Enduring Legacy Genealogy

FamilySearch FamilyTree Beta Review

2012-01-11T14:49:00.001-05:00

Since March 2011 I have been covering the FamilySearch FamilyTree Beta. Notable genealogy enthusiasts have recently noted that little has been said since then.1, 2, 3

I'm prepared to announce that is no longer accurate. At least as far as I'm concerned. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure they meant FamilySearch was quiet, not me--oh well I'm not FamilySearch but, here I go making noise. Please excuse the blue boxes. I was protecting the privacy of living individuals such as myself.

I apologize to those of you who are completely unfamiliar with the beta. This video is tailored to those who knew about it already, but were not granted access or people who want to know about the progress of the beta. Please leave your questions as comments to this post and I will gladly address them.

The two main things I talk about are: 1. the new Watch List, and 2. the new ability to edit in the beta

Enjoy the video here or click this link for the full size: http://www.screencast.com/t/mmJdnzarRb

1 "New.FamilySearch.org - Still very much the same as usual, although there is a Beta test floating around out there in the ether which hasn't been referenced for some time."
- James Tanner, "Old FamilySearch.org Website still alive?" Genealogy's Star blog, 8 Jan 2012.

2 "New FamilySearch, now known as FamilySearch Family Tree, went in Limited Private Beta early this year and FamilySearch has not even announced that there will be Public Beta next year."
- Tamura Jones, "FamilySearch Family Tree API Public," Modern Software Experience, 22 Dec 2011.

3 "New.FamilySearch.org is long overdue for a substantial makeover to address the multitude of present limitations in the program. There was a not too confidential release of a Beta version of a preliminary version of the program circulating. But since the sort-of introduction of a Beta version, there has been no further communication I have picked up."
- James Tanner, "My Predictions for FamilySearch