Exploring RootsMagic 6 - Post 1

I read the press release about the latest RootsMagic version 6 (see http://www.geneapress.com/2012/11/rootsmagic-6-released.html) and downloaded the program last night, paid for it online, and installed the registration key (when you open up the Essentials program, a box will pop up with 3 options.  One of those options is to "Unlock Full Registered Version").

The What's New in RootsMagic 6 page (http://www.rootsmagic.com/RootsMagic/WhatsNew.aspx) provides a summary of the new features, including:

*  Publish Online -- Publish your family information to My.RootsMagic.com; Dynamic sites with pedigree, family and individual views for each person; Can include notes, sources, and media for each person

*  Enhanced Timeline View -- Shows a full timeline of the current person's events and those of their parents, siblings, spouses, and children; Shows a graphical timeline of the person's events; Edit events, names, directly from the timeline view (without having to open the edit screen)

*  CountyCheck Explorer -- Lets you look up counties and states (US, Canada, UK, Australia) to view information about them; Access the FamilySearch Wiki page for counties and states; Access an interactive state map showing historical county boundaries

*  WebTags -- Attach links to websites to any person, source, citation, place, or research log item; Instantly jump to a web page tagged to a record; Print a list of WebTags you have added to your database

*  Find Everywhere -- Find every record containing text you enter; Find people, families, events, notes, sources, places, to-do items, research logs, media items, and more; Edit any found record directly from the results screen

*  Enhanced searching and selecting -- Search for people by the number of spouses, children, parents, or siblings that they have; Select people based on genetic lines (Y-STR and Mitochondrial)

*  Enhanced WebSearch -- Create a WebTag directly from your search results; Optionally use an external browser for search results

*  Enhanced Place List -- View place detail information directly from the place list; Edit place detail notes, media, etc. directly from the place list

All of that sound pretty good to me...but did the basic functions and screens change much?  Other than adding buttons to different windows and items to the different menu lists, I don't see much difference.  The basic data entry, data editing, source citing, media attaching/tagging, report writing, chart making, etc. are essentially the same.

I was curious about the Enhanced Timeline View, so I looked at that:

There are three buttons under the View menu bar:  "Add a fact," "Delete fact" and "Options."

From this menu, I can add a fact without going to the "Edit P{erson" menu - I clicked on the "Add a fact" button:

I could choose any Fact from the list, click the "Select" button and add content - a Fact panel opens on the right-side of the screen to add the Fact content.

Facts on the list can be deleted by highlighting the selected Fact and clicking on the "Delete fact" button.

The Timeline View "Options" button opens a list from which the user can check or uncheck different presentation options:

The Enhanced Timeline View works well as far as I can see.  Unfortunately, I deleted my RootsMagic 5 program as part of the installation procedure, so I can't do a side-by-side comparison of the enhancements.

More to come - I'm still working with it.  I'm intrigued by the My RootsMagic publication option and will look at it soon.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/exploring-rootsmagic-6-post-1.html

Copyright (c) 2012 - Randall J. Seaver

Tuesday's Tip: the Hathi Trust Digital Library

This week's Tuesday's Tip is:  Check out the holdings on the Hathi Trust Digital Library site (www.hathitrust.org). 

The "About" page says:

"HathiTrust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. There are more than sixty partners in HathiTrust, and membership is open to institutions worldwide."

Here is the home page of the site (www.hathitrust.org):

There are two search fields on the screen above - the one on the left is for a "Catalog Search" (information about the items) and the one in the middle is for a "Full-text Search" (words that occur within the items).  I put the name "peregrine white" in the "Full-text Search" field on the screen above, and saw:

The first match is the only one that looks to be of interest - and it's a book that I have not seen before.  I clicked on the "Full View" link and saw:

The "Full View" provides several ways to view the document - a "Classic view," a "Scroll" view, a "Flip" view, a "thumbnail" view, and a "Plain text" view.  I am in the "Scroll" view in the screen above.   In the "Scroll" view, the user can use the scroll bar on the right (or the mouse scroll wheel) to move up and down within the document.The user can zoom in or out, and rotate the page images, using the controls above the image.  The user can use the back and forward page, or the first page and last page, controls to navigate within the book. 

Some of the books and documents on the match list are "Full View" and some are "Limited view," which means that you can see the page numbers where your search terms appear, but cannot see the actual page.  This "Limited view" can provide leads so that the user can find the book or document in a repository.

There may be documents and books in this collection that are different from those in Google Books, the Internet Archive, and other online book digital collections.  Check it out!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/tuesdays-tip-hathi-trust-digital-library.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Pruning the Tree - a Wrong Buck Family

Occasionally I run across something really wrong in my family tree.  When I do, I try to make it right, and also find out why I had it wrong.

Over the weekend, I was working in my tree in RootsMagic, adding sources and content using original ans derivative sources, and found this Joseph Buck family in Killingly, Windham County, Connecticut (I'm showing my Ancestry Member Tree because I've modified my RootsMagic database):

The data I had said that Joseph Buck (1761-1861) married Dorcas Fairbanks (????-1851) in 1794 and had four children, Aaron, Amy, Richard and Barney (born in 1784).  Hmmm, red alert!  Problem here... either the birth date for Barney is wrong, or Dorcas wasn't his mother, or the marriage date is wrong.  1784 is a bit early for a baby to be born to a man born in 1767.

Where did I get this information?  Well, years ago while "mining" books and databases for Buck family data, I found this book:


Ellery Bicknell Crane, Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts, Volume 1 (New York : The Lewis Publishing Company, 1907), page 388. 

It is now on Google Books:

The sketch for Joseph Buck says:

"(VII) Joseph Buck, son of Samuel Buck (VI), was born in Putnam or Killingly, Connecticut, in 1766, baptized June I, 1766. He is mentioned as prominent in 1793 among the early Methodists of Thompson, Connecticut, and vicinity. He was blind for many years. He settled at Thompson, Connecticut, where his four children were born, as follows: Richard, who was a soldier in the war of 1812, was in Captain Solomon Sikes' company stationed at New London; Amy; Barney and Aaron (twins); Barney married Amy Sprague, of Thompson, Connecticut."

The sketch for Barney Buck says:

"(VIII) Barney Buck, son of Joseph Buck (7), was born at Thompson, Connecticut, about 1790. He was in Captain John Joslin's company at New London in the war of 1812. He married Amy Sprague, of Thompson. The children of Barney and Amy (Sprague) Buck were: Warren, married Sophia, went to Michigan to live; Hiram, married Cynthia Brown; Henry, married Sophronia Sheldon, married (second) Sophia Anderson; Aaron, married Emiline Randall; Barney, married Almeda Coman; William L., married Martha Maddox; Abbie, married Sidney Bolton ; Caroline, married Liberty Brown."

I looked for the Killingly and Thompson, Connecticut Vital Records online (Ancestry has them in the Connecticut Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection) and found a list of children for Joseph Buck and Dorcas Fairbanks born from 1793 to 1813, with no indication of Aaron, Barney, Amy or Richard.  

Here are the first two pages of the Killingly Town Records for Buck records:

And the page for Thompson:

Barney Buck, his wives Amy Sprague and Ruth Lewis, and one of his children are buried in the North Grosvenor Cemetery in Grosvenor Dale, Windham county, Connecticut, near Thompson:

Samuel Joseph Buck and his wife, Dorcas Fairbanks, and several of their children are buried in Grove Street Cemetery in Putnam, along with members of the David and Anna (Russell) Buck family (including an Aaron Buck (1769-1830)) who are in the Killingly vital records.  

Between the Barbour Collection and Find-A-Grave resources, I've been able to add sourced information to my database for several Buck families.  

However, the parentage of Aaron and Barney Buck, perhaps twins, Amy and Richard is still conjectural in my mind.  What I do know is that they are not children of Joseph and Dorcas (Fairbanks) Buck or David and Anna (Russell) Buck.  There are some online family trees at Ancestry that say their parents may be Aaron and Amy (Horton) Buck, who resided in Pomfret, Windham County, Connecticut, who may have been from Rehoboth, Bristol, Massachusetts, or not!

I'm glad that I found some well-sourced information about these families, and have been able to sort them out.  It is apparent to me that the Worcester County memoir Book with the Buck families is wrong, at least as far as Barney Buck's parents is concerned, but that the information about Barney's children is correct.  The information about the ancestry of Samuel Joseph Buck who married Dorcas Fairbanks also seems correct when compared to Massachusetts town vital records.

These changes will go into my big Ancestry Member Tree the next time I update it.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/pruning-tree-wrong-buck-family.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Updated:  My thanks to Geolover for noting that I had Samuel Buck in place of Joseph Buck in two places.  The Joseph Buck who married Dorcas Fairbanks was the son of Samuel Buck and Martha Bloss.  However, the children attributed to Joseph and Dorcas Buck in the memoir book were incorrect.  The correct children are listed in the Killingly, Connecticut vital records in the Barbour Collection.

Amanuensis Monday - Will of Joseph Carter (1604-1676) of Woburn, Mass.

Genea-blogger John Newmark (who writes the excellent TransylvanianDutch blog) started his own Monday blog theme several years 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 the probate file of Joseph Carter (1604-1676) of Woburn, Mass.   He married Susanna Chamberlain in 1644, and they had four children:  Joseph Carter (1645-1706); Johanna Carter (1647-1698); Henry Carter (1648-????); Susanna Carter (1649-1708).

Joseph Carter died testate, and his probate records are in Middlesex County (Mass.) Probate Records, Probate Packet 4,020 (images of original probate papers accessed by Randy Seaver on FHL US/CAN Microfilm 0,386,050).  His will, dated 30 December 1676 and probated 13 April 1677, reads:

"The Last Will and Testament of Joseph Carter Senior now of Charlstown made the 30th Day of December 1676.

"Imprs.  I Comitt my Soule into the hands of God my Creator and my bodie to the Earth therein to be Buried.  After all my just debts be duly paid and Satisfied.

"Item I Give and bequeath unto my loving wife Susana Carter all my Estate whatsoever I ... may belong unto me at the time of my decease I freely give unto her for her more Comfortable Subsistence during her life time but not to dispose of it.

"It:  I give unto my Grandson John Willson son of John Willson the one halfe of my four acre lott of a plant ground lying in Woburn after my wives decease that is to say that ... 2 acres lying next his fathers land to be laid out from the highway ... the pine Swamp.

"It:  I give unto my Daughter Susana the wife of Henry Summers of Woburn the sum of five pounds in good pay After my wives decease.

"It:  I give unto my Daughter Joanna the wife of John Willson of Woburn the sum of five pounds After my wives decease - in good paye.

"It:  I give unto my Granddaughter Susana Carter one feather Bed and bolster & two pillows with one Rugg and blanket After my wives decease.

"It:  My Will is that what soever Estate may remaine After my wives decease mee or except what is above given by legacies that it shall fall unto my Son Joseph Carter and unto his Children after him.

"It.  I make and ordaine my son Joseph Carter and my wife Susana Carter to be my Joynt Executors to this my last will - And I allso Desire my loving friends Deacon John Carter & Thomas Carter to be my overseers to this ...
....................................................................................... his
"Witnesses .................................................... Joseph   X   Carter
James Cleg ,,,,........................................................... mark
Thomas ..."

The inventory of the estate of "Joseph Carter Seniour of Wobourn, who deceased ye 30 of ye 10 month, 1676," was apprized by Thomas Peirce and John Russell and was accepted by the Court on 1 12 month 1677.  The inventory totals 139 pounds, 6 shillings, and includes the following real estate:

*  Housing and land adjoyning (60 pounds)
*  Four acres of land (12 pounds)
*  Two acres and a half of land (2 pounds)
*  Two parcels of meadow (18 pounds)
*  Woodlands with all town privileges (14 pounds)

My ancestry is through Johanna Carter, daughter of Joseph and Susanna (Chamberlain) Carter, who married John Wilson (1672-1735) in 1672.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/amenuensis-monday-will-of-joseph-carter.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Best of the Genea-Blogs - 11 to 17 November 2012

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:

*  A Pend-ing Question by Judy G. Russell on The Legal Genealogist blog.  Judy was stumped, but her correspondent asked the right person, and now we all know what a Pender is...you did read this, right?

*  10 Reasons to Attend a Genealogy Conference by Terri O'Connell on the Finding Our Ancestors blog.  Terri has Fun at #10 on this list, I think it's #1!

*  Tuesday's Tip: Check the U.S.D. 1812 Ancestor Database by Elizabeth O'Neal on the Little Bytes of Life blog.  A newly found database - check it out!

*  Family Tree DNA Conference 2012 - Nits and Grits by Roberta J. Estes on the DNAeXplained - Genetic Genealogy blog.  Here is a class-by-class description of events at the FTDNA Conference.

*  Family Tree DNA Conference 2012 - Native American Focus Meeting by Roberta J. Estes on the Native Heritage Project blog.  Roberta concentrates on the Native american meeting at the FTDNA Conference.

*  Why and How to Optimize Your Genealogy Blog  for Mobile by Caroline M. Pointer on the BloggingGenealogy.com blog.  Good examples and suggestions from the most tech-savvy genea-blogger around.

*  So, Now What Do I Do? by Becky Wiseman on the Kinexxions blog.  Becky found some of her blog posts in Ancestry Member Trees as Stories, and tried to rectify the issue nicely, with some success.

*  Five Ways to Keep Distant Family Members from Being Strangers by Julie Broadbent on the WorldVitalRecords Blog.  Julie has some excellent ideas and examples in this post, just in time for the holidays.

*  Secrets of a 21st Century Genealogist by Mike Maglio on The In-Depth Genealogist blog.  Mike addresses blogging and blog promotion in this post.

*  Family Tree DNA's 8th International Conference on Genetic Genealogy, and Day 2 by Emily Aulicino on the DNA: Genealem's Genealogy blog.  Emily summarizes the recent FTDNA Conference - great summaries.

*  Using Facebook for Genealogy by Deb Ruth on the Adventures in Genealogy blog.  Deb does a great job of summarizing this subject.

*  How Do You Evaluate a Source? by Jill Morelli on the Genealogy Certification: My Personal Journal blog.  Jill heard Dr. Thomas Jones speak and applied the knowledge to one of her research problems.

These genea-bloggers wrote weekly pick posts and news summary posts this week: 

*  Monday Morning Mentions by Lynn Palermo on The Armchair Genealogist blog.

*  Monday Recap for November 12, 2012 by Amanda on the Geni Blog.

*  Follow Friday - Fab Finds for November 16, 2012 by Jana Last on Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog.

*  Friday Finds - 11/16/12 by Julie Cahill Tarr on the GenBlog blog.

*  Genealogy News Corral, Nov. 12-16 by Beth on the Genealogy Insider blog.

*  Ruth's Recommendations by Ruth Blair on the Passionate Genealogist blog.

*  From the Blogs, November 16 by Michael Leclerc on the Mocavo Genealogy Blog.

*  Weekly Genealogy Picks, Nov. 11-17 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 1290 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/best-of-genea-blogs-11-to-17-november.html
Copyright(c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - 100 Word Challenge - Grandparents

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (where's my Mission Impossible music...drat, lost it), is:

This SNGF is based on the 100 Word Challenge (http://100wc.net/) that school children are participating in around the world.  They are given a word or phrase to write a story about in exactly one hundred words.  Last week, it was "Grandparents are important because..."  We all know that gran

1)  Write a story using the phrase "Grandparents are important because" in 100 words.  [Hint:  If you write it in a word processor, you can use Tools > Word Count (or similar) to count words]

2)  Share the story with all of us by writing your own blog post, writing a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Google Plus Stream or Facebook Status or Note.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

Here's mine:  

Grandparents are important because they are often the most loving and giving people that we know as children. They enjoy talking to their grandchildren, teaching them about older things, telling stories about the child's parent, encouraging them, and have been known to indulge them...slipping them goodies without the parents knowing about it (yeah, right!).

Grandparents are also the genealogy gateway to previous generations through family stories, family papers and records. Asking grandma or grandpa about their childhood, their siblings and their own parents often provides stories and life lessons rich in detail about times and places unknown to the child.

100 words, exactly!  Without having to shave or add words to it.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-100-word.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Surname Saturday - GRANDE (colonial Massachusetts)

It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week.  

I am in the 7th great-grandmothers, up to number 539: Sarah GRANDE (1691-????)). [Note: The 7th great-grandfathers have been covered in earlier posts].

My ancestral line back to only one American generation of this GRANDE family 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)

66. Nathan Gates (1767-1830)67. Abigail Knowlton (1774-1855)

134.  Jeremiah Knowlton (1745-1783)
135.  Abigail Pierce (1750-1775)

268.  Jeremiah Knowlton (1713-1752)
269.  Sarah Allen (1717-1796)

538.  Thomas Allen, born 1690 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; died about 1777 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.  He was the son of 1076. Benjamin Allen and 1077. Frances Rice.  He married 27 June 1711 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States.

539.  Sarah Grande, born about 1691 in Massachusetts, United States; died ????.

Children of Thomas Allen and Sarah Grande are:  Thomas Allen (1713-????); Daniel Allen (1715-????); Sarah Allen (1717-1796). 

The parentage of Sarah Grande is a mystery.  The most likely father is Robert Grande who resided in Roxbury in the 1650 to 1690 time frame, and had a number of children (in the Roxbury VRs as Grande, Grandy or Grundy).  However, there is no birth record for a Sarah Grande/Grundy in Roxbury VRs.  Some Ancestry Member Trees claim that Robert's wife was Mary Parker, and some of the trees claim that she was the Mary Parker hanged as a witch in Andover in 1691 (but then, she would have been Mary Grande, right?).  

The marriage of Sarah Grande to Thomas Allen, and the birth of their three children are in the Sudbury Vital Records.

If anyone has better information than this, I would appreciate an email at rjseaver@cox.net.

The URL for this post is:

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

NEHGS Has Many Searchable Periodicals Online

The www.AmericanAncestors.org website (the New England Historic Genealogical Society) has a number of periodicals available for members to search and read on the website.

You can see the list, and a short description of each periodical at http://www.americanancestors.org/Databaselist.aspx under "Journals and Periodicals."

Here is a list of the presently available periodicals:

*  American Ancestors Magazine - Volumes 1 (2010) and 2 (2011)

*  The American Genealogist - Volumes 9 (1932) to 73 (1998)

*  Connecticut Nutmegger - Volumes 1 (1968) to 43 (2010)

*  The Essex Antiquarian - Volumes 1 (1897) to 13 (1909)

*  The Essex Genealogist - Volumes 1 (1981) to 25 (2005)

*  The Mayflower Descendant - Volumes 1-40 (1899-1935, 1937, 1985-1990)

*  New England Ancestors Magazine - Volumes 1-10 (2000-2009)

*  New England Historical and Genealogical Register - Volumes 1 (1847) to 165 (2011)

*  Vital Records from the New Hampshire Gazette, 1756-1800

*  New Netherlands Connections - Volumes 1 (1995) to 15 (2010)

*  New York Genealogical and Biographical Record - Volumes 1 (1870) to 25 (1894)

*  Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine - Volumes 1 (1895) to 30 (1950)

*  Search for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in the Boston Pilot, 1831-1920

*  The Virginia Genealogist - Volumes 1 (1957) to 49 (2005)

There are several other collections of newspaper extractions available.

  This is an excellent collection of indexed and searchable periodicals concentrating on the northeastern part of the United States.  I hope that they continue to add to these periodical digital collections, and that they add more periodicals from Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Access to all of these searchable periodicals is one of the major reasons that I am a subscriber to the New England Historical and Genealogical Society.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/nehgs-american-ancestors-periodicals.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

Follow-Up Friday - Helpful and Interesting Reader Comments

It's Friday, and I try to post reader comments to my blog posts that are helpful and interesting.  Here is this week's list:

1)  On Fixing My Folks in FamilySearch Family Tree - the Plan (posted 12 November 2012):

*   Lineagekeeper noted:  "You are undertaking big and extremely valuable project Randy. Like you, I've been working on my own ancestral info in FamilySearch Tree and for a while. 

"It is good having sources attached to the records to finally silence some of folks who have historically argued over something they copied from in Internet that had no sources and they assumed was the gold standard for accuracy.  I too am using the Source Box along with creating sources for the source images and records not on FamilySearch. 

"I use Legacy as the interface between my data and the FS data, which also works very well. 

"We all have a lot of work ahead of us insuring the sourcing on FamilySearch Tree is right but once it is cleaned up, we'll all have a wonderful resource that will always be securely backed up."

*  Magda said: "I will definitely be following this series about you PLAN for Family Search Tree . Finally figured out out how to delete a father who somehow became the husband of all his daughter-in-laws !! This is using Roots Magic as my interface liaison to Family Tree. Sometimes it makes me cry how bizarre it is ( yet it looks like it could work like a charm ). "

*  Jilline noted:  "The way I add scanned records is by adding my images to Flickr and then copy and paste the URL for each image into the source info."

My comments:  Jilline has a great idea for adding images URLs to the Source info.

Kudos to Lee and Magda for trying to clean up their little part of the Family Tree.  If we all do our part well, then the Family Tree will be useful to everyone.  

2)  On Tuesday's Tip - Check Out Ontario Records on FamilySearch (posted 13 November 2012):

*  Jackie Corrigan noted:  "Glad to see you mention this collection Randy. When I found the Catholic church records last spring I was able to discover a whole new hidden line for my husband. The only clue we had to his grandmother's parents were the names William and Mary Carpenter. By browsing (yes, it took a long time) I found his grandmother's baptism record, an actual photo of the records, not an index, and thus found her mother's maiden name, Davidson. Which of course led to finding her parents and siblings, etc."

My comment:  Well done, Jackie.  The key to using the browse-only collections is to think of it as digital microfilm - where you have to turn the crank and look at each page for the genealogy nugget you are looking for.  You quickly learn to find and use the index, and if you find something of interest there, to find the image with the page number from the index.  It's a bit hit-and-miss sometimes, but it's faster and cheaper than going to the FHC to read an ordered microfilm.  

3)  On (Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 231: Sitting on a Bench (posted 14 November 2012):

*  Gerry analyzed:  "I will bet you know someone who is expert at dating photos from the dress and accessories of the subjects, which I am most definitely not, but I purely love solving photo puzzles. I will draw a few details to your attention. 

"The unnamed man is holding two ladies' hats - presumably the ones belonging to our subjects. There is a tweed coat hung over the bench that probably belongs to either the man or the photographer.  The man seems to be wearing a high starched collar with his bow tie. Surely the pegged pants are a clue - but I don't know to what. And is that a pen in his pocket next to what I presume is a handkerchief (but might be a piece of paper)?

"It's possible the lap coverings are blankets, but I think they drape like lighter fabric. The plaid one on Emily continues right on up under the sweater, and I'm thinking it might be a plaid dress. It also seems to me that the lace collar is on whatever Emily is wearing under the sweater. 

"I think the man was standing back where he thought he would be out of the photo. Someone, either the man or the photographer, wanted the photo of Dorothy and Emily together. Dorothy looks happy and relaxed. Emily looks a wee bit irritated (Oh for heaven's sake let me eat in peace!) - which suggests the photographer was her husband . . .

"I'm wondering if this was early in the courtship, and Marshall was working hard to make a good impression on his beloved's parents. 

"Have fun solving your puzzle. I hope you do and that you'll tell us how you did it."

My comment:  Thank you, Gerry, for seeing more details in the photograph than I did.  Emily always looks a bit irritated in pictures...you're probably right about her husband being the photographer!  I've wondered if this was taken on Dorothy's wedding day - perhaps after the marriage and during a break before a wedding reception.  Dorothy's long white dress could be a wedding gown, and she had a coat to put on because it was cool in November on the beach.  I need to look for the wedding announcement in the San Diego newspaper to see if it sheds any light on the setting of this photo.

4)  On Mocavo Announces Free Scanning Service (posted 15 November 2012):

*  Ryan Hunter, CEO of Mocavo, said:  "Thanks for your review. I wanted to address the concern that you raise about copyrights. We try to make clear on the mocavo.com/freescanning web page that copyright protected materials should not be submitted. To clarify further, once we receive materials from our community members we will review them to determine their copyright status. If copyright protection is in place, the material will not be included on our site. You can find additional information about our copyright policies in our Terms of Service."

My comment:  Thank you, Ryan, for the quick response to my concern about copyright protection of materials submitted to Mocavo for copying.  

5)  I receive several comments each week on Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your 16 Great-Great-Grands (posted 8 August 2009).  This weeks are:

*  abby brock seems to be a fan:  "Hello, an amazing article dude. Thanks But Were issues in your rss . Dont know why Unable to subscribe to it. Could there be others having similar RSS trouble? Anybody nobody can assist please reply. Thnx! Movers in Virginia"

and: "This is a really good read for me, Must admit that you are one of the best bloggers I ever saw.Thanks for posting this informative article.  Movers in Marryland"

and: "This is a really good read for me, Must admit that you are one of the best bloggers I ever saw.Thanks for posting this informative article. Movers in Washington DC"

*  John kim said:  "I really enjoy simply reading all of your weblogs. Simply wanted to inform you that you have people like me who appreciate your work. Definitely a great post. Hats off to you! The information that you have provided is very helpful.  dc Movers"

*  cheap football jerseys said:  "These are an identical authoritative content, I'm beaming to interpret your articles.Hera all over I call back your internet site dash are and so avid, identical adept at authorship also real world by abstract adept!cheers a good deal!if your brother is a sports enthusiast that must to look at the cheap football jerseys"

*  cheap jerseys said:  "Hope you can take a few days to recover from Grandpa Camp. Those little ones can wear a person out."

My comments:  Thank you, cheap jerseys, for your concern about my energy level.  There are 95 comments on this particular blog post that got through the Captcha trap (and I've deleted a bunch more over the years) - why have they singled this post out for these spam comments?   Is there a list of popular blog posts that get passed around to these folks?  In general, the comments are poorly written and sometimes incomprehensible, and therefore funny (to me) - and totally useless except to pad my Visitor stats.  

6)  Thank you to all of my readers and commenters for their effort to beat the Captcha trap and say something helpful and interesting on Genea-Musings.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/follow-up-friday-helpful-and_16.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

I Love 1000Memories Site for Photo Sharing

When the 1000Memories site was announced last year, I abstained from trying it out because I was too busy and I was still working out my Photo naming convention and had photos in many different file folders.

However, I have a need to share family photographs with my daughters, brothers, cousins and in-laws, so I decided to try it out about one month ago.  I really like it!!!

After registering for free, I created several albums for different families, and was able to upload photographs to several albums.  I then added dates, places, name tags and comments to the photos, and invited some of my family members to view them.

There were several albums that I did not populate that first time around, but now I'm ready to do that, and I thought I would share my experience.

1)  When I open my 1000Memories website (www.1000memories.com), I see the Albums that I have created:

2)  I wanted to add photographs from my files to the "Fred and Betty Seaver Family" album, so I clicked on that album on the screen above:

There are several ways to upload photos to the site:

*  Use the red "Add Photos" button to add photos from computer files
*  Scan photos from the iPhone of ScanCafe
*  Import photos from Facebook or InstaGram.

3)  I wanted to upload them from my computer files, so I clicked on the "Add Photos" button and was able to pick from my file folders:

4)  I clicked on the "Open" button and the selected photos were added (very quickly) to the album:

5)  For each photo, I can click on it and add a Date, a Place, tag the persons in the photo, and write a Comment:

In the photo above, I added a date, added a place, and tagged the people in the photograph.  I can make a picture the album cover, and I did that for the photo above.

6)  Lastly, I can Invite family members to view each specific album by clicking on the "Invite people" button.  I can invite one or more persons by adding their name or email address in the blank field:

This works extremely well, it's well organized, and logical.

I can now share my family photographs with other family members easily.  I've added over 580 photos to my albums, and still have more to do.  I need to add the date, place, tag information to some of them.

I love this capability.  It has made photo sharing a snap for me.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/i-love-1000memories-site-for-photo.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver