Genealogy In & Around Quartzsite

Arizona Vital Records

2011-03-05T10:56:00.003-07:00

Rede was asked how he found death certificated for just one town in Arizona. In this video I show you how to use "FamilySearch" https://www.familysearch.org/ , and "Arizona Genealogy Birth and Death Certificate" http://genealogy.az.gov/ websites to research one town. Even though he only used Arizona in video it might help you search other places.

Download Video

Rede has licensed this work under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Create A Free Genealogy Website Part 2: Add & Hide Your Email Address

2010-12-07T11:45:00.004-07:00

Part 2 of Rede's series on making a genealogy website, here he helps keep your email address safe from spam bots.

Rede:
In this video I show you how to get, add, and hide your email address to keep the spam bots from finding it.

I recommend you get a separate email account from your own & use an instant messaging program to check & see if you have any new emails.

Links:
Gmail http://mail.google.com/
Hotmail http://hotmail.com/
Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com/
Pidgin http://pidgin.im/
ReCaptcha http://www.google.com/recaptcha

Download Video

Rede has licensed this work under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Create A Free Genealogy Website Part 1: Using DropBox To Make A Website

2010-12-07T11:15:00.006-07:00

It was nice when I first started there was so many people sharing their genealogy on their own website. Rede is making a series of videos on how a person can make thier own website for free.

Rede:
It has been my experience that more people will contact on my own personal website than any other genealogy website. In this video I show you how to use DropBox as a place to put up your own free genealogy website. I don’t know if or how well the search engines index DropBox but it will give you a chance to experiment & share your genealogy.

Also in this video I mentioned a video on how to backup your genealogy file, I will list it below. He uses RootsMagic but any genealogy program will work the same.

Links:
The Quick and Easy Way to Share an HTML File on the Web
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/05/the-quick-and-easy-way-to-share-an-html-file-on-the-web.html

Store Your RootsMagic Backups Off Site with DropBox
http://genealogytools.com/store-your-rootsmagic-backups-off-site-with-dropbox/

DropBox
https://www.dropbox.com/

Download video

Rede has licensed this work under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Google News Genealogy Style

2010-06-27T15:52:00.004-07:00

In this video Rede shows you how to search Google News Archives & how to filter out the pay per view hits. Some of the papers are kind of spotty on the issues they have, but you can’t complain about the price ;-)

Maybe not as good as subscription sites, but on the other hand I have found information not on them.

Direct link to Advance Archive Search:
http://news.google.com/archivesearch/advanced_search?ned=us&hl=en

Just remember to change the “Price” to “No Price” for the free papers.

Download Video (let me know if you like the download link):
http://bit.ly/9imcXT

Rede has licensed this work under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Plotting Land With Google Earth

2010-06-18T21:13:00.005-07:00

For me land records are fun & useful when researching your ancestors.

In this video Rede shows you how to use Google Earth, Earth Point, and FS Capture to find and plot land with Google Earth.

Links used in this video:

Google Earth http://earth.google.com/
Earth Point http://www.earthpoint.us/Townships.aspx
Portable FS Capture http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=775

Reference links:

Federal Land Patents http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/
(Video) Searching Land Patents Part 1 http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/506725/
(Video) Searching Land Patents Part 3 http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/506740/

Free Screen Capture Utility

2010-06-15T07:24:00.005-07:00

In this video Rede shows you how to use a free portable screen capture utility & your “Prt Sc” key on your keyboard.

I have found this very useful if you need to print or save what is showing on your monitor. I have found some websites that don’t allow printing or saving, with this method I have been able to work around this. I have also used this method when I need screen shots for presentations.

The disadvantage is if you can’t read it on your monitor, you won’t be able to read it when you print or save the image.

Software can be downloaded from Portable Freeware:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=775

Free Rede Videos

2010-06-11T08:47:00.006-07:00

Rede has organized some of his videos into 2 CDs & they can be downloaded for free. They work like a website but can be run on your computer, your memory stick or burned to CDs. No internet required to play them, just an internet browser & flash 9 or higher, which is probably already installed on your computer. Just extract (unzip) the “ZIP” file, open “Index.html” and your on your way.

Free Internet Research
(free_genealogy_research.zip 522MB)
http://bit.ly/b8NJUC

Get The Story: Examples on how to make a story from your sources.
Online Family Trees: How to use other’s information.
Online Book: How to use free online books
Census: How to search HeritageQuest censuses, but the technique works on other sites.
Newspapers: How to search free online newspapers.
Land: How to find locations & land records, and plot them on a map.
Internet Search: Tips on using search engines.
Tips: Computer tips.
Useful Links: Free links on the internet.

Repairing Old Photos With GIMP
(gimp_photo_repair.zip 362MB)
http://bit.ly/bnWaeJ

Introduction: Introduction to GIMP
Picture File Format: Pros & Cons of different picture formats.
Scanning & Acquiring A Photo: Loading pictures into GIMP.
Using The Selection, Curves & Levels Tools: Using different tools in GIMP.
Wrinkle Repair: Repair wrinkles and other defects with GIMP.
Fixing A Torn Picture: Fixing a picture torn in half.

Rede has licensed this work under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

So feel free to copy, share, remix just respect the license & keep it free.

Photographing Documents on Microfilm Readers

2010-02-20T15:53:00.004-07:00

In this video Rede goes into the use of using a digital camera to photograph images from Microfilm & Microfiche Readers. The pros & cons of a digital camera with a tripod, camera mount, and holding the camera. He also goes into editing the digital images with Picasa & GIMP, free imaging software.

The advantages of these techniques are cost, time, and quality. Not as good as a real microfilm scanner, but scanners are not available everywhere.

Looks like the DCM-1 Microfilm Camera Mount that he shows in this video is still available: http://www.gscassociates.com/camera_mount.html

Software used in this video:
Picasa: http://picasa.google.com/
GIMP: http://www.gimp.org/

How to Transfer Negatives to Computer

2010-01-26T08:24:00.003-07:00

This is one of the best ways I've seen to digitize negatives when your scanner won't do them. I'm sure scanners do a better job, but not always possible. GIMP will do all editing he shows here & it's free.

I will have to play around & see if I can't build a cheap light table.

Making Prints Of Old Photos

2009-11-21T10:36:00.003-07:00

I cringe when I see people printing photos with their ink printer because after a few times of printing & rescanning the quality goes way down. But if this is what you want to do, look for a printer with the cheapest cartridges preferably each color has it’s own cartridge. The ink is the real cost of a printer. I prefer to take photos to a place that does digital photo processing.

I have looked at a few online services and comparing cost for the prints & shipping and I like WinkFlash. Technically I can’t drive somewhere to have it done for the same price to have it snail mailed to me. About once a month they send an email of their specials, so if you think this is spam you can unsubscribe.

WinkFlash Homepage:
http://www.winkflash.com/default.asp

Print cost:
http://www.winkflash.com/prints/

Shipping cost:
http://www.winkflash.com/content/shipping.asp

What is the optimal resolution for developing prints at winkflash?
http://www.winkflash.com/content/pro.asp#2

What type of paper is used to print my photos?
We use premium Fuji Crystal Archive paper and chemicals.
(The sun will still bleach the photo, but the paper doesn't seam to yellow)

When ordering prints it gives you a low quality warning & if cropping is necessary, but cropping is a bit limited. If you want to keep everything click "Print Option" & choose "Inset", this will shrink the picture to fit those dimensions.

GenealogyScrounge Has His Second Year Anniversary

2009-10-16T13:02:00.001-07:00

Were has the time gone??? Rede and his genealogy channel turns two on October 20th 2009 and has authored over 50 videos. His 1st video went up on October 20, 2007 on http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/ , a couple of months later he started putting non genealogy videos on ShowMeDo http://showmedo.com/videos/?author=3583 , and finally started uploading to YouTube to reach the most people http://www.youtube.com/genealogyscrounge . He started out to teach & demo the tricks of free research, and along the way he was noticed by RootsTelevision, Dick Eastman, Genea-Musings, TraceYourRoots and others.

New Quartzsite Genealogy Project

2009-07-12T08:59:00.009-07:00

I have started a new project, from different sources I am collecting names & events of people that lived here in Quartzsite and will be putting them online. If you would like to view, help transcribe or research click here

Finding Hard To Find Locations

2009-05-09T08:17:00.004-07:00

Rede has updated his video on how to find locations that are not on maps or in software, and plot them on maps. Also with county boundary changes over time, a couple of tips for finding which county to look in.

In this video he covers:

SiteFinder on GoldBug http://goldbug.com/
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names http://geonames.usgs.gov/
Libre Map Project http://libremap.org/
Heritage Quest (Check for availability in your area) http://www.eogen.com/heritagequestonline
USGenWeb Project http://usgenweb.org/

Genealogy Videos In The Quartzsite Library

2009-04-24T16:32:00.001-07:00

Rede put together a twin pack video CD series, Newspaper Research & Internet Book Search, for the Quarzsite Library that runs on your computer. This will be ideal for people on dialup Internet & can’t view his videos online.

Newspaper Research
Resent Newspapers:

American Newspapers/NewsBank (may require a non resident library card)
Local Newspapers Websites
Legacy.com for obituaries 30 days old or less

Older Newspapers

ICON: Many free & pay websites, they are clearly marked.
Utah Digital Newspapers
Olive Software Newspapers
Newspaper Archive

Internet Book Search

Google Books
Google Scholar
Heritage Quest (may require a non resident library card)
Internet Archives
Family History Archives

Should you wish any other topics, please leave a comment.

Family History Archives

2009-04-17T12:49:00.001-07:00

Family History Archives http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/ is a great site to do free book research for family histories. Easy searching, downloadable files which have bookmarks for the chapters & searchable text.

Keeping Up With Data Rot

2009-03-28T15:21:00.003-07:00

Watch CBS Videos Online

Special Speaker In Bouse AZ.

2009-03-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

Special Speaker - Barbara Nuehring
Timelines: Understanding Your Ancestors World
Public Welcome - Free

Bouse Genies meeting for March 27, 2009 -10:00 AM
44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ
La Paz Bouse Community Building (the building next to the Bouse Public Library)

Google Scholar

2009-03-07T13:55:00.002-07:00

Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com is a very good site for doing your research. More & better sources for the people you are looking for, without all the hits that won't do you any good.

