Tips – Page 27 – GenealogyAtHeart.com

Genealogy At Heart – A New Website

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 8 Dec 2015.

I’m heading out to the west coast for a conference but wanted to let you all to know I’ve developed a website to contain my blogs in one handy dandy spot – you can now access it at www.genealogyatheart.com. All blog posts will be listed under Family Stories/Genealogy Hints.

Genealogy is expensive so I will also post any special offers I discover there under the tab “Specials to Share.”

Besides genealogy, I love traveling, architecture and visiting historical sites so I’ll be posting some pics of places I recently visited so check out the tab “On the Road Again.” It may give you an idea of where you want to explore your family’s past.

If you’d like more information about an older posting or have suggestions/ideas for the future simply email me from the About Lori page. I look forward to hearing from you!

If you are a Family Tree Maker user synching with Ancestry.com and just learned that Ancestry is discontinuing the agreement soon, you may be looking for a new software program. I’m not making any money off this but here’s my advice – check out these GENEALOGY PROGRAMS . Once you’ve decided which you’re going to use, go to Ancestry.com and click on Trees – Create and Manage Trees on the ribbon. Then click on “Manage Tree.” On the right hand side, click EXPORT TREE in the green box. It may take some time but when it’s ready, click the new green box DOWLOAD YOUR GEDCOM FILE. You may have difficulty doing that as sometimes it doesn’t want to work. If so, click “download tips” and alternative directions are given.

I saw the zillions of negative comments by FTM users on Ancestry’s blog and for the life of me, can’t understand why Ancestry didn’t give clear directions in the announcement on how to save your work as a gedcom. I feel very badly for those unhappy people thinking that they have lost years of work when they haven’t. The only thing they can’t do is have their work saved both on Ancestry and on their hard drive at the same time. Personally, they need to be saving in another location, too, because, if their hard drive crashes and they can’t get on Ancestry, then they have a huge problem. I use the free Dropbox.com cloud to also save my gedcom in Legacy. That way, I can log on to DROPBOX anywhere and access my tree, in addition to using Ancestry if I’m not on my main computer.

Seriously, you should be exporting your tree at least once a month if you’re a heavy user as if something happens to Ancestry your citations are gone! Notice I said citation and not records. You cannot download all of your records when you download the gedcom. You will be downloading the citation of what record was found but not the picture of the actual record. For example: You’ve saved the 1880 US Federal Census for your great grandpa to your Ancestry tree. When you download the gedcom it will show that the census record was what you referenced, or cited, for the 1880 residence. If you want the actual picture of the census page you will have to download it to your hard drive. That is time consuming but important. I haven’t done that for most of my lines but plan on beginning that process soon.

Now, back to the download directions – Once you’ve exported you will have to import the saved file, called a gedcom, to whatever program you’ll be using. I like Legacy because 1) the Standard version is free and that gave me a good idea if it was a program I could easily use and 2) their support is very good. They are friendly on the phone and they have an email group that you can subscribe to for free that you can post queries to and the software engineers answer. Amazing! I never got that kind of response from Family Tree Maker and when the synch between Ancestry and FTM stopped working, I decided to move to something else. Now I’m really glad I did!

I ended up purchasing the Deluxe Legacy version six months after downloading the free Standard version and the updates have all been free since then, too. The program has a lot of bells and whistles I haven’t even begun to delve into but plan to do so when my Board of Certified Genealogy portfolio is done. I also have made a New Year’s Resolution that I will stop saving records to my Ancestry tree and just save directly to Legacy. It’s another adjustment but then I’ll have all the records (pictures) even if Ancestry becomes cost prohibitive or stops making some records available, which has already happened to me.

Hope this has helped!

Visiting the New England Historic and Genealogical Society

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 18 Nov 2015.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of researching at the New England Historic and Genealogical Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

New England Historic & Genealogical Society, Boston, MA Nov 2015

If you’re planning a first visit, here’s some tips I found useful:

