52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week #4 - Free Offline Genealogy Tools

Week 4 – Free Offline Genealogy Tools: For which free offline genealogy tool are you most grateful?  How did you find this tool and how has it benefited your genealogy?  Describe to others how to access this tool and spread the genealogy love.

This is an easy one.  Without a doubt, hands-down, I am the most grateful for The Librarian.


Librarians are a different breed of human.  I have yet to walk into a library, archive, or Family History Center and ask for help and not get well taken care of.  Librarians are to libraries what the concierge is to a 5-star hotel ... at least all the ones with whom I've had dealings.


Librarians know their collections inside and out.  They know what sort of information you can get from any given resource.  Best of all?  They ENJOY telling you all about it!  And when you leave, you will have learned something that will help you in the future.


Librarians are also teachers.  They will not hesitate to sit with you and make sure you know how to utilize any tool in the library - whether it's a computer, a book, or an old-school card catalog.  (That being said, I also think librarians have more patience than a saint).


Librarians also understand the research you are doing.  They get it.  When they have a hand in leading you along the path to successfully complete your quest, they are as excited as you are!  And they don't even care who knows!


It just doesn't get any better than that.  Have you hugged a librarian today?

Do we share any ancestors? 

 Please email me at lostancestors [at] gmail [dot] com

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week #3 - Free Online Genealogy Tools

Week 3 – Free Online Genealogy Tools: Free online genealogy tools are like gifts from above.  Which one are you most thankful for?  How has it helped your family history experience?

This is another one that will require more than one answer.  There are so many free resources out there, many of which depend heavily on volunteers to keep their sites free.  Have you thought about volunteering for one of them?


Here are my top 5 (in no particular order):


FamilySearch
This tool has been invaluable in finding stuff that I can't find on Ancestry, and even stuff that I can find on Ancestry, but the image is hard to read.  I pretty much use the two interchangeably as far as that goes.  Aside from the research tools, and the wonderful learning tools provided, the one thing about FamilySearch that makes it that go-to site is the wiki.  Lately I have been using the U.S. census wiki, which lists all the census enumerations that were done in a particular state, whether indexes/images exist, and where you can find them.  Complete with links.


Find-A-Grave
Without a doubt, the go-to site for me when I'm looking for a photo of an ancestor's grave or other information about an ancestor.  This has helped me fill in some blanks, get clues, and saved me a ton of money in travel expenses alone.  I also happen to volunteer for this site.


Bureau of Land Management
Land records are a very good source of information about your ancestors.  You never know what you might find in some land records.  I requested my 2nd great grandfather's land records (they had not yet been digitized, but there are a lot of records that have), and it turned out that his declaration of intent to become a U.S. citizen was in the file.  I felt like I hit the jackpot!  The site also provides the location of the land, which can be plugged into the calculator at EarthPoint (also free), and plotted with Google Earth.  Note: if your records have not been digitized, there is a fee to request those records from NARA.


Steve Morse's One-Step Webpages
There are many useful tools on Steve Morse's website.  The one that I have been using lately is the Enumeration District converter for the 1940 census.  It was recently updated with a quiz that makes it even easier to perform the conversion from the 1930 census EDs in preparation for April 2.  I can't even wrap my head around how much time this mighty tool has already saved me, much less how much it will save me once the 1940 census is released!


Internet Archive
Historical, academic, non-fiction, and pretty much every other kind of book you can think of is at your fingertips and available on the internet.  Don't just stop at the books ... you can find videos, census images, governmental reports, and more!  Books can be saved to your computer in many different formats (including PDF, EPub, and Kindle), or you can read them online.






52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week #2 - Paid Online Genealogy Tools

Week 2 – Paid Online Genealogy Tools: Which paid genealogy tool do you appreciate the most? What special features put it at the top of your list? How can it help others with their genealogy research?

Without a doubt, the paid online genealogy tool I use most frequently is Ancestry.com.  But who hasn't already extolled the virtues of that website?

So I'll list some of the other paid sites that I use regularly:

GenealogyBank - Historical books, newspapers, documents dating back to 1690.  You can search by name or by topic (e.g., "147th Infantry").  Careful ... it's really easy to get sidetracked here.

Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) - mainly used for military records now, but it still houses all the records it had before.  You just have to go looking for them.  One feature I like about this site is that you can create pages for people, events, groups, etc. and link documents you find to those pages.  You can also download the documents to your computer.

WorldVitalRecords - from census records to land records to newspaper archives to yearbooks and maps ... you just never know what you might find here.  Start with a broad search, then narrow as you go.  Caution: also easy to get sidetracked on this site too!

I just hope there is an upcoming topic for free sites.  I use WAY more of those (and sometimes with more success than the paid sites).

Disclaimer: I haven't been paid to name any of these sites, particularly Ancestry, which is why I didn't want to put a commercial for them on my blog.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Week #1 - Blogs

Blogging is a great way for genealogists to share information with family members, potential cousins and each other. For which blog are you most thankful? Is it one of the earliest blogs you read, or a current one? What is special about the blog and why should others read it?

Gosh, I'm not going to be able to narrow it down to just one blog. There are so many blogs for which I am thankful, so I'm going to list my top 5 (in no particular order):

DearMYRTLE
Myrtle's was the first blog I ever read ... even before it was a blog. I still have printouts of her email newsletters from the 1990s! Her blog led me to her "Beginning Blogging" webinar, and the rest is history. Now, a little over one year and 160+ posts later, I'd say that at least some of what she taught me has stuck. I'd recommend this blog to anyone even considering diving into genealogy OR blogging (or both!).


It's All Relative
I am extremely thankful for my dear friend Laura Aanenson's blog.  Without her blog, we never would have made the connection to become our Success Team.  And what a success it has been!  Even through our "technical" failures, we continue to learn from each other, and to push each other to do more than we think we are able.  I highly recommend a "Success Team" buddy for everyone (especially if you can't afford a therapist).

Genealogy Tip of the Day and Search Tip of the Day
Michael John Neill pops out these little seeds of genealogical wisdom on a (more or less) daily basis, and no matter how experienced you think you are ... there is something in there that you can use, or that will remind of something you forgot.  Plus, there's also the Casefile Clues and Casefile Clues for Beginners (both subscriptions) that are great ways to pick up new places to look for clues and new ways to look at the data you already have.


Documenting the Details
Linda McCauley has been blogging for two years and researching her family history for over a decade, and knows her stuff. The reason I'm thankful for her blog is because she doesn't only tell her readers about her successes. She also isn't afraid to let us know if she goofed and why - and more importantly, how she intends to fix it. It is through her blog that many genealogists and bloggers alike, no matter their experience level, can pick up some little nugget of knowledge and be all the better for it. 

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2012) that invite genealogists and others to discuss resources in the genealogy community including websites, applications, libraries, archives, genealogical societies and more.