Genealogy Toolbox

Supporting the Family Historian

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Famicity

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FamilySearch Research Wiki

The Research Wiki at FamilySearch is an amazing resource to help your research efforts. This post spotlights the section containing links to online records for states, provinces and countries.

United States Records (www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/United_States_Genealogy) This guide includes birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history and military records. Also included are articles to help you develop research strategies, find various record types and other articles and websites that can help your research effort.

State Genealogy Records Also included in the U.S. section are articles on record types, historical background and ethnicity.

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Why Keep A Journal

There are many reasons why keeping a journal is useful. First, things get lost fast if you don't write and/or capture the stories, photos and things that are part of you, your family and your ancestors.

A journal is also a great resource to help you get comfortable writing about your family. The more you write, the more you learn - about your family and the things that make them so special.

Take advantage of your journal to capture - and later improve - your family stories and the things that make them special. Don't expect to learn everything in just a day or so. It may take years to find things about your family. Review your notes occasionally to compare the new versus the old to see how things fit together.

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Protecting Your Research

What will happen to your genealogy research once you are gone? Do you have a plan?

There is a simple and affordable way to protect your research and insure it will still be accessible after you are gone. Even better, this resource will help you grow your family tree and it costs you nothing! All you need to do is import your family tree into FamilySearch.org.

The LDS Church has made family history a mission. For more than a century, they have collected, preserved, digitized and shared genealogy records and resources worldwide. Not only have they collected and digitized an amazing archive of records from around the world, those records are now available to all of us at no cost.

Their Family Tree component gives us a view of our family, but that’s only a small part of it. Instead of creating a tree for each user, FamilySearch is building one amazing tree while sharing your part of it with you.

FamilySearch gives us a number of impressive features. It is a collaborative platform and you will meet cousins you never knew existed. They often have research to share. There are also elements which make it possible to add photos and memories to help bring your ancestors to life. If you choose to post photos, letters, diaries and other ephemera to an ancestor’s Memories area, those memories will be insured a long and fruitful life.

Along the way, your research cousins will have added their own memories which can add even more to your research too.

But that’s just the beginning. FamilySearch offers free apps for desktop and mobile devices to build your trees. In addition to documenting the information you have about your ancestors, FamilySearch continuously searches their massive archives and posts hints to records that look like they relate to one of your ancestors.

Along with that, there’s also an amazing amount of research support. There’s something for everyone – from beginner to experienced family historians. The Help menu on the desktop apps includes the Help Center, Learning Center, Research Wiki and even consultants if you need them.

The research, memories, documents and photos you collect in FamilySearch will always be available to you and your research cousins online while the originals are maintained by experienced archivists and stored in their Granite Mountain Records Vault – “a long-term storage facility designed for preservation”.

FamilySearch offers you a number of impressive features. It is a collaborative platform and you will meet cousins you never knew existed. They often have research to share. There are also elements which make it possible to add photos and memories to help bring your ancestors to life. If you choose to post photos, letters, diaries and other ephemera to an ancestor’s Memories area, those memories will be insured a long and fruitful life. Along the way, your research cousins will have added their own memories which can add even more to your research too.

But that’s just the beginning. FamilySearch offers free apps for desktop and mobile devices to build your trees. In addition to documenting the information you have about your ancestors, FamilySearch continuously searches their massive archives and posts hints to records that look like they relate to one of your ancestors.

Along with that, there’s also an amazing amount of research support. There’s something for everyone – from beginner to experienced family historians. The Help menu on the desktop apps includes the Help Center, Learning Center, Research Wiki and even consultants if you need them.

The research, memories, documents and photos you collect in FamilySearch will always be available to you and your research cousins online while the originals are maintained by experienced archivists and stored in their Granite Mountain Records Vault – “a long-term storage facility designed for preservation”.

Want to learn more? The RootsTech Connect conference takes place March 3rd to 5th, 2022. Because of the pandemic, this year’s conference will be held online. It costs you nothing to attend but you will need to register. You can do this at https://www.rootstech.org and all the details on how take advantage of the classes and other resources available throughout the conference.