The library is SMALL but filled with tremendous resources that you might not find anywhere else. Don’t let the size fool you! Obviously, the holdings are fantastic if you have New England relatives but there is also a sizable collection of Long Island and New Netherlands. My most awesome find was from Indiana, though, so don’t discount other areas!
COST is free if you’re a member (about $90.00 a year) and $20.00 if you aren’t. Click for Info on Joining! I highly recommend being a member for the following reasons : First, if you’re planning on spending a few days, it’s cost effective. Second, as a member you get a lot of perks you wouldn’t get with a day entrance fee – those wonderful journal articles that the society puts out, discounted fee on accessing a genealogist, training opportunities and so on. Third, you’re helping the society keep the materials available to everyone.
BE PREPARED (Yay, Boy and Girl Scouts!) Seriously, know what you’re trying to find before you get there so you don’t waste valuable research time. You can do a search of the card catalog online at http://library.nehgs.org/ . If you haven’t registered, which you can do even if you don’t join the society, it’s easy and if you save the search items, you can email them to yourself so you have it on your phone and tablet when you arrive. It saves results with the FLOOR listed so you know exactly where you need to look. Emailing saves a tree, time and having to juggle more stuff in the stacks! (HINT: Many of their holdings are digitized so you can peruse the text online and focus on books in the library that you can’t view from home.)
To get familiar with the library you can watch their video, which I did, but if you’re short of time you’re fine if you don’t watch it. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page for the video. (HINT: Start on the 7^th floor which is reference because those are the books you can’t easily find elsewhere.)
Getting there is simple – I took a cab from Logan Airport because I had my heavy bag that I couldn’t check into the hotel since I arrived too early. It was $23.00 without tip. Another option is to take the subway, called the T, which is super easy to navigate, inexpensive and available right from the airport to Copley Square. It’s a short walk. There are also parking garages close by if you drive which I would recommend against. I learned to drive in Chicago and I drive in New York City but I never ever drive in Boston. Those narrow streets and congestion intimidate me!
Lockers are available but they are very small and my large purse didn’t fit. The website says NO SUITCASES so I packed light, stuffing everything in the bag, thinking I could get away with a purse. I mentioned this to one of the employees and she laughed and said they wouldn’t have minded the suitcase. Oh, well. Since the flights were overbooked and there was no space in the overheads it all worked out anyway. Across from the lockers is a coat rack so I hung my coat (Wicked Boston cold last weekend, it was 89 degrees when I left Florida) and put my bag on the floor in the corner. No one messed with it.
Check the website for hours and days opened, especially with the holidays approaching. I arrived shortly after 10 AM. There were few patrons researching and no one in the stacks so I was able to accomplish a lot in a little time.
When you arrive there is a welcome counter to your left where I was given a map. They will check your membership before permitting you entry. Once you’re checked, you will be directed to the elevator.
I was greeted by a wonderful genealogist on the 7^th floor – she welcomed me, was willing to help me get started and was open to answering any questions I might have. She had a client so another genealogist took over for her. He was very professional, too, and gave me the wireless access. I always bring just my Kindle as I find it’s a light, space saving alternative to a laptop. With access to my online tree I can fact check right in the stacks. The internet was spotty, though.
The stacks are narrow and dark. There is a small counter in the midst so you can put your finds on the counter and snap a picture of the page. You can also use their copy machine or save to a thumb drive but my smart phone’s camera is good with low light so I could happily click away. I like that approach because I tend to look at many volumes and it wastes time to carry them to a copier, wait for the copier to warm up, and you know the rest. Read an interesting article in Family History Daily that recommends the use of other devices. View here for other ideas but I’m good with my phone.
BRING PENCILS – they don’t allow pens. I did print a concise list of the books I wanted to see and wrote my notes, mostly negative findings, on the margin to transfer to my tree notes later. Here’s an example: “No Adams, Cole or Dennis.” To me, that means those are the surnames I checked out but there were no references in the index to them. That way, I know later if there was another surname I overlooked and I’ll not have to recheck the source in another library for what I’ve already checked.
BRING A MAGNIFYING GLASS or have an ap on your phone. I miss my young eyes, I really do!
BRING POST IT NOTES. You can quickly flag pages to take pictures of findings without having to flip back and forth to the index and they’re reusable.
Once I finished with the 7^th floor I moved to the 5^th. No warm and fuzzy welcome there – two young ladies didn’t even look up from the desk when I entered. What’s cool about these stacks is there is a light switch from the aisle you can turn on to get more overhead light. Very useful!
After you’ve checked out your pre-identified books you may have additional time to look over the stacks. That’s how I discovered my most intriguing current genealogical mystery. Hmmm – why would my husband’s grandmother be enrolled in school at age 7 by someone named Frank? Have NO ONE named Frank in that line. It could be Frank’s name is an error or the record is for someone else in the area with the same name as hubby’s grandma (not likely, though, since I’ve been over the census numerous times without finding another with her name and she has an unusual first and middle name!). Immediately texted hubby and asked “Who’s Frank?” He didn’t know so now I’m on a hunt to discover more. The book was a transcript of school enrollment for the late 1800’s in Indiana. Must find the original record to make sure Frank is correct!
Food and directions – ask at the front desk on the first floor. The first person there was a volunteer not from the area but she was so sweet she phoned someone to help me. I ate at a pizza place inside the YWCA but there’s many places to get a quick bite. I only stopped there because I was freezing and it was half way to my hotel so I could eat and warm up for a bit.

S I’ll definitely come back after my portfolio has been submitted and spend time trying to uncover more of our New England ancestors. So much to look at and so little time!

My finding at NEHGS also confirms what professionals emphasize – you have to look high and low to find proof. I can’t explain why I found my husband’s several times great grandfather from New York’s place of burial in Salt Lake City and his Indiana grandmother’s school enrollment in Boston. What’s strange is I looked for the burial records in numerous places in New York and never found them. I never looked for school enrollment records in Indiana so I can’t say that they don’t exist there, I just find it odd to find it in Boston. My point is check as much as you can about everyone everywhere you go. I also find it interesting on Who Do You Think You Are celebrities fly from place to place to trace their families. Lucky for them, their family records are ALWAYS where they lived. Clearly mine are not!

