Guides are really great. I’ve bought the Marketing Plan guide, which helped me to create a plan that I am still tweaking as I go. I also received his Creating an Email Marketing Campaign (full disclosure: I did not pay for this but my opinions are my own) which was probably more helpful than I could have imagined! It was my go-to guide when I was creating my giveaway for the Genealogy Lady’s book Dear Mother, Love Daddy. It was chock full of great information, just like the marketing plan guide! They are very reasonably priced and for any person wishing to go the professional route, I do highly recommend his guides. I am NOT a business person! I was an English and history major at school – which means I’m good at researching, reading, and writing reports 🙂 Running a business is new to me so I have greatly enjoyed guides like the ones that Thomas MacEntee has!

First in Series

This new series How to Make Money in the Genealogy Business is another great way that Thomas MacEntee is helping out the budding professionals in this ever-growing industry. Yesterday’s post was “Genealogy – For Fun or Profit?” There were so many great items in that post but I’ll share some of my favorites:

…”Genealogy Professional, Not a Professional Genealogist.” – MacEntee makes this distinction with a very good point. Whenever I say I am a professional genealogist, people do assume I only do client research when there is so much more going on! Writing and lecturing (the creation of) are two of my biggest items that I spend a lot of time on, and I think the wording of genealogy professional encompasses a lot more than a professional genealogist.
Affiliate Marketing – something I’ve never done before and I am definitely interested in learning more!
Keeping a journal – something I do not do at this point but will now. He recommends putting ideas down in a journal and then reviewing it once a week to see what is possible.
Exploit your niche – this is something I am struggling to really find. I’ve heard people recommend not starting your business until you have a niche, but I did not do that as I’m still exploring where I’d like to focus and I know many others who have done the same.
Discount on one of his GenBiz guides – go to the link for the post and read through it all – a lot of good stuff in there! – there’s a promo code at the bottom for a discount on one of the GenBiz Solutions guides!

Second in Series

Today’s post is “Careers in Genealogy” – There is quite a lot you can do with genealogy as your focus I’ve realized. It’s not just client research, as already mentioned. Your mix of genealogy careers will depend on where you live too. Places like Washington D.C. and Salt Lake City may have client research as their one or main income stream. For me in small-town Indiana, it’s a mix of lecture, writing, and client research. That mix will become heavier on the lecture and writing sections as I’ve discovered during my first year of business as well, but this list also shows what other branches you can consider besides those three basic ones. I imagine my current choices will change based on the environment (business and geographic) and as I discover what I enjoy and do not enjoy.

Again, this post has lots of great information but a few of my favorites are:

Author – I love the idea of ebooks and guides and I’m interested in looking at doing something like this in the near future
Speaker – webinars are definitely a time/money saver! I love how easily accessible they are to so many people and how much more affordable they are when you want a more well-known speaker but can’t afford for them to physically come to a group.
Mentor – I can’t recommend this enough! Genealogy professionals may not be in your immediate area but so many are available online; that’s where I found many of my own mentors in going through this process.
What sort of genealogist are you? This is a great question to consider and spend some time thinking about! This was a question we asked ourselves throughout my history undergrad as well but “what kind of historian are you” instead. I always considered myself a social historian – I enjoy people and their stories throughout history; not the big things like wars and politics, but more on how those big things influenced people’s lives throughout the years. It’s no wonder I love genealogy!

I highly recommend checking out the series! It’s great for professionals, those thinking of becoming professionals, and even those who are simply curious. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment here or on Facebook!

Tuesday’s Tip: Twile

By Nichelle Barra

On 22 July 2015

In Resources, Review

Yes this is a day late again. I have been a day off all week long! 🙂

Not too long ago, I recieved an email about a new family tree website called Twile.

I checked it out but didn’t do too much with it at first. But I followed them on Facebook and saw that they were allowing people to upload GEDcom’s – awesome! That is so much easier than re-making your whole family tree!

Uploading my GEDcom did come with some issues, which isn’t surprising. GEDcoms can be quite complicated as they come from many different programs but Twile’s owners are diligently working on the issues and I was able to upload the GEDcom last week!

So, now that I have that on there I get the chance to explore! Here are some things you can expect from Twile. First, at the top, you’ll find the main tool bar for viewing. You have two options: Timeline or Family Tree

Timeline

You can choose different views for this one. You can choose FAMILY:

You can’t see it well but the timeline goes from your earliest ancestor recorded (mine happens to be 1796) to current time. You can scroll through the time line by clicking and “pulling” it along (much like you do on Ancestry and FamilySearch to move documents around). Or you can use the timeline line at the bottom of the screen:

You can also view a specific ancestor’s life. Just click the button that says Family and you’ll get this list where you can then choose someone to specifically look at:

There you’ll see recent searches and then an alphabetical list. It’s alphabetical by first name, which takes a moment to get used to. Here’s a look at one of my ancestors:

You can also see that specific person’s profile:

Family Tree

The Family Tree view can focus in on a specific person (as the profile at the top shows, you can click the Their Tree button to get a look at that ancestor’s specific connections. But you can move around this screen to see whatever connections you’d like:

Pros

It’s just starting out – to me this is great because it means the owners/creators are actively paying attention to the needs and wants of it’s consumers. I have had wonderful responses to questions and problems I’ve come across with the site! It’s being monitored and your responses will be answered PLUS you can help make it better.
It’s FREE! – Always a nice touch.
Upload your GEDcoms – This is preferred to having to recreate a family tree!
Photo capabilities – Great for adding a more personal touch.
Views – I really like the timeline view. Seeing the whole family throughout time like that gives it in a unique perspective. The family tree view is nice as well. I like that in the family tree view, the number under their initials (or picture) tells you how many facts, or stories, you have for them. It’s a nice quick view.
Ease of use – very self-explanatory and easy to use. I have not had a problem maneuvering around the website.
Share – As always, part of building a family tree is to SHARE IT! For family members, you just need to click their profile and you’ll see a box that says “Invite [Name] to share your family history with him/her” and a place for an email address. Enter that in and you’ll be able to share photos, stories, and the timeline with them. You can also invite friends, but they can then only see what you add to your specific timeline.
Feedback – In the menu there’s a section for feedback. I love it when websites actively seek out their costumer’s opinions and then DO something about it. Twile definitely delivers in that aspect!
Private – This is not a public tree. You get to choose who gets to view and edit information. This could be a CON for some people, but I know it’s something people have been looking for lately.

Cons

It’s just starting out – This is both a pro and a con. It’s great but you will also need to expect hiccups and some issues. However, it’s the customer service that makes or breaks this and I do feel this is more a PRO than anything because of Twile’s customer service. But it’s something to be aware of nonetheless.
Missing timeline items – I had this issue with census information after I uploaded my GEDcom. It was fixed for a specific ancestor that I had emailed about but I notice that it wasn’t fixed for all of my family. Military information is also missing. They are aware of the issue though. My GEDcom had items that were new to them and therefore didn’t upload correctly. This is one of those issues that will be fixed with time as it is still a new website working out the kinks as they go along.
Citations – Although my GEDcom has citations attached to people, Twile does not currently support that feature. I am not sure if that is something they hope to do or not but I do hope they will consider adding that feature. After all, genealogists work very hard to get those documents and we all know a fact (for lack of a better word) is only as good as it’s source!

Overall, this is a great website and I hope it continues to grow! I’ve been asked before about a place where people can put their family tree for free and have their family/friends view it and this has been at the top of my recommendations lately. FamilySearch is great, but it’s public, same with WikiTree. People have lately wanted a tree they could privately share and I think Twile is filling that gap nicely.

I also like their About page’s first line: “We know that family history is more than just names on a family tree.” So true!

Check out the website and their Facebook page for more information!

Have any of you used Twile? What did you think? Add your comment on Facebook or below!

Book Review and Give-Away: Dear Mother, Love Daddy

By Nichelle Barra

On 23 April 2015

In Discovery, Give-Away, Review

Full Disclosure: The author sent me a copy of her book to review on my blog.

Dear Mother, Love Daddy: The World War II Letters of Roscoe and Gladys Yegerlehner May 1942-September 1942

I am a fan of anything in genealogy that makes people come to life. Things like diaries, letters, postcards, scrapbooks, even candid photos do just that. They give personality to an ancestor that we only knew from records and they seem rather static and far-away that way. To have something that makes an ancestor’s personality shine is a rare treasure!

Deborah Sweeney holds one of these incredible collections with the letters that her grandparents lovingly wrote to each other during World War II. The two wrote to each other nearly every day while Roscoe Yegerlehner served as a doctor in the Navy. The letters span from his initial station in Chicago, to Virginia, to California, and finally to the South Pacific. I really enjoyed some of the outdated language(that Sweeney kindly translated!) along with some of the medical talk going back and forth in the letters. Even if you have no connection to the Navy, Indiana, or any of the places where Roscoe ventures, you still find yourself wanting to know more about these two people. I loved the chance to get to know Roscoe and Gladys and their families. Although this family wasn’t a big name in the war, their experiences make them more poignant and more real because they are the everyday, everywhere couple that experienced this war first hand.

These letters may span what seems to be a short time but I still found myself anxiously waiting for when Roscoe would finally write back after he was shipped out. Then, when Gladys finally had their baby, I read a bit more furiously to see how he would respond! Sweeney leaves you with a cliffhanger on that one and now I can’t wait for the second book to come out so I can read his reaction!

These letters really make you appreciate the way technology works today. Today in our world of cell phones, internet, texting, etc. we have a way of connecting nearly instantly. Although those overseas in the military can’t always connect as easily as that, I’ve seen many a video of a husband watching the birth of his child from overseas through the use of technology. Amazing to see how far we’ve come! This wonderful book gives a glimpse of what that would have been like without this technology; it makes it very real how long letters took to get to their destination and one can imagine the anxiety associated with waiting for the next letter.

Overall, this set of letters is a great and quick read! It’s a wonderful glimpse into a world I knew very little about and into a family I now wish to know more about. I can’t wait for the next installment!

GIVEAWAY!

I have two copies of the book that I wish to give away! I am using Viralsweep to help me keep track of everyone who enters. So click on the widget and enter your email address. Please make sure it is a valid email address as that is where I’ll be contacting you if you win! This is for U.S. residents only and you can earn more entries by sharing on some social media sites. So share and have fun! 🙂

This contest will run from today until 1 May at 12am EST. I will announce the winners 1 May around 12:00pm EST.