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The Web Browser

Although there would be little online research without the web browser, few people appreciate its importance. Not only does the right browser improve your online experience, some can be customized to provide awesome research support tools. It is probably the most important tool in your digital research toolbox and chances are good that you may use more than one.

The browser is your window to the Internet. Every computer comes with a browser application installed. Windows computers have Internet Explorer. Macs come with Safari. Like automobiles, all browsers have the same basic features. And, like automobiles, it’s how things are arranged and styled that make it the right one for you. While the browser that came with your computer is quite functional, you may want to add another browser to your toolbox.

First, let’s take a quick tour of the basic browser components. In this example, you are looking at the Safari browser installed on a Mac computer. The application’s menu shows two things common to all browsers: bookmarks and history. As you browse the Web, you will find sites you want to return to regularly. You can bookmark a site, then later just click on that saved bookmark to return to the site whenever you wish. And, as you browse, your browser maintains a history of the sites and pages you visit. Should you decide you want to go back to one of the pages you visited earlier in your browsing session, you can look at the history list to help you find it, then click on it to return to that page.

Microsoft Edge. Gives you tools to protect your privacy online with features like tracking prevention, AdBlock Plus, and InPrivate browsing.

Features Your favorites, passwords, collections and other saved data are securely synced across your devices.

Tracking prevention blocks trackers from sites you haven’t visited.

Collections makes it easier to collect and organize content you find on the web across your signed-in devices - including your mobile device.

DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser

The Safari browser (Mac) doesn’t offer as many whistles and bells as Firefox or Chrome, but those it has are quite impressive. For example, the Safari Reader feature presents the current page’s article as continuous text without the clutter of the site’s design or distracting advertisements. The extensions gallery offers search tools, social networking functionality and many other tasks. Bookmarks can be synchronized with iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) via iCloud.

The page title is an important reference point when browsing. It tells you the site – and frequently the page – you are viewing. In this example, I’m viewing the home page (front page) of the Moultrie Journal site. That name appears in the browser window's title bar. Notice, too, that the title appears on the tab just below it. Most browsers allow you to have more than one site open at the same time and use tabs to make it easy to navigate between them. The titles make it easy to identify which is which. A change in the tab’s color generally identifies the site currently displayed. Here I have several sites open. Firefox allows me to "pin" sites in the tab bar so they're always available. The tabs for pinned sites are much smaller and only display a site icon. Here you see them to the left of the current tab. To move between sites, just click on the appropriate tab. Tabs are a researcher’s friend. Among other things, they mean you'll never lose a screen of search results once you get in the habit of opening the links you want to explore in a new tab.

Most browsers display the address bar and search bar next to each other, as you see in this example. The address bar is used to manually enter a URL (web address) for a specific site. You can use the search bar to enter a search word or phrase for a particular search engine. Most browsers let you choose your primary search engine, but make others easily available. In this Firefox example, Google appears as the default search engine, but there is a small down triangle next to the Google icon. Clicking on it will display other search engine options for you to select.

Often you'll find additional tools in line with the address/search bars. You’ll probably see two buttons with triangle icons facing left and right. These are the back and next buttons. If I click on a link to visit a new section of a site, then decide I want to return to the original page, I would just click the back button – the triangle pointing to the left. A click on the next button – triangle pointing to the right – would take me to the new section again.

Every browser has a home page. This is the first page that appears when you start the browser app. You can choose the site you prefer as your home page. For example, if the first place you want to go when you get online is your Facebook page, you can make that your home page. Look at your browser’s toolbar and you should see an icon that looks like a house. This is the home button.

Click it and you’ll be taken directly to your home page. This button may be located in a different spot depending on your browser, but it usually appears as some kind of house icon.

Earlier I discussed the ability to create a bookmark to make it easy to return to a useful site. (Reminder: Internet Explorer users work with favorites instead of bookmarks.) Many browsers have a bookmarks bar like the one you see here so you can easily access your saved pages. In this case there are so many bookmarks that most have been arranged within folders. The titles with the down triangle icon immediately after them indicate it's a folder. Click on the triangle icon to display that folder's contents.