Rede says "This was a very tough video to make because I just kept getting too much good information and suddenly I was in research mode" ;-)

Rede on RootsTelevision.com: Round 2

2009-01-27T09:47:00.002-07:00

Another one of Rede’s videos has made it to RootsTelevision. This video is Site Search Genealogy Style http://www.rootstelevision.com/players/player_howto.php?bctid=9119681001

Rede on RootsTelevision.com

2009-01-07T18:43:00.001-07:00

One of Rede’s videos has made it to RootsTelevision. This video is Google Picasa Web Albums Genealogy Style http://www.rootstelevision.com/players/player_preserving-the-past.php?bctid=5986762001

Palo Verde Valley Genealogy Society Meeting

2009-01-02T20:42:00.003-07:00

The society's first meeting of 2009 will be held on Monday, January 12, at 7:00 p.m. (California time), PVC Spring St. campus at 145 N. Spring St. in Blythe CA. The program will be given by Susie Forrest and myself. It's entitled, "I got a computer for Christmas. Now what?"

They will be giving an overview of this very large topic, but they would like everyone that uses a computer to consider sharing their favorite web site, tip, or program. Please send ideas to them by email. Just a note will suffice. They will put together some handouts for the meeting.

Members, please remember to bring your 2009 dues of $12.00. Don't forget to tell your friends that attendance is free and guests are always welcome.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~capvvgs/Site/index.html

Bouse Genies 2009 Meeting Schedule

2008-12-28T08:48:00.002-07:00

We will be meeting every Friday during January, February and March 2009 as follows:

January 2 - 10 AM to 12 - AniMap Training CD
January 9 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #2
January 16 - 7 PM to 9 - Census Records
January 23 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #3
January 30 - 10 AM to 12 - Open Meeting
February 6 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #4
February 13 - 7 PM to 9 - Military Records
February 20 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #5
February 27 - 10 AM to 12 - Open Meeting
March 6 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #6
March 13 - 10 AM to 12 - Open Meeting
March 20 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #7
March 27 - 10 AM to 12 - Barbara Nuehring speaker

Meetings in the building to the East of the Bouse Public Library (44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ).

Photographing Oversized Pictures

2008-12-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

Occasionally it is impossible or impractical to use your scanner on old photos and documents. A camera & tripod or copy stand is a good alternative.

These two websites may help:
How to build a (Cheap) copy stand.
http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=19857

Getting Started: Copy Stand Shooting (uses a tripod & music stand and also teaches good technique)
http://www.videomaker.com/article/6807/

One problem when using a camera on old photos and documents is you can get a barrel effect & it is hard to get a perfect angle. In GIMP http://gimp.org/ (a free open source program) has a filter called “Lens Distortion” in Filters>Distortion where you can manually correct it (use the “Main” slider bar in the “Lens Distortion”). Then you can take care of any angle problems with the “Perceptive button” or Tools>Transform Tools>Perceptive. I just click & drag the ruler guides from the ruler across the 4 sides, then I use the “Perceptive Tool” to click & drag the corners of the frame or edges of the picture to the corners of the guide.

In Episode 038 of Meet The GIMP http://meetthegimp.org/episode-038-a-phython-in-a-barrel/ Rolf Steinort has written a plugin for GIMP that makes taking care of the Barrel Effect created by your camera easy. Some of my pictures it over corrected but it got me in the ballpark, others it did a wonderful job. I recommend watching his video & downloading the “Python source code” and adding it to your GIMP plugins. For Windows users unzip the file & paste the 3 files into “C drive>Documents and Settings>[[User name]]>.gimp-2.6>plug-ins” it will then appear as “Barrel distortion removal CA65” in “Filters>Distort”.

Rede made a video specifically dealing with the Barrel Effect & Perceptive Tool and how it applies with old photos & documents: http://blip.tv/file/1554370

Free Online Newspapers

2008-11-29T09:37:00.002-07:00

I have talked about ICON in the past "ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers", and "Newspapers On The Library of Congress Website". Rede has been working on some tutorials on how to use free online newspapers. ICON is a great place to start http://icon.crl.edu/digitization.htm . If anyone has problems using any of links off ICON maybe he can make another tutorial video on it.

Online Newspapers - ICON
http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/1499639/
ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers http://icon.crl.edu/ is a wonderful place to get started looking for your family in your genealogy. What I like the most is the free & pay sites are clearly marked. The database for the individual newspapers can be found here http://icon.crl.edu/digitization.htm

Online Newspapers - Utah Digital Newspapers
http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/1508426/
Using online digital newspaper to find gems on your family. In this we are exploring Utah Digital Newspapers http://digitalnewspapers.org/ . Several tips on how to do a successful search.

Online Newspaper - Historic Missouri Newspaper Project
http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/1514425/
A demo of online newspapers that use the older ActivePaper by Olive Software. In this video I briefly go over the Historic Missouri Newspaper Project http://newspapers.umsystem.edu/ .

Online Newspapers - Chillicothe Constitution Tribune
http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/1518694/
In this I use the Chillicothe Constitution Tribune http://chillicothe.newspaperarchive.com/ a free Missouri newspaper from NewspaperArchive. More & more libraries are offering NewspaperArchive so check out your county & state library system to see if it is available. If not ask for it ;-)

Bouse Genies Meeting Schedule

2008-11-28T13:41:00.001-07:00

The Bouse genealogy club is in full swing. We are welcoming back our winter visitors as well as all others that are interested in learning about or continuing in the pursuit of your ancestors. Our meetings are open to all who wish to attend. We have modified our regular meeting schedule to meet the needs of those who work. We meet in the Bouse Community Building which is right next to the Bouse Public Library on Plomosa Road, Bouse, AZ.

Our program schedule for December and January is:

December 5, 2008 - 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon - Program - a Training CD on "Beginning Legacy Family Tree" software.
December 19, 2008 - 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Program - "Beginning Genealogy Research" by Carolyn H. Brown
January 2, 2009 - 10:00 AM - 12:00 noon - Program - a Training CD on "Using AniMap" software
January 16, 2009 - 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Program - "Using the Federal Census" by Carolyn H. Brown
January 30, 2009 - 10:00 AM - 12:00 noon - Open meeting for discussion

Palo Verde Valley Genealogy Society December Meeting

2008-11-18T13:05:00.005-07:00

December 8th meeting will be a program on "Gifts from Your Genealogy". There will also be a number of books and other items for sale at the meeting. The December meeting will be held at the main PVC campus on the mesa: One College Drive in Blythe. We'll meet in Room CS123 in the John O. Crain Student Services Bldg.

The PVVGS meetings are the second Monday of the month at 7:00 p.m. they finish up about 8:45 (California Time). They usually meet at the Palo Verde College campus located at 145 N. Spring St. in Blythe, but occasionally they have to move to another location.

Homepage:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~capvvgs/Site/index.html

Blog:
http://paloverdevalleytimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=160&SubSectionID=658&l=1

Death of X-Drive

2008-11-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

On Friday, March 30, 2007 “Online Backup” & Storage & Monday, March 12, 2007 “Need Extra Storage Space” I talked about X-Drive, a free online storage service. Well on January 12, 2009, AOL will permanently close the Xdrive Online Storage Service. If you signed up for it and haven’t already done so you can download everything as a ZIP file.

Mozy is still a good backup service with 2 gig free, but I liked X-Drive as a place to access files when I’m away from home. Box.net http://www.box.net is a good storage place but there is only 1 gig free and with some file size & bandwidth limits. Live SkyDrive http://skydrive.live.com is another one I like as much as X-Drive, SkyDrive has 5 gig free & with larger file size limits than box.net (wonderful for sharing files too big to email).

Bouse Genies Nov. 21st Meeting

2008-11-16T10:29:00.002-07:00

On November 21st Carol Brown will be talking about DNA at the Bouse Genies Meeting, 10:00 A.M. in the Bouse Community Building (building east of the library), 44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ.

Rede Videos

2008-10-10T20:00:00.001-07:00

Rede has now authored over 20 videos on ShowMeDo, so I added the Author Button for an easy access to the site (scroll down below links). Some of the videos that might interest to the genealogist is Reparing Old Photos with GIMP, and editing sound files that you could use with lectures, podcasts or interviews.

Don't forget aboutt his GenealogyScrounge videos on blip.tv and youtube.

Bouse Genies October 24th Meeting

2008-10-10T19:52:00.000-07:00

The October 24th meeting for the Bouse Genies will be a Legacy Family Tree video and a pot luck salad lunch. Bring a dish, plate & utensils.

They will be meeting at the Bouse Community Building, which is the old cafeteria, the building to the East of the Bouse Public Library 10:00 AM to Noon (44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ).

Visitors Welcome.

Bouse Genies Will Be Starting Soon

2008-08-28T21:38:00.001-07:00

The Bouse Genies, a genealogy interest group from Bouse Arizona will be starting up soon. To date these are just tentative dates but they will be starting soon:
September - 26
October - 10, 24
November - 7, 21
December - 5, 19
January - 2, 16, 30
February - 13, 27
March - 13, 27
April - 10, 24
May - 8, 22

They will be meeting at the Bouse Community Building, which is the old cafeteria, the building to the East of the Bouse Public Library 10:00 AM to Noon (44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ).

Please keep checking here or at http://bousegenies.weebly.com/bouse-genies-meetings.html for any changes.

Giving Back - Genealogy Style

2008-08-21T11:58:00.001-07:00

Direct Link

Elyse90505 is going a great job of teaching genealogy, it is simple to understand. In this video she talks about giving back, a way to help others. She mentions UsGenWeb, unclaimed persons on facebook, make you own genealogy website, offer to do lookups for others.

Oral History: Memory Triggers

2008-08-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

It can be a bit intimidating when you ask someone if you can talk to them about their memories. Why not just ask them if you can look at some of their old pictures, nic nacs, maybe just ask them to tell you about pictures you have. Even just go over to watch an movie or listen to Old Time Radio. Taking them to a museum is an incredible way to get them talking about their life, you have the drive to & from to talk and the old items they used in their life. Another good way is at family reunions, just sit in the back and listen. Whenever possible ask them who, what, where, when & why.

When they are looking at old photos it is going to bring back memories that you want to make record of & fill in gaps you may have. I enjoy listening to Old Time Radio when I was driving and it was about 125 miles to take my mother to the doctor. She would tell me about her life while that was playing. I found out how proud grandpa was of his first radio, how they had to take the battery out of the truck to use it, and a simple as a commercial she wondered if that was why her father started drinking postum, just to name a few gems.

