Review - "Genealogy to Go! The War of 1812: Canada and the United States"

Elizabeth Lapointe, a Canadian genealogist, (www.GenealogyToGo.ca) has published several Genealogy To Go! laminated research guide booklets that are extremely useful as basic guides to the subject at hand.  They cover the why, when, and how of each of the events in North American history.

This booklet, The War of 1812: Canada and the United States, examines the reasons for the war, who fought in the war, lists the battles, and gives a detailed summary of relevant websites and books for recommended reading of interest, for both Canada and the United States, with a portion devoted to Britain.  Blacks and Natives who fought both both sides are also included.

This Genealogy to Go! booklet includes:

1.  Canada

*  Who Fought in the War of 1812-1814, including full-time Militia units
*  The Main Battles in Upper and Lower Canada
*  Online Resources
*  Books
*  Native Peoples Who Fought for the Canadians
*  Blacks in the War of 1812-1814
*  Loyalists in the War of 1812-1814
*  Britain's Role in the War of 1812-1814
*  How the War Started...


2.  United States


*  Who fought in the War of 1812-1814
*  The Battles (by date)
*  Online Resources
*  Books
*  Native Peoples Who fought for the Americans

I was very impressed with the historical and resource listings on this four-page booklet.  It will be very useful for further research into my Canadian and american ancestors who participated in The War of 1812.

The booklets are currently available in the United States from Family Roots Publishing Company (www.FamilyRootsPublishing.com) and in Canada from Global genealogy (www.globalgenealogy.com) and the National Institute for Genealogical Studies (www.genealogicalstudies.com).

Disclosure:  I received a complimentary copy of this booklet from Elizabeth Lapointe via postal mail and promised to provide a review of it.

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Treasure Chest Thursday - Death Certificate for Elijah McKnew (1836-1912)

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to share an artifact or a document image from my collection of ancestral stuff.  

The treasure today is the Death Certificate of Elijah McKnew (1836-1912):

This Death Certificate was obtained from the County of San Francisco.  The San Francisco County registration number (on the image above) is 2086.  The information on the Death Certificate is (handwritten entries in italics):

Place of Death:  City and County of San Francisco 
No. 4131 19th St., 5 Dist.
FULL NAME:  Elijah P. McKnew
Sex:  Male
Color or Race:  White
Single, Married, widowed or divorced:  Married
Date of Death:  April 4, 1912

Date of Birth: March 29, 1836

Age [at death]: 76 years 0 months 6 days

Occupation:  Merchant

General nature of industry:  Retired, 7 Yrs

Birthplace:  Maryland

Name of Father:  McKnew

Birthplace of Father:  United States

Mother's Name:  Unknown

Mother's Birthplace:  Unknown

Length of Residence (Place of Death): 37 years

Length of Residence (California): 61 years

Informant:  Henry L. McKnew, 3718 16th St.

Doctor's Statement:  I attended deceased from Apr 1 1912 to Apr 4 1912 that I last saw him on Apr 3 1912 and that death occurred on the date stated above at 7:30 P.M.

Cause of Death:  Oedema of lungs

Duration: 3 days

Contributory:  Arterio sclerosis & Senility

Duration: [blank]

Signed: A.B. McGill, M.D.

Date: Apr 6 1912

Address:  291 Geary St.

Place of Burial or Removal:  Cypress Lawn Cemty

Date of Burial:  Apr. 7, 1912

Undertaker:  Bunker & Lunt, 2666 Mission St.

There is quite a bit of new information in this Death Certificate, including the cause of death, the length of residence at the address (37 years implies 1875) and length of residence in California (61 years implies 1861).  It is disappoionting that the informant did not know the names of Elijah's parents or their birth places.  I believe that they were Jeremiah and Allethia (Pickrell) McKnew, both born in Maryland.  

 

The URL for this post is:  

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

FamilySearch Facts for June 2012

I updated my "Exploring FamilySearch.org - The Very Best FREE Genealogy Website" presentation last week in preparation for my talk next week (Tuesday, 12 June at 10 a.m. at the Carlsbad (CA) City council chambers) to the North San Diego County Genealogical Society (NSDCGS).  

Part of the talk is a review of the progress that FamilySearch.org has made over the past year or two.  I contacted FamilySearch.org for an update on their holdings and received this from Paul Nauta:

1. Number of searchable names from original source records in FamilySearch.org’s Historical Records Collections: Over 2.80 billion
2. Number of searchable names from user contributed records in FamilySearch’s Trees collections online: Over 500 million.
3. There are 1,164 historic record collections at FamilySearch.org. [as of 2 June 2012]
4. Number of browsable digital images of historic documents at FamilySearch.org: 560 million.
5. Number of hits on FamilySearch.org: Over 10 million hits per day.
6. FamilySearch Indexing is the largest community-based transcription initiative in the world.

• Over 200,000 active (index at least one project/year) volunteer indexers.
• Indexing 500,000+ arbitrated names per day.
• Over 850 million names indexed since the application was launched in 2005.
• Publishing over 200 million indexed names per year now (double entered, arbitrated).
• Over 130 current projects. New projects added weekly. See the current lists of projects at Indexing.FamilySearch.org.
• Search completed indexes and un-indexed images at FamilySearch.org.
• Indexing program is available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish,Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish with more language interfaces and international projects coming.
• Greatest need is for native language indexers for international projects and volunteer indexing arbitrators.
• Many partners—historical societies, state, national, and religious archives—use it to improve access to or accuracy of their indexes.

7. 2.4 million rolls of microfilm (Search the catalog online at FamilySearch.org for more details)
8. FamilySearch is producing over 160 million new digital images a year from original source documents.

1. 100 million digital images a year created through microfilm conversion.
2. 60 million new digital images produced a year from new field captures.

9. 15 high-speed scanners are dedicated to converting existing films. Time to complete the digitization of the film collection is projected at 6 years.
10. 185 camera teams currently filming records in 45 countries (new field captures). Most are digital cameras.
11. Search digital images and indexes at FamilySearch.org. Millions added weekly.
12. 4,600 Family History Centers in 126 countries
13. Scanning digital books in cooperation with select public libraries. Search over 50,000 historic books at books.familysearch.org.     

In another email, Paul shared this:

The 1940 US Census, respective to FamilySearch activities, is:

• 1 of 1,173 historic recollections online
• 1% of total new digital image content we'll put online this year (1940 has 3.8 million images; we'll publish around 400 million images this year)
• From an indexing perspective, it is getting a lot of focus from our indexing resources. It is 130 million names indexed when done. FamilySearch volunteers will index over 300 million names (double key; arbitrated). So it represents almost half of the indexing production for the year (unless we can keep all of those new volunteers engaged in the other 100 projects in the queue currently!)

If you read between the lines of the last two bullets, you'll see that our active volunteers are indexing about 2 to 3% of the total digital content we're putting online each year. And we'll be significantly increasing the number of cameras in the field each year—which means more and more digital images published online yearly. There's a huge need for additional online volunteers to try to keep pace with the growing number of collections and digital images we're publishing. Digital images being published are far outpacing the actual indexing output.

I asked Paul if I could share this information, and he said that it was intended for public dissemination, so there it is.  I appreciate FamilySearch's openness about their work and progress.  

Compare the statistics above with my last post on this subject - FamilySearch Bloggers Day - FamilySearch Indexing.  While the categories are not the same, you can see how the effort has progressed over the past 20 months.  The one thing I noted was that, if there are 3.5 billion images on the FHL microfilms and microfiches, and if they are converting 100 million microfilm images per year (stated above), then it will take 35 years to get them all digitized.  FamilySearch has stated that they won't digitize ALL of them due to copyright and other restrictions on some material, so it won't be 35 years, but it may be close to that.

Needless to say, I am ALWAYS impressed by the sheer size and scope of the FamilySearch effort to bring family hostory and genealogy records to the genealogy world -- for free use by all persons, not just LDS church members.  It is difficult to keep track of their progress.  The 1940 U.S. Census Indexing progress is phenomenal, and I hope that the Indexers and arbitrators keep up the indexing effort in other record collections when the 1940 census is completed.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/familysearch-facts-for-june-2012.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

SDGS Program on Saturday, 9 June Features Ann Montgomery

The June 2012 program of the San Diego Genealogical Society (SDGS) is this Saturday, 9 June, at 10 a.m. at St. Andrews Lutheran Church (8375 Lake Murray Blvd) in San Diego.  

The featured speaker will be Ann Montgomery, presenting on:

1) "Genealogy Resources at the Carlsbad Public Library"

2)  "What's New at Family Search"

Ann is a graduate of the University of Southern California with a BS in Dental Hygiene.  After 20 years as a dental hygienist, she discovered her new loves in Family History Research and teaching.  Ann volunteered and taught classes in the Family History Center for the LDS church for eight years before being employed at the City of Carlsbad Library Genealogy division.  She enjoys teaching customers how to use the collection, the third largest collection of genealogy resources in California.  "We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful facility right here in our midst," Ann says.

Classes she teaches at the library include the paid databases offered by the library, Ancestry Library edition, Fold3 (formerly footnote), AmericanAncestors, Heritage Quest Online, and Access Newspaper Archives.  The library offers classes twice a month and society meetings twice a month.

Ann lectures on FamilySearch (Ann's favorite website), how to use the Carlsbad Library, and how to access and use the User's Guides provided by the staff for more extensive and difficult record collections in the library.

Ann is employed by the County of San Diego Library system and works in Encinitas where she gives small computer classes each month.  Ann has spoken at the North San Diego County Genealogical Society meetings, the Escondido Family History Fair, and presented at the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/sdgs-program-on-saturday-9-june.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

(Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 208: Strawberry Fields

 I am posting photographs from my family collections for (Not So) Wordless Wednesday (you know me, I can't go wordless!).    

Here is a picture from our recent Royal Caribbean cruise (Norway-France-Ireland-England-Scotland-Norway):

This photo shows my wife, Linda, standing at the gate to Strawberry Fields in Liverpool.  This "field" of strawberry plants was a favorite place of Beatle John Lennon to romp during his childhood.  The tour of Liverpool that we took featured stops at Mathew Street (where The Cavern is), The Beatles Story (which catalogs the family history and careers of all of the Beatles), Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/not-so-wordless-wednesday-post-208.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Do the Research Notes Transfer via GEDCOM to Legacy Family Tree 7.5?

In Creating Research Notes in RootsMagic 5 - Post 1 and Post 2 last week, I demonstrated how to create a set of Research Notes in RootsMagic 5 (using the "Detail Text" field in the Source citation menu), and how to create a "Research Notes Report" that puts all of the Research notes, with their sources, in chronological order. 

That's great for users of RootsMagic, but the next question for me is: 

Does that information transfer, via GEDCOM, to other genealogy software programs?  And can it be put into a report format in the other program?  I posted  Do the Research Notes Transfer via GEDCOM to Family Tree Maker 2012? yesterday, and this post concerns Legacy Family Tree 7.5.
.
I created a small GEDCOM file of Alpheus B. Smith and his family in RootsMagic 5, and exported it to a file.  Then I opened Legacy Family Tree 7.5 and imported the GEDCOM file just created. 

The Family View and Individual's Information window for Alpheus B. Smith looks like this:

I wanted to look at the text associated with the Source Citation for each Event/Fact on the list, so I clicked on the "Source Citations" icon (the "three books") to the right of the surname in the window above.

The "Assigned Sources for Alpheus B. Smith" window opened, and I clicked on the 1826 Deed entry:

In order to see the Source Citation text, I clicked on the "Edit Detail" button in the window above.  The "Source Detail" window opened and there were four tabs of information - "Detail Information," "Text/Comments," "Multimedia" and "Overrides").  I clicked on the "Text/Comments" tab and saw:

For this Event/Fact, and its' Source Citation, the "Source Text" information (which was in RootsMagic as "Detail Text") was included.  I checked the other Facts with Source citations, and the "Source Text" information was included on all of them.

That's GOOD NEWS - the "Source Text" came across in the GEDCOM transfer.

Does the "Source Text" information get printed in any Individual, Ancestor, Descendant, Source Citation, or Timeline Report by Legacy Family Tree 7.5?

The only one that I found that printed the information was the "Source Citation Report."  From the "Reports" window, I selected the "Source Citation Report:"

The "Source Citation Report" window opened.  There are two tabs of input data here - Include and Options.  On the "Include" tab, I checked all of the boxes in the "What to Print"" section for "Master Sources and all Citations for each one" which included a check box for "Include citation text" and "Include citation comments."

I checked all of the boxes on the "Options" tab also, which included a check box for "Include Source Text" and "Include Source Comments."

The first page of the "Source Citation Report" looked like this:

For each Source citation, the report included:

*  The Source (master and source comment).
*  The names of the person(s), with the "Event," the "Citation Detail," and the "Source Text."

The seventh page of the report provides the information for the 1826 Deed noted at the beginning of this post.

I noted that the "Source Citation Report" was created for ALL f the Sources utilized in the database, not just the Sources used for one individual, and that they were listed n this report alphabetically by Source title.

I could not figure out a way to make a source citation report for ONLY one person or one family.  I could not figure out a way to make an Individual Report with the "Source Text" information included.

A similar report to the "Research Notes Report" referred to in the RootsMagic 5 posts could be created in Legacy Family Tree if:

*  One individual or a set of individuals could be selected for the report.
*  The Report was ordered chronologically by the Event rather than by an alphabetical Source list.

To sum up, Legacy Family Tree 7.5 can read the Source Citation detail text through the GEDCOM import feature, the detail text shows in the "Source Text" box on the "Text/Comments" tab in the "Edit Detail" window, and can create a list of the "Source Text" in the "Source Citation Report."  However, it apparently cannot create a report for one individual or a set of individuals, and cannot order the report chronologically.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/do-research-notes-transfer-via-gedcom_05.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Are We Strangers in Genealogy Land?

James Tanner wrote No Big Deal today on his Genealogy's Star blog today, lamenting (?) that genealogy blogs really don't have a significant readership in the bigger Genealogy World.   His experience at the Family History Expo Conference, and in his classes at a local FHC, pretty much mirror my own experiences when I make presentations at genealogy societies or teach a class.  We often seem to be "Strangers in a Strange Genealogy Land."

If I'm lucky, perhaps 10% of the attendees at a presentation have at least heard of my blog, and maybe 5% actually read it regularly.  New genealogists are at 0%.  The group on the Legacy Family Tree cruise was at the 10% level too.  I doubt that 10% of my local Chula Vista society, with 100 members, actually reads my blog.  almost everyone knows I have one, and most probably think that I waste my time writing it.

It's even worse than that.  I took a survey at my society meeting last week, asking who was on Facebook (about 20%), on Google Plus (about 10%), or on Twitter (about 10%).  Only about 20% had a smart phone or a tablet mobile device, and only 10% said that they used it for genealogy research or education.  My talk was on using mobile devices for genealogy, and most that I talked to afterwards said "I'll talk to you if I get one."

It seems to me that there is a small group of "tuned-in" persons (10 to 20%) who are into social networking, online research, and collaboration and a larger group of "occasional" persons (80 to 90%) who go to society meetings or check out online databases on a haphazard basis.  Most of the latter group seems to have no real interest in genealogy conferences, or online collaboration.  Some are either scared of, or intimidated by, or befuddled by, using computers for genealogy.

James Tanner and I, and most of our regular blog readers, are in that smaller group of "tuned-in" and first adopters, as are most genealogy bloggers, conference planners, conference and seminar speakers, and some conference goers.  How big is this group?  Based on my blog statistics, Facebook friends, Google Plus followers, conference attendance, etc., there are perhaps 5,000 persons who are really "tuned in."  They write and read blogs and magazine articles, work in their local or larger societies, and attend conferences and seminars.

Because of this difference in participation, the idea of collaborating rarely gets adopted by the larger group.  Many have done their research the old way with forms, pencils, photocopies and microfilms, and don't really take part in the online activities enthusiastically promoted by the smaller group.  It's just how it is.