Last stop on our tour is the scroll bar at the far right side of the browser window. Web pages operate more like ancient scrolls than paged books. The scroll bar lets you “roll” the text up and down to read. You can drag the highlight up or down to adjust your view. You can also use the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll through a web page.

Just because a browser comes with your computer, it doesn’t mean you are stuck with it. Like most applications, each has its own idiosyncrasies and you may want to “test drive” different browsers to find the one that best fits your research style. It’s not unusual to have more than one browser installed on your computer. I currently have three installed on mine. One works better for research, while another has features I find handy when I’m building web sites. The third makes my “social” browsing a lot more fun.

Here’s a look at several popular browsers so you can see for yourself.

Firefox [Windows, Mac & Linux - free] is an open source browser created and maintained by Mozilla. Released in 2004, it broke the Internet Explorer monopoly with a browser full of new and useful features. It introduced tabbed browsing, security features, design themes and add-ons for additional functionality. There are add-ons to help your research efforts, share your finds with others or organize your social networks.

Firefox also has a mobile browser available for iOS and Android phones. A sync feature keeps bookmarks synchronized between your desktop and mobile versions of Firefox. Although there isn’t a browser available for iPhones, there is a free Firefox Home app that make your Firefox desktop tabs and bookmarks available to your iPhone browser.

Safari [Mac, iOS & Windows] As Apple’s desktops and mobile devices gained popularity, so did their Safari browser. Safari doesn’t offer as many whistles and bells as Firefox or Chrome, but those it has are quite impressive. For example, the Safari Reader feature presents the current page’s article as continuous text without the clutter of the site’s design or distracting advertisements. The extensions gallery offers search tools, social networking functionality and many other tasks. Bookmarks can be synchronized with iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) via iCloud.

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Podcasts for Genealogy

A podcast is similar to a radio talk show except that you can listen to it whenever it is convenient to you. Even better, podcasts cover a broad range of topics.

How can you connect to a podcast?   * via your computer (with sound)   * on your mobile phone or tablet - with podcast app   * smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo   * Amazon Alexa   * Pandora   * TuneIn Radio   * iHeart Radio     ** Note that some apps/devices have in-app purchases           iHeart - radio, music, podcasts          Stitcher for Podcasts          Spotify

Genealogy Podcasts

The Genealogy Guys Podcast and Genealogy Connection    Georg G. Morgan and Drew Smith    Frequency - once or twice a month

Extreme Genes - Scott Fisher and team    Frequency - weekly (more than 100 episodes & titles)    David Allen Lanbert (NEHGS) hosts “Tech Tips”

Family Tree Magazine Podcast    Host: Lisa Louise Cooke    Frequency: Monthly

Genealogy Gems - podcast & app    Host: Lisa Louise Cooke    Frequency: Monthly

Genealogy Happy Hour podcast on Soundcloud    Host: Amy Crabill Lay and Penny Burke Bonawitz    Frequency: Once or twice a month

Genealogy Gold Podcast - Ancestral Findings.com    Host: Will Moneymaker    Frequency: Weekly

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Basics of Using the Internet Archive for Genealogy - Interview with Dan ...

This video is a guide to using the Internet Archive for Genealogy. Internet Archive is free to use and full of fabulous publications to add to your research.

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https://genealogytoolbox.tumblr.com/post/623735477595521024/research-resources

The months of July and August are perfect times to pull your research together and get organized. Move your computer close to an air-conditioner vent and you'll be amazed how much you can accomplish. Tap the Research Resources image for help getting started.

Research Resources

This section serves as a directory of resources that can help your research efforts. There is an amazing amount of useful information online

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Research Resources

This section serves as a directory of resources that can help your research efforts. There is an amazing amount of useful information online . . . it's just a matter of finding it. This page points you to a number of resources offering lessons, tips and concepts on the research basics. Additional pages discuss resources for more specific areas.

Research Basics

Glossary of Genealogical Terms

The Research Process introduces the basic steps necessary to research your family's history.

United States Church Records

United States Probate Records

Traditional Irish Naming Patterns

Getting Started

Family History Library Webinars This page lists the current schedule of webinars plus the archive of previous presentations that have been recorded and archived so you can view them at any time. All are free.