You can get digital recorders now that can record hours of content and aren’t very threatening. There are several free programs you can edit these files so you can snip out the information you don’t want or paste different talks together. That way you can either transcribe it or you have a recorded treasure.

I would like to hear what you use as memory trigger, so please leave a comment.

IGI Batch Numbers

2008-08-17T08:18:00.002-07:00

I don’t know if I haven’t been paying attention or if this is new to http://www.familysearch.org. Please see this page for the explanations of the batch files http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm .

I went to familysearch and ran some names through it and got several types of results:

Messages: Record submitted after 1991 by a member of the LDS Church.
Messages: Record submitted by a member of the LDS Church.
Messages: Record submitted by a member of the LDS Church. (Has a Batch Number)
Messages: Extracted birth or christening record for locality listed in the record. (Has a Batch Number)
Messages: No source document or additional information exists. LDS Church membership record of a deceased person. (Has a Batch Number)

In my opinion the IGI is still just an index and shouldn't be used as more than just a clue, but only the last 2 came from real records and the others you just can’t verify the accuracy of the information.

New Video From Rede

2008-08-05T17:26:00.001-07:00

Labeling Your Digital Images
http://blip.tv/file/1117029
How to label your digital genealogy images so you & others can easily identify them later. There are plenty of free good programs out there, you will just need one that you can change the canvas size & add text. For this I will use GIMP http://gimp.org/ , a good free program.

Embedding Information In A Digital Photo
http://blip.tv/file/1117482
How to embed text in an image with properties

Pro Photo Tools Part 1
http://blip.tv/file/1119127
Pro Photo Tools http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/ , a free program to embed text into your digital photos. This video will go into location name, GPS coordinates, identify location on a map, view images on a map.

Pro Photo Tools Part 2
http://blip.tv/file/1122813
A brief explanation of other text you can embed in a digital photo and other information you can view with Pro Photo Tools http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/ . This will include description, date time, other, categories, shot, camera, and photographer.

Site Search Genealogy Style
http://blip.tv/file/1123735
Using Google Tool Bar's "Site Search" to help you search a website, or use "site:domain.com" in a search engine to speed up you genealogy searches.

Descendant Book Numbering System
http://blip.tv/file/1148456
The Register System is a very easy way to use a descendant book. I hope this video will help you enter the information into your genealogy.

Beyond The Census: A Family Story

2008-07-24T07:46:00.001-07:00

I am far from an expert writer, but I guess this means if I can write a family story anyone can.

First of all you will want to make a timeline of all your facts and sources, I like to use Note Pad because I can transcribe or copy/paste into it easily. Next you will want a word processor, preferably one with a grammar checker, and thesaurus. I also use a free text reader so I can hear how it will sound.

I previously did an article, “What Is In A Census”, now I hope to show you what is possible when you add all you have found. Again I am going to use Thomas Chapman of Rocheport Missouri, built from censuses, newspapers, ship manifest, county histories, cemetery & vital records.

Thomas Chapman was born 9 Jan 1824 in Northallerton, Yorkshire, England and moved to Stockton, England by 1830. He came to Boone County Missouri about 1841, possibly departing Liverpool, England on the ship “Ebro” and arriving in New Orleans, Louisiana on 2 Jan 1840.

My first account of Thomas Chapman in Boone County was on the 1850 census where he lived with Henderson Wheeler, the local blacksmith, where Thomas was working as a wagon maker. Thomas continued working as a wagon maker for most of the rest of his life. In 1860 he had real estate in Rocheport worth $200 and a personal estate of $200, and 1870 his real estate was worth $400 and a personal estate of $300. Not a rich man compared to his neighbors. He did become a respected citizen of Rocheport where he or his son Thomas became the Mayor of this community.

In the Daily Democrat 16 Dec 1872 it was reported, “he had seen the first and last rrilroad engine--the first in 1830 or 1831, at Stockton, England and the last at the depot at Columbia, that day. Mr. Chapman is a native of Stockton, and when quite a boy saw the first train of carrying coal from the coal pits in Derham county to Stockton on the Tees. The road was first constructed for horse cars; but at the time named a rude steam engine was made and attached to a coal train of 18 or 20 coal wagons, the train traveling at the rate of only about two miles an hour.”

Thomas married Sarah Hulett 22 Feb 1854 in Boone County Missouri. She was born 14 Apr 1838 in Rocheport Missouri, the daughter of Edward Hulett. They had 11 children: Thomas (20 Nov 1854-25 Oct 1935), James Buchanan (15 Nov 1856-24 Nov 1942), George William (9 Jul 1858-20 Sep 1952), Mary S. (6 Jun 1860-23 May 1918), Sarah (31 Aug 1862-25 Jan 1940), Elisa (27 Aug 1864-22 Sep 1875), Emily Hulett (2 Nov 1864-13 Feb 1901), Mildred Victor "Millie" (15 Nov 1868-8 Aug 1938), Guy (23 Jan 1871-29 Mar 1906), Niel (born 18 Jan 1873-), and Annie Wilton (about Jan 1877-29 Mar 1953).

Thomas died 13 Mar 1894 in Rocheport Missouri of pneumonia. He left a wife and nine children. Funeral services were conducted Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock by Rev. J. H. Wood.

What Is In A Census: A Family Story

2008-07-19T14:39:00.004-07:00

Way to many people will look at a census and just see dry facts & don’t look at what all is going on in these documents. Quite often with just a few censuses a nice picture of your family will start appearing.

Here is the story of Thomas Chapman of Rocheport, Missouri that is built from just those dry facts so many people over look.

Thomas Chapman was born about 1824 in Northallerton, England (1). By 1850 he had immigrated to Boone Co. Missouri (2). Here he lived with Henderson Wheeler, the local blacksmith, and worked as a wagon maker (3).

By 1860 he owned his own home (4) in Rocheport (5) and continued working as a wagon maker until after 1880. He married Sarah about 1864 (6), Sarah was born about April of 1837 in Missouri (7). They had 11 children (8): Thomas, James, George, Mary, Sarah, Elisa, Emily H, Millie, Guy, Niel, and Annie W. (9). One of the children died by 1900 and another by 1910 (8).

Thomas Chapman Passed away by 1900 (10). After Thomas’s passing his wife Sarah A. stayed in Rocheport living in their home (11) with her children George, Emma H. and Annie W. and in 1910 only Anna was left in the home. Sarah passed away by 1920 (12).

1. Uncommon but the 1850 & 1860 listed the town he was born.
2. 1850 was the 1st census he appeared on.
3. 1850-1930 shows who is in the house, and their occupation.
4. 1860 & 1870 showed real estate.
5. 1860, 1880, 1900 & 1910 shows town of Rocheport.
6. 1900 gave number of years married even though she was a widow
7. 1860 shows his wife & 1900 gave month and year of birth.
8. 1900 & 1910 shows number of children living & dead.
9. 1860-1910 had the names and ages of the children.
10. 1900 his wife is listed as a widow.
11. 1900-1920 shows living in home or farm, rented or owned, and if it is mortgaged.
12. 1920 Sarah appeared on no more censuses.

Now if this story was built using only censuses, just think what could happen when you find newspapers, county histories, land, cemetery, church & vital records, just to mention a few

Free blank census forums can be downloaded here:
http://www.ancestry.com/charts/census.aspx

Elyse 90505 on YouTube is working on a set of census videos that make it very easy to understand what you can find on these censuses. I suggest you check them out http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=Elyse90505&p=r

Looking For Suggestions

2008-07-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

I am looking for suggestions & feedback so here is a way to help me make this blog more interesting. Let me know if you are on dialup which makes the videos hard to watch. Would you like to have the videos embedded in this page or do you prefer links. Let me know what you would like to learn.

Use the Comment part of this message or use the Contact link on the bottom left of this page to send me a private message.

I will continue to try and keep this blog educational, report local genealogy happenings and share free resources.

Internet Book Search

2008-06-24T07:52:00.000-07:00

Rede has done some videos on Internet book searching worth checking out.

Google Book Search:
http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/927705/
<http://books.google.com/>

Heritage Quest Book Search:
http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/934918/
http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline for availability>

Internet Archive Books:
http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/936597/
<http://www.archive.org/>

Getting Books With Interlibrary Loan:
http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/936622/
<http://www.worldcat.org/>

Should you be on dialup you can download the WMV file which average 1-2 megs a minute or review some of my older write-ups.
Interlibrary Loan:
http://quartzsitegen.blogspot.com/2007/10/interlibrary-loan.html

Google Book Search:
http://quartzsitegen.blogspot.com/2006/11/google-book-search.html

Relatively Speaking, Radio Talkshow

2008-04-20T08:33:00.001-07:00

I was searching for new genealogy podcasts & stumbled on ksl radio in Utah "Relatively Speaking with Jackie McKay & Mary Slawson". You can listen to it live on the internet Sunday afternoon 4-6 mountain standard time, I believe that would be 3-5 AZ time in the summer (http://www.ksl.com/ , click radio & click listen live). It also has a toll free number you can call in on to ask questions.

Looks like they only save the last 3 episodes for downloading. but you can check it out here:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=640045

I guess I'm a bit behind the times, it has been around a couple of years.

Making An Audio Book From Lectures And Podcasts

2008-04-16T17:56:00.000-07:00

With digital recorders & podcasts you can now build a nice collection of informative information, but many times they are rather long to listen to in one sitting. Audiobook Cutter http://audiobookcutter.sourceforge.net/ makes it very easy to chop it up into smaller sections so you can come back to where you left off, and many MP3 players will remember the track you stopped at and continue from there. You can also burn these tracks into audio files that will play in a regular CD player.

Audiobook Cutter also has another advantage, file sizes can be too big for emailing. With this program you can change the length of the track & it will be smaller files so it passes the size limits on attachments.

Rede has done 2 videos on how to edit and convert your sound files into MP3 files with Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and cut up those files with Audiobook Cutter at ShowMeDo http://showmedo.com/videos/series?name=DRALbzyJZ

Spam proof your email address

2008-04-06T15:56:00.002-07:00

For those of you that have your own websites I found a cool way of making it harder for spammers to get your email address. Carnegie Mellon University is doing a digitization project with Internet Archive http://www.archive.org. They give you a special URL that you can make a hyperlink into your page. Then people that want to contact you have to transcribe 2 words before they will give them the email address.

All you do is register your email address with http://recaptcha.net/ (no you don't even have to sign up, just click email protection). Then add that link they give you into your webpage.

Read more about it here:
http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/May/may24_recaptcha.shtml
http://recaptcha.net/learnmore.html

I'm not much of a script writer, so the only problem I had was making their webpage open in as a new page. But I now have it running on my blog & google pages.

Bouse Genies Upcoming Speakers

2008-03-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

March 14 meeting
Carol Brown & Dennis Chapman will be talking about pay & free features in Legacy Family Tree http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/.

Location:
All meetings will be held in the building beside the Bouse Public Library 10:00 AM to Noon (44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ). More info here http://bousegenies.weebly.com

Portability Of AniMap

2008-02-16T18:31:00.002-07:00

Playing around with AniMap http://www.goldbug.com/AniMap.html I have discovered I can run it off my USB stick. Now I don’t have to be limited to just my computer, I can run it when I’m away from home.

I have not upgraded to their newest version 2.6, I am still running 2.51. But the only thing I have to do is copy the AniMap folder onto the root directory of my USB stick & make sure the assigned drive for the stick is between C-F. I have only had problems on 1 computer, but I’m sure the problem was the hard drive had been partitioned. So between the partitions & 2 CD drives, that put my stick higher than F.

More on AniMap:
http://quartzsitegen.blogspot.com/2006/05/county-boundaries.html

Bouse Genies Upcoming Speakers

2008-01-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

January 18th meeting:
Barbara Nehruing will be here for the January 18th meeting, speaking about "Generalities of reaching in Europe and touch on a few oddities in each of the countries"

She will cover some specific things she has found in each of the European country.

February 15th meeting:
Bonnie McDaniel will be here for the February 15th meeting. She will be talking about how to use land records in genealogy

February 29 meeting:
Dennis Chapman will be talking about fixing damaged pictures using GIMP graphics program http://www.gimp.org/

Location:
All meetings will be held in the building beside the Bouse Public Library 10:00 AM to Noon (44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ). More info here http://bousegenies.weebly.com

ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers

2007-12-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

Here is a site with links to digital online newspapers from around the world, many of which are free http://icon.crl.edu/digitization.htm . The pay sites are clearly marked with a dollar symbol in a circle.

I have used Colorado Historical Newspapers & Utah Digital Newspapers for a few years and found some real gems. One hint is 1st search by name & time period, but if that doesn’t work I have had good luck is searching by date only. Say you have death date, search in that paper just after the event then look in the next 3 papers. Smaller papers will have sections for local news for different towns & if it is a real small paper death & marriage will be front page news.

Land Research

2007-12-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Rede had done several videos on Land Research using very useful websites. I covered 2 of the sites April of 2006 http://quartzsitegen.blogspot.com/2006/04/using-blm-land-patent-search.html

Searching Land Patents Part 1
http://blip.tv/file/506725
Using the BLM website http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/ to find homestead land patents.

Searching Land Patents Part 2
http://blip.tv/file/506735
Using TSR-data website http://www.esg.montana.edu/gl/trs-data.html to find land patents on a map.

Searching Land Patents Part 3
http://blip.tv/file/506740
Plotting land descriptions on a map.

See http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/Visitors/PLSS.asp for more info on plotting land descriptions.

Plotting Land On Quad Maps
http://blip.tv/file/527860
Plotting land on free quadrant maps from http://libremap.org/

I was VERY impressed with the quality of the maps on Libre Map Project http://libremap.org/ , but the TIF files were a bit large (I averaged about 10 megs). I would recommend converting them into PDF so you can just print out what you need.

Basically to use the Libre Map Project, Click “Data” > Click the state you want > Then use the “Search” or Click “View the entire list of USGS Oklahoma Digital Raster Graphic Maps” > Then look in the “Cell Name” or “Longitude & Latitude” for the map you want.

Finding Towns In Your Genealogy

2007-12-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names http://geonames.usgs.gov is wonderful site to find towns in your genealogy & also figure which maps you may need. The nice thing it will link you over to Google Map, TerraServer, MapQuest if you need county bounders, and others.

To use it for US places, click domestic > click Search GNIS > then enter your location > click on your location > then you can view the location on many online mapping services.

Rede Video:
http://blip.tv/file/485490

Genealogy Training Course

2007-11-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Genealogy Training Course
With Carol Brown

9:30 am - 11:30 Thursday’s (Except as noted)
December 6, 2007 - February 14, 2008
In the building beside the Bouse Public Library
44031 E. Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ 85325 phone 928-851-1023
Sign up - contact nrcmackey@yahoo.com
Everyone Welcome

Suggested donation is $5.00 per class per person
Each week Carol teaches a different aspect of genealogical research followed by an open discussion session. All classes are approximately 2 hours in length. You do not have to attend every session. You can choose the topics you wish to attend.

December 6 - Class 1 - Beginning Genealogy, Record Organization and Source Citation
December 14 (Friday at 1:00) - Class 2 - Computers and Genealogy on the Internet
December 20 - Class 3 - Census and Social Security Records
January 3 - Class 4 - Researching in Libraries and Court Houses
January 10 - Class 5 - Immigration and Migration Patterns
January 17 - Class 6 - Genealogical Societies and Magazines
January 24 - Class 7 - Over Coming Dead Ends
January 31 - Class 8 - Preponderance of Evidence
February 7 - Class 9 - Researching in Military Records
February 14 - Class 10 - Sharing Your Family History

Communication

2007-11-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

I can’t stress the importance getting out on there and contacting other researcher, via message boards, people that have posted their genealogy to the Internet, etc… But to avoid spammer you may want to get another email address because the spam bots are out there reading email address that have been posted to the web.

There are many free places out there to get emails but it can be rather tiring always checking them just to find nothing. The way I handle this is using the instant messaging programs that are also offered with them. Myself I use a free program called Pidgin http://pidgin.im/ , it capable of connecting with AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, XMPP, ICQ, IRC, SILC, SIP/SIMPLE, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Bonjour, Zephyr, MySpaceIM, Gadu-Gadu, and QQ all at once. It will notify me when an email comes in & will give me the sender’s name & subject of the message. The disadvantage to this program is no voice or video chatting. But what I like the best is it doesn’t change or add things to my browser, you can choose to have it load at boot up or manually load it, and I can several identities on one mail server.

Now you may want to scan and organize your pictures and documents because they are great things to trade with, and people will go more out of their way getting you information if you give them something they don’t have.

When first starting out Surname message boards are good, but I have more success with county & religious message boards. County histories & Church records are wonderful in your research.

A good thing to remember what goes around comes around. So find out what local resources are available to you and volunteer to help other via message boards and lookup services like www.raogk.org and www.usgenweb.org county sites.

Making A PDF Document

2007-11-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

People ask, why would you make a PDF file when all you can do is print or view this document? The main reason is different computers and even different word processor programs will not open a document the same. So when layout is important, like when a document with an index or newsletters or limit how people can use your document you will want to do it as a PDF file.

One I use a lot is PrimoPDF http://www.primopdf.com/ , it work like a printer driver so if you can print it, you can make a PDF file and best of all it’s free. I see the last version the horizontal printing problem has been fixed. To a horizontal print click “custom” when PrimoPDF’s screen comes up.

There are many different free PDF creators out there so look around & see what you like. They all work about the same, you click File > Print > select the PDF creator > click OK > tell it where to save the file > click OK. The only differences are how you change the settings.

Rede’s demo with PrimoPDF:
http://blip.tv/file/476452

Converting PDF into RTF

2007-10-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

PDF is a very popular way exchanging documents because the layout stays the same no matter what computer you are on, BUT there is no way to edit them or put them in your notes in your genealogy program. There are two ways I do it. Copy/Paste from Acrobat Reader or OCR it.

With Copy/Paste you need to paste it into word processor using the text selection tool. But you have to find the beginnings of your paragraphs & take out the end of lines within that paragraph. I will “Justify” all the text and do an indent, that way I can see my paragraphs.

The other is OCR but rather than print, scan, and convert to text, you just use the snapshot tool in Acrobat to copy and paste it into your OCR program. I found a free program that does an ok job of this called TopOCR http://www.topocr.com/ . It doesn’t work well with bold, italics, or pictures, but for free it does speed things up. I just found out if you change your setting to scanner mode "Settings->Image-> Source->Scanner" it will do a better job even with this copy/paste method in TopOCR.

Rede’s method:
Share Convert a PDF into a RTF Part 1 (Copy/Paste)
http://blip.tv/file/449914

Share Convert a PDF into a RTF Part 2 (OCR)
http://blip.tv/file/449936

Interlibrary Loan

2007-10-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

If you are luck enough to find someone that has listed a book as a source in their genealogy, a good way of getting that book is through the interlibrary loan at your local library. A good place to start is WorldCat http://www.worldcat.org/ to see if it is available. Your local library has their own network they work with. So if it shows up on WorldCat doesn’t mean they can get it but if your search pulls up a close library it increases your chances.

I like the advance search, but on the homepage your can enter a title, subject or person in the main search. When you find the book you want it will list whether it is a book, microfilm, computer file, etc… Click on the book you want, and where it list the libraries type in your zip code and click go. This will sort the libraries by how close they are to you. Take down the information like title, author and anything else you think your library will need & ask you librarian about it.

Two things to remember, not all libraries are in WorldCat and just because it is in WorldCat doesn’t mean your library can get it. This is just a way to increase your chances to find it.

Note: I have had family actually get microfilm from state historical societies via interlibrary loan, so that is another good source.

Using Notepad For Your Genealogy

2007-10-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

Click for video

Using Notepad to transcribe images & copy text for your genealogy. Read my way of doing it click here.

Making Multi Page PDF Images With IrfanView

2007-10-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

One nice thing about Multi Page PDF files are for things like Wills and other documents that take several pages, you can make a single file out of them for archiving & emailing.

I have talked about making multi page documents with IrfanView back in April of 2007. With the new update they fixed the compression problems I was getting with making multi page PDF documents with IrfanView. You can now choose how much compression you want to put into the images, thus making smaller files.

You will need to download & install the program & plugins from http://www.irfanview.net/ . It is DonationWare which means anything you want to donate is appreciated.

I think you can actually scan with IrfanView and save as a multi page PDF. But for this article I will just take a few pictures & combine them.

Steps for make a multi page TIF that some people prefer for archiving:

Open IrfanView.
Click “View”> put mouse over “Multiple Page Images”> and click “Create Multiple Page TIF”.
Click “Add Images” find the images you want> sort if needed> click “Compression” choose what you want> click “Browse” to put it where you want it on your computer> give it a “name”> click “Create TIF Image” and your done.

Steps for make a multi page PDF with IrfanView:

Open your TIF file in IrfanView.
Click “Save As”> choose "Save as type: PDF - Portable Document Format".
In the PDF Settings Tab "layout" Page Format=Like Image. Page Rotation=none. Page Border=unchecked. Compression Tab=Activate Compression is checked & "True Color Images" and "Grayscale Images" are set to "JPG (medium quality)".
Give it a name and click “Save”.

7 color images totaling 8 megs became a 76 meg TIF, on the medium compression setting I ended up with a single 1.64 meg multi page PDF file.

Ancestor Cards for Children

2007-10-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

This was such a great idea I had to share. Please read the rest of the story it is just wonderful http://tinyurl.com/2vurh6

"Ancestor Cards for Children Recently I've been mulling over how to present the genealogy I've done on our family so that it would grab my 9 year old grandson's attention. My good friend Illya of Genealogy Today suggested I use a baseball or hockey card format with one ancestor per card.

I loved the idea and created cards 6 cm x 9 cm. Each card features one ancestor's picture or a picture representing that ancestor. The back of each card has ancestor stats - their relationship to my grandchildren, date and place of birth, date and place of death, spouse's name, parents' names and a tiny blurb about that person (hopefully something unique or of interest to an 9 year old!)"

More info: Olive Tree Genealogy Blog: Ancestor Cards for Children

Genealogy In Bouse

2007-09-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

The Bouse Genies are meeting again, with a new website & classes.

Just to let you know The Bouse Genies have moved their website to http://bousegenies.weebly.com & meeting every other week in the building next to the Bouse Public Library 10:00 AM to Noon (44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ) except October 5 which will be in the Bouse Community Center 1/2 block from the library. More info on the meeting here http://bousegenies.weebly.com/bouse-genies-meetings.html

Carol Brown will be having her genealogy classes at the same location. More information on the classes here http://bousegenies.weebly.com/genealogy-classes.html

Microfilm Camera Mount

2007-08-24T16:34:00.000-07:00

Tired of bad copies on the microfilm copy machines or having to make several tries to get the machine set just right? The GSC Associates Microfilm Camera Mount could help. Any camera with a standard 1/4-20 mounting hole will fit on it, and with digital cameras you will be able view the image before you move on. Most cameras now a days have auto focus & exposure so all you need to do is turn off the flash. More information is here http://www.gscassociates.com/camera_mount.html

TIP: To get better pictures out of your camera use the timer or remote to take the picture. Even though it is on a tripod or mount, just pushing the button can still shake the camera.

News from Bouse

2007-08-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

The FULL Ancestry.com is available at the Bouse Library. It is hard to believe that we at that little library figured out a way to get it when none of the bigger libraries on this side of the state got it. Maybe because we are little, those who yell the loudest and work the hardest can get what they want.

The Bouse library was given a lot of artists books. One of the members of our Desert Brushes group died this year and her entire library, which was quite large, was donated to the library. We also have wifi. We are set up for people to bring in their laptops and get online wirelessly.

When I get back to Bouse I will be working with the librarian to set the dates for both the genealogy classes and the computer classes. I will teach 10 classes in each group once through. I will probably start the first of the year to catch most of the winter visitors. Once things are set up I will send you the full schedule.

More info on the Bouse Genies here: http://quartzsite.gen.googlepages.com/bousegenies

Using Online Photo Galleries To Identify Pictures

2007-08-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

I have been using Picasa http://picasa.google.com & Picasaweb http://picasaweb.google.com to identify old photos that were in my grandmother’s trunk, and it has been a great success.

Any online photo gallery will work here. All I did was upload my photos to a public gallery & email a link to the site to relatives. Then ask them to try to identify the pictures, also ask them to let any of their relatives know about what I’m doing.

The only problem with Picasaweb was there was no way to edit comments, just delete them.

Census Maps

2007-07-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

I have run into times when researching someone’s birth I find out the state didn’t excite on that date. It turns out it was a territory or owned by Spain, Britain or Mexico. These maps would have really saved me some time http://www.us-census.org/states/map.htm

Photographing Headstones

2007-06-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

This is a good project for you, a church, scouts, community or any group.

Things you may need:

Camera, digital is best.
Tripod for a sharper picture.
Large sheets of paper and charcoal for weathered headstones.
A brush & water for cleaning.
Something to clear grass or weeds away from the face of the stones.
A graphics editing program.

First visit the cemetery and find out which direction the stones are oriented. It is best to shoot the stone just as sunlight barely crosses the face and the inscription is still shaded. Might even be a good time to clean and clear anything that may of grown over the stone. There has been too many time I could of kicked myself for not sweeping off the stone or I have a weed going across the picture.

When the light is best have your camera on a tripod and use a timer or remote for best results. There is less of a chance of you shaking the camera when you take the shot. Most newer stones you won’t have to worry about light, but nothing is worse than getting home and you have an unusable picture. Zoom into the picture to make sure you have a good clear shot, and then move onto the next stone. After good light has past move to the stones that light isn’t an issue or the weathered stones. For the weathered stones use the paper & charcoal to make a rubbing of the inscription & photograph the headstone and rubbing.

http://www.sampubco.com/gpp/crop.htm is a good site for showing how to crop the picture to put it online, but first I like to make a good quality file for 4x6 digital prints. Picasa is my favorite http://picasa.google.com/ and it’s free and doesn’t effect your original. For prints I like original size with a quality 70, online 600 pixel width a quality of 40-50 or what ever the website requires.

Where to put the images would be the county website on www.usgenweb.org, www.findagrave.com, and if a state is available http://gpp.jlconsulting.com/. They all have limits on size of file or pixel size of the picture. This is why I recommend making a good quality 4x6 file, there are a lot of websites that have free space for your digital pictures. Make a public web album and people can download or order prints for themselves.

It is a wonderful feeling when someone thanks you for making a picture available.

Ancestry.com at the Bouse Library

2007-06-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

Early this week the Bouse Library received an e-mail from Ancestry.com offering to sell the full Library subscription to them for $995. Almost 1/2 price. The offer expires on June 30, 2007 so they have to do it right away.

Since we had collected $674 between the winter Genealogy Classes, the money for shipping the books and the winter Computer Classes, the Friends of the Bouse Library Board offered to pay the difference and get the full library subscription this month. We will repay the Friends of the Bouse Library in the fall and winter to cover the difference of $321. Hopefully we will collect that via the genealogy classes, computer classes and donations next season.

The great thing about this is that more than 2 people can use it at a time. Also we are the only Public Library west of Phoenix that will have it available, which should (we hope) bring in more people. I would like to suggest they we see if we can get a donation box just for Ancestry.com placed in the Library to help cover the cost and maybe pay for it next year also.

As we had discussed earlier, access will only be available at the library. It will be open to anyone visiting the library, not just the Bouse Genies.

Also, this subscription price will set the cost we will have to pay in the future. We will not have to go back to the full $1700 price when we renew.

We will advertise the fact that it is available at the library and hopefully it will bring in more members or visitors.

Carol Brown

Note: The money has just been OK, will post later when it is up and running.

Free Genealogy Web Courses

2007-06-13T18:35:00.000-07:00

BYU Independent Study Free Web Courses http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/freecourses.cfm. There is a 1 time registration, then you just log in using your email address.

Family History/Genealogy - Introductory
FHGEN 68 — Finding Your Ancestors
FHGEN 69 — Providing Temple Ordinances for Your Ancestors
FHGEN 70 — Introduction to Family History Research
FHGEN 80 — Helping Children Love Your Family History

Family History/Genealogy - Record Type
FHREC 71 — Family Records
FHREC 73 — Vital Records
FHREC 76 — Military Records

Family History/Genealogy - Regional and Ethnic
FHFRA 71 — France: Immigrant Origins
FHFRA 72 — France: Vital Records
FHFRA 73 — France: Reading French Handwriting
FHFRA 74 — France: Genealogical Organizations and Periodicals
FHFRA 75 — France: The Internet and French Genealogy
FHFRA 76 — French Research: Paris
FHFRA 77 — French Research: Alsace-Lorraine
FHGER 71 — Germany: Immigrant Origins
FHGER 72 — Germany: U.S. Sources and Surname Changes
FHGER 73 — Germany: Jurisdictions, Gazetteers, and Maps
FHGER 74 — Germany: Reading German Handwriting
FHGER 75 — Germany: Calendars and Feast Days
FHGER 76 — Germany: Vital Records
FHHUG 71 — Huguenot Research
FHSCA 73 — Scandinavia: Jurisdictions, Gazetteers, and Maps
FHSCA 74 — Scandinavia: Reading Gothic Script
FHSCA 75 — Scandinavia: Church Records and Feast Days
FHSCA 76 — Scandinavia: Census Records
FHSCA 77 — Scandinavia: Probate and Other Records

Timeline and Map Views Searches

2007-06-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

Google is experimenting with some different type of searches. What caught my eye was the Timeline and Map Views. It works best for the queries listed on their page http://www.google.com/experimental/, but I tried some of my own & thoroughly loved it!!!

The Timeline Search just add "view:timeline" to your search & it will categorize your results by date. Great if you just want to search a name during a certain period of time.

The Map View I don't see much difference in just plain old Google Maps. If you want to give this a test drive just add "view:map" to your search.

Maybe if enough people give feedback how much they like it they will get it fully functioning sooner.

Gravestone Photo Project

2007-05-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

I really like this Gravestone Photo Project http://gpp.jlconsulting.com/ . I have found headstones or transcriptions here not found on some of the larger headstone databases. Also the women can be listed as married & maiden name, which really helps. The only thing I don’t like if you make a mistake after you upload a photo you have to contact the Webmaster to make changes.

One thing to remember if you want to add an image, do your editing before uploading. The built in editing in the program doesn’t do a very good job. The first time I uploaded some pictures they were too big & they ended up almost unreadable. Make sure the longest side of the image is no more than 450 pixels & make sure the file size is between 20-40 kb. Here are some tips for editing photographs of grave markers for the Gravestones Photograph Project http://www.sampubco.com/gpp/crop.htm .

The following states are currently using a version of the Gravestone Photo Project software:

Copyrights In The Public Domain

2007-05-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

I have been seeing copyrights on lot of microfilms & digital images where the original documents were published before 1923. So I set out to find out how they could copyright a public domain document.

