There is an ongoing discussion about genealogy and family history. Family Historian seems to be a title for those who collect all sorts of things that a family member once touched or might have touched or probably would have touched had it been placed in their hand. In other cases it is the process of collecting family stories. Everyone, I hope, had one or two or three cherished items from ancestors. But 300? People collect family stories to preserve them….
I have now been introduced to Ancestry family trees. They are extremely creative. I am pretty sure it is inappropriate to use “genealogy” and “Ancestry family trees” in the same sentence. I am amused by all the “hints” which lead to other family trees. Those trees have misinformation, creative information and no sources. They obviously copy from one another because the same errors are repeated over and over again. I am not so amused to find they have stolen and…
When I first saw FindMyPast I was particularly struck by the maps which show you the person’s location on that census. I could see many uses for that. And the census maps in FindMyPast would be useful — IF they were dependably accurate. But they aren’t. And there are too many I know aren’t to trust those I don’t know. Robert Downing arrived in Illinois and settled along Salt Creek in the center of the state in 1821. I know…
Birth certificates have gone big time. Everyone wants to see your birth certificate. Like genealogists they see them as accurate proof of birth. I am looking at a certificate of birth issued by the State of Illinois. Dwight H. Green was Governor. I know, just as trivia, he was the governor before Adlai Stevenson so that gives me a date range and sure enough, it was issued in 1947. It was created at the county level. I personally knew every…
It’s good genealogical practice to collect as much documentation as you can and certainly of critical facts. Birth and death are some of those critical facts. So we dutifully go to the courthouse or write or call and we spend a lot of money on vital records. We get them home, scan them into our computers and then what? Buy a bigger file drawer to store paper? Why are we doing this? The courthouses do not need our business. Let’s…
There is a lot of jabber in the blogs now about fantasy genealogy. I agree there is a lot of it out there. As I have written before, my line back to Adam can be found online, free even. The fantasy genealogy needs to stop. I agree with that too. But the alternative seems to be The Genealogy Police. The Genealogy Police challenge every little factoid. “It says here your mother stubbed her toe in 1943? Do you have three…
Grave terms of use | The Legal Genealogist If you are thinking of contributing to a graves web site read this blog by attorney and genealogist Judy G. Russell. Ancestor Hunting
There were three brothers who went to Illinois. Most genealogists will tell you if it starts with “there were three brothers” or a descent from an Indian princess or royalty it is likely fantasy genealogy. Not so fast. David Clark of Rahway, New Jersey, married Sarah Winans. They had nine known children, all born in New Jersey. The youngest three, all boys, were David, John Winans and Isaac – our three brothers who went to Illinois. They all went from…
Mapping your family’s historical residences comes up from time to time. Recently blogger Randy Seaver wrote about it in his Genea-Musings. Genealogist Lisa Louise Cooke did an excellent webinar on the subject for RootsMagic. I have her CD set “Google Earth for Genealogy.” It covers more than just mapping. There is a genealogy program “Map My Family Tree” which works with many genealogy database programs. Randy started in 1900. My rule of thumb is start with grandparents to protect privacy. Another…
Way back when I had a Palm which I loved. I had three before Palm stopped making the organizers. I tried other things but it was years before I found an iPod Touch. I have since added an iPad. I tried FamViewer, GEDViewer and Families on them. My comments on FamViewer are here . If you read the comments the developer tells about GEDViewer which I then tried and wrote about here. Families is only for Legacy software. It allows you…