It doesn’t matter if you are beginning to research your family history or if you are a seasoned veteran, The Family History Guide has something for everyone. It is an online learning center covering a broad range of topics. And, it costs you nothing to use.

How to Begin Tracing Your Family Tree - Kimberly Powell

38 FamilySearch Search Tips (PDF - free download) - Family Tree University FamilySearch.org likely holds answers to at least some of your family tree questions. The trick to finding those answers is learning how to dig through the incredible amount of ancestor information on the free genealogy website. Whether you want advanced search strategies to narrow your results, power tips for finding your family in unindexed records or on microfilm, or want to enhance your online family tree with add-ons, this e-book will help you.

48 Ancestry.com Search Tips (PDF - free download) - Family Tree University This e-book is full of tricks, hints and hacks to unlock new family tree discoveries. It also contains helpful guides to using the genealogy website, including an exclusive excerpt from the Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com by Nancy Hendrickson.

Ancestry.com's State Research Guides (PDF - free download) - Ancestry.com Each state research guide includes historical background, a chronology, helpful information on census and vital records, highlighted collections for that place on Ancestry, and links to important resources beyond Ancestry.

Section, Range and Township - Research in Public Land Records - Kimberly Powell

Sample Family History Research Plan - Lisa Alzo

U. S. GenWeb Project is a group of volunteers who provide free online genealogy information and help. They do this by building websites for the states and counties in the United States.

Genetic Genealogy

Which DNA Test Is Right For Me? (PDF - free download) - Family Tree University This guide not only pinpoints which DNA test is perfect for you but to also provides free science cheat sheets that will explain all the jargon used online, as well as articles about the history of DNA and genetic genealogy research. Also included are charts on most pages, for those who need a visual guide to the complex reading material.

Jump Into Genetic Genealogy (PDF - free download) - Family Tree University This e-book contains some of Family Tree Magazine’s best tips relating to genetic genealogy, including articles on debunking genetic genealogy misconceptions, tricks for using DNA to break through brick walls, and a resource roundup of tools to analyze your Y-DNA, Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Autosomal DNA (atDNA) test results. Together this collection stands as a comprehensive guide to understanding the complex relationship between DNA and family history.

Local Resources

Huguenot-Cemetery-Inventory-1892 (PDF - free download) published in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register.

Military Research

How to Find Military Records (PDF - free download) - Family Tree University You’ll get an overview of the conflicts, from the larger, record-generating ones, to the lesser-known conflicts and discover what military records might be available, as well as where to find them. You’ll also get tips on the type of information military records can reveal, from pension records that will help you find not only your military ancestor but widows, to the bounty of information found in draft records. And finally, you’ll get a chance to put this information into practice with some worksheets and exercises you can use to find your ancestors’ war records and discover new details.

American Merchant Marine at War (website) provides historical information regarding the United States Merchant Marine from the American Revolution to the present.

Research Management

Surnames: Family Search Tips and Surname Origins (PDF - free download) - Family Tree University This free e-book contains some of Family Tree Magazine’s best genealogy tips relating to family names, including articles on basic surname research strategies, tips for seeking ancestral maiden names, what your surname reveals about your ethnic heritage, how to refining Google surname searches, and what you can learn by understanding surname meanings. Together this collection stands as a comprehensive guide to sorting out the surname snags in your family search.

Research Tech

Historical Map Overlays for Google Maps and Google Earth - Kimberly Powell You can overlay any historic map in Google Maps or Google Earth, but getting everything to match up accurately through geo-referencing can be quite tedious. In some cases others have already done the hard part, making available free downloads of historical maps sized, geo-referenced and ready for you to import directly into Google Maps or Google Earth.

The Researcher's Digital Toolbox (PDF - free download) - Denise Olson This guide presents a collection of tools that will support your genealogical research efforts. These are general-purpose tools that will help you find, collect and organize information about your family history.

How to Create a Genealogy GEDCOM File From Genealogy Software or Online Tree - Kimberly Powell - GEDCOM files are the standard format used for sharing family tree information between programs, so are often necessary for sharing your family tree file with friends or family members, or for moving your information to a new software or service.