Your Tree Posthumously

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 18 Oct 2015.

Being that it’s Geneanet’s A Cemetery for Posterity Weekend, I’ve been thinking about ways to have me tree live on after I do. Geneanet had an interesting blog on the 5 October 1915 by Jean-Yves regarding your genealogical tree after you’ve died. I don’t have a tree on Geneanet but I may want to investigate doing so. You can read the blog here: What Happens To Your Data…

And then there was this interesting post in Myrt’s blog about ancestry’s disappearing records. It happened to me trying to retrieve my husband’s 3 times great grandfather’s obit info. I recently blogged about John and Mary “Mollie” O’Brien Cooke (A New Genealogy Society – What Fun! 11 October 2015). When I was checking my saved sources on ancestry.com for the couple I couldn’t retrieve the info for John’s obit. On the bottom right hand corner on the old ancestry version I could see the link under Source Info but when I clicked nothing appeared. I tried to do a search through the card catalog for Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 using John Cooke but there were no hits. I had a hard copy so I dug through my records and found it.

I’m not sure if ancestry reactivated all the records they had blocked a few weeks ago because I tried it again yesterday and I was able to access it. Very weird! Having records here one day and gone the next is frustrating. That makes me want to save what I find in multiple locations to insure that the data isn’t lost.

If you’re a member of the National Genealogical Society one of the new benefits is obtaining access to the United States and Canada records FREE on Find My Past. I tried last week to upload my tree as a gedcom to the site but I kept receiving an error message. Although my tree is large it’s well within the limits of the Find My Past site. Going to try it again today. If you’re interested in getting Find My Past, the first crack at registering for the upcoming Family History Conference to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida the first week of May, 2016, and very useful periodicals, you can join here,

Another though I had was the idea of creating ebooks on my lines once I’ve obtained genealogical certification. I could then download the ebook and print a hardcopy. I would include snips of the pertinent records in the text so if the original disappears there would still be a picture available.

So many ideas – so little time!

Correcting Records Is A Feat!

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 3 Sep 2015.

Recently I’ve been ranting about the problem of looking for a record that never existed or once existed and has since vanished. Today, I’m going to share a frustrating story about trying to correct an error in a record.

As genealogists we know that it’s common to find discrepancies in records. One census may show a person born in one year and the next census may show a different birth year. A marriage record may state a person was born in one state but the census record may show a different state. We know it’s a best practice to try to find primary sources but sometimes even a primary source isn’t correct and it becomes a herculean task to try to fix the error.

Daughter recently moved and was trying to have her power turned on. Power company told her they couldn’t do it because she had a discrepancy in her birthdate through one of the credit services they used. She called the credit service (and I use the term service loosely!) and they refused to tell her which company had reported her birthdate wrong. She was told to fax 2 of the following 3 documents to the credit card company to prove her correct date of birth: a birth certificate, driver’s license, passport, or social security card. Since daughter didn’t have power she couldn’t fax the documents (duh) so she took a picture of them on her phone and emailed them to me to fax.

Immediately I thought this was a scam but I checked and found that the number she was supposed to fax to was legitimate and lots of other people have encountered the same problem. I faxed and got confirmation that the documents were sent. Daughter called the power company back and informed them the information had been faxed but it could be 10 days before the situation was investigated. Power company turned on the power (hooray!).

A few weeks later daughter received via US mail a letter from the credit service stating she had to refax the documents as they were not readable. Daughter refaxed and then sent a hard copy via US Mail. Another few weeks went by and daughter received another document from the credit service in the mail stating they had re-investigated and would update the record if she sent them either a birth certificate or driver’s license. This will be the fourth time they received copies of those documents. Frustrated, daughter again tried to find out which record was in error so she could go directly to the source to get it corrected. Although it is her credit record, the credit service again refused to divulge the information. Daughter contacted her bank and credit card companies to see if they had the birthdate wrong. Nope, their records were correct. So, for the fourth time, daughter resent proof of her birthdate.

I’ve noticed when looking at US Public Records Index that too many individuals have conflicting birthdates in comparison to my other sources. I don’t know if you’ve notice this, too, but I’m guessing there must be a date of birth field where someone is entering the digit 1 instead of the actual date of birth. Since the month and year are correct, I don’t know if all the fields must be complete and if they don’t have the day of birth they enter a 1. No way to correct the error, either!

It’s important to remember that clearly, even today, record accuracy isn’t going to happen 100% of the time.

More Inaccessbie Genealogical Records

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 30 Aug 2015.

I’ve been mentioning that several events occurred recently that really brought home the connection for me between education and genealogy, along with the impossibility of trying to find a nonexistent record. The records that I’m looking for today did exist once but is not easy to find.

The illustrious Florida legislatures (and I mean that with all the sarcasm that I can muster) passed a bill called Florida’s Best and Brightest Teacher Scholarship last spring which is not the best or brightest idea IMHO! Eligible teachers can earn an additional $10,000.00 bonus. Florida teachers are way underpaid compared to most of the rest of the states so this is a big chunk of change.

To “earn” the scholarship a teacher must be considered “highly effective.” Hubby and I get a great big check mark on that requirement.

Next eligibility condition is “…by October 1 official ACT or SAT documentation either that their score on the ACT was at or above the 80th percentile based on the rank in effect when the assessment was taken or that their scores on the SAT were at or above the 80th percentile based on the rank in effect when the assessment was taken” be provided to our school district.¹

Hubby and I can’t find our Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) documentation. We took that exam, which wasn’t a requirement to enter college back in our day, about 43 plus years ago. I found copies of our Graduate Record Exam, National Board Certified Teacher scores, middle school achievement test results, report cards for every grade beginning in kindergarten, opened and sealed transcripts, and lots of awards but I can’t find our SAT scores.

This post isn’t about how idiotic it is to base a bonus on a test that was designed to measure success in college that was administered almost a half century ago. Not to mention how that particular test has been shown to be historically biased against many of the test takers, particularly minorities, women and those raised in lower income households. Nor is this post to discuss why the results of an obsolete test could demonstrate how accomplished at work an individual is today. Nope, this post is just about the difficulty in trying to obtain the record.

I called the College Board to see if I could get another copy of our test results. The automated message said the cost was $15.00 and for a $30.00 investment, hubby and I could receive $20,000. Wow, what a deal! After 45 minutes on hold I thought maybe we should just retake the exam so I looked up the next test date. Problem is, the next administration is October 3 so it’s too late for the October 1^st deadline. I continued to wait on hold.

Finally, Russell #443 answered the call and was clearly confused when I asked him how far back records were kept. He didn’t know. I told him I need a copy of an exam I took in Spring 1973 as I wasn’t sure if I took the test in March or April. He stuttered a bit, clearly taken aback that someone would need the test results from that long ago, especially since no college would accept a test that old. I explained why I needed a copy.

Russell said the cost for an archival search was $31.00 with $11.00 for mailing and would take a minimum of 4 weeks. That might not make the October 1^st deadline, either. Money is not refunded if they can’t find the test results.

I hate to spend money for the archiving fee because the College Board lost my son’s entire junior class’ PSAT scores a few years ago. I still don’t understand how that happened and I was really not happy that he wasn’t able to qualify for National Merit Scholar. School blamed College Board and College Board blamed school. Just another example of a record that should exist that unexplainably doesn’t any longer.

I can understand missing records due to war, fire, flood or other disaster but I can’t understand why an entire school’s paper records just vanishes. I bet they’re out they’re in cyberspace with the delayed text messages, lost postal mail and missing socks.

The State of Florida will be able to hold on to the bonus checks as I suspect few will be able to come up with their requirements. Laws like this just make me long for my next career as a full time genealogist!

The Nonexistent Genealogical Record

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 23 Aug 2015.

This past week I had several interesting situations occur that really drove home to me the connection between education and genealogy.

The first was an email from my division superintendent that requested everyone bring a photo of their high school graduation to post as a visual reminder of our district’s goal of increasing high school graduation rates. Problem is, I don’t have a grad photo. If you’re one of my loyal readers you know my parents were divorced when I was young. I attended 1^st through 11^th grade in the Lake County, Indiana school district where my mom and I lived with my grandparents. In June of my rising senior year I sat for senior picture; the custom at that time was girls had to wear a crew neck grey top- no mortar boards. I have a copy of the photo which never appeared in a school yearbook because in August, my mother, who was employed by Montgomery Wards Department Stores, which was then owned by Mobil Oil, was given a transfer to Florida. Mom gave me the option of going with her or moving in with my dad and step-mother to complete my senior year in Indiana. Either way, I would have had to attend a different high school so I opted to move to Florida.

My first day of my senior year at St. Petersburg High School was a disaster. I had to retake classes I had already passed because Pinellas County Schools did not have a work-study program that I was scheduled to take in Indiana. They wouldn’t let me attend school part time, either. I had wanted to work my senior year to save money for college so that goal was shot. In addition, no one spoke to me the entire day, even when I asked for directions. I came home that evening and announced that I was quitting school. My mother insisted I return so the next morning we met with the guidance counselor. I don’t remember his name but I remember his complete lack of concern. He suggested I enroll in a school for drop outs where I could complete assignments at my own pace and hold a job. My mom drove me to the new school. As we entered there was a fist fight in the hall and we had trouble getting into the office. No adults were around although this was adult education. I only needed 3 classes to graduate but the school only allowed enrolling in 2 classes at a time. I finished senior English and Business Math in two weeks. I then enrolled in Americanism vs. Communism. Back in the day, the state of Florida was fairly certain Fidel Castro was going to storm the shores so every Florida senior had to be prepared by taking this ridiculous course. Even though I finished the actual course work in another 2 weeks I was forced to sit for the entire school day in the class for an additional two weeks as there was a requirement that students must be enrolled for a certain number of hours. The teacher was kind and told me I could bring anything quiet to do so I read a book a day. No one spoke to me at this school either. At the time, doctors, judges and other leaders in the community were so afraid that their children would become drug addicts that they enrolled them in a now defunct program called “The Seed.” Anyone enrolled was not permitted to speak with anyone outside of the group. The organization decided to enroll all of their students at the adult ed program probably because there would be less opportunity to interact with other teens. I completed my entire senior year in 6 weeks. When I went to the school counselor to turn in my completion paperwork she informed me the district would mail my diploma to me by the end of the semester (which they did but spelled my name wrong which is another story).

I never had a graduation ceremony so I never wore a cap and gown which is why I don’t have any pictures to contribute. Hubby offered to photo shop my senior pic to add a mortar board but I nixed that idea. I don’t want to fake history. I submitted a photo of my college graduation instead.

Technically, I’m a high school graduate as I had the diploma conferred to me via US Mail but since this didn’t occur with pomp and circumstance I have no photo. Several of my co-workers did attend a graduation ceremony but it wasn’t a custom to take a picture of the diploma being conferred so they don’t have pictures, either.

I think the practice of taking a picture as the diploma is being awarded must have occurred in my area after the early 1980’s. My bachelor’s and first master’s degree photos were taken by my mom and husband. By the time I received my second masters in the 90’s, photographers were on stage snapping away during the ceremony. By the 2000’s you could get the whole event on DVD.

My point is you may be looking for a record or photo that doesn’t exist because it was never recorded. Next time you’re searching for that wedding photo or birth certificate think about the possibility that it never was! This will save you time and frustration – just look for an alternative, like the marriage license of a baptism certificate. In my case, I have the transcripts and diploma – just no picture.

Familysearch.org Needed Changes

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on

In previous blogs I’ve mentioned my concerns about data loss and record inaccessibility (see Ancestry Site Changes – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly 6 Jun 2015 & Poof Be Gone-How Quickly Records Can Disappear 3 Jun 2015). A wonderful option to preserve your research would be to include it at Familysearch.org’s Wiki Tree. Unfortunately the site is not user friendly if you are not an LDS members. Let me demonstrate-

To access the Wiki, first sign into the site. If you don’t have a sign-on, you may create one even if you aren’t an LDS member, however, you won’t be able to link between Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org to sink data.

I have an extremely large well sourced tree that I would love to have on the Familysearch site. I’m going to outline the steps below of what I would have to do to build my husband’s paternal line on the Wiki. Below, on the right hand side, you can see that there are no parents identified on my Wiki Tree for William Lewis Samuelson.

There may be other Wiki Tree users who do have William’s parents. To discover if there is, one must click on the +Add Husband (or + Add Wife). Then, type in what you know. I typed in Gustaf Theodore Samuelson 29 Apr 1870 Baileytown, Portage, Indiana as the birth info and 9 Oct 1947 San Bernardino, San Bernardino, California as the death info. After clicking “Add,” 25 parent choices are presented. You may select 1 provided or by scrolling to the bottom, include a new couple.

In this case, I would “Add Couple” 1 – Gustav and Lulu Mae Cook. Once added, the Wiki Tree changes to the following:

That wasn’t very time consuming but here’s where my problems begin. I have 19 facts for Gustav Samuelson on my Ancestry tree:

Familysearch has 4 citations:

Really, Familysearch only has 1 source – the Legacy user that imported the information cited for 4 events but did the user did not include where he/she found the evidence. Truly, I’m not impressed with Familysearch’s sources for Gustaf. This is no improvement over the earlier trees that the site displayed. I equate this practice with only citing an Ancestry Family Tree that was unsourced to begin with. The citation is meaningless.

I could add the sources I found plus the 18 photos and the several additional records that I’ve scanned and uploaded to my Ancestry tree to the Familysearch Wiki but that takes quite a bit of time. I feel like I’m duplicating what I’ve already accomplished by re-entering the citations from Ancestry to Familysearch. Instead, I would prefer to spend my time further building my tree.

Perhaps, if down Gustaf’s line, Familysearch’s sources improved AND the tree was filled in I would enter my citations for Gustaf but let’s compare Gustaf’s parents in the Wiki to what I have in Ancestry:

Way too much to have to add! Way too time consuming!

So I thought maybe I would just add 1 photo to Wiki and keep the lines simple by just adding my direct line (no collaterals – no sibs!). Last evening I added my maternal grandparents, Ivan “John” and Mary Violet Kos Koss. I compared sources from ancestry to familysearch and added the difference. Then, I selected ONE photo for my mother, grandmother and grandfather and uploaded to Familysearch. This is what the photos looked like:

There’s nothing wrong with these 3 photos and I did agree that the site would first approve them before posting but its been a day and they’re still not displayed. At this rate, it would take me YEARS before I had my tree on Familysearch and it wouldn’t even be my complete tree.

I understand that the LDS Church has an agreement with Ancestry.com and to quote an old commercial, membership has its privileges, but there needs to be an expedient alternative for genealogists, such as uploading an existing tree to the Familysearch site.

I vocalized this to a church Elder when I visited the Family History Library in March. He mentioned why uploading a gedcom wouldn’t be conducive and why PAF was discontinued. I understand the evolution of technology and don’t long for the Windows 3.1 days or dial up internet.

I am also extremely thankful and do appreciate the dedication of thousands of LDS members who have preserved and published records over the years. To make all that work free to the general public is commendable and more than generous. The LDS members, however, are not the only compilers of trees. If non LDS members have a sourced tree I don’t understand why LDS wouldn’t want it. I strongly believe that it would be in EVERYONE’S best interest if nonmembers could easily synch their records onto the WIKI. I would even pay to do this and I bet other genealogists would, too.

Ancestry Site Changes – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 7 Jun 2015.

I mentioned briefly in my last blog about the changes to Ancestry.com. There’s always an adaption period when there is a site revision but I’m really having difficulty with this “new and improved” version, more than with previous updates.

Back on February 19^th, Ancestry announced on their blogsite that the site was in the process of beta testing improvements. Ancestry.com noted that their design team had 3 underlying principles – Make it beautiful, usable, and delightful. (IMHO, I don’t think they reached any of their principles.)

I didn’t sign up at the time to be a part of the members who could check out the changes. Last week I received the following email:

“If you haven’t heard (or seen), we’ve made some huge changes to the Ancestry website. But the “New Ancestry” is much more than a new look. It’s new features that help you tell stories as remarkable as the people who lived them.
It’s the new LifeStory that turns the facts in your ancestor’s life into a narrative timeline, like a biography.
It’s Historical Insights that let you walk a mile (or two) in your ancestor’s shoes.
It’s a new media gallery that puts all your records and pictures in one place.
It’s a streamlined design that’s easier to use—on your desktop or mobile devices.
It’s your family story, reinvented.

Can the new Ancestry really do all that? See for yourself. All the research and information you have now will be on the new Ancestry.”

Let me be clear that I do appreciate THE EFFORT that went into the improvement. A major revision is never easy. Here’s what I think they got right: I love the Life Story view for several reasons. I believe that it will hook many more individuals to genealogy who have difficulty with putting the bits and pieces of records all together to understand one of their ancestor’s lives. I shared Life Story with my husband who supports my work but never caught the genealogy bug. He said the inclusion of pictures and the narrative was “captivating.” He especially liked the Historical Insights feature that adds local/national events to an ancestor’s timeline. I can see this as a benefit in drawing in younger users, too, who may have learned about an event, like the Civil War, but have difficulty in how the event connects to a direct line relative. The pictures and facts together are powerful. Kudos to the genius’ who came up with this concept!

I also really like the Media Gallery that places all of my uploaded pictures and records side by side for easy viewing. I wish they would further refine this feature to include a drop and drag so that I could move the pictures around and place them in chronological order as I’ve added as I’ve discovered and it makes me crazy that they aren’t in order.

Matching records to the timeline is also beneficial and if used correctly, may even give the site more validity as critics frequently express their frustration over unsourced or poorly sourced (citing a tree that originally cited a different tree). I wish there was a way to fix all my poorly cited sources from my baby stage of genealogy. For example, I sourced ALOT of my Leininger, Long and Harbaugh families from various family history texts. I made the source name as “Text” and not the actual book’s name because several versions of Ancestry ago, citations weren’t as easy to add. I would like a way to quickly change the word “Text” to the correct title.

So Ancestry got a lot right in the New Ancestry but here’s where I disagree with the design team meeting their principles…

Usable

From my desktop computer I am often not able to access my tree at all using Internet Explorer and at times, not even with Chrome or Firefox:

From my Kindle, accessing from the web, I get this view but the links don’t work. You can see all the links I tried as they are in a different color:

From my Kindle, accessing via the downloaded ap I do get my tree but it is not easy to maneuver. Note that you can no longer click an arrow on the right margin to move the tree back further generations. Now you must make several clicks to move to a previous generation (click on the person then click to view the tree again).

From my laptop, using Chrome or Firefox, I can use the site and get this view. See the arrows on the right that still allow me to move back generations quickly:

Clearly, the design team failed in making the site useable on different devices. Maybe they were rushed by the news that Ancestry is on the auction block. I don’t know but I hope they get the Kindle site working as I love using my Kindle when I research away from home for the portability, lightness of the device and various features I can quickly access (photo, notes, internet, etc.)

Beautiful

Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I don’t think the site is beautiful at all. As seen above, the color scheme is drab. Although the above pic doesn’t clearly show the contrast, the bright pink and blue against the pastel pink and blue when there is no picture is not attractive. Maybe the design team thought that would be a good way to alert the user that a picture is needed but it just looks out of place to me. And seriously, have we not moved beyond gender stereotyping of girls in pink and boys in blue? With the current color scheme I’d rather see white and light gray.

Delightful

Huh? Delightful, according to Word’s Thesaurus, means pleasant, charming, lovely, wonderful, enjoyable, amusing, agreeable, enchanting, delicious. None of these adjectives would I use to describe the revision. Maybe innovative as no one else has the Life Story and record matching features that are absolutely awesome.

I hope the tech team can quickly fix the glitches. I also hope that Ancestry can be expediently acquired by a group who cares about genealogy so that it can continue to operate, grow and provide the services that we’re paying for at a reasonable price

Poof Be Gone-How Quickly Records Can Disappear

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 3 Jun 2015.

It’s officially Hurricane Season (June 1st-November 30th) and I’m predicting several storms. My rationale for the prediction is from observation and experience. May was hotter than usual and the summer rain pattern began early this year. By rain pattern, I mean the afternoon thunderstorms that drench the Tampa Bay region between noon and four daily, followed by a gentle Gulf breeze and sunshine for the rest of the day. The Gulf’s temperature is already hotter than in years when we didn’t have much hurricane activity, thus supporting my prediction. My husband hates hearing my last reason for a bad season but I stand by this – our daughter is moving back to the area. Every time she had signed up to take a medical school exam (MCAT, Step 1, Step 2, Step 3) there has been a hurricane – even when she had relocated to New Jersey. I can’t explain why she hits the hurricane jackpot every time she has to take an exam but she has two more coming up – mid August and early October so I’m preparing for the worst!

About a month ago, Genealogy Ninja Thomas MacEntee sent an email about a new Kindle E-Book he had just released called Preserving Your Family’s Oral History and Stories. He proposed the question, “How Safe is Your Family History?” and used the term “future proof” meaning making sure that your records will be available in the future. When I read this I immediately got a smug feeling – my family records and photos are all digitized. Most are public on Ancestry and privately held in Picassa. I have given copies on DVDs to several relatives around the US. The originals are kept in acid free sleeves in plastic storage bins on the highest shelf in the middle of my climate controlled home to insure against flood, wind, mold and water damage.

My smugness didn’t last long. Soon after reading the email I got a call from both my sister-in-law and daughter. Neither could find the DVD I had given them and they needed a picture. Turns out my son can’t find his copy, either. Sure, I could give them all another copy but what would happen if they again lose it or it malfunctions and something happens to me?

The next week I was sitting in my favorite chair, blogging away on my old laptop. A mosquito landed on my leg and I immediately slapped it. Not only did I miss the mosquito I had shifted in the chair and knocked the thumb drive into the armrest. I didn’t think much about it until several hours later when I tried to eject it. The device could not be found. I could find it – it was right in front of me sticking out of the laptop. Unfortunately, my computer could no longer read it because somehow it had snapped a connection inside the drive. I tried to remain calm thinking that I have most everything backed up to Dropbox except one file. Surely, it must still be somewhere on my hard drive. Nope, I hadn’t saved it because my laptop is old and I don’t trust it. I tried to go to recent documents but I guess I hadn’t opened it on the laptop recently so it wasn’t there. The next day my husband found the Excel document in my temp files. It wasn’t the most up-to-date version but it was much better than not having it all.

Okay, so DVDs get lost and thumb drives break, there are still clouds, right?! Well, only when they work. In mid-May a coworker asked to see a picture of the hydroponic garden that my son had built. I open my (not so) smart phone and couldn’t access the picture. Seems I had used up all my memory space somehow. I went from camera to gallery but still couldn’t access it. No worries, I thought, I have my photos sent to Picassa so I’ll just log on and find it. That’s when I discovered that you can’t view your photo in Picassa if your phone doesn’t upload it which mine didn’t do. Granted, this was not a major loss but it further lessened my smugness about my “future proofing” a tad more.

In the 3rd week of May I was visiting the Tampa Bay History Center to research Jose Marti’s visit to Tampa (see blog 14 May 2015 Marker Mistakes-Historical Plaque Inaccuracies) when I learned the center doesn’t have a printer or scanner for researchers’ use. I didn’t bring my digital camera, I wasn’t going to trust my new thumb drive, I couldn’t use my phone so I thought I was absolutely brilliant by taking photos of the pages with my Kindle. Well, I wasn’t so brilliant.

I got home late from work that night and was preparing for all day field trips with my students for the next two days so I didn’t take a look at the photos. I assumed they were going to go directly to Picassa. I know, I know, never assume in genealogy; someday I will get that lesson down. Three days after I had taken the photos I was holding my Kindle, purse, clipboards, travel mug, beach towel, and while getting out of the car, the Kindle slipped out of it’s sleeve and hit the garage floor. I noticed several hours later the Kindle screen was cracked. I also learned that my photos hadn’t been sent to Picassa because I had signed on to my Kindle with a different email address that Picassa didn’t recognize. I was able to keep rotating the device until I had the pics emailed from one address to another but it was a major pain in the neck after a long hot tiring day (and kudos to Amazon staff who were so nice about helping me save the photos AND sending me out a replacement Kindle 2 days later!) Well, by now I was no longer feeling secure about by ability to future proof my records.

To make me even further concerned, Eric Jelle, of Genedocs Templates on Facebook, posted this on Memorial Day Weekend: ” I would also like to take a moment to inform/remind members that both my grandfather and his father (Grandpa Richard) had their discharge paperwork burned and lost forever in the horrible fire in 1973 in St Louis at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC). Before I even knew the fire happened or its 16 – 18 million military service document destroying impact, I had inherited the member copies of both Rays and Richards service info and then made color copies and sent them to NPRC after learning they had nothing on file. Of course, I went the extra mile and included service portraits of each too! IF you have these documents or end up with them – please send copies to NARA/NPRC which has a new fireproof facility in St Louis so you can rest easy they likely will not be easily burned again.” Fire! Don’t even want to think about that. I live in an area with lots of lightning which causes lots of fires. I got that nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach reading his post.

I don’t want to sound paranoid but I’ve had too many tech issues in the past month not to be worried.

I guess it’s a miracle we find any documents today given all the things that can cause destruction. I’m hoping I’m wrong about the upcoming hurricane season and I’m hoping my work will be preserved.

The only solutions I can come up with is to make sure that our work is shared as much as possible and that both electronic and hard copies are made. I am making a point of saving my Ancestry tree to Legacy monthly and a copy is kept on my hard drive and in Dropbox. I have tried the Wiki Tree on Familysearch.org but I have some concerns about relying on it. First, its a Wiki and anyone can change what you input. That could be a positive if someone is correcting an incorrect entry but it can also be disastrous if someone is deleting your correct information. Second, maybe it’s me but I have a difficult time maneuvering on the site’s tree. Third, I have a large tree and don’t have time to input or click and select from the site’s choices to build. I spoke with a tech person when I was at the Family History Library in March and there is no option to upload a gedcom, old PAF or any other genealogical management program. So, Familysearch.org is not a viable alternative for me.

And now there’s the Ancestry rumors circulating again. I’m not overly concerned with their upcoming auction but one never knows what a new buyer will do. I never thought PAF would go away or Rootsweb would not have continued to grow.

I do absolutely love Ancestry’s new format (though I hate the drab background colors) that permits turning your ancestor’s timeline into a story. I’ve noticed some minor glitches but the edit feature allowed me to make corrections quickly and easily. I’m thinking of taking the stories and printing a family book for an additional safeguard against losing data. A hard copy could even be donated to a library or historical society even further insuring your hard work isn’t lost.

My last fail safe method to preserving our family tree is to further motivate family members who have shown an interest in genealogy as I would like them to continue on with the work that I began when I can no longer do so.

I’d appreciate hearing any preservation ideas you may have!

Genealogy Gems – More Online Resources You Need to Know About

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 21 May 2015.

Last time I told you about 5 of my favorite free sites and here’s a few more that I think you’ll love as much as I do:

Every Sunday, with my morning coffee, I look forward to reading The Genealogy News Weekly Edition sponsored by Genealogy Today support@genealogytoday.com. This newsletter contains lots of press releases from the most well known organizations in genealogy to keep you up-to-date, as well as research tips and findings from historians around the world. I click on the links and when I find one that may help me with a brickwall, I copy and paste the site info as a comment on my ancestry tree associated with the person I’m stuck on. This way, I don’t forget the source to check out and I don’t feel rushed to do it immediately. Since my tree is public, others researching the same ancestors can see the comment and check it out themselves. Win-Win for everyone!
Another very good newsletter is Genealogy and Technology E-News by Thomas MacEntree, also the founder of Geneabloggers. You can subscribe at geneabloggers@gmail.com. I’ll be writing a future blog soon about info in one of the past newsletters.
I’ve mentioned Legacy before but they deserve to be mentioned again – weekly newsletter and webinars that are well worth taking. Subscribe to their email list at http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
My infatuation with Pinterest is recent. I created an account when it was new but I couldn’t figure out how to use the site for genealogy so my husband commandeered it and posted all kinds of building, gardening and craft ideas. That worked for me – my backyard is gorgeous with all the ideas he’s found! Last winter I returned to pinterest with genealogy in mind and organized my site as Genealogy Guffaws (humor), Genealogy Quotes, American History, Middle Ages and Genealogy Organizers. Go to https://www.pinterest.com/ and put your interest area in boards or type my site names (Genealogy Guffaws) to go directly to my pages. You’ll be amazed at all of the genealogy related info that is out there.
My personal favorite of all is Google Picassa https://picasa.google.com/. I have uploaded all my photos and stored them in the cloud. This way, I don’t have to worry about their destruction, my family has access and they’re organized by person so I can find the photo I’m looking for quickly, wherever I am. The absolutely coolest feature, though, is facial recognition. I had a lot of old photos in which my dearly departed ones didn’t bother to identify the people. Picassa gives you suggestions as to who they might be based on photos that you have already identified. It does tend to mix up young children – confused my kids several times but since I knew who they were it was a quick fix. I have this downloaded on my desktop but you can view it anywhere, anytime. I also have my smart phone photos sent directly to the site. For my recent trip to Salt Lake City, Picassa created a book based on the photos that it uploaded. It was a wonderful way to remember the trip and took no time on my part to do that!

Hope you’ve found these free sites valuable.

I’m always looking for more so let me know about others that are your personal favorites.