Insights Into Our Future And Our Past

For those who may be concerned about using the new Flash User Interface for the FamilySearch Family Tree, fret no more. My nephew proved to me that the new Family Tree is easy enough for anyone to use.

It’s not every day that you hear a six year old boy chirp, ”I just can’t WAIT to do some genealogy!” when he is asked if he wants to go to the movies.  —Full Story

Yesterday a friend of mine, Sharon, told me a great family history research story. Sharon’s  research goal was to document the death dates for her ancestors who either died or were buried in Utah. My friend discovered that FamilySearch Record Search had a collection of death certificates, so she wanted to use the resource to improve her documentation. She started by creating a focused list of individuals who either died or were buried in Utah between 1850 and 1957. With the list in hand, Sharon began her search for the death certificates.

Finding the certificates in Record Search was simple. She typed in the names on her list and browsed through the possible matches. When she found a match she quickly entered the details on the certificate as documentation.

During the process of reviewing the list of possible matches, Sharon noticed that her grandfather’s name was listed as the father of a female child whose name she didn’t recognized. “Who was this child?” she thought because the name was not one that she had in her records. Sharon’s interest was piqued because the child had died when she was eight months old and her father never mentioned that he had a sibling.

Sharon printed the little girls death certificate and studied the details in comparision to her own records. The details on the record made the conclusion easy: There was no question that this little girl was her father’s half-sister. The little girl was never mentioned by her father in his life-time and never recorded on any other family records. Thanks to the Utah death certificates on Record Search, a lost and forgotten little girl was linked into her Family Tree.

I love to hear stories like this one. Stories like this one encourage me to keep searching and never give up. Now it’s time to go check Record Search again…

On Saturday I was working at the Family History Library. When I am working I try to introduce the Wiki to everyone who asks for research advise. This is especially true when the person is visiting from out-of-town.

On Saturday I helped one lady a couple of different times but the third time we talked I discovered that I hadn’t told her about FamilySearch Research Wiki. She was thrilled to learn about the Wiki and also about the Forums that are linked from the Wiki. After the introduction she said, “Ok, let’s give it a test.” Then she said that she wanted to find out how to use the ward maps with census records for Pennsylvania. I didn’t know if any information about using the ward maps with census research was in the Wiki, so we went looking.

First we looked at the pages for Pennsylvania Census records, but nothing was mentioned about using the ward maps. Next we looked at the page for Pennsylvania Maps. Right at the bottom of the page was an explanation for using the city ward maps when doing census research. The article also linked to the catalog entry for the maps that are available at the Family History Library on microfilm and microfiche!!! She was thrilled with what she learned about using the ward maps. Evidently she had been trying for a long time to find out if ward maps were available and how to use them. Within a few short minutes, the Wiki answered her question. She loved what she saw and was anxious to share the news with friends back home.

The FamilySearch indexing application is available in three new languages: Italian, Portuguese, and Russian. These languages are in addition to English, French, German, and Spanish.

We have current indexing projects in all of these languages except Portuguese. We will be introducing a Portuguese project in the near future.

Volunteers can help with any of this projects by registering online at FamilySearchIndexing.org.

Recently Completed Projects

(Note: Recently completed projects have been removed from the available online indexing batches and will now go through a final completion check process in preparation for future publication.)

• UK - Cheshire - Church Records
• District of Columbia - 1920 US Census
• Florida 1885 Census
• Florida 1935 Census
• Massachusetts 1865 State Census

Current FamilySearch Indexing Projects, Record Language, and Percent Completion

(*This percentage refers to a specific portion of a larger project.)

Current FamilySearch Affiliate Projects, Record Language, and Percent Completion

Recently I was working at the research desk in the Family History Library. A patron came into the library in hopes of finding information about her American Indian ancestors. She wanted to find the records for the school that her ancestor attended. She asked, “I want to find the Carlisle Indian school records.”

My first reaction was a big, silent “gulp” because I have no experience in American Indian research. I had no idea where the Carlisle school was located so I asked her if she knew what state the school was in. She replied, “Pennsylvania.”

I knew that a lot of instructions for American Indian research had already been added to the FamilySearch Research Wiki, so I was hopeful that the article about Pennsylvania American Indian records would help me be successful in assisting this patron with her search.

From the home page on FamilySearch Research Wiki, I clicked on United States, then I selected Pennsylvania, and finally American Indians.

There are no words to describe how excited I was to see an explaination of the “Carlisle Indian Industrial School” right there on the first page. In addition, there was a link to the web site for the school that contained a complete history of the school. The patron and I  reviewed all the information on the Wiki about the school and the availability of records for the school. Thanks to the FamilySearch Research Wiki, the patron left that day with the knowledge she needed to continue the search for her ancestors who attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

I will admit that Zamzar is an interesting title for this post. You are probably wondering what it means. The title is actually the name of a website I discovered a few days ago. I’m actually jumping for joy because this site is going to help me with a big project I’ve had on my list of things to do for several years. With the help of the services offered on this website, I will finally be able to complete my project, and at no cost to me!

My project is to convert all my old WordPerfect documents to the Word format so I can preserve all my family history projects that I’ve worked on for the past fifteen years. I haven’t used WP for the past five years or so, and my files just sit on the hard drive. I’ve tried to open several of the files in Word, but the success rate is very low and mostly zero.

The services offered on Zamzar are file conversions, many different types of file conversions. And converting files from WP to Word is what I need. I sent a single file for conversion as a test case. I chose the free option, so the conversion didn’t cost a dime. I expected the file would be converted and made available to me in a day or so. To my surprise, less than two hours later I had the converted file. I don’t use a PC at home, but opening the new Word file on my Mac in Word for Mac was a breeze.

The next test I conducted was sending five files. This is the maximum you can send in a single request when using the free service. Of course you can send more if you pay for the service. Plus you can have a secured site where your converted files are sent after conversion when you have the paid service option.

All five files were converted and sent to me via e-mail notification in less than two hours. I figured if I sent five files every day that in a week or two I would have all my WordPerfect files converted to Word … just like magic!

A lot of blogs related to family history include news items about the new and improved resources available online for family history work. Some family history blogs are used for entirely different purposes. Over a year ago I discovered a Blog that was a transcription of an English soldier’s letters he wrote during World War I. (See WWI: Experiences of an English Soldier.) The letters were being transcribed exactly 90 years after they were written and posted to the blog. I was impressed with the project and started thinking about different ways that I could use a blog for my own family history efforts. I decided to blog about the research I had done for two different ancestors:

1. Benjamin Kingman Curtis
2. Chauncey Walker West

In both blogs I’ve started to add a history of all the research that has been done for both the Curtis and West families. My hope was to take all my research notes and add them to the blog so that children and grandchildren wouldn’t have to conduct the research all over again. I’ve also added a lot of pictures to the blog that I’ve collected over the years. Three reasons for adding pictures: to preserve them, to share them, and to provide a way for others to identify the unknowns. The West blog has multiple authors because other distant cousins wanted to share the research they have done as well.

In the future I will have a book printed directly from the contents in the blog - and I won’t have to retype anything!!! There are print-on-demand publishing companies online that can automatically generate a book from your blog (cool, huh!!!). Producing a book with my research notes will be a lot better than having my children sort through six filing cabinet drawers, don’t you think?

I’ve learned a lot about Blogs during the past year. And when I think about what got me started, it was the WWI: Experiences of an English Soldier blog that I discovered one day while surfing the web.

Do you have Danish ancestors? If you do, it’s likely that you have several questions about how to search for your Danish ancestors. There is a new class at the Family History Library about how the Wiki can help you with your Danish research. The class is being taught today, Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 4:30pm in the classroom on the main floor of the Library. The title of the class is:

The FamilySearch Research Wiki: Help for Danish Research

Even if you cannot attend the class, take the time to review the Danish research content on the Wiki. Following the instructions for Danish research on the Wiki will help you have success in your research! This link will take you directly to the page to get help with your Danish research:

Danish Research on the Wiki

Click for a larger view

What would your life look like on a map? Perhaps you visited another country, or an ancestral town in another part of the world, took a vacation a thousand miles away from home, or maybe you have never set foot outside of your home state! Thanks to a GoogleMaps, mapping a life can make genealogy even more intriguing, and can make planning research trips a snap.

What is “Life Mapping?”

One of the most interesting features of the FamilySearch Tree is the opportunity to see life events on a map. This doesn’t just include birth, marriage, and death, rather you can include road trips, vacations, accidental detours, —Full Story

Folks who hear about the new family history research advice wiki at wiki.familysearch.org want to know two things. First, What is a wiki? And second, How will the wiki deliver more of the research advice I need?

What is a wiki?

Wiki. A short, sweet, strange word whose form matches its meaning — a Web site you can edit without being a programmer. A site where average people like you and me can write things to help other people. A place where we can share information and even collaborate on articles that make us each look smarter than we are alone. A paradise for people who seek information. A wiki community can deliver and revise more research advice information for more users in more languages. —Full Story