Sharpen Your Digital Pencil: An Introduction to Metadata (PDF - free download) - Denise Olson Metadata is the digital equivalent of the penciled note you hope to find on the back of an old family photo. This guide shows you how metadata can help you organize and manage your photo collection and your family research.

Research Delivered: An Introduction to Newsreaders (PDF - free download) - Denise Olson This guide is an introduction to newsreader and the Feedly news reading platform. The newsreader is a pleasant and efficient way to keep up with a large number of news sources. This guide shows you how to get started with Feedly and find news sources that can help your research effort.

Online Resources

Kimberly Powell as put together an amazing collection of Genealogy Online resources. These include family history databases, indexes and digitized records collections. Many of them are free.

New York Genealogy Online

Ohio Genealogy Online

Pennsylvania Genealogy Online

South Carolina Genealogy Online

Researching Civil War Ancestors

Discover Your WWII Ancestors

German Genealogy Online

French Genealogy Online

Research Your Irish Ancestors

Find Your Ancestors in Legislative Petitions

Top Websites for British Genealogy

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Click inside this box to download a copy of this guide.

Newsreaders provide a free and private way to receive and read useful genealogical publications and blogs. They are impressive research resources.

Click inside the box above to open the newsreader.

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Genealogy and MeWe

The Research Resource Center on MeWe.com is quickly becoming an impressive resource for genealogical research and publishing. Since we don’t know how long before things are back to normal, this group is open to the entire genealogy community and was created to make research resources available to researchers from their own homes.

The Resource Center uses hash tags to organize the content posted on the group. For example, if you are looking for posts discussing census, just tap or click the #census tag (shown in the panel on the right) and the screen will be redrawn so only posts tagged as census will appear in the timeline. Tap/click the X circle in the box at the top of the timeline to return the timeline to it’s prior posts.

The menu just below the masthead graphic sends you to the various elements within the group. Beginning at the left, you can choose to view the group’s Posts, see who else is a Member of the group and access the Photos/Videos or Files posted in the group. There is also an Events feature making it possible to organize group chats, presentations and other online events.

There are many features making it possible for group members to add comments to the posts or chat with other members. The group chat feature supports text, voice and even video chats. The voice and video chats work best if you have a mobile device (iOS or Android). Install the free MeWe.com app and take advantage of the chat feature (text, voice or video) to get help or to participate in online programs.

You can even enjoy watching webinars when it is convenient for you. All you have to do is click on the start button. If your desktop computer doesn’t have audio capabilities, it’s best to use the mobile MeWe app (iOS or Android) for voice and video presentations.

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AffordableResearch20

This is "AffordableResearch20" by Moultrie Creek on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Writing for the Future

Those of us who have photographs, letters, journals and other writings from our ancestors are blessed with a view of their worlds that no amount of vital records can provide. These are precious treasures which we spend a lot of time, money and effort to preserve. But, what are we doing to document and preserve a personal record of our lives for those who come after us?

In today’s digital world we have some amazing tools for capturing photographs, conversations and video clips, giving us the ability to document – and share – all kinds of special moments. The joys of digital media are tempered with some concerns. At the top of that list is how quickly things change. Anyone who’s had a desktop computer for more than a couple of years knows the frustration of documents that can no longer be opened because the software application that created that document no longer exists. Yes, this is a concern, but it’s a manageable one.

Data formats for the written word have come and gone, but one has been around since the very beginning of the digital age – plain text. It is just that – plain. There are no font changes, no bold or underline, no colors. It’s just alpha, numeric and special characters.

Next up the chain of data formats is something relatively new – markdown. It’s plain text with simple codes, created using plain text characters, to represent formatting commands. When viewed in its “plain” state, it’s quite readable, but it’s also very easy to develop programs that can process those simple codes and reformat the document into something very attractive. And, as technology changes, the original document is still quite readable and new conversion programs can be quickly created to jazz it up. For a better discussion of what markdown is, see Markdown – an archival standard for digital documents.

Although you won’t yet find markdown included as a “Save as” or “Export” option on most mainstream word processing applications, it’s getting a lot of attention from journaling apps. For example, the Day One app [Mac – $9.99, iOS – $4.99] uses markdown as its standard format and offers export options to PDF and plain text. Writing platforms such as Scrivener and Ulysses support markdown along with many blog platforms.

The data format getting the most attention these days is HyperText Markup Language (HTML). This has been the format of the Web and is now also the format of ebooks. Like markdown, it is plain text with codes – known as tags. Unlike markdown it’s not so simple. For a simple ebook novel that’s all text, the HTML code should be very readable in its raw form. A web page full of graphics, charts and links is quite a different story. Fortunately for us, computers don’t have a problem reading and processing the code to present us with a beautiful visual experience. And, because HTML is an industry standard format, it will travel from app to app – even platform to platform – with minimal effort.

How does all this impact the family historian?

One reason geneablogging gets so much attention is its longevity. Not only are blogs built with HTML, they have an organizational standard that means they are very search-engine friendly (which helps attract research cousins) and can be moved from one blog platform to another. There are services which will convert your blog posts into ebooks and even print books. Most blog platforms offer backup and export options so you can maintain multiple copies – both online and offline. A growing number of journaling and text-editing apps have publish to blog features – giving you an extra layer of archival protection.

I’ve been blogging for more than fifteen years. During that time I’ve documented a lot of family history – one story at a time. While the thought of sitting down and writing a “family history” has always been quite intimidating, it didn’t take long to blog enough stories for a book. Is it a complete family history? Not even close. But it doesn’t have to be. Using simple tools, I was able to pull out and reorganize the stories I wanted into a simple ebook to share with my family. And, as the stories grow, so does the ebook. It’s all digital so it’s very easy to update and redistribute.

Nothing lasts forever and digital platforms come and go. My family’s private blog site was hosted on the Posterous platform. It was bought by Twitter and later shut down. I was able to export our content and import it at another blog platform in a matter of minutes. Plus, I have a backup copy of the export file on my desktop. These other blog platforms saw the business potential Posterous’ shut down represented and did everything they could to help make the migration as easy as possible.

Don’t let technology concerns keep you from documenting your family history. A good way to start is with a journaling app like Day One.  It makes writing my family stories easy to manage and supports export features so I can have my own copy and share a copy to my blog platform of choice. Day One also has a publishing service. I select the journal entries I want to include in the book, choose photos for the cover and Day One takes care of the rest.

Platforms like Tumblr offer free and easy-to-use blogging. I can easily export my Day One entry to my Tumblr blog to share my stories with family and friends. Not only is a journal more appropriate for your private thoughts, these apps also offer features like Markdown to protect your work from bit rot and services for sharing them with others.

Today’s technology make it easy to capture and record our family’s precious moments in ways that will insure they are accessible for many generations to come. Isn’t it time you get started?

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How to make Group FaceTime calls on the iPhone, iPad, or Mac

Looking for an alternative to video conferencing apps like Zoom? Apple has an enticing option for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS users.

This is a great way to stay in touch with Family and friends while going through the coronavirus concerns . . .

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10 Flickr Groups you must join right now

There have been so many stories coming out lately around what you can do to keep yourself active, engaged, and feeling like you’re part of a

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An Introduction to Tumblr

Tumblr is part microblog and part social network. It is free, easy to use and a great way to share your family history.

How can you put it to use? Here are a few ideas: • Build a digital scrapbook full of text, photos, maps and other ephemera. • Tell the stories your research discovers. • Tell the stories of things like family heirlooms, antiques and paintings. * Connect with others on Tumblr who are also researching their family history. * Create an inventory of your household things - furniture, tools, books, etc.

You can also follow other Tumblr blogs like the Florida Memory blog from Florida's archives. If you are researching Florida ancestors, this Tumblr can be a very useful research resource. Using Tumblr's notes feature, you can ask a question, request more information or share your own experience.

#tumblr #genealogy #research_support

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Free Source for Genealogy: Digital Public Library of America

Click the button in the middle of the screen to view the presentation.