Tag: geneabloggers Page 42 of 72

Tips on Searching on FamilySearch.org

On 28 April 2015

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!

Genealogy News April 18th-24th

By Nichelle Barra

On 24 April 2015

In Friday Finds

Last week I posted that it was a MARCH news week – March? Apparently these last few months have just flown by! And now here we are at the end of April. Here’s hoping that our last snow fall was it this past week! 🙂

I’m spending this weekend at the Indiana Genealogical Society conference! I am definitely looking forward to it and am currently at the society meeting typing this up. It’s hard to do this post ahead of time!

ALSO: Don’t forget about the book contest for Dear Mother, Love Daddy!!! Contest ends May 1st! These are two autographed copies as well! Even better!

Interesting Articles

Beach pictures from 1913 in color! These look surprisingly modern in many of them. Very neat!
D. Joshua Taylor from The Genealogy Roadshow posted an article called “The Genealogy Factor: Graveyards and Gravestones,” in JSTOR Daily. Great information!
Speaking of JSTOR, Geneabloggers is holding a contest to win a pass from JSTOR! Check out more information here on the contest and what you get.
“Don’t Call Them Bums: The Unsung History of America’s Hard-Working Hobos,” by Lisa Hix – who knew?
Instant Discoveries is from MyHeritage and is rather new – to learn more about it, check out EOGN’s write up here. It’s like adding people from other’s trees to yours like on Ancestry.com

Webinars/Videos

I’ve loved those “…through history…” videos that show things like women’s fashion, women’s make-up, etc. Well now there’s one for men! “American Facial Hair Throughout History!” Check it out here.
The Board for Certification of Genealogists posted their webinars – some are free and others are available for a modest fee. Check it out!

Resources/Records

New records on FindMyPast! Derbyshire and Persi! Check it out here – also check out their FindMyPast Friday’s – Yorkshire records, POW records, Australian records, Irish records, and US Billion Graves index.
EOGN posted about new records and maps from The Genealogist.co.uk. Check out more here.
New FamilySearch records! Check out the list here – includes records from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, England, Italy, South Africa and the US.
I posted on Facebook about new Indiana records from the Indiana Genealogical Society. EOGN also posted information and you can check it out here.

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.