CGSSD Meeting - FTM Class

The Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego (CGSSD) meeting is today at UCSD. Since there is wireless access all over the campus, I can log on and "live blog" the FTM Class and the program presentation.

I got there at 9 AM and went to the FamilyTreeMaker class, led by Lance Dohe. Lance showed 5 minutes from the movie "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" with a fellow running through a graveyard, which was sohwn by dick Eastman at the seminar in May. One of Dick's topics was the movie title.

Lance conducts his class as a Q&A session, since most attendees (about 20) havbe FTM and use it effectively. Among the questions asked in the class were:

1) How do I add birth parents to my database and associate me with them and my adopted parents? The answer is: in a Family View, put your cursor on the adopted child. Then go to [People] and click on "Other Parents." Here you can click on the "Create New Parents" button and add parents names. You should also change the "Relationship with father" and "...with mother" to Adopted or Natural or Step as necessary.

2) How to do a large printout of a family tree? The answer is: You can print it out on your home printer and tape it together. Or you can "Print to File," save it on a flash drive, and take it to a print shop that can make the large print.

3) How do I add a video to my FTM file? The answer is: Click on the Scrapbook icon for the target person, and then click on the [Picture/Object] menu item. In that menu, click on "Insert Object" and an input box comes up. Here you have to click on the "Create from File" button, then browse your computer files to find the video, and click "OK." The video should be on your Scrapbook page. There may be a size limitation for the video.

4) How do you make an AKA Name show up in the Index and in Reports? The answer is: For the target person, click on the "Edit" icon. On the "General" tab, you can add an AKA name. If you want the AKA name to show in the index and in reports, go to the Name Index (F2 shortcut) for the target person, and click on the "Options" button in the lower right corner. Here you can click the appropriate box to "Use AKA if available" and "As an additional entry" or "After Middle Name."

5) How do you make the Surname include pre-names (like the "van der" in "van der Meter? The answer is: Put a back slash before the complete surname and after the complete surname in the Name field. This also works for notes you might want to insert in the surname field - like "son of John and Mary (Jones) Smith" - to differentiate one person from another.

On to the presentation!

What is a "nymph of the pave?"

If you've been reading old newspapers with regularity, you occasionally come across euphemisms for prostitutes, madams, and houses of ill repute.

The APG mailing list has had an interesting discussion this week about this - spurred by this post by Jana Sloan Broglin. Many respected genealogists have commented with additional terms, but by far the most complete and interesting post was by Karen Mauer Green, who did her thesis on prostitution in New York City. Karen also provides a bibliography for books about the lives of prostitutes and madams, in addition to a very complete list of euphemisms.

In addition to "nymph of the pave," I think my favorites are "young lady of extinguished modesty" and "woman with virtue of a very bad odor." My favorite euphemism for the whorehouse is "tabernacle of corrupt morality."

Read them all, and have a good laugh. Then think about the women - they might be a sister or niece of one of your ancestors. I'm curious if anyone has found a "nymph of the pave" in their ancestry?

British Isle database updates

John D. Reid provides a wonderful service to many of us with his post "New British Records" on his Anglo-Celtic Connections blog. If you are doing British Isle research, go read John's post.

I have a hard time keeping up with additions to UK/BI databases because I don't have a subscription to any of their commercial web sites. I am very interested in them, because I have some recent (1840-1860) immigrants from England to the US, and have several "brick wall" ancestors in Wiltshire and Somerset.

Thanks, John, for the updates. I appreciate it.

Then (1988) and Now (2007)

My genealogy "career" started in early 1988, so I missed what happened before that. But I can compare my early research years with what is happening now, and I'm a bit concerned.


THEN (1988) --

• I made pedigree charts and family group sheets by hand.
• I had no genealogy software - only my charts and my brain.
• I had an IBM PC (64 kb, no hard drive) with a dot-matrix printer.
• I went to the library and ordered books and microfilms by Inter-Library Loan.
• I went to the FHC and ordered microfilms and microfiche.
• At the FHC, I used the IGI and Ancestral File to collect names for research.
• At the FHC, I used the AIS index to find census records for 1790 to 1850.
• I wrote letters to distant cousins and snail-mailed them.
• I traveled to the localities where my ancestors lived and visited libraries and other repositories there.
• I read one genealogy magazine - Everton's Genealogical Helper and submitted queries to that magazine.
• I found research articles about my ancestral families in NEHGS, TAG and other journals, and made xerox copies of them.
• I read few how-to genealogy books and articles.
• I saved quarters for the microfilm machines in film canisters.
• I spent hours at the FHC cranking microfilms to find a census record of an ancestor.
• I spent hours at the library browsing unindexed books for ancestral families.
• I spent hours at home trying to figure out what resource to look for next.
• There were online bulletin boards, but I didn't have a modem.
• Society and conference program speakers lectured with few visual aids.

NOW (2007) --

• I don't make many pedigree charts and family group sheets - I do have an ahnentafel list on paper and research reports online!
• I have genealogy software (started with PAF, now use FTM) that writes reports and books for me. It can even capture online data for me (if I want it to)!
• I have a desktop PC (64 gb, CD, DVD, USB drives, external drive) with a combination scanner/printer, plus a laptop computer.
• I go to the library and help people do research and serve on a society board
• I go to the FHC and order microfilms of records not available elsewhere (mainly probate, land, tax, etc. records).
• At the FHC, I use the microfilm image scanner system to capture and save images not available elsewhere.
• I use my Ancestry subscription at home to find census, military, passenger, and other records for my ancestral families.
• I write emails to distant cousins and other researchers
• I travel to the localities where my ancestors lived and visit libraries and other repositories there, plus cemeteries and homesteads.
• I subscribe to several genealogy magazines and society publications.
• I find very few helpful research articles about my ancestral families in journals, and rarely make xerox copies of anything.
• I read how-to genealogy books and online genealogy articles and blogs voraciously.
• I have a drawer full of quarters that are in film canisters - but I rarely use them.
• I spend minutes at home searching online databases to find a census record of an ancestor.
• I spend minutes at home searching online databases with every-word indexes for books or newspaper articles on ancestral families.
• I spend minutes at home running software that tells me what resource to look for next.
• The computer systems are amazing - I connect to the Internet in an instant and can share and receive information instantly.
• Society and conference program speakers use sophisticated visual presentations

Obviously, things have improved for the genealogy researcher between 1988 and 2007 - we can quickly access information that took weeks or months to find 20 years ago. But we can easily get overloaded -- and even addicted to the process and the information. There is much more data easily available to a researcher, and more tools to use to capture it, digest it and share it.

However, the trend in genealogy is to stay at home and access online databases, which often hold secondary information from derivative sources. The problem with that is that much of the original source data is not yet on the Internet, and researchers who are only online are missing out on finding that information.

The other problem I see is that many new researchers try to do this alone - they don't join local or national genealogy societies to get the benefit of the experience and knowledge (in both traditional and online resources) of the members.

Do beginning researchers have it "better" now? Definitely! But I'm concerned that they don't get the breadth of education and experience that was necessary in 1988, and is still necessary now in 2007, to do effective genealogy research. The "detective search" phase of the research cycle has sped up so much that the necessary time is not taken to critically evaluate information.


What say you? What would you add to my lists? Are you concerned by these issues? What can genealogy societies do to address these issues?

Finding Townships and EDs on Ancestry Census Images

I was curious about the number of people enumerated in San Diego County over a period of time, and the names of the townships therein. The city and county have grown in population since the American takeover before 1850. The county and township boundaries have also changed a bit over time - San Diego County initially included what are now Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

As I tried to find totals for townships, I found that the township names changed. I decided to find out what township names to use in the search box on Ancestry.com.

By inputting State = California and County = San Diego with no names, I got the total number of people enumerated in the county. By clicking on one of those persons, and then going to the census image, there is a line at the top of the Ancestry web page that says (for 1880):

"You are here: Search > Census > U.S. Census > 1880 United States Federal Census > California > San Diego > San Diego > District 68"

By clicking on the first "San Diego," you can then see a list of townships in the county. By clicking on a township, you can then see what area it covers, and the districts included in the enumeration. You can select a district to search page-by-page if you care to. However, you can't get an enumeration total for the township or the district doing this.

To get enumeration totals for a township, you need to go back to the first search box (with the state and county) and put in the township name.

Here's what I got for San Diego County, San Diego township, National Township, Otay Township and Chula Vista Township (the last 3 are all south of the city of San Diego):

1880 Census

• SD County = 8,672
• SD Township = 2,855
• National township = 139

1900 Census

• SD County = 36,611
• SD township = 17,658
• National township = 2,020
• Otay township = 736

1910 Census

• SD County = 61,782
• SD township = 39,592
• National township = 2,998
• Otay township = 1,206

1920 Census

• SD County = 112,592
• SD township = 88,604
• National township = 3,116
• Otay township = 410
• San Ysidro township = 54
• Chula Vista township = 1,720
• Bonita township = 415

1930 Census

• SD County = 209.514
• SD township = 162,556
• National township = 7,301
• Chula Vista township = 3,869
• (no Bonita, Otay or San Ysidro townships listed)

For reference purposes, the approximate 2007 population of these entities are:

• San Diego County = 3 million
• San Diego City = 1.3 million
• National City = 56,000
• Chula Vista = 240,000

As you can see, in the 50 years between 1880 and 1930, the County population increased 24 times over. Where there once were rolling hills, plateaus, canyons and valleys cut by streams and occasional flowing rivers, there are now houses all over the terrain. The hills, canyons and plateaus are still there, but have been shaped by city planners. The streams have been dammed and are mere trickles, unless it rains.

LDS Record Search Pilot Capability

I read the news on Family Search Labs on Tuesday about the Record Search Pilot capability (images without an index) and thought "that's nice." Then I read Chris Dunham's post today about this, and thought that Chris nailed it with his comment that:

"...Genealogists raised on microfilm are used to scanning page after page for a single relevant record; there's no reason to hold back digitized records until every name is cataloged. Providing the images online with simple finding aids should suffice for researchers eager to ferret out family facts."

Exactly right! So I went back to the FamilySearch Labs post and tried to figure out how to sign up. I finally found a link for "Record Search" on the blog home page here, which leads to this page where you can view a video on "Getting Started."

I had to register (email, name, location) in order to use the "Record Search" capability. But I have to wait to be approved. I'll add on to this post when that happens!

For the time being, I would be happy as a clam to be able to view digitized pages from FHL microfilms and microfiches. I don't mind going page-by-page through records - I've been doing that a long time. It's fun...unless you can't find what you want!

In the meantime, if you want to be able to do this, click the links above and register for access to the Record Search Pilot.

Crystal Ball: Part 2 - Digitizing Records

In an earlier post, I asked questions about the future of genealogy, especially the effects of digitization and indexing on access, libraries, societies, etc. I answered the first question, which concerned the question if "all" genealogy records will be digitized, in my post here.

I want to give my opinion on questions 2) and 3) of my earlier post. They were:

2) What records are most likely to appear in digital form with indexes?

3) What records are least likely to appear in digital form?

Before I answer those questions, I want to point to my Wish List post about digitization and indexing here. I don't claim to know everything about what records are available, and what have already been digitized, but I have some knowledge about the subject. Based on that knowledge and my own experience, my opinions on the two questions are (listed by record type):

1) State vital records - births, marriages and deaths: There are many state indexes for these records (see Joe's Births and Marriages Indexes and Death Indexes sites). However, only a few states have these indexes available online, and fewer provide images of the actual records online. The LDS Family History Library has many of the older vital records on microfilm or microfiche, and will hopefully digitize and index them in their ongoing projects. With the societal concerns about terrorism and identity theft, I don't think that there will be complete indexes or images of vital records available at any time soon, but there may be more available than we currently have.

2) Census records - the federal census records for 1790 to 1930 are available online, and the 1940 census will be released in 2012. Many state census records are available online, but not all. I think that all of the available state and federal census records will be available online in the next 5 years (subject to the 72 year restriction).

3) Military records - the US military records for wars before World War II are in the National Archives. Some of them are available in digital form online, with some indexes (see http://www.militaryindexes.com/). Footnote.com has an agreement with the Archives to digitize and index them. I think that all of these records will be digitized and indexed in the next 5 years (subject to a year restriction).

4) Naturalization records - the US naturalization records are held in many courts, and will be difficult to obtain, digitize and index. Some of the indexes are available online (see this site) and some are on film at the FHL. I think progress will be made on digitizing the indexes, but probably not the actual records.

5) Passenger Lists - many of the available passenger lists are available online at Ancestry.com. There are others on film/fiche at the FHL. This site has lists of the available online indexes and records. I think most, if not all, of these lists will be available online within the next 5 years.

6) Land and deed records -- there are few online collections of land record indexes and fewer images of the deeds. The exception is the General Land Office records at http://glorecords.blm.gov/. However, the FHL has microfilm and microfiche of the early (say before 1920) deed indexes and records and these should be digitized and indexed in the LDS projects. However, the records are mainly handwritten, and a complete indexing may be difficult. I think that all of the indexes will be available online, and images of the records, but the records may not be indexed.

7) Probate records -- same as Land Records. There are some transcriptions of wills online, but not many.

8) Tax records - same as Land Records. There are some indexes online, but very few images of these records.

9) Newspaper records - several major sites are and have digitized and indexed historical newspapers. Recent issues of many current newspapers are online and can be accessed. I think that most of the historical newspapers (say up to 1930 or 1940) will be digitized and indexed, but I doubt that the gap between the historical and current will be closed in the near future.

10) Cemetery and tombstone records - there are several excellent cemetery records sites (like http://www.findagrave.com/ and http://www.interment.net/), plus transcriptions available on Rootsweb and USGenWeb sites. Some societies have indexing or transcription projects in work, and there are many books in local libraries or societies. However, all of these comprise only a fraction of the available records. More of these records may come online in the future, but I doubt that they will be complete.

11) Genealogy or historical society periodicals -- some societies have indexes and page images online, and some have paper indexes for their paper periodicals, but many do not have indexes or digital images. There are copyright issues that may prevent digitization of these paper documents. The LDS announcement of potential partnerships with societies to do the digitization and indexing is encouraging. I think a lot more of this will be done, but there will not be "complete" coverage.

12) Family papers and archives held in genealogy or historical societies -- there are file drawers of "stuff" donated by individuals. There may be more digitization if societies partner with the LDS as noted above.

13) Published books and manuscripts -- many out-of-copyright books are available in digital form, and have been indexed. Books under copyright protection are not available, in general ,ands likely won't be unless the copyright holder agrees to digitization. Some self-published books or manuscripts have been donated to the LDS FHL - will these be digitized in the LDS projects? Many manuscripts are held by repositories, and have not been digitized. I think that there will be more out-of-copyright books available, and probably more manuscripts, but not books under protection.

There are other types of records - for instance church, school, court, funeral home, city and phone directories, etc. that could be considered and discussed.

Likewise, I've only discussed US records - the conclusions for Canadian, European, Asian, and other records may be much different. I'm reminded that Iceland has "done" the genealogy for all of their citizens!

My guess at present is that we have 5% to 10% of "all" records available online in image form, with more constantly coming online.The combination of commercial databases, the Archives and the LDS church projects will drive the number higher. However, I don't think we will ever be able to find all records online. Just more.

Your thoughts? Open forum time - what do you think? Or blog about the question yourself.

CVGS Meeting on Monday 6/25

The monthly meeting of the Chula Vista Genealogical Society (CVGS) is on Monday, June 25, at 10 AM. The meeting will be at the Chula Vista Civic Center Library (365 F Street in CV) in the Auditorium. We ask attendees to enter through the Conference Room (off the east entrance-way) to sign in, pick up handouts and have a snack before going into the auditorium. There will be a brief business meeting and an "opportunity drawing" before the program speaker is introduced.

The guest speaker will be Anne J. Miller on"Overcoming Obstacles to Finding Your Ancestors."

The program description and Anne's biography is:

"Our assumptions, thoughts, and beliefs often make it difficult for us to find our ancestors. While these factors can have a negative impact on our research, recognizing them and learning how to overcome them will result in solving more of those brick wall situations and being more successful in our research.

"Anne J. Miller began her genealogical quest 19 years ago. She is particularly interested in combining historical resources with genealogical resources to provide a more comprehensive understanding of people and their lives. The focus of her historical research is primarily Southern California.

"She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists as well as national and local genealogical and historical societies. She teaches for the Temecula Valley Genealogical Society and volunteers at the Murrieta FHC. She is a licensed psychologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona."

CVGS welcomes guests and visitors - please join us for our monthly meetings and events.

Note: This notice will also be posted on the Chula Vista Genealogy Cafe blog (a CVGS production).

Joe's Genealogy Branches Site - and more!

You probably knew all about Joe Beine's "Genealogy Articles, Tips and Research Guides" web site - at http://www.genealogybranches.com/. I had somehow missed it until recently.

It is absolutely wonderful, with categories of Census Records, Military Records, Naturalization Records, Passenger Lists, Irish Research, Native American Research, State Research Guides, Records and Families, and Miscellaneous.

Joe also has a web page for General Genealogy Links at http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/genlinks.html and for German Genealogy Resources at http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/germanlinks.html.

Of course, I have been using Joe's Death, Birth and Marriage, Military, Census, Naturalization and Passenger List Indexes, but I had missed this "summary" page.

One thing I also noticed was that some of the pages linked from the Genealogy Branches page are not the specific pages noted just above - so check the links from http://www.genealogybranches.com/ and the specific pages just above (e.g., the Military links on http://www.genealogybranches.com/ and on http://www.militaryindexes.com/).

Lastly, Joe has a Genealogy Fun page with "25 Things That Make Genealogy Fun" - this is good! My favorite is:

13. You wonder why a non-profit religious organization can distribute National Archives microfilm better than the National Archives.

I really appreciate Joe's hard work in creating these web pages that make my research (well, everybody's!) a lot easier!

How rare is your personality type?

Most of us have taken personality tests over the years - usually as part of career counseling or in a work environment.

Here is one on the web - at http://www.blogthings.com/howrareisyourpersonalityquiz/

You answer 12 questions, and it tells you what "type" of personality you have.

You can even put a "thing" on your blog telling what you are.

I tested out as an ISTP - Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving. It says:

"Your personality type is reserved, methodical, spirited, and intense. Only about 6% of all people have your personality, including 3% of all women and 8% of all men."

Does that surprise you? Not me - I am an engineer at heart - I love to work alone, chase ideas to fruition, perform well and be appreciated.

If you want a more complete test - here is one of the Myers-Briggs Tests - at http://www.kisa.ca/personality/.

I tested out as ISTP here, also. The neat thing here is that there are links to all of the personality types - at http://typelogic.com/.

How well did you know your mother? Your father? Your siblings? Your grandfather? Your spouse or love-in? Your children? Go back into the quiz and pretend you are answering for them.

Who was/is most like your type? Who was/is most unlike your type? Who did you have a great rapport with? Who did you always fight with?

Enjoy!!

Oh yeah - tell me what type you are in comments, or post it on your blog.