Saturday, August 6, 2011

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Pick Your Past Photos for the Present Photo Challenge

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Good evening, genea-heirheads (a new genea-word!) -- it's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

Your mission, if you decide to accept it is to:

1)  Review Denise Levenick's (The Family Curator) three blog posts on the Present Photo Challenge. World Photography Day is coming up Aug 19, and this seemed like a fun thing to do something genealogy-wise.



2)  Identify one or more photographs from your own photograph collection that you could use for the Present Photo Challenge.
3)  Show us the photographs that you could use on your blog, a Facebook status or a Google Plus Stream. 
4)  Please post a link on Denise's blog about your blog post, and/or on this blog post linking to your blog post.
Here's mine:
I identified these two photographs (I probably have plenty more!) that I could use for this Present Photo Challenge:
a)  The house I grew up in at 2115-2119 30th Street in San Diego (this photo was taken in about 1926, just after the house was moved to its present location and remodeled to its present configuration):
b)  The house my grandparents built in 1951 on Point Loma at 825 Harbor View Place in San Diego:
3)  My own wedding photograph (taken in 1970 at Chula Vista Presbyterian Church - we still worship there):
This was harder than I thought it would be.  I have very few pictures of places or houses from before 1950 that I can identify the exact location of, or have easy access to. 
Thank you to Denise Levenick for suggesting this SNGF and for sharing her talents and advice on her blog posts.

Surname Saturday - GOBLE (England > Massachusetts)

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It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week. I am up to number 263, who is Mary GOBLE (1694-1734), one of my 6th-great-grandparents. [Note: The 6th great-grandfathers have been covered in earlier posts]

My ancestral line back through three generations of PEIRCE families is:

1. Randall J. Seaver

2. Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983)
3. Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)

4. Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942)
5. Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962)

8. Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922)
9. Hattie Louise Hildreth (1857-1920)

16. Isaac Seaver (1823-1901)
17. Lucretia Townsend Smith (1827-1884)

32. Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825)
33. Abigail Gates (1797-1869)
64.  Benjamin Seaver (1757-1816)
65.  Martha Whitney (1763-1832)

130.  Samuel Whitney (1732-1782)
131.  Abigail Fletcher (1720-????)

262.  John Fletcher, born 26 August 1692 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 1749 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 524. Samuel Fletcher and 525. Elizabeth Wheeler.  He married 10 May 1715 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
 263.  Mary Goble, born 19 February 1694 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 27 March 1734 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States. 

Children of John Fletcher and Mary Goble are: Martha Fletcher (1716-????); John Fletcher (1718-1792; Abigail Fletcher (1720-????); Jonah Fletcher (1723-????); Thomas Fletcher (1724-????); David Fletcher (1726-????); Peter Fletcher (1729-????); Elisha Fletcher (1731-????); Mary Fletcher (1733-????).

 526.  Thomas Goble, born 21 May 1656 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 10 March 1724 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.   He married 04 July 1686 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.
 527.  Sarah Shepard, born Abt. 1667 in probably Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died 07 May 1746 in Weston, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  She was the daughter of 1054. John Shepard and 1055. Sarah Goble.
Children of Thomas Goble and Sarah Shepard are: Sarah Goble (1692-1728); Stephen Goble (1694-????); Mary Goble (1694-1734); John Goble (1696-????); Abigail Goble (1697-1723); Thomas Goble (1714-1714).

1052.  Thomas Goble, born about 1631 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States; died 22 November 1690 in Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States.   He married April 1657 in probably Charlestown, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States.
1053.  Ruth, born about 1633; died about 1668 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.

Children of Thomas Goble and Ruth are: Thomas Goble (1656-1724); Stephen Goble (1658-1676); Mary Goble (1660-1700); Ruth Goble (1663-????); Robert Goble (1664-1670); John Goble (1666-????).

2104.  Thomas Goble, born before 02 January 1591 in Westergate, Sussex, England; died before 11 December 1657 in Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 4208. William Goble.  He married  5 November 1619 in Aldingbourne, Sussex, England.
2105.  Alice Brookman, born in Aldingbourne, Sussex, England; died in probably Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.

Children of Thomas Goble and Alice Brookman are:  John Goble (1629-1675); Thomas Goble (1631-1690); Elizabeth Goble (1633-????); Mary Goble (1636-????); Sarah Goble (1638-1717); Daniel Goble (1641-1676).

The biography and descendants of Thomas Goble can be found on the the "Goble Genealogy Homepage" web site of Evelyn Goble Steen, who has researched the family and posted information on many Goble families.

A sketch of Thomas Goble was provided in The Great Migration, 1634-1635, Volume 3, F-H, pages 81-83, by Robert Charles Anderson, published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 2002.

Friday, August 5, 2011

More Family Tree Maker 2012 Notes

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There is more news about the Family Tree Maker 2012 Public Beta:

1)  The FTM 2012 Public Beta has been updated to version 21.0.0.306 - see Ancestry Message - New Beta Update by Duff Wilson, which has a link to the latest download.  Anybody can download the program and install it.  Family Tree Maker wants users input, and the FTM Sync Beta message board is the place to tell them.  The developers say that many of the problems identified during the private beta and public beta have been addressed and corrected.

2)  Duff Wilson, one of the FTM 2012 developers, wrote Ancestry Message - Data Synchronization today, which defines which items are synchronized between Family Tree Maker 2012 and the Ancestry Member Tree, and which items in each of them are not synchronized.  This is a useful list, and is available from within the FTM 2012 program from the "Sync Now" dropdown list.

One of the items I noted in this post, and that is of major interest to me, is that:

"Sources that use the templates based on the book Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills, appear online, but can only be edited in Family Tree Maker"

That means that sources created when the user is in their Ancestry Member Tree will be in a general format (comparable to "free-form" in other programs).  Sources created using the Evidence! Explained templates in FTM 2012 will show up in the Ancestry tree, but cannot be edited in the online tree.  General (free-form) sources created, or already in, FTM 2012 can be edited in the Ancestry tree.  This makes my decision to use "free-form" source citations to avoid GEDCOM source mangling problems look good! 

In my earlier post, Some Family Tree Maker 2012 Sync Experiences, reader Genealady asked:

"So does FTM currently or in the future allow linking of all the sources from ancestry.com? I've never done source citation or documentation for my family tree yet because I have all the sources linked straight to it in Ancestry.com. I've also never wanted to download a GEDCOM and lose those associated sources...but if FTM currently or will allow that sort of linking of sources, I might just look into it..."

The short answer is, I think, yes.  In your Ancestry Member Tree, you can link to an Ancestry.com historical data record (or a tree item) and the source citation is attached to the Fact.  If you download that Ancestry Member Tree to a Family Tree Maker file, or through a GEDCOM file for some other program, that source citation is attached to the Fact.  However, the link to the data record on Ancestry.com is not downloaded, only the source citation (I think!) It's complicated!).  The drawback is that the Ancestry.com source citations leave a lot to be desired (as noted in previous blog posts by myself and others).  But - it is a source citation, which is better than having no source citation at all. 

If you have any of the Family Tree Maker program versions since 2008, you can do a Web Search from within the program, find historical records on Ancestry.com, and attach document images and source citations to Facts in your FTM tree.  If you upload the FTM tree to Ancestry and create a new Ancestry Member Tree, those source citations, and the document images, are uploaded.  That holds for the synchronizing function in FTM 2012, I believe. 

My work in the Family Tree Maker 2012 Public Beta have uncovered no major problems to date.  The only one that I've noted so far is when I've attached a media item to a source citation.  When synced with the Ancestry tree, it sometimes loses the media attachment to the source itself.  I attached some media while in the Ancestry tree, and some while in the FTM 2012 program.  This may have something to do with how I attached the media to the source or to the person - I haven't figured out why it happens for some media items and not for others.

Book Review: "Genealogy at a Glance: German Genealogy Research"

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The Genealogical Publishing Company in Baltimore has published another in its series of "Genealogy at a Glance" laminated research guides - this time for German Genealogy Research, by Ernest Thode.  I reviewed several of similar works in Book Review: Genealogy at a Glance: "How-To" Series (French-Canadian, Scottish and Irish).

Each of these research guides has four laminated pages on one 11" x 17" paper (folded). They are designed to give the user the basic elements of genealogy research in the allotted space. They provide an overview of the facts a researcher needs to know in order to begin and proceed successfully with research in the subject.

The German Genealogy Research "Genealogy at a Glance" folder has these subjects:

* Contents list
* Quick Facts about Germany and German-speaking peoples in Europe and North America
*  German Emigration
*  Passenger Lists
* Unlocking German Family History - Places, Surnames, Given Names
* German Record Sources -- Vital Records, German Center for Genealogy, Berlin Document Center, Village Heritage Books and Histories, Censuses, and References
 * Other Online Resources

This booklet is designed for the North American researcher who is not an expert in the subject - there's information about doing research in the USA, and information about the home country once the researcher gets the ancestral line back to the home country. A researcher with research expertise in the subjects would rely on quality published books about the country of interest.

For someone like me that teaches and talks about genealogy a bit, they are invaluable because I can pull them out and provide some guidance to my student or colleague interested in the subject.

The beauty of these "Genealogy at a Glance" folders is that they are very light and portable in a briefcase or laptop case. They are similar to the Quicksheets, created by Elizabeth Shown Mills, which are fixtures in my research case.

This four-page laminated booklet costs $7.95. You can order it through the  http://www.genealogical.com/ Store, or use the link for the German Genealogy Research booklet and click on the "Add to Cart" link.

Disclosure: Genealogical.com contacted me recently and asked me to provide a review of this booklet. They mailed me a review copy for my personal use as remuneration for this review. 

I Love the ST BookScan Center system

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I went to the Carlsbad Georgina Cole Library last Saturday (it's in Carlsbad, California in northern San Diego County) to browse in their Genealogy library (the entire second floor) with ten of my Chula Vista Genealogical Society colleagues (it was an all-day research trip).

The highlight for me was using the ST BookScan Center book scanner to copy pages from books and periodicals as digital images onto my USB drive.  This book scanner is FREE to use at Carlsbad Library!  [Note that the alternative was to pay 15 cents a page on the photocopy machine]. 

Here is an image of the ST BookScan system:


For books with spines (like in the image above), you put the page edge right on the edge of the scanner, and the page to be copied is almost always flat.  Sometimes I had to support the book with my hand so that it did not slip.  The USB drive is inserted into a slot in the front of the unit, and can be brushed by a hand if you are not careful.

Using this system is really easy and fast, even faster than most photocopiers, it seems.  When you've scanned all of your pages from a document, you can add the scanned pages to your USB drive - either as individual pages (in JPG, TIF, PDF format, or in Microsoft Excel or Word formats) or as a multi-page (PDF, Excel or Word) document.

You can see the full description and capabilities of the ST BookScan Center on their website (http://www.stimaging.com/products/st-bookscan-center).

I copied 127 pages from this unit from several family history books and many periodicals at 300 dpi.  Each image was properly rotated for readability (by the scanner) and cropped to the size of the page copied (by the scanner). I titled each set of pages appropriately. 

This is an awesome library tool that saves time, money and paper for the researcher.  The librarian said that the ST BookScan Center cost $6,000, so it is not something that most people will buy for  their genealogy cave.  However, if you want to convert as many papers on your bookshelf to digital format, you are advised to find one of these systems to do the job at a library or repository.

I was surprised that only one other person used the system in the five hours I was there, and that was a library staff person.  Surely, that will change over time as more researchers realize the potential of this system and digitize their book and periodical notebooks.

Follow Friday - This Weekend's Genealogy Fun

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Here are my recommendations for Genealogy Fun this weekend:

1) Listen to Geneabloggers Radio tonight (Friday night, 10 p.m. ET, 9 p.m. CT, 8 p.m. MT and 7 p.m. PT) hosted by Thomas MacEntee. This week's topic is "Family Treasured - Heirlooms and Genealogy The guests are:

*  Joy Shivar of the JustaJoy.com Family Heirloom Exchange site;
*  professional genealogist Sharon Sergeant who has researched the original owners of book, letter and postcard collections, memorabilia, furniture and an 1848 stagecoach;
*  Melissa “Missy” Corley of the Bayside Blog and Bayside Research Services.

2) Listen to the FGS My Society radio show on Saturday (2 p.m. ET, 1 p.m. CT, 12 noon MT, 11 a.m. PT) hosted by Thomas MacEntee. The topic is "Creating a Social Network Plan."    The guests are:

*  Rev. Dr. David McDonald, CG
3) Check out the recent Webinars on:

* "Organize for Success" with Karen Clifford (available free indefinitely from Legacy Family Tree)
* "The Power of DNA in Unlocking Family Relationships," with Ugo Perugo (available indefinitely from Legacy Family Tree)
* "Leveraging the Power of "We": a Watershed Event in Discovering Where to Find Your Ancestors (Research Wiki, Research Courses, and FamilySearch Forums)," with Mitchell Ritchey (available from Legacy Family Tree).
* RootsMagic Webinars (all free) available at http://www.rootsmagic.com/Webinars/
* National Genealogical Society (NGS) Videos (free to view) at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/videos_online

4) Respond to my Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, posted on www.geneamusings.com soon after 12 noon Pacific time (that's 1900 GMT for those who understand time zones).

5) Go to a local genealogical society program, or go to a library or repository with genealogical resources. 

6) Do you still have material in your "genealogy piles" that needs to be added to your genealogy software program? I do, and have some hope to add more data, notes and sources to my genealogy database.
7)  Spend time with your family doing fun things.  My 7-year old grandson, Lucas, is coming on Southwest Airlines on Saturday for Grandpa Camp, so I'll be out kicking the soccer ball and doing some pitching to him all weekend.  We'll probably go to miniature golf, bumper boats and the arcade too.  We'll be making more family history. 

Whatever you decide, please tell us about your genealogy endeavors on a social network or in a blog post. You never know when your experiences may stimulate or encourage others to do useful genealogy work.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Update on Ben's Identification Problem

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After posting Ben needs help, can you suggest a solution? yesterday, many readers commented or emailed me offering suggestions and help. 

After finding his mother's Social Security Death Index information indicating an Ohio last residence, I checked the online Ohio death indexes to try to pin down the death date.  She wasn't in the Ohio death index.  Hmmm. 

I tried the Ancestry.com global search, and found that she died in Deschutes County, Oregon in 1987, from the Oregon State Deaths, 1903-1998 database.  I also found her son's death record in Deschutes County, Oregon.  The Oregon Death Index provides name, age, birth date, death date, death county, spouse's name and the certificate number.

How to obtain a death record from Oregon?  After thrashing through the seemingly useless www.VitalRec.com website (the links for Oregon, and other states don't work!), I used the Oregon Vital Records website (http://public.health.oregon.gov/BirthDeathCertificates/GetVitalRecords/Pages/index.aspx) to download the requirements and the death certificate form. 

It costs $20 by mail, and requires official identification, or alternative identification (three documents such as a utility bill, a medical or insurance statement, a paycheck stub, court or parole document, work ID, unemployment statement, food stamp or other benefit card, a permit for firearms, fishing, hunting, or a vehicle registration, title or insurance statement; all dated within the last 30 days! 

Those requirements may be a problem for Ben, who is indigent, is living at a downtown hotel, and has only an expired New Mexico license.  All he needs is the mother's maiden name on the death certificate or some other record.

It may be easier, and faster, to order the Social Security Application for his mother for $27 from the Social Security Administration. 

Thank you to everyone that tried to help Ben.

Some Family Tree Maker 2012 Sync Experiences

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I noted in my post Family Tree Maker 2012 is in a Public Beta Test on Monday that I had managed to download the program, upload a tree to FTM 2012, and then use the program to upload my tree to Ancestry.com.  Since then, I've been able to:

1)  In my Ancestry Member Tree

*  Link media from Ancestry.com databases to persons in the Ancestry Member Tree, and link images from my computer files to persons in my Ancestry Member Tree.

*  Add a child to one of my Seaver families in my Ancestry Member Tree.

2) In my Family Tree Maker 2012 database

*  Open FTM 2012 and it automatically synchronized with the Ancestry Member Tree, including the media links,  media sources and uploaded images.  Good, so far.

*  Add 10 media images to FTM 2012, and attach them to another Seaver family.

*  Added a child to the same Seaver family I added to before, and changed the child order.

*  Deleted two persons from my FTM 2012 tree.

*  Merged two persons with the same name.

*  Changed the Sync Settings from "automatic" to "manual" and set it off.  It synced the revised FTM 2012 tree data in one minute, and took another minute to upload the 10 new media items.

3)  In my Ancestry Member Tree

*  Checked the Ancestry Member Tree:  the data changes were made, and the media items were uploaded to the correct persons.  However, the media items that I had attached to specific events in the FTM 2012 file were not attached to the specific events in the Ancestry Member Tree (for example, I attached a death certificate to a Death fact in FTM 2012, and it is not attached in the Ancestry tree).

Updated 4 p.m.:  It turns out that the above was my mistake - in order for the media to be uploaded to Ancestry attached to a Fact, I have to go through a specific process (see Linking Media Files to People, Sources, and Facts in the FTM Help pages).  I had not done that before in earlier versions of FTM.

That's as far as I've gotten.  I have found no other problems but the one described above. 

I downloaded a second Ancestry tree into FTM 2012 and they sync also when I change something.

There is an Ancestry/Rootsweb message board title FTM Sync Beta at http://boards.ancestry.com/ftmsyncbeta/mb.ashx?dc=50.  There are 461 message threads on the board today.  There are several regular contributors on the other Family Tree Maker message boards actively responding to comments and problems by FTM 2012 Beta testers.  Some of the testers are reporting significant problems.  Apparently, FTM 2012 developers are monitoring this message board.

In comments to my previous post, reader Jen asked:

"So do you have to upload a tree to start the sync or does it allow you to connect to a tree already on Ancestry?  If it does, then it should look at both your FTM tree and Ancestry tree and adjust both as needed right? Or do I just have to upload a brand new tree and remove the old one?"

Based on my experiences and what I read on the FTM Sync Beta board, the answer to Jen's question is: 

*  You select one tree to synchronize with, either in FTM 2012 or in Ancestry Member Trees.  Pick wisely - which tree did you last update? 

*  If you have a tree already in FTM 2011, be sure to make a copy of it to use in the FTM 2012 Beta program, since FTM 2012 may convert your FTM 2011 files (in your Family Tree Maker file folder) to FTM 2012 format (it did mine), so you might want to save the copy in a separate folder and then open it when FTM 2012 starts up.  Then, in FTM 2012, you go to the "Plan" Workspace and click on the "Sync Now" button.  You have to be logged into Ancestry.com in order to upload the file.  The sync process will create a NEW Ancestry Member Tree.

*  If you have an Ancestry Member Tree that you want to download to FTM 2012, then you can do that in FTM 2012 in the "Plan" Workspace.  Use the "New Tree" tab and select to "Download a Tree from Ancestry."  Select the tree from your list.  Your Ancestry Tree will download to a NEW FTM 2012 file.