I receive a number of emails every week from people who have found my blog articles for specific family lines or persons, so I know that "blogging works."  I try to respond to these emails with helpful information and perhaps a genealogy report in PDF format, and encourage the correspondent to add content to my database.  Other geneabloggers have the same experience.  For me, blogging has taken the place of the message boards and mailing lists, which all seem to be dormant (with some exceptions).

While Ancestry.com has 1.7 million subscribers, and there are millions of family trees on Ancestry with billions of persons (many are duplicates), I receive relatively few messages through their system - perhaps one a week.  It seems like the average number of persons on an Ancestry Member Tree is about 100, and that indicates to me that most of the trees are relatively small and probably dormant.  There are a number of persons with relatively large trees (mine is about 40,000 persons) and there is a good chance of finding common ancestry on those larger trees.  But there is little real collaboration.

The inter-connected family trees on WeRelate.org and WikiTree.com have a relatively small number of submitters, but the number on Geni.com is larger.  However, on Geni.com, the average number is probably about 100 persons submitted by a user since there is no GEDCOM capability.

The "next" big inter-connected family tree system is the FamilySearch Family Tree, where the hope is that significant collaboration will occur, discussions, documents and source citations will rule, and the Mother of all Genealogy Family Trees will blossom.  IBIWISI - I'll believe it when I see it!

This post kind of meandered through a number of fertile fields, didn't it?   I think that's it's not one of my best efforts, but I spent a lot of time doing it so I'm going to post it anyway!  If anything, it can always be a bad example of a genealogy blog post.

Is our band of merry geneabloggers doomed to wander through cyberspace forever, or will thousands of new genea-readers suddenly appear from the rest of the Genealogy World?

What do you think? 

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/genestrangers-in-strange-genealogy-land.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Tuesday's Tip - Search Fold3 War of 1812 Collection - FREE in June

This week's Tuesday's Tip is:  Access to the War of 1812 collections on www.Fold3.com is FREE during the month of June 2012.  

The home page for Fold3.com is:

The FREE collections include:

*  Letters Received by the Adjutant General, 1805-1821 (99% complete)

*  War of 1812 Pension Files (3% complete, all states, A and B names only)

*  War of 1812 Prize Cases, Southern District Court, New York (100% complete)

*  War of 1812 Service Records (Lake Erie and Mississippi only)

The information page for the War of 1812 Collection provides much more information:

 The user can search for records on the home page or on the War of 1812 page above, or can Browse for records on http://www.fold3.com/browse.php#247|.

Here is the Browse screen for the War of 1812 Pension Files.  I chose Connecticut, and the B surname list:

Scrolling down the B name list, I chose Beach and saw four pension files for this surname in Connecticut.  I highlighted Samuel Beach and could see the page image thumbnails available:

Clicking on one of the images, it opened in the Fold3 image window:

This particular record lists the file numbers, soldier's name, service, spouse's name, residences, death dates for both, bounty land warrant numbers, and remarks about the soldier's service.  There are 68 pages in this particular War of 1812 Pension File.  I hope that this is one that is for my colleague's Beach ancestors!

The War of 1812 Pension Files  is a joint project between the National Archives and the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS).  At this date, it is only 3% imaged and indexed.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/tuesdays-tip-search-fold3-war-of-1812.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Using the Genealogy Jamboree App to Pick My Classes

I posted last week how to access the syllabus material using the SCGS Genealogy Jamboree app in Getting Ready for SCGS Genealogy Jamboree NEXT WEEK!  

I need to choose the classes that I might want to attend on the three days, so I used the App again to do that - picking one or more in each time period.  Here was my process:

1)  On the SCGS Jamboree 2012 App Dashboard:

I chose the "Classes" icon.

2)  The list of classes for each day, and each time period for that day, appeared.  I scrolled up and down and picked at least one class from the list in each time period by tapping the star to the left of the class title:

On the screen above, I picked Robert Raymond's talk on "Baby Steps with ..." tapped the star, it became dark.  I went through the entire schedule doing this.

You can move from day to day by tapping the arrows to the right or left of the Day/Date.

3)  Back on the Dashboard, I selected  the "My Schedule" icon and saw:

The classes that I selected for Friday afternoon are shown in orange, with the time frame for each class or event.

Have you picked out your classes yet?  Have you downloaded the Jamboree app and used it yet?  Go for it!

We're really looking forward to the Hollywood Gala on Friday night - this may be the only time I ever get to walk on a red carpet.  What should I wear?  A Hawaiian shirt?  Cheryl's hula skirt?  A Burger king crown?  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/using-genealogy-jamboree-app-to-pick-my.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Do the Research Notes Transfer via GEDCOM to Family Tree Maker 2012?

In Creating Research Notes in RootsMagic 5 - Post 1 and Post 2 last week, I demonstrated how to create a set of Research Notes in RootsMagic 5 (using the "Detail Text" field in the Source citation menu), and how to create a "Research Notes Report" that puts all of the Research notes, with their sources, in chronological order.

That's great for users of RootsMagic, but the next question for me is:

Does that information transfer, via GEDCOM, to other genealogy software programs?  And can it be put into a report format in the other program?  I'm going to look at Family Tree Maker 2012 first.

I created a small GEDCOM file of alpheus B. Smith and his family in RootsMagic 5, and exported it to a file.  Then I opened Family Tree Maker 2012 and imported the GEDCOM file just created.

The People Workspace and Individual & Shared Facts screen for Alpheus B. Smith looks like this:

A quick review of the Facts, sources, Media and Notes indicated that everything I wanted to transfer across in the GEDCOM file was included.  I was curious to see if the "Detail Text" notes in the Source citation was transferred.  Here is the "Source" tab contents of the  "Edit Source Citation" window for the Birth Fact:

As you can see, the "Detail Text" note is labelled "Citation text" in the bottom part of the window.

On the "Reference Note" tab, the "citation text" is included after the Source and the Citation detail:

The GOOD NEWS is that the "Detail text" material is transferred using GEDCOM into the Family Tree Maker 2012 database as "Citation text."

What about Reports?  Is there a Family Tree Maker 2012 report "just like" the RootsMagic 5 "Research Notes Report?"

Not exactly...After checking out all of the Report options in the "Publish" Workspace, I found two Reports that provide similar information.  Here is the first page of the "Documented Facts" Report for Alpheus B. Smith (I selected only him):

Here is the first page of the "Source Usage Report" for Alpheus:

As you can see in the two screens above, both reports provide the person's name, the Fact description, the Source citation, and then the "Citation text" information.  The Facts are listed in alphabetical order, instead of chronological order.

Further down in the list, a problem appeared.  Look at the text in this Citation text:

Any text formatting (e.g., bold, underline, italics) in the Citation text, which is transferred via GEDCOM in RootsMagic has formatting indicators of <b> <u> <i> throughout the FTM information.   When I created the GEDCOM file, I checked to save note formatting and special RootsMagic formatting.

If I uncheck those items in the GEDCOM export, create another GEDCOM report and import it into FTM 2012, then the resulting Report in FTM 2012 looks like this:

The formatting problem (at least for bold, underline and italics) is solved.  However, the general GEDCOM import problem to FTM 2012 remains - there are spaces throughout all Notes and Sources text because FTM 2012 doesn't do the text concatenation task correctly ( a known problem).

It appears that FTM 2012 does import the "Detail text" as "Citation text" and a similar report to RootsMagic's "Research Notes Report" can be created using the "Source Usage Report" or the "Documented Facts Report" for an individual.

If Family Tree Maker 2012 modified their "Documented Facts Report" for an individual to have the option of putting the Sources in Chronological order, rather than alphabetical order, the report would be equivalent to the RootsMagic report.   Another option would be to add the Source and Citation text to the "Timeline Report" to create a "Source Citation Notes Report."

I hope that Family Tree Maker will take these suggestions to heart and add these features to their program.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/do-research-notes-transfer-via-gedcom.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver