Tips, hints, and tricks to use in your Genealogy research
AnceStories has a nice post about Organizing Your Digital Photographs. I have a basic organization (translates to “I know where some things are”) of my photos, so this will come in very handy.
It also gives me some new ideas. It may also help down the line when I start adding more photos to the collection. This could also be used for other digital documents or files you may have.
I am hoping to spend some time interviewing my living grandparents. Obviously, I guess, though I would love to be able to talk to my late Grandpa Zalewski again. I have tons and tons of factual data; dates, times, places, etc. What I don’t have a lot of are stories and first-hand accounts.
My grandparents are getting old. They are all in their 80s now and you can tell that they have some issues getting around. I know my Grandma (Corrigan) Zalewski asks me the same questions about my house everytime I see her (I bought her house when she moved to assisted living) but she can rattle off stories and names like there is no tomorrow and she loves to do that. I can only assume it’s the same way with my maternal grandparents.
I picked myself up an Olympus audio recorder just for this purpose. It seems to do exactly what I need and nothing more. In my tests, it recorded great audio. I’d like to sit down with them and just start asking small questions and maybe bring up some names just to spark their memory. I picture talking to my Grandma about this like chipping the glass on a large aquarium and just seeing it crack open further before you’re hit with a deluge of water. This is why I want the recorder. I won’t be able to write, or even type for that matter, as fast as she can tell stories.
I know people have done this type of thing before. Does anyone have any tips or good interview questions to ask? Obviously, I know her, so I don’t need any sort of introductory-type questions.
Technology is important to me. Since I was a kid, I’ve always loved technology. When I got into the genealogy game, computers and the Internet were already cemented in our lives, but genealogy was just starting to use it. I was lucky to start my genealogy research when the Internet was around. I am in awe of all of you who needed to do most of your research using things such as the Family History Libraries and postal mail. Like most things on the Internet, people sometimes jump to conclusions and believe everything they read, which can cause some research to be done incorrectly. I’ve always had technology in my research, and in my life, so this Carnival of Genealogy post was right up my alley. We were told to just pick one of each of the items below and to try not to talk about other things. So here mine goes.
The piece of hardware I rely on the most, besides my computer, is my digital camera. I use it mainly to take photos of headstones and other cemetery-related items. Sometimes I will also take photos of historic locations related to my research. Since it’s a digital camera, I don’t need to worry about how many photos I take (except I need to make sure not to fill my memory card.) Currently, I have a Sony and it’s all I really need for what I use it for. Seven megapixels is way more quality than I need. Though, I gotta say it’s nice for when you need to have a lot more detail, which works especially well on those hard-to-read, old headstones.
I ran across a very cool history/genealogy website via The Genealogy Guys podcast called Footnote. They put together a very slick historical document archive system and they are working on scanning important historical documents into it. You’re able to search through them, annotate them, and also create your own “Story” pages with your information.
But at Footnote, finding an image is just the beginning.
We have created powerful tools that let you interact with and enhance what you find. Annotate important information on the image, easily organize and share your findings or collaborate with people who have similar interests.
If you have original source images of your own that you want to share with your colleagues, classmates, friends and family, simply upload them to Footnote and use our tools to make your images searchable and available to others.
Footnote also gives you an opportunity to share your story, ideas or research with others by creating your own “Story Pages”.
I had signed up for the 7-day trial a few weeks ago and I completely forgot to cancel it before it was over (I’m really good at doing that.) It’s not that there was anything wrong with it, I loved it. I just didn’t find any thing from my family or area at the moment, though they’re adding new stuff everyday. But, now I have a 1-year subscription, so I’ll probably start to use it more. It’s still fun to browse these great documents and also to help othes by annotating them.
Check out footnote.com and see if you find anything interesting.
Wow, it’s been a week. It sure seemed to go quickly. I didn’t get to much family research in the last week, but I did visit my local library and checked out some of their genealogy items.
The first book I checked out was “Your Guide to Cemetery Research” by Sharon Debartolo Carmack. It was one of the only newer books in at the time, so I grabbed it. It was actually very interesting and helpful, even if you don’t plan on doing any cemetery research. She goes over types of stones, types of cemeteries, the different burial ceremonies in each culture, etc. These things will help you pinpoint your ancestors headstone and possibly other information, such as religion and ethnicity.
I recommend it for the genealogy researcher. And you know, we’re always looking for another reason to hang out in a cemetery.
There comes a time in every computer user’s career that they say, “I wish I had backed that up.” Fortunately, I haven’t needed to say that yet. Though, I technically have four hard drives on my computer; my main one, another one inside, and two external USB hard drives. I had it set up this way because I had a lot of data files, including photos, music, movies, etc. Every time I wanted to rebuild my computer, I had to back these up to CDs/DVDs and then move them back. So, I bought some USB-to-IDE boxes and installed some 120GB+ hard drives in them.
I always think about backing up my important data, but I never get to it. A few weeks ago, I installed a backup program called SyncBackSE. Basically, you give it a folder or files and tell it where to send it and it will schedule backups as often as you like using Windows Task Scheduler. The freeware version that I use doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but it does the backing up. It will sync the directories or just copy files over for you.
I may look into picking up the full copy in the future, since it does have some nice features, including backing up to FTP. This way I can get my data off-site in case of a fire or tornado, etc. This is especially important for genealogy data and family photos than it is for music or movies. There are companies out there that specialize in giving you storage space for off-site backups, that they themselves also back up regularly. My backup system isn’t too involved, but if I do lose on of my drives, I’ll at least have the data on another one.
So, check into some backup software. SyncBackSE was pretty simple for me, but I haven’t used a lot of backup software. Are there any other good programs out there that other genealogists have used?
I’ve been working this week on my family line. I’ve been hitting a few of the brick walls to see if anymore information is available using a couple of resources. I usually first use Ancestry’s “My Ancestry” family tree section, since I can browse right to the individual I want to use. All of their information is already entered on the site, so their site automatically browses for any new documents. I usually check those out and “attach” them if they are correct. After that, I usually search for any documents that may match that person. This way I can look through all of the documents that may match, but aren’t that close. A lot of the time I’ll find a document with a misspelling or date error.
If that doesn’t help much, I’ll usually visit the USGenWeb site to find the county website to see if they have any other information, or even another researcher looking for that surname. For locations outside oft the US, I usually check out the WorldGenWeb sites, but these are usually pretty difficult since most are in their native language. Google Translate can only help so much.
My last resort is usually message boards or mailing lists. Sometimes I find that just emailing a few people with a question on the family line can bring out a huge gold mine of information. This is what happened with my Van Parijs line.
When I’m stuck, sometimes I’ll just do a Google search on some key words and run across something. This happened just last night when I just searched for “Schwabendorf,” which is a German location in my maternal line. Even though the search was missing the surname surname associated with this location, “MUHM,” I found a page called “Muhm” that had information that may be tied to my family line. So, give it a shot, who knows what you’ll find.
What do you do when researching brick walls?
I found a nice collection of Genealogy-related videos ala YouTube at a site called RootsTube. I watched one on “Writing Your Family History” and it was very interesting. I am linking it here, but you can watch the rest or them (and more) at their website.
Go see the rest at RootsTube. To find more videos, click on the “Change the Channel” link. It took me a bit to figure that out. via The Genealogue.
I merged the two trees together, so there is now only one tree on the website. It’s much easier to search and browse now.
I logged back into Ancestry and found some new things that they have implemented. I’m really impressed with their “Personal Tree” option. What you do, like a lot of other sites, it upload your GEDCOM to it. It’s puts it into tree form, which you can share or not. But, the nice part is that it automatically searches the Ancestry site for matches. This makes it much easier that requiring you to type in the search info every time you want to find something. It now automatically takes into account birth, death, marriage, spouse, etc for you. It’s very nice. If you have an Ancestry subscription, give it a try, though I’m not even sure you need a subscription to use it.
I ran across this via Lifehacker. It looks to be a website that allows you to create a “family website” including family trees, photos, calendar, and maps. It’s called JotSpot Family Site.
Use our quick family tree builder to see all the family generations at a glance. Never forget the names of your cousins’ children again.
It looks like a neat site. The design is very clean and easy-to-use. I have not signed up for a site, since..obviously..I already have a site. But, for the novice family researcher, this may be a great way to get everyone involved and up-to-date. If any of you start a seperate Zalewski site, let me know and I’ll link to it.
Speaking of Zalewski’s, there haven’t been any signups to the Zalewski Surname Study. If you’re a Zalewski, please read all about it. This could help many family’s research into the Zalewski surname origins.
Well, it’s springtime (though snow is on the ground as I type) and it looks like its time to get some of those headstone photos that are needed. I have noted a bunch of them in the local area that I can hunt down. There are some farther away, such as in the northern tip of Wisconsin, but those can wait a little bit. I may make a day out of it and try to hit them all in one day. I have a few in the Green Bay area, some just north of here, and some in Washington County to check out.
Sometimes you find very helpful information from headstones and cemeteries. Sometimes you run into unknown family members buried nearby, or dates that you didn’t know about. I find it a useful, yet under-utilized piece of information for genealogy. A now, with the Internet, you can usually find some very helpful people that will take photos/notes for you in the area that your ancestors are buried. Here are some helpful sites:
