Arizona Vital Records

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.

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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

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

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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

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/

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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

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

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

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

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

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/