Friday, January 6, 2012

Follow Friday - Have Genealogy Fun This Weekend

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The weekend is here!  If you have some free time for genealogy fun, I recommend:

1) Listen to the Geneabloggers Radio show tonight (Friday night, 9 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. CT, 7 p.m. MT and 6 p.m. PT) hosted by Thomas MacEntee, with co-host Lisa Alzo. This week's topic is  Genealogy New Year’s Resolutions for 2012.  The special guests will include:

*  DearMYRTLE of DearMYRTLE.com who will have tips and handy information on how to keep your genealogy data and materials organized;
Amy Coffin, of the We Tree genealogy blog will discuss setting genealogy goals and resolutions for 2012.
*  Jan Meisels Allen, Vice President of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) and a member of the Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC) with important information on how you can get involved with the preservation and access of vital records, especially the Social Security Death Index.

2) Listen to the FGS Radio - My Society show on Saturday (2 p.m. ET, 1 p.m. CT, 12 noon MT, 11 a.m. PT) hosted by D. Joshua Taylor.  This week's topic will be New Year, New Board Members.  The guests include:

Polly FitzGerald Kimmitt, president of the Massachusetts Genealogical Council (MGC) and editor of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) Voice Newsletter.
*  In addition, we’ll be highlighting FGS member society, Clallam County Genealogical Society (Washington) in our weekly Society Spotlight feature.

3) Check out the recent FREE Webinars on:

*
LegacyFamilyTree:
*** Digital Books and Sites for Genealogists. by James Tanner (free until 16 January 2012)
*** "Is My Pet Frog Part of My Family?" Children and Genealogy in the Classroom, by Maureen Taylor (free until 26 December)
*** New Genealogy Technology: Flip-Pal™ Mobile Scanner, by Gordon Nuttall (free)

* RootsMagic Webinars (all free) available at http://www.rootsmagic.com/Webinars/. Recently added:

*** What's New in RootsMagic 5

* National Genealogical Society (NGS) Videos (some are free to view) at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/videos_online

* Thomas MacEntee's Explorinars, including:

*** Easy Website Creation (free to view).
*** Evernote - Easy Note Taking UPDATED (free to view)
*** Facebook Pages vs. Facebook Groups (free to view)

* Ancestry.com's YouTube Channel has over 133 items on it now, including (free to view):

*** Ancestry.com LIVE: Exploring the 1930 US Federal Census  with Juliana Smith
*** Ancestry.com LIVE: Genealogy New Years Resolutions for 2012  with Anne Mitchell
*** Common Surnames: Strategies to Finding Your Ancestor in the Crowd  with Juliana Smith
*** Ancestry.com LIVE: Using Online Trees to Help with Pre-1850 Relatives with Anne Mitchell.
*** Ancestry.com LIVE: Reading Handwritten Historical Documents with Anne Mitchell
*** Ancestry.com Live: How to Control Your Results with Anne Mitchell
*** Ancestry.com LIVE: How to Use the World War II Draft Registration Cards with Juliana Smith
*** Ancestry.com LIVE: How do I find the maiden names of women in my family tree? by Crista Cowan
*** Ancestry.com LIVE: I believe my ancestor was Native American/Indian, How do I prove that? by Crista Cowan
*** Ancestry.com LIVE: Unlock the Secrets of the 1790 - 1840 US Census Records with Anne Mitchell

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. Is one of your local societies having a program this weekend?  Go, learn and share with other attendees.  My local societies are not meeting this weekend, so i'm going to watch some webinars that I missed.

6) Go to a local or close repository with genealogy and family history material. Do some research in traditional resources or order FamilySearch microfilms online with original source records.

7) Do some online research in the latest record collections

* FamilySearch (free, https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/list),
* Ancestry ($$, http://www.ancestry.com/cs/reccol/default),
* Fold3 ($$, www.fold3.com),
* WorldVitalRecords ($$, www.WorldVitalRecords.com),
* American Ancestors ($$, www.AmericanAncestors.org),
* GenealogyBank ($$, www.GenealogyBank.com),
* Archives ($$, www.Archives.com)

8) Add content (names, dates, places, notes, images, sources, etc.) to your genealogy software program. I still have two inches of paper collected from my vacation, and more from before that, and will try to enter some of it into my database this weekend.

9) Spend time with your family doing fun things.  Not this weekend...but I am going to transfer phots from Christmas into my desktop computer. 

10) Go to a local cemetery and clean stones, take gravestone pictures, or transcribe epitaphs for your local society, for Find-a-Grave, or a similar online service.

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.

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