First stop was to see what I could find out about copyrights as it applies to Public Domain. The only thing I could find was Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. But I couldn’t figure out if it was dismissed due to “Fair Use” or because the reproductions involved no originality.

Then a kind Professor of Law put this topic in terms I could understand, “The content is not copyrighted and there is debate about even the image”.

Finally a response from the Library of Congress “Merely reformatting a work is not considered copyrightable authorship. There would have to be the addition of an appreciable amount of original copyrightable matter in order to support a claim to copyright, and, even then, the copyright would not extend to the public domain matter”.

We need to see these people putting on these copyrights as supplying us great service, and we shouldn’t copy their entire works to resell. But we should not have to feel like criminals sharing bits & pieces.

This article is not intended to define the law, but only to report my experiences.

Creating A Multi Page Documents With IrfanView

2007-04-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Some important documents are more than 1 page and it is nice to have it on 1 file. You will probably want to see if your scanner software comes with these options first.

IrfanView www.irfanview.net makes very nice multi page TIF & PDF files that are nice for archiving & sharing, the disadvantage is the Compression on the PDF files still leave rather large files. But if you use a PDF printer driver to make the PDF file you can make them small enough to email.

Steps for make a multi page TIF that some people prefer for archiving:

Open IrfanView.
Click “View”> put mouse over “Multiple Page Images”> and click “Create Multiple Page TIF”.
Click “Add Images” find the images you want> sort if needed> click “Compression” choose what you want> click “Browse” to put it where you want it on your computer> give it a “name”> click “Create TIF Image” and your done.

Steps for make a multi page PDF with IrfanView:

Open your TIF in IrfanView.
Click “Save As”> choose "Save as type: PDF - Portable Document Format".
In the PDF Settings Tab "layout" Page Format=Like Image. Page Rotation=none. Page Border=unchecked. Compression Tab=Activate Compression is checked.
Give it a name and click “Save”.

Steps for make a multi page PDF with a PDF Printer Driver:

Open your TIF in IrfanView.
Click “File”> “Print”.
3. In Print Preview, Printer=your PDF Printer Driver. Choose “Portrait” or “Landscape” depending on your document. Print Size=Best fit to page, Mulipage images=Print all pages> Then click "Print". Just follow your PDF Printer Driver steps to finish.

TIF files that worked with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer:
*No compression (recommended)
*Original 909 KB - TIF 22.4 MB - PDF 9.36 MB
*With PDF Printer Driver it is 1.02 MB

*With Packbits compression
*Original 909 KB - TIF 18.2 MB - PDF 9.36 MB
*With PDF Printer Driver it is 1.02 MB

*With LZW compression
*Original 909 KB - TIF 15.7 MB - PDF 9.36 MB
*With PDF Printer Driver it is 1.02 MB

As you can see there is no difference on the PDF files but the using the PDF Printer Driver is much better for emailing. The difference is the PDF Printer Driver will leave a larger blank area because it is trying to fit it to an 8.5x11 page.

There are other commercial products that that work better but IrfanView is donation ware.

Newspapers On The Library of Congress Website

2007-04-01T08:42:00.001-07:00

Looks like the U.S. Newspaper Program http://www.neh.gov/projects/usnp.html is starting to pay off. I have always liked Colorado & Utah's free digital newspapers. Now it looks like you will be able to access the digital papers from The Library of Congress website. Now in BETA, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers http://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/index.html only covers 25 papers in 7 states between 1900-1910, but this will be an interesting project to watch.

The Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers website will also let you find information about newspapers published in the United States from 1690 to the present in the Chronicling America Directory & tell you where you can find them.

Hoping to find the original digital newspaper websites for a larger database I was able to find these:
CA-http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cndpsearch.pl
DC-not found
FL-http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/UFDC/UFDC.aspx?c=fdnl1
KY-http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?;page=simpleext&c=kynews
NY-not found
UT-http://www.lib.utah.edu/digital/unews/index.html
VA-not found

Good site for finding world wide digital newspapers:
The International Coalition on Newspapers-http://icon.crl.edu/digitization.htm

Online Backup & Storage

2007-03-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

After trying 2 online backup services that offer free accounts, Xdrive http://www.xdrive.com/ and Mozy http://mozy.com/, I see strong points in both. For accessing your files from another computer or sharing I must go with Xdrive, no online access to your files with Mozy. For automaticly backing up of importaint files I must go with Mozy, Xdrive is slow as tar. Mozy is much faster & you can restore you files to any point up to 30 days old. I think we can relate to adding wrong information in our genealogy, well if you catch it in 30 day you can restore your file back to the point you made the mistake. Another thing to concider is where Xdrive offers 5 Gigs of storage, where Mozy offers 2. If security is an issue nothing beats a good old fasion external hard drive.

More info:
Xdrive http://www.xdrive.com/
Mozy http://mozy.com/

Family Tree Guide

2007-03-22T12:57:00.000-07:00

Family Tree Guide http://www.familytreeguide.com is a nice website were you can put your genealogy. It is similar to other web based PHP genealogy programs, but you don't have to have your own website or do any of the setup. More information on the features can be found here http://www.familytreeguide.com/home_features.php.

Things I like:

You get you own web address ie. name.familytreeguide.com.
Several different way to view people; Individual, Pedigree, Descendancy, Relationship Calculator, Timeline.
You register others for your account so you can collaborate.
The advanced search you can search names, dates, places, notes & more.
You can even add histories, documents, and photos.

Things I didn’t like:

You are supposed to be able upload a gedcom to update your file, but I tried to replace my gedcom to take out photo links in my file but was unable to. I ended up deleting the file & then uploading the edited gedcom as new.
The only way to add contact info was to put my email in the footer.
The biggest problem is the defalt is no event/facts (census, moved, etc...), but all I had to do was select them to be allowed & reupload the gedcom.

Need Extra Storage Space?

2007-03-12T18:37:00.001-07:00

Dead Site!!!!

3 sure things in life are death, taxes & hard drive crashes. Xdrive http://www.xdrive.com/ is an online storage service offering 5 Meg of free storage. There are a lot of free photo storage services out there but what I like about this is you can store other files.

Here are some things you can do with Xdrive:

Better secure your important files - photos, video, music, and more.
Keep your digital photos in full resolution.
Prevent bounced e-mail - share very large files without a problem.
Schedule Automatic Backups of your important files.
Share folders with others for just viewing or to work collaboratively.
Access your files anytime through any web connection.
Organize, edit and stream music playlists through any Web connected PC.

"Xdrive Desktop" acts as an auto backup of certain folders on your hard drive, but I found it slow as tar. The slide show you can add music & email an invitation out to people to view it, myself I don't like giving emails of friends to free services. The things I really like about this service is backing up your bookmarks. You can also upload groups of files or folders & download them just as easily. Downloads are grouped together as a ZIP file so you will need to uncompress them when done.

Should you find 5 Gig just isn't enough try putting your pictures on AOL Pictures http://pictures.aol.com, that is unlimited storage & can be accessed from Xdrive.

One last piece of advice locks & security only keep honest people honest, put confidential information online at you own risk.

Arizona Obituary Index

2007-03-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

Mesa Regional Family History Center has a very nice obituary index on their website http://www.mesarfhc.org/. On this index you get names, age at death, newspaper, section, page, and date. Most of the hits I got were in the 1990s & 2000s, some are in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the oldest I found was the Arizona Miner 1864.

There was no list of what papers they have or time period, but here is what I was able to find:
Apache County Reporter
Arizona Daily Star
Arizona Daily Sun
Arizona Miner
Arizona Republic
Au-Authm Action News
Casa Grande Dispatch
Cottonwood Journal Extra
Daily Courier
Daily News-Sun
East Valley Tribune
Eastern Arizona Courier
Gazette
Mesa Tribune
Navajo County Pioneer
Navajo Times
Payson Roundup
Phoenix Gazette
Prescott Daily Courier
Prospector
Republican
Scottsdale Tribune
The Spectrum
The Sun (Yuma)
Tucson Citizen
Verde Valley News
White Mtn Independent
Yuma Daily Sun

Obituaries, Genealogy Treasures

2007-03-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

One of the best places to get you over a hump in your genealogy are obituaries.

Start with dates off the Social Security Death index or other death indexes or cemetery records. With that you can get a death date and a possible death location.

Next check your local library website & see if they offer NewsBank or other national newspaper databases, they are good for recent obituaries.

Next check the newspaper websites for the county they died in. Smaller newspapers are more likely to keep a free obituary archive longer than the bigger cities. My experience, the bigger cities obituaries usually windups on NewsBank after 30 days or other pay sites.

Finally ask for a lookup on mailing lists, message boards, http://raogk.org/ or http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~obitl/ are good. But if no one gets back with you try emailing that county’s library & find out if they keep newspapers on microfilm and if they can mail you a copy. There might be a small fee involved, but usually not much.

Why is this document important? It is most likely to give you clues on your ancestor’s life, ie… Son or daughter of, born, married, survived by, where they lived and what they did in their life.

Ancestry.Com Free Databases

2007-02-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

Looking at free databases on http://www.searchforancestors.com/ancestryfreebies.html, I see several interesting databases but most are already free on http://rootsweb.com/. To test it out I tried the WWI Civilian Draft Registrations. I had to register which was easy enough (just had to give a name and email address), but only got an index and only 1 of 3 brothers came up. So it is not as complete as the pay database, but worth taking a look at.

Update: I just got my 1st Ancestry SPAM from signing up. If you want to try this be warned!!!

Family Roots Radio

2007-02-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

An new genealogy internet radio show has popped up http://www.familyrootsradio.com/ , hosted by Kory Meyerink. It is played on VoiceAmerica every Thursday at 1PM Pacific. To make things easier you can listen or download it and listen it at your convenes. I found the first two shows very interesting & educational.

Arizona Genealogy Birth and Death Certificates

2007-01-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

Arizona has Birth (1887-1930) and Death (1878-1955) certificates online at http://genealogy.az.gov/. The nice thing is you can view the actual images online. You have the option to include Father & Mother's name in the search, good for birth certificates or narrowing down death certificates. And to limit the search by county & year range, helpful if you know the county but not the exact year.

County Boundaries

2007-01-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

If you need to find a county boundary for a state & can’t justify spending the money for a book or a program, HeritageQuest has made it easier. They have put maps online from “Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses”, 1790-1920, By Wiliam Thorndale and William Dollarhide.

On HeritageQuest, click browse in the census area. Pick a year & a state, and then click “View State Map”. You will be able to view that year’s county boundaries (black lines) & currant boundaries (white lines). Just plot the current location & compare it to the one for that year.

To find out if HeritageQuest is offered from your local library website or one in your state please visit http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline .

Genealogy Training Cource

2007-01-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

With Carol Brown
9:30 am- 11:30 noon Tuesday’s & Thursday’s
January 9, 2007 - February 8, 2007
(Except as noted)

Sign-up at the library

Everyone Welcome

At the Bouse Library, 44031 Plomosa Road
Cost is $5.00 per class

Each week Carol teaches two different aspects of genealogical research followed by an open discussion session. All class are approximately 2 hours in length. You do not have to attend every session. You can choose the topics you wish to attend.

January 9 - Class 1 - Beginning Genealogy, Record Organization and Source Citation
January 10 - Class 2 - Computers and Genealogy on the Internet
January 16 - Class 3 - Census and Social Security Records
January 18 - Class 4 - Researching in Libraries and Court Houses
January 23 - Class 5 - Immigration and Migration Patterns
January 25 - Class 6 - Genealogical Societies and Magazines
January 30 - Class 7 - Over Coming Dead Ends
February 1 - Class 8 - Preponderance of Evidence
February 6 - Class 9 - Researching in Military Records
February 8 - Class 10 - Sharing Your Family History

Free Medical Dictionary

2006-12-31T10:10:00.000-07:00

Trying to read some of these Death Certificates I just couldn’t make out the cause of death. I found this medical dictionary very useful http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/. One of the causes of deaths I was able to make out the first letter & the end of the word. I was able to limit my search to “Ends With” then look for a word that started with the letters, and was able to find the word I wanted. These are some of options to limit your search, "Word/Article", "Starts with", "Ends with", and "Text".

The Free Dictionary website http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ has more than just medical definitions: Dictionary/thesaurus, Computing dictionary, Medical dictionary, Legal dictionary, Financial dictionary, Acronyms, Idioms, Columbia encyclopedia, and Wikipedia encyclopedia.

Utah State Archives

2006-12-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

The Utah State Archives http://historyresearch.utah.gov/indexes have many good free indexes online, birth, death, court, government, etc… They only have what the counties have given them & not all their holdings are index, but this is a good place to look for people that have lived in Utah.

I just noticed in the 1904-1954 Vital Records & Statistics section, they are starting to put the actual death certificate images online.

One thing I don’t like, I don’t see a way to search just one database. But the search engine they do have is easy to use. All you need to do is enter “Surname” or “Surname, given name” or what I like is “Surname, first letter of given name”.

The Utah Geographic Place Names

2006-12-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

I discovered this site looking for a place in Utah. It had a locations on it none of my other programs had http://history.utah.gov/FindAids/B01018/b1018.html .

The Utah Geographic Place Names Committee Records, ca. 1970s A Register of the Collection at the Utah State Historical Society

Genealogy Classes At The Bouse Library

2006-12-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

Put on by professional genealogist Carol Brown .

Classes start at 9:30 AM, cost $5 per class for expenses. Located at the old Bouse Elementary School, 44031 Plomosa Road (look for the flag pole), in the building just east of the library.

Dec 12- Preponderance of Evidence (using DNA to prove or disprove a point)
Dec 14 - Military Records
Dec 18 - Publishing Your Family Records (there is some question whether the people who are in the class will want to have class that week).

Starting on Jan 9 we will restart the classes

Jan 9 - Beginning Genealogy
Jan 10 - Genealogy on the Internet
Jan 16 - We will start back to every Tuesday and Thursday for the next 8 classes.

Check the calendar for updates

Lake Havasu Genealogical Soc. Special Events

2006-12-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

This sounds like a good seminar if you can make it up to Lake Havasu on January 27th.

Special Events: "2007 13th Annual Genealogy Seminar will be held Saturday, January 27, 2007 at the Mountain View Mobile Home Park Clubhouse. Time: 8:00 AM registration 9:00 AM sessions to 4:00PM. Lunch break with salad luncheon included with registration fee of $30.00. Featured speaker will again be Shirley Gage Hodges from Albion, MI and Apache Junction, AZ.

Topic’s :
Immigration, The Journey to America
Newspapers, A Pot of Gold
Tracing your Ancestor through Military Records
Church Records, The Ties that Bind"

Simple OCR

2006-12-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

If you are a slow typer like me & want to put text from a document into your genealogy you might want to think about an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program. The commercial versions can be pricy for people on a limited income. All I have found so far for free programs that works with Windows is SimpleOCR http://www.simpleocr.com/ .

One thing I DON’T like about this program is there no way to select a text area you want, just select to ignore an area. But you can choose that area you want when scanning the document, which is probably easier. “Selecting picture region” doesn’t give very good results, so if you need to include a picture scan it separately & insert it into your document later. When converting the image into text it does show the original image very well, I do like that. It does support TIFF, BMP & JPG if you already have the document as an image file.

If you can afford a good OCR program I do recommend that, if you want free this is the best I have found so far.

Note: Good news Google has released Tesseract OCR into Open Source. I don’t see anyway to run it in windows yet, let’s hope soon. More info here http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2006/08/announcing-tesseract-ocr.html

Looking For Cemetery Volunteers

2006-11-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

I am looking for some people that are willing to go out and transcribe & photograph headstones. I know the Quartzsite Cemetery needs to be checked for errors, and Brenda needs to be photographed. Then we can upload the information to the free genealogy websites for La Paz Co.

I have a digital camera that will hold around 250 pictures with 2 batteries, but the battery only do about 40 pictures each. So if we can get a few people with cameras &amp; paper & pencils I think this could really help others.

Please contact me via this page http://www.blogger.com/profile/20597318 if you are interested.

Google Book Search

2006-11-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

On Google Book Search http://books.google.com there are a lot of books here that are copyright free which are nice for research. Just enter your keywords and your results will be “Full View”, “Limited Preview”, “Snippet View”, or “No Preview Available”. But you do have the option to limit your search as “Full Page” only, which will get you mostly the copyright free books. Another nice feature is your keywords are highlighted so they can be easily found. “Advanced Search” will give you a chance to search by Title, Author, Publisher, Publication Date, and even search by ISBN (barcode).

Options when you found a book:

Browse: Will let you look at the book page by page.
Search within the book: Will let you search for more keywords within the book.
Buy the book: Doesn’t guarantee that the book will be there but might help.
Find reviews: Doesn’t pop up much on the copyright free books, but might help if you plan on buying the book.
Find it in a library: Will tell you if a library has it, and you might be able to use the interlibrary loan to get it from your local library.
Learn about the publisher: Will get you to the publisher’s website.

For more information on Google Book Search can be found at http://books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html.

Collaborating Research

2006-11-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

Collaborating with a cousin was the way I learned most about research & is one of the quickest way to get things done. Google has made this easier for you with Documents, Spreadsheets http://docs.google.com/ & new to Google Labs “Note Book” http://www.google.com/notebook/. Everyone must have a Google account, but signing up is free.

Documents: I don’t see a lot of good unless several people are writing a family history together. But it does have nice features, export as HTML, RTF, Word, OpenOffice & PDF. You can Insert Images, Links, Comments, Bookmark, Separator or Special Character. View what revisions have been made. Choose who can views or who can make changes. Publish to the web (a unique URL on Google) or to your Blog. It has some of the same features you will find in a Word Processors, but personally find it a little bit limiting. It will solve the problems of people using different Word Processors.

Spreadsheets: I don’t use spreadsheets very often so I’m no expert. But if you are transcribing something like a cemetery, indexing or anything you might need the use of a spreadsheet, this can be very useful. Each of you can take a portion of what you are doing and work on the same project together.

Note Book: I really like this one, forget about bookmarks you can a select section of a page & come back to look at it later (images are also saved). It requires a little plugin on your browser, but after that is installed all you do is highlight the portion of the page you want, right click and select “Note This” or click the new little notebook icon on the right side of your browser & select “Add Note”. It won’t do PDF files on the web, but it does let you type or copy/paste the text & have a link to that file. I did find a problem with long pages, seams to have some problems with pages that would be much over 2 pages in my Word Processors, and Netscape browser doesn’t seam to be supported.

Genealogy Classes At The Bouse Library

2006-11-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

Put on by professional genealogist Carol Brown

Cost $5 per class for expenses. Located at the old Bouse Elementary School, 44031 Plomosa Road (look for the flag pole), in the building just east of the library.

Classes scheduled so far:

Class 2 - Friday - Nov. 3, 2006 - 9:30 am- Class 2 - Computers and Genealogy on the Internet
Class 3 - Thursday - Nov. 9, 2006 - 9:30 am - Class 3 - Census and Social Security Records
Class 4 - Tuesday - Nov. 28, 2006 - 1:30 pm - Class 4 - Researching in Libraries and Courthouses
Class 5 - Thursday - Nov. 30, 2006 - 9:30 am - Class 5 - Immigration, Emigration & Migration

Not scheduled yet:

Class 6 - Genealogy Societies, Magazines and CD-ROM's
Class 7 - Overcoming Dead Ends
Class 8 - Preponderance of Evidence & DNA
Class 9 - Military Records - Service, Pension & Bounty-Land
Class 10 - Publishing You Family History

Check the calendar for updates

Sourcing Made Easy

2006-10-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

I hear so many people say, “I would put in sources but it takes to long”. Here are a few tricks I use to make it easy.

My first choice would be Notepad found in your Accessories section in your Start/Programs menu. It is small, can be resized & moved around in front of your browser or other programs.

Coping a section of a website: All you do is copy/paste into notepad the URL, title of the page, then copy/paste the section of the page you want. The Title & URL is your source & the text you put in your Source or Detail/Citation text area.
Example:
mydomain.com/genealogy
John Doe’s Genealogy
John Doe came to this county in 1904…

Document Images: Just move Notepad to where you read what you want so you can read the image & type in Notepad at the same time. Type where it came from, page number or any pertinent info, and then start typing what you want. The Title & URL is your source & the text you put in your Source or Detail/Citation text area. A census will usually take me just a few minutes, but I think my ancestors are worth the extra time.
Example:
1860 census Iowa, Warren, Liberty Twp, p878 sheet 214, enumerated 24 July 1860
Benj Byerly, 53, Minister "German Baptist", VA
Delilah ", 43, VA
William H ", 21, TN, Teacher com s (probably teacher in common school)
Sarah C ", 17, TN, school within the year
Susan E ", 15, TN, school within the year
John A ", 12, TN, school within the year
Mayt(?) J ", 10, OH, school within the year
Martha E ", 7, OH, school within the year
Samuel M ", 4, OH

Most genealogy programs have a copy/paste option when entering sources. So you can copy 1 source & paste it onto everyone that appears on that document. Looking at the above census, you can make 1 source & paste it on 9 people.

Second choice if you want formatted text, use “Split Screen”. This is by loading your Browser or Image Viewer & Word Processor at the same time, click the program you want on top, then you “Right Click” your “Tool Bar” & chose “Tile Windows Horizontally”. Low Resolution monitors might give you some problems so give it a try. One disadvantage of Tiling is it will Tile every program you are running. An option to Tiling is using a program called “Transcript” http://home.wanadoo.nl/jgboerema/en/Freeware.htm it is free for private non-commercial use, but it only supports JPG, JPEG, BMP & GIF images.

One good thing that comes from keeping sources, if you learn more about your family possibly that page has more info that you missed and you can go back to that website or document & see if there is more there.

Note: Just remember to take into account copywrites, when publishing to the web or other printed material. Stuff in the public domain is safe to reproduce.

Stephen P. Morse's Search Engines

2006-10-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

Alan from one of the lists I’m on turned me on to a Ellis Island search engine www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB/ellis.html that is easier to use than the official website www.ellisisland.org/. So I went and explored the developer’s website www.stevemorse.org/ & found several other good links. The pay links are clearly marked with a “$”, and most of them send you to ancestery.com but there are a few others. There are so many I had to condense what I found.

Ellis Island Search Forms and Ship Arrivals (1892-1924), Some pay sites.
Castle Garden (and earlier) Search Forms and Ship Arrivals (1820-1891), Some pay sites.
Other Ports of Immigration: Baltimore Passengers (1820-1948), Boston Passengers (1820-1943), Galveston Passengers (1844-1954), Philadelphia Passengers (1800-1945), San Francisco Passengers (1893-1953). Some pay sites.
US Census and Soundex (1790-1940): Some pay sites but many interesting searches like ED finder, street finder, street name changes & more.
Canadian and British Census: 1901 census for Canadian & British are free the others are pay sites.
New York Census: Obtaining AD/ED for the 1905/15/25 NY State Census & Brooklyn 1925 Name Index: Searching the Brooklyn 1925 Census.
Births, Deaths, and other Vital Records: Several interesting search engines.
Calendar, Sunrise/Sunset, Maps.
Dealing with Characters in Foreign Alphabets: Converting Hebrew, Russian, Greek, English & a few other goodies.
Holocaust and Eastern Europe.
Creating your own Search Forms, Search Engines, and Databases

And more!!!!

New Genealogy Resource For Us

2006-10-11T15:48:00.000-07:00

I have found a library in AZ that has a free online library card that will give us access to Heritage Quest & another online database I like called Newsbank, great for US obituaries from 2-10 years old (some go back farther).

If you are interested, maybe we can make a class to sign up & learn how to use these databases.

Questions And Ancestors

2006-09-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

Questions And Ancestors is back on TV even though it might be in reruns. After not seeing it all summer I noticed it is back on BYU TV (on many cable & satellite systems). Right now it is on Tuesday at 6:30 PM & will probably on Thursdays like last year, but after the time change in Utah it will be an hour different. It is a great little program giving you help with research for your genealogy. You can listen to some of the past episodes at http://byub.org/questionsandancestors/episodes.asp but believe you me that is only part of them.

Also I have been listening to it on the Internet on BYU Radio http://www.byuradio.org/streaming/ Saturday & Sundays at 10 AM all summer. The schedule is at http://www.byuradio.org/schedule/. Use the “View Entire Day's Listings” to find what will on upcoming episodes. Remember we are an hour earlier until October 29th.

Massachusetts Archives Searchable Collections

2006-09-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

Massachusetts Archives website has 3 nice searchable databases.

Massachusetts Archives Collection Database (1629-1799)
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcsrch/RevolutionarySearchContects.html
No actual documents, but a good index.

Passenger Manifest (1848-1891)
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcsrch/PassengerManifestSearchContents.html
If listed it contains: Name, Title, Age, Gender, Birth City, State, Country, Germany, Destination City, State, Country, In USA, Occupation, Citizen, Condition, Arrive With, Residence, Date, Port, Ship Name, List Number, Comment.

Vital Records (1841-1910)
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcsrch/VitalRecordsSearchContents.html
Right now only has a death index. The information you will get is Last Name, First Name, Town, Years, Volume, Page & Type.

New Genealogy Resource In Quartzsite

2006-09-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

The Family History Center in Quartzsite has gone broadband. Instead of 6 computers sharing a 56k modem, they now have Satellite Internet. Along with that they have 2 computers with Ancestry.com. Something new GenSmarts is on most of the computers, it will analyze your genealogy file & make recommendations where to look for sources & take you there if it's online.

Right now they are open Monday & Wednesday 9-12 AM, but this winter they are talking about being open Monday Wednesday & Friday 9-12 AM & Tuesday & Thursday 6-8 PM.

The address is:
455 S Riggles Rd
Quartzsite, Arizona

Get this Blog Emailed To You

2006-08-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

If you are like me, I keep forgetting to check pages like this. If you would like the articles emailed to you, you can subscribe here http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=89203

Putting Your Genealogy On The Web

2006-08-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

One of the best ways of getting more information is put your info online. People really do love to sharing, trading or request more information. Just remember, don’t share or put living names online, someone put a living family members online.

The 2 easiest free ways of putting your genealogy online are http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/, and http://www.gencircles.com/. All it takes is uploading your gedcom. I don’t get many people contacting me on these, but I do a lot of sharing with others there.

What has worked best for me is making my own website. This isn’t as hard as it sounds, most genealogy programs will make very nice webpages. All you need to do is find a server (place to put your webpages). A lot of the times your Internet Provider will give you webspace as part of your service. Another option is find a Web Hosting Provider, you will want to make sure it allows FTP (file transfer protocol) because you will need to upload your webpage. RootsWeb does offer Freepages http://accounts.rootsweb.com/, but I haven’t tried it so I don’t know the limits. I found this with interesting links http://www.freecenter.com/homepages.html but not all the ones that offer FTP include it on the free package. Just remember those companies have to pay for those free services, so that means advertising or spam. I do use a pay Web Hosting Provider for $62.88 a year and that includes the domain name, and it has more space & bandwidth than I would ever use. Just something to think about.

For the beginner you will probably want a WYSIWYG webpage program & a FTP program (Windows Explorer will work), there are plenty of free ones on the web. I kind of like Mozilla Suite for tweaking html webpages, but a lot of Word Processors do html editing. Finally I would suggest a “Dummy Book”, there are ones for about anything you can think of.

I’ve got it online how do I get it in the search engines? You can add your website to Google here http://www.google.com/addurl/. MSN site submit is here http://search.msn.com/docs/default.aspx?FORM=HLRE2. Yahoo is here http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html & click “submit your site for free”. I’ve never tried it but there are things called “webrings”. One family member uses GenRing http://c.webring.com/hub?ring=genring for an example. Just experiment with the others & don’t think you need have to pay to get noticed.

One drawback to a website is spammers looking for email addresses on websites. Probably the best is make a graphic out of your email address or I have seen people change me@mydomain.com to “me # mydomain dot com” & tell people to change # to @ and dot to period. I do recommend a separate email address for your website, that way the spammers won’t bother you on your personal email address.

If you feel like a small challenge I like PHPGedView http://www.phpgedview.net/ the only cost is the programmers would like a donation to keep the project going. It makes VERY impressive webpages but it is all done online & your server has to support PHP, MySQL will make it run a little better but not mandatory. All you do is upload the files, the hard part is doing the settings (I know nothing about PHP & was able to do it). You can enter everything online or just upload your gedcom & it does the rest.

I hate to write a novel so if you have any questions please post a comment.

Dennis

Site Search

2006-08-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

Many times when I am searching the web I want to find out what one website has on just one name but they don't have a way to search their site. One of my favorite ways is the "Google Tool Bar" http://toolbar.google.com/ . It will add an extra tool bar on your browser but has some nice feature, my favorite is "Site Search". When you are on a website and you want to see if they have more info you want. You just type what you want in the search field and then there is a little triangle next to the search button, click it and you will see "Current Site", click it and you will just get what is on that website. Site Search on Google Tool Bar has one problem, on free & personal website without their own domain name or large websites with a bunch smaller areas in it, Google Tool Bar will search EVERYTHING in that website.

Here is a manual way to do a Site Search, in a search engine type "site:" followed by the website & key word. Example for all the Chapmans in Conejos Co. Colorado on USGenweb <http://www.rootsweb.com/~coconejo/>. Since Conejos Co. is found on rootsweb in the coconejo directory it will look like this: site:rootsweb.com coconejo chapman. This will work on most search engine as long as the website has spidered (read by the search engine). Try it on a multi search engine, it could increase your chances of finding something.

Dennis

Colorado Historical Societies

2006-06-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

Colorado Historical Societies has some very interesting links on this page

http://www.history.state.co.us/chs_Library/research_collections.htm .

I really enjoyed the Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection http://www.cdpheritage.org/ . You are given an option for dialup or broadband speed, kind of slow at dialup but worth it. You can search by County map, browse or search by newspaper & date. If you use the map it will tell you what papers are available in that county, then you have “Browse All” lets you chose a specific newspaper & date, and finally “Search All” you can use a keywords & you can limits your search to dates & newspapers.

http://photoswest.org has a collection of old photos, might be worth taking a look at. A lot of photos maybe you will find a little gem.

Google Alerts

2006-06-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

How would you like Google to tell you about new websites that have topics that you are interested in? I had signed up for Google alerts http://www.google.com/alerts . I entered quartzsite genealogy & got a bunch of hits that nothing to do with what I was looking for. But when I change my search to something that would limit my hits, +quartzsite +genealogy, I was surprised what I got, someone had linked my Blog. Just think, what if you are looking for John Doe in Elk City, Oklahoma, you could enter +Doe +“Elk City” +Oklahoma. Now when Google finds a site that mentions Doe, Elk City & Oklahoma they will email you a link to the site. See http://quartzsitegen.blogspot.com/2006/03/using-search-engines-to-look-for.html for tips on limiting search engine results.