*  A safer alternative might be to go to your Ancestry Member Tree settings and download a GEDCOM file of your Ancestry tree, rename it something different, and work with that in FTM 2012.  Frankly, you should not be changing data in FTM 2012 because the Beta Sync testing will end on 31 August 2011 (e.g., the program will not work after that date), and the FTM 2012 program may not be released until long after that date.

*  You cannot sync an existing FTM tree into an existing Ancestry tree, or an existing Ancestry tree into an existing FTM tree.  You have to do one of the above processes, and then the FTM tree and the Ancestry tree are linked.  The user can unlink them in either the Ancestry Tree settings for the tree, or in the FTM 2012 "Sync Now" > "Sync Options" > "Unlink trees."

For more information about FTM 2012 Sync Beta test problems, please refer to the FTM Sync Beta message board.  There are many interesting posts there!  If you have questions, you could ask them on the message board.  If you are testing the FTM 2012 Sync Beta program, then you should definitely report any problems on that message board.

Remember, this is a Beta test of Family Tree Maker 2012.  They want users to find potential problems before the software release, and they need a full discussion of them to sort out what is happening to testers on all sorts of platforms with data files with a broad range of data types and situations.

I'm not sure why I haven't had any problems (except for the one noted above).  Perhaps it's because I have a relatively new computer with lots of RAM and hard drive space, using Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9. 

If you have questions about my FTM 2012 experiences, or have easy questions for me to answer, please comment on this post.  If you have hard questions to ask, please use the FTM Sync Beta message board.

If I have something wrong or unclear in my points above, please let me know (rjseaver@cox.net).  I want to inform my readers of this product, and I want to be accurate.  I anticipate having to update this post, so please check back occasionally.

FamilySearch YouTube Channel

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I received a news release from FamilySearch the other day about the FamilySearch YouTube channel:

We're pleased to announce the launch of our updated FamilySearch YouTube channel, Thursday, Aug. 4th. Over the past few months, we have been creating video content to reach a variety of audiences throughout the genealogy world.  
 
The playlists include:
 
•   Genealogy in 5 Minutes – a 24-episode series offering an overview of how-to’s, best practices, and helpful hints for doing genealogy. 
•   Woven Generations – an inspirational series about the benefits and success stories of genealogy work.
•   Genealogy Fun – a fun video series highlighting the lighter side of genealogy.
•   Societies and Archives – a video series highlighting genealogical societies & archives.
•   Genealogy News & Events – What’s going on the genealogy world? 
•   Family History: Getting Started – a training video series for using FamilySearch.
•  “How-to’s” from the Experts – a series of interview clips with best practices for finding your ancestors.
 
There are 26 videos currently on the FamilySearch YouTube Channel. 
 
There are, of course, over 160 online videos and tutorials on the FamilySearch Research Courses webpage. 

Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 76: Edward Hildreth's Death Certificate

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It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is
Edward Hildreth's (1831-1899) death certificate in Leominster, Worcester County, Massachusetts....



I obtained this death certificate in person at the Leominster Town Hall (on election day - they were really busy!). 

Here is the transcription of the death certificate (typed parts in italics, form lines underlined):

Commonwealth of Massachusetts
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
--------------
CERTIFICATE of DEATH
From the Records of Deaths in the City of Leominster, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
======================
1.  Date of Death:  April 26, 1899
2.  Name:  Edward Hildreth
Maiden Name:  [blank]
3.  Sex, and whether Single,  Male
Married or widowed:  Married
4.  Age:  68  Years  11 Months  26 Days
5.  Color: White
6.  Disease or Cause of Death:  Cerebral Apoplexy
7.  Residence:  Leominster, MA
8.  Occupation:  Machinist
9.  Place of Death:  Leominster, MA
10.  Place of Birth:  Townsend, MA
11.  Name of Husband or Wife:  Not Listed
12.  Name of Father:  Zacharriah Hildreth
13.  Maiden Name of Mother:  Hannah ?Not Listed14.  Birthplace of Father:  Townsend, MA
15.  Birthplace of Mother:  Not Listed
16.  Place of Interment:  Evergreen Cemetery, Leominster, MA
====================
I, AUDREY J. JOHNSON, depose and say that I hold the office of City Clerk of the City of Leominster, County of Worcester and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that the records of Births, Marriages and Deaths required by law to be kept in said City are in my custody, and that the above is a true extract from the records of Deaths in said City, as certified by me.

Date of Recording: 1899  WITNESS my hand and seal of said City, on the 17th day of September 19 90.
/s/ Audrey J. Johnson, City Clerk.

I wonder who provided this information to the town clerk?  Edward's wife was Sophia (Newton) Hildreth, and either she or her daughter, Harriet (Hildreth) Seaver, must have been the informant.  Edward's wife's name was not provided.  Edward's mother's maiden surname was not provided.  Sophia may not have known her husband's mother's maiden name and birthplace.  I would not be surprised if Harriet did not know her grandmother's maiden name and birthplace. 

The birth date of Edward calculates to 30 April 1831, which matches the other information I have.

The only "new" information on this certificate for me is the cause of death. 

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Ben needs help, can you suggest a solution?

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I had a phone call from Ben the other day, and met him today at the library.  Here is Ben's situation:

*  Ben needs to get California identification (driver's license).  He has an expired New Mexico driver's license.  He has a Social Security card.  In order to obtain the California driver's license, he apparently needs a birth certificate with his birth date, birth place, and parents names. 

*  Ben was born in Clark County, Nevada.  He has tried several times to obtain his own birth certificate by mail from Clark County.  They require his birth date, his birth place, his father's name, and his mother's maiden name.  They took his payment once, and have rejected his application for a birth certificate because he did not have the correct mother's maiden name. 

*  Ben has two brothers, both deceased.  One was born in Arizona, and died in Oregon, the other's birth place was Nevada but his death place is unknown.

*  His mother is deceased.  He thinks that she died in Iowa in the 1980s.  He received information from Social Security about his mother's maiden name, and there were six variations on it in the Social Security records.

*  His mother was born in New Mexico, and Ben knows the birth date and birth place.  He thought that obtaining a New Mexico birth certificate for his mother would help him solve his own birth certificate problem.  He knows about one brother of his mother, knows where he died (California) but doesn't know when he died. 

How can Ben obtain information that might help him find his mother's maiden name?  I've thought of:

*  Ben's own Social Security Application.  Ben could obtain this himself, I think, for a fee.

*  His brothers' birth certificates in Nevada and Arizona.  How can these be obtained?

*  His mother's birth certificate in 1931 in New Mexico.  How can this be obtained?

*  His mother's Social Security Application (I found the number in the SSDI).

*  His mother's death record (1987 in Ohio according to SSDI last residence).

*  His mother's marriage certificates (not sure how many, or where... perhaps New Mexico or Arizona).

* His uncle's death record or death certificate in California.

What advice do you have to obtain those records?  I recommended going through www.VitalChek.com to order his own death birth certificate since the form there doesn't seem to require the mother's maiden name.   If you can help in one of those states (Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon), please email me rjseaver@cox.net.  Thanks!

Updated 4 August: fixed last paragraph...I need a copy editor, I guess.

To clarify:  Ben told me his mother died in Iowa, but SSDI said Ohio (the town name Ben told me and the last residence are identical - I think Ben told me the wrong state).

Free Small Digital Books at DMK Heritage

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I received an email recently from Doris Christian telling me about the free books at DMK Heritage, a bookselling website.  The company also sells CDROMS of many published books.

Here is a listing of the free small books that they have for download.  This is a commercial site and you need to go to the "Free Small books"  in the middle of the page and click on the "here" to connect
to the site.  http://www.dmkheritage.com/store/

Free Books In Gallery:

Georgia:     
History of Crisp Co. DAR  1916
History of Washington Co. by Ella Mitchell, 1924
Kentucky:History of Russellville & Logan Co. by Finley
 Old Kentucky Deeds: Lincoln Co. 1779-1787
 Old Kentucky Deeds: Fayette Co. 1782-1794

North Carolina
Marriage Bonds of Tryon County NC from 1769-1870.
Friends Records of Births and Deaths, Cane Creek, NC
 St. Bartholomew?s Parish, NC
 Bertie Co. Wills (1795-1840 abt.) NCHGR
 Bertie Co. Marriages 1762-1834 (1809-1819 missing) NCHGR

South Carolina
Annals and Parish Register of St. Thomas - St. Denis SC
St. James Church, Goose Creek, SC 1706-1909
Marriage Notices in SC & American General Gazette
Chronicles of St. Mark?s Parish Santee Circuit, Williamsburg  Township, SC.
French & Swiss Protestants in Charleston the Santee, Naturalization Records 1695-96
Vestry of St. Matthew?s Parish, SC   1769-1838
History of Grandal Shoals (Cherokee & Union Co., SC
History of Fairfield Co., SC  by Ederington
The Parish of  St. Michael, SC
 South Carolina in the Rev. War. by A. Southron

Tennessee
History of Overton County, Tenn. by Goodpasture.
Reminiscences of Early Settlements & Settlers of McNairy Co.,  Tenn. by Gen. Marcus Wright

Virginia
Lunenburg County, Va. Wills 1746-1825
Frederick Parish, Va. 1744-1780, Churches, Chapels, etc.
Revolutionary Soldiers and Sailors for Northampton Co.,VA
Virginia Wills Before 1799 by Wm. M. Clemens
Historical Sketches of "Old Bruton Church" Williamsburg, Va.
Williamsburg Wills  Abt. 1750-1825
Old Surry, Va.
 History of Hampton & Eliz. City Co. Va.  Tyler 1922
 Scotch-Irish in the Valley of Virginia by Waddell
Some emigrants to Virginia by W. G. Stanard
Wills of Westmoreland Co., 1654-1800

Pennsylvania
Marriages Prior to 1799

West Virginia 
History of Marion Co., W. VA.  by Geo. A. Dunnington
Sketches of Wood Co. W. VA  by S. C. Shaw

Scotch-Irish
Scotch-Irish in America by Dinsmore
 Scotch-Irish in the Valley of Virginia by Waddell
There are images of the front page of these books on the "My Gallery" page.  If you click on the thumbnail image, you are taken to the page images for that book.  You can use the links at the to of the page to Download a Zip file to your computer hard drive.
You might want to go through the list of books for sale on CDROM also - the Search Products link on the home page takes you to over 150 books for sale.  Many of them are from southeastern states.

San Diego Genealogical Societies Panel on Sunday, 7 August at Bonita Library

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The Chula Vista Genealogical Society is hosting a panel discussion of "San Diego Genealogical Societies" at Bonita-Sunnyside Library (4375 Bonita Road, in the Community Room) on Sunday, August 7th from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The societies represented include:

Chula Vista Genealogical Society (CVGS)
Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego (CGSSD)
North San Diego County Genealogical Society (NSDCGS)
*  San Diego African-American Genealogical Research Group (SDAAGRG)
San Diego Genealogical Society (SDGS), including British Interest Group
San Diego Jewish Genealogical Society (SDJGS)

If you are a San Diego area genealogist, please come on Sunday, August 7th and learn about the educational opportunities offered by these genealogical societies.

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 164: Lyle and Betty at the park

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I'm posting family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be Wordless Wednesday posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.

Here is a photograph from the Seaver/Carringer family collection handed down by my mother in the
1988-2002 time period:


This photograph is labelled "Lyle and Betty [Carringer] at El Monte Park" (in San Diego County, east of Lakeside).  Betty appears to be two or three years old in this photograph, so it was probably taken in the 1921-1923 time frame.  The photograph was in the Pentecost photo album found in my Carringer/Seaver treasure box.

El Monte Park is a picnic area, but Lyle is dressed in a long sleeve shirt, suit coat, pants and tie and good shoes.  Betty is sitting on Lyle's left knee, and has an undershirt, short dress and leggings on.  This photo must have been taken in the fall or winter, and not in the summer.  Betty is holding something that looks like a water bottle.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

New FamilySearch Historical Collections - July 2011

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I last listed the new or updated collections on the FamilySearch Historical Collections website on 3 July, when there were 665 collections on the list. Since then, these Historical Record Collections have been added to make a total of 683 collections as of today:

Update 3 August:  The links below don't work for the individual collections for some reason.  Please go to the general Historical Collection link and use the Search field to find the collection of interest:
In the list above, I tried to identify many of the collections as newly added by comparing them to last months listing. When FamilySearch sends their email notifications to interested parties, they are identifying whether they are new or previously existing collections.

There are 20 items on the list above, but only 18 newly added databases since 3 July, so I have some updated ones that I didn't catch. Oh well! I will update the list as I receive information about the new databases.

All FamilySearch Historical Record Collections can be accessed at https://www.familysearch.org/s/collection/list. You can see the date that collections were recently added or updated by clicking on the "Last Updated" link.

Ancestry.com: "You don't even have to know what you're looking for..." - Post 3

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After the last two posts in this series (Ancestry.com: "You don't even have to know what you're looking for..." - Post 1, and Post 2) where I tried (and succeeded) to find useful family tree data for my second great-grandfather, Isaac Seaver, and a spouse of Anna Auble, a distant cousin), I wanted to do something a bit more random.

But how should I select persons?  I recalled that I had very little information on the spouses of the siblings of my wife's grandmother, Edna (McKnew) Schaffner.  I knew their names, but had no information about their parentage.  So I went into my Ancestry Member Tree and did the searches, based on the green shaky leaves, for:

*  John William Runnels (1859-1912), married Allethia Jame McKnew (1867-1959).  I found no likely parents for him.

*  Alice G. McCann (1872-1936), wife of Alfred Henry McKnew (1869-1943).  I found her parents, John McCann (born 1842 in Ireland) and Catherine (born 1847 in Ireland), but could find no ancestors further back.

*  Anna Marie Goff (1872-1958), who married Henry Lee McKnew (1870-1934).  I found her parents, Charles P. Goff (1826-1890?, born in Vermont) and Louisa C. Jorgenson (1835-????, born in Sweden), and their children, but could find no ancestors further back.

*  Phineas D. Hayes (1860-1929), who married Alice Louise McKnew (1872-1959).  I could not find his parents.  He apparently was born in England.

*  George Olson (????-????), married 1897 to Lilly M. McKnew (1876-1958).  I could not find any information about him at all.

*  George Frederick Samwell (1878-1958, born in Canada), married 1905 to Belle E. McKnew (1882-1974).  I could find nothing about George Samwell.

*  William C. Kenealy (1882-1932, born California), married May Jane McKnew (1886-1918).  I found his parents William Kenealy (born 1853 in Ireland) and Louise (born 1854 in Panama).

*  Agnes Matilda Hansen (1889-1970, born in California), who married Leland J. McKnew (1889-1933).  I found her mother, Annie (born 1853 in Norway).

*  Harry Rose (1882-1965, born in Germany), who married Gladys Hazel McKnew (1892-1965).  I found nothing for Harry Rose.

I looked for information about nine persons, who all resided in the San Francisco area in the 1900 to 1920 time frame.  I found at least one parent's name for four of the nine, and found no grandparent's names.

This test was, I think, fairly representative of the types of challenges many researchers will face when they start using Ancestry.com's shaky green leaves.  Perhaps 50% of the attempts will add at least one generation, but about 50% searching for immigrant ancestors in the 1900 time frame will be able to find some records but very few will find parents of that immigrant ancestor. 

That doesn't mean that the immigrant ancestors cannot be found.  The mother of these McKnews was an immigrant from Australia (see the Whittle Research Compendium), and it took significant online research (much of it outside of Ancestry.com) to find her ancestry and family history. 

These shaky green leaf searches on Ancestry.com can be very useful, but they must be used only as finding aids.  There is a wealth of online genealogical information and much more in offline, traditional, repositories like libraries, archives, societies and homes.

Unfortunately, many researchers that spend their time only in the shaky green leaves on Ancestry.com will get frustrated by the experience and will not pursue the other online and offline resources.

Tuesday's Tip - Use FamilySearch.org for Massachusetts Vital Records

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Today's Tuesday's Tip is to:  Use the FamilySearch.org historical records collections for Massachusetts Births, Marriages and Deaths (1841-1915).

The "official" Massachusetts births, marriages and deaths indexes for the years 1841 to 1915 are available on the following FamilySearch.org databases:

Massachusetts Births, 1841-1915 (3,818,515 records with images)

Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915  (1,538,139 records with images)

Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915 (2,744,355 records with images)

In addition, FamilySearch.org has these databases for earlier vital records extracted from town records (and included in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) in earlier FamilySearch databases) and some of the 1841 to 1910 vital records:

Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915 (4,639,015 records, no images)

Massachusetts Marriages, 1695-1910 (1,944,319 records, no images)

Massachusetts Deaths and Burials, 1795-1910 (1,545,640 records, no images)

Before the 1841 to 1915 vital record indexes were available on FamilySearch.org, the only ways to view the records were to go to the local town clerk offices or the State Archives and view the record books; view FHL microfilms for the indexes and records; or have a subscription to the New England Historic genealogical society website, www.AmericanAncestors.org

The FamilySearch.org 1841 to 1915 records are searchable with wild cards, and the images are freely available.  The search and viewing on FamilySearch is much easier and faster than on the NEHGS site.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Amanuensis Monday - Mary Oatley's Revolutionary War Pension Declaraton

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Genea-blogger John Newmark (who writes the excellent TransylvanianDutch blog) started a Monday blog theme many months ago called Amanuensis Monday. What does "amanuensis" mean? John offers this definition:

"A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another."

The subject today is Mary Oatley's declaration for a Revolutionary War Pension based on Joseph Oatley's, her husband, service. 

The application is on four pages (downloaded from www.Footnote.com):





The transcription of this declaration is:

State of Rhode Island &c
Washington 3 SS
On this 9th day of October 1838 Personally appeared before William Peckham Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in & for the county & State aforesaid Mary Oatley a resident of South Kingstown Aged 74 Years who being first duly sworn according to law doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the provision made by the act of Congress passed July 7th 1838 entitled "An Act providing half pay & pensions to certain widows."  I am the widow of Joseph Oatley who was a soldier in the War of the Revolution and served as a private & noncommissioned officer both in the Rhode Island continental line & militia.  I have always understood from my husband said Oatley & others and now firmly believe that he my sd husband was at the commencement of the War of the Revolution at work by the month for George Brown Esq. late Lieut. Governor of Rhode Island that he was placed there by his Father Benedict Oatley contrary to my said husband's wishes.  That he my sd husband left the service of sd. Brown some time in the summer of the year 1775 and enlisted in the service of the State of Rhode Island that he enlisted at Town Hall and was for a short time stationed at the bridge near the south ferry (so-called), and from thence was marched to Newport R.I. and stationed in that vicinity.  They was either quartered or their head quarters was at the Dudley house in the town of Middletown

[second page]

a short distance from Newport.  The Regiment was at first commanded by Vol. Henry Babcock but the Captain's name I do not now recollect nor can I tell the lengthy of his term of service.  In the fall of 1776 my Father Stephen Hazard Esq. brought his family from Newport to this place (to wit So Kingstown) of my memory serves it was the day before the British took possession of sd Newport on our arrival at South Kingstown at South Kingstown my Father hired a house a short distance from the residence of Benedict Oatley the Father of my husband aforesaid Joseph Oatley this I think was in December 1776.  At this time or soon after I will remember my husband said Oatley was doing duty in a Company of Militia guarding the shores against the enemy and well remember that he the sd Joseph & his Father sd Benedict were both in our company and for fear that both he and his Father should  be drafted and as both could not both leave the family he sd Joseph agreed to volunteer his services provided his Father said Benedict should not be obliged to stand a draft and the arrangement was agreed to by the company & said Joseph did perform not only his own duty as required of him, by law.  But all his Father's tours of duty when he sd Joseph was not on duty in the Continental or states service which kept him sd Joseph nearly all the time in the service of his country against the enemy either guarding the shores or any other military duty as I was younger at the time.  I cannot

[page 3]
state the particular tours of duty, their length or in what company, but as to his service nearly all the time I have no more doubt than I have of my existance my husband was in Sparrowes [???} Expedition was out and on duty more than one month at the time the Siren was cast away in the fall of 1777- was in Sulivan's expedition to Rhode Island was in the battles on sd Islands have often heard him relate the sufferings of the troop &c, their retreat &c, but do not recollect under whom he served at any time.  I would also state that I have heard him my sd husband relate service he performed under Col. Christopher Green [??] & Major Ebenezer Flagg, have heard him relate the kindness & friendly attention he received from them when sick & his extream regret at their unfortunate and cruel death - but whether he was enlisted under them or was then serving in the Militia where they had this command, I cannot say.  In the year 1780 in the month of July he my said husband enlisted in the service I believe for nine six months.  I will remember the time I was then engaged to him & was to have him married early in the fall had he not enlisted.  I also understood that he my said husband had more bounty allowed him than the others was Fifty silver dollars & to my husband said Oatley Sixty silver dollars, the reason of this allowance, I have always understood.

[page 4]

Washington 3 SS
South Kingstown October 9th 1838 Then personally appeared Mary Oatley and made solemn oath to the truth of the above declaration by her subscribed which was reduced to writing in her presence & signed by her in my presence. I further certify that I am well acquainted with the declarant, that her character for truth & veracity is good, that I visited her last he residence to take this declaration she being in a low state of health & unable to attend in open court.
.......................................W,. Peckham C. Jus. C.C. Pleas

Mary Oatley was aged 74 when she made this declaration to William Peckham.  She doesn't recall specific names and dates, but has some interesting comments about approximate times and persons, and she knows that her husband-to-be was away from her in the fall of 1780 because they were to be married then.  We saw in Amanuensis Monday - Marriage Deposition in Joseph Oatley's Revolutionary War Pension File that they married in January 1781.

Do you have information for the "Ancestry Errors Wiki?"

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After discussions on the Transitional Genealogists Forum mailing list, Michael Hait has created an "Ancestry Errors Wiki."  See Michael's post Aug Introducing the “Ancestry Errors Wiki” on his Planting the Seeds blog.   

Michael's blog post says:

"... occasional errors in imaging, image organization, or database programming on these websites cause inadvertent obstacles to our research. For example, some townships appear in the wrong county in one of the federal census databases. Or pages appear out of order. There are many examples of these kind of errors, but no way to know if your county of research suffers from one of them.

"For this reason, I have created the Ancestry Errors Wiki. This wiki will provide a hub for genealogists to notify other genealogists of errors that exist on various subscription genealogy websites. In time, these errors may be corrected, but until then, researchers should be able to search for any known existing errors, and adjust their research accordingly."

The Ancestry Errors Wiki is at http://ancestryerrors.wikia.com/wiki/Ancestry_Errors_Wiki.  There are already several articles there about errors in the Ancestry.com record databases.

Apparently, readers can add or edit content on this wiki without any sort of registration requirement.  If you want to Add a new page, click on the "Add a Page" link (on the "Home" line), type in a title for your article, and then type content in a WYSIWYG environment.  You can add images to the page.

Editing an existing article (e.g., adding text or images) is easy also - you click on the "Edit" link and type or upload.

I think that this is an excellent example of "grassroots action" in genealogy - there was a perceived need for a website of this type, Michael took an action and created something that will be useful and helpful to Ancestry.com users.

I hope that Ancestry.com will take note of Michael's efforts and diligently work on addressing and fixing the problems raised by users of the "Ancestry Errors Wiki."

Family Tree Maker 2012 is in a Public Beta Test

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The news last week on the FTM-TECH mailing list was that Family Tree Maker 2012 was in a Public Beta test.  A link to the Public Beta download was provided, and a number of persons have apparently taken advantage of it. 

Tamura Jones covered the sequence of events in his post today, Family Tree Maker 2012 Public Beta on his Modern Software Experience blog, and mentioned it on Google Plus yesterday.

The post by the FTM-TECH admin, dated 27 July 2011, quotes the letter sent out to Beta testers:

"/Family Tree Maker 2012/ is coming this Fall, and we'd like to invite you to try out the beta version! The product is currently in pre-release testing and we're refining its key feature, TreeSync™, which lets you link your Family Tree Maker desktop tree and Ancestry tree together.

"Participants in the beta will be entered in a drawing to win one of  *five* Ancestry.com World Deluxe Memberships (6-month membership is  valued more than $148.00—see details, below).

"To participate, please try out TreeSync™ with your own tree files—as many as possible. If you already have a Family Tree Maker file, upload and link it to Ancestry. (Please note that because this product is in beta, it is presented AS IS without warranty. Because you may encounter problems, we recommend that you *DO NOT use your original files*, instead, you should create and *use a copy* of the original files.) If you don't have a Family Tree Maker file, you can still participate. Just download and link your Ancestry Member Tree in /Family Tree Maker/. If you need help, we've included a draft of the User Guide that discusses sync, which you can use to guide your testing.


The link given in the FTM-TECH mailing list post does not work any longer.  The FTM 2012 Public Beta download site is http://dl.dropbox.com/u/840832/FTM_2012_Public_Beta.zip per several contacts. My understanding is that the Public Beta software will work until 31 August 2011. 

Update 4 p.m. on Monday: The Dropbox link does not work now.

My guess is that FTM 2012 will be available soon after that, and may be available at the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Springfield, Illinois September 7-10.

I downloaded the 450 mb ZIP file last night, installed the program, loaded my latest GEDCOM database, and uploaded it as a Private Member Tree to Ancestry.com.  That process took over an hour, but it worked the first time for me on my relatively new computer. 

I saw nothing in the Terms and Conditions of the download of the Public Beta software download that prevents me from discussing the FTM 2012 Public Beta test, so I'm going to show a few screens and discuss my experiences with the program here on Genea-Musings. 

During the upload of my FTM 2012 database (with almost 40,000 persons) to Ancestry, I made this screen capture:


As you can see, I was in the "Plan" workspace, and the center panel is titled "Online Access via Ancestry."  That panel notes that my database is not yet uploaded and linked to Ancestry.  The progress window below shows that the program is working on it.  I didn't measure the time it took.

Finally, the upload concluded, and the screen below shows now:



The center "Online Access to Ancestry" panel now says "In Sync" and "On-line and local tree now in Sync."

On Ancestry.com, my new Tree looks like this:



The next test will be to add content to my Ancestry.com tree and see how it synchronizes with Family Tree Maker 2012.  What should I add to my tree in order to test the synchronization feature?  Tell me in comments or email.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

SNGF "Genealogy OCD" Compendium

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There were many excellent posts responding to the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun mission this past weekend, including:

*  The referenced posting of 10 Signs You Have Genealogy OCD  by Michael John Neill on the Rootdig.com blog.  Check out the comments for several more contributions.

SNGF: 10 Signs you have summer holiday GOCD by Caroline Gurney on Caro's Family Chronicles blog.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Signs You Have GOCD by Jo on the Images Past blog.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Signs You Have GOCD by Dorene from Ohio on The Graveyard Rabbit of Sandusky Bay blog.

SNGF - Signs You Have GOCD by Deb Ruth on the Adventures in Genealogy blog.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Signs you know you have GOCD by the writer of the 1 Ancestry 2 Little Time blog.

A Bit of Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Signs of GOCD by Denise Levenick on The Family Curator blog.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Signs You Have GOCD by Jacqueline on the My Journey Back blog.

SNGF - Genealogy OCD  by GeneaPopPop on the Stardust 'n' Roots blog.

SNGF: Genealogy OCD by Chris Staats on the Staats Place blog.  Hmmm, Chris's post had no GOCD items, just an explanation why he didn't have any that reflected his GOCD.

OCD? Really? Probably! by Wendy Littrell on the All My Branches Genealogy blog.

In addition:

*  Reader Owlhart posted five GOCD items as a comment to my blog post.

*  Reader Maggie posted one GOCD item as a comment to my blog post.

*  Tamura Jones posted one GOCD item as a note on Google Plus.

15 submissions to date.  Thank you all for having some genealogy fun on Saturday night (or Sunday) and for having such good senses of humor (I know, it's humour in the British/Scottish/Down Under world).

I will update this post if more are found or submitted.  If you wrote a post, please let me know at rjseaver@cox.net.  Thanks

Last updated:  Monday, 1 August, 9 a.m.

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 24-30 July 2011

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Hundreds of genealogy and family history bloggers write thousands of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interests. I appreciate each one of them and their efforts.

My criteria for "Best of ..." are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy and family history, address current genealogy issues, provide personal family history, are funny or are poignant. I don't list posts destined for the genealogy carnivals, or other meme submissions (but I do include summaries of them), or my own posts.


Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week:


First Name Abbreviations in Cursive Records by Lee Drew on the Family History with the LineageKeeper blog.  Lee provides a table with name abbreviations used in colonial times.

The Transcription of a Will  by Leslie Ann on the Ancestors Live Here blog.  Leslie provides information about colonial letter forms to help transcriptions of documents, and shows how the Transcript software works.

Reporting from BYU Genealogy Conference -- Part One Tuesday Part Two Tuesday, Part Three Wednesday, Part Four Wednesday, Part Five Thursday, Part Six Thursday, and Part Seven Friday by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. 

The Dollars and Sense of The Genealogy Book Biz - Part One, Part Two, and Part Three by Mel Wolfgang on the Mnemosyne's Magic Mirror blog.  A fascinating look into a small genealogy book business.

10 Signs You Have Genealogy OCD by Michael John Neill on the Rootdig.com blog.  I recognize myself in eight of these!

Weekend Research Tour to Albany, New York by (guest blogger) Kathy Merithew on the GenealogyAndFamilyHistory.com blog.  Kathy took an NEHGS tour and tells us all about it.

Be-Attitudes for Geneablogging (What I Wish I Knew When I Began by GeneaPopPop on the Stardust 'n' Roots blog.  Bart learned quickly!  A great advice list for new geneabloggers to follow.

The Ebb & Flow of Genealogy by Teresa Martin Klaiber on the Eastern Kentucky Genealogy blog.  Teresa describes how genealogy research happens for many of us.

Five things you have to know about every record by Michael Hait on the Planting the Seeds blog.  Michael has provided an excellent road map for researchers to follow when evaluating records.

BYU Family History Conference 2011 Recap by Susan Farrell Bankhead on Susan's Genealogy Blog.  Susan summarizes her BYU conference experiences in one post - sounds like she had an excellent learning and social time!  And now she's going to go to FGS too.

Beware Those Addictive Shaky Leaves by GeneaLady on the Just Folks blog. This post has excellent commentary about using Ancestry's shaky leaves to fill up their tree, and a suggestion for Ancestry.com to advise researchers about using the shaky leaves.

Several genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts and news summary posts this week, including:

Monday’s Link Roundup by Dan Curtis on the Dan Curtis ~ Professional Personal Historian blog.

Links, 7.25.11 by Liz Haigney Lynch on The Ancestral Archaeologist blog.

Ruth's Recommendations by Ruth Blair on The Passionate Genealogist blog.

Genealogy Round Up, July 28 by Megan Smolenyak on the Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak's Roots World blog.

Follow Friday - This is Why We Subscribe to Blogs! by Cheryl Cayemberg on the Have You Seen My Roots? blog.

* Follow Friday Gems - 07-29-11 by Deb Ruth on the Adventures in Genealogy blog.

Follow Friday: This Week’s Favorite Finds by Jen on the Climbing My Family Tree blog.

Genealogy News Corral, July 25-29 by Diane Haddad on the Genealogy Insider blog.

Week in Review by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog.

I encourage readers to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blogs to your Favorites, Google Reader, RSS feed or email if you like what you read. Please make a comment to them also - all bloggers appreciate feedback on what they write.

Did I miss a great genealogy blog post? Tell me! I am currently reading posts from over 1020 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.