U3A Genealogy

February 19th 2013

Write downWhat you know

Talk toRelatives

Look atFamily

Records

Plan yourResearch

DiscoverWhat sources

available

Keep effectiverecords

BirthsMarriages

DeathsCensuses

ParishRecords

Delve intoAncestors

lives

Othersources

Wills

START

Any of the folks in your ancestor’s “cluster” could have provided him with housing, worked for him, asked him to witness a document or attended his funeral..

Welcome• Welcome• Blog update, have a look at:• http://rodneysgenealogyblog.blogspot.co.uk/• Stuff from me, • Bailey project• Ann Harris• Stuff from you!

• Fellow Genealogists,• • Please find attached the latest Family History Newsletter produced by the National Subject Advisor Heather Hicks.• • This is a pdf file, you will need an appropriate pdf reader to open it.•

• -----Original Message-----• From: Heather.u3a [mailto:heather.u3a@roccoland.plus.com]• Sent: 04 February 2013 22:21• To: Heather Hicks• Subject: U3A National Family History Newsletter Attached G1• • Hello Everyone,• • Attached is the February 2013 Newsletter, do please forward this newsletter on to the members of your group, but

please don't forget those without a computer. The newsletter is intended for all U3A family history group members not just group leaders.

• • Heather• National Family History Subject Adviser

A tip from Dick Eastman

• Google searches are great at finding information on the Web but Google also frequently floods you with too many hits. Finding what you want is difficult if Google found 10,000 occurrences of the words you want to find.

• If you happen to know the exact web site that has the information you seek, you can tell Google to search only that one web site. For instance, let's say that you think you saw an article on paperless genealogy in a past edition ofEastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and you wish to read the article again. Go to Google and enter the following into the search box:

A tip from Dick Eastman

• site:eogn.com paperless genealogy The key here is to use the search term "site" followed by a colon to specify a search of only that one web site. Note there is no space after the colon. I find the "www." is optional so I usually omit those letters.

• The above search will find any articles on www.eogn.com that have both the word "paperless" and the word "genealogy" somewhere on the same page. Of course, the word "genealogy" appears frequently in this newsletter so I might specify a more specific search by using quotes:site:eogn.com "paperless genealogy"

A tip from Dick Eastman• This search with quote marks specifies to search www.eogn.com

for the exact phrase "paperless genealogy". That is, it looks only for occurrences of the word "paperless" immediately followed by the word "genealogy".

• You can also perform exactly the same search (and a lot more) by using Google's Advanced Search page athttp://www.google.co.uk/advanced_search

• I must admit, however, that using the normal Google search page with the term "site:" followed by the web address is so quick and easy that I normally use that. However, I do use Google's Advanced Search page frequently for more advanced searches.

Familysearch.org has several elements:

• a dynamic search engine for indexed databases such as birth, marriage and death records thoughout the world, census records, some emmigration records and other free data. The number of their records are growing as they digitize the microfilm that they have filmed for decades. All of their digitized records are not indexed. There are, for instance, close to 9 million digitized images for China including many Jia Pu images. Searches can also be made using Chinese, Japanese Korean characters and other forms of writing including cyrillic.

• free online family history training in basic, intermediate and advanced topics• FAQs, online help and chat help and even a call center• New! In the last few months Family Tree now shares the LDS aggregate collection of family information

outside of the LDS communitiy for the first time. Anyone can create an account. The intent is to create one large family tree where we can see how related we all are on the planet. It is true that the LDS community is not totally composed of professional genealogists, that some of the information is from oral traditions and hasty conclusions. However, we now have the ability show sources and document the information as it is added and we can make corrections and document those corrections. It is a collaborative project. That being said, it is "online" with all of the advantages and disadvantages inherent in the cloud. The best practice is to use our own genealogical software and document our own family before, during and after sharing it with others. We can "share" information both to and from Family Tree using software such as Legacy, PAF, etc. At the bottom of the home page of familysearch.org under Products you can see the software brands that are certified to "share" with family search. When you share your email with your account it will show up when you make additions or changes to Family Tree. Likewise you can find others who have made contributions in the last few years and make contact with them to discuss ancestors in common.

Familysearch.org has several elements:

• information for living people does not show up on Family Tree; information is share enabled able only when death data is entered. Information for living people may show up using the search engine i.e. 1940 census data just like in Ancestry's search engine but not in the Family Tree portion.

• access to the Family History Library catalog in Salt Lake City• you do not need an account to use familysearch.org except for access to the Family Tree

element. If you are not LDS, click "Sign In", > "Create a New Account" > "Family Search Account" (for the general public) > fill in the boxes, certify that you are 13 or older, and hit the "Register" account.

• the LDS church also sponsors FamilySearch Centers (aka Family History Centers) in almost every city. They are staffed with LDS and non-LDS volunteers and will help you with your family history projects for Free. They have paid access to fee sites such as Ancestry.com and Fold3, using their computers or wifi that are free to you. There is a link to locate a family history center close to you at the top of the home page of familysearch.org. They do charge for use of the printers, so bring some change with you. They also usually have a book collection, microfilm and microfilm readers and scanners. Try it out!

Irish BMDs

• The civil registration system in Ireland was very similar to that in England & Wales, but it didn't start in earnest until January 1864 (civil registration of non-Roman Catholic marriages commenced in April 1845).

• It's now possible to search the indexes of births, marriages and deaths up to 1958 at findmypast.ie (or at findmypast.co.uk if you have a World subscription). Whilst it's true that these indexes have been available free at FamilySearch for some time, something you can't easily do at FamilySearch is find a marriage by specifying the names of both parties.

The Bailey project

• Wrapping up the research• Final book report• Handover pack for Alan• Electronic and/or paper• Full family tree• March handover

Note to Alan• You family file will have a few hundred names in it. • I presume that you may want a printed version of all of your tree

(separately from the materials that we will give you), which makes it a bit too big for any of our Group to print.

• This is work normally done by specialist printers, who take the gedcom file as their starting point. This is not an expensive item, as you will see.

• Below is a url for such a printer.• • http://www.genealogyprinters.com/• • I suggest you have a look at their offerings to see if you want to use the

service and which format you would like for the end printed product, and let us know.

Alan’s response

• Thanks Rodney that sounds fantastic - I'm not quite sure I understand their pricing structure - I guess the All-in-one is the one to go for(?) Could do with a recommendation here. - I would probably want 2 copies anyway.Also do I owe anyone for any documentation?Alan

Finally.........

• Any other Brick Walls for the Group to look at?

• Anything that you would like us to look at in future meetings?

• Anything else you would like to say?