U3A Genealogy March 2013 meeting slides

1. U3A Genealogy
February 19th 2013

2. Look at
Write down Talk to Plan your
Family
What you know Relatives Research
Records
START
Discover
Delve into
What sources
Ancestors
available
lives
Other Keep effective
sources records
Births
Wills Parish Marriages
Censuses
Records Deaths

4. 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..

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

6. • 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

7. 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:

8. 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"

9. 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 at
http://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.

10. 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.

11. 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!

12. 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.

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

14. 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.

15. 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

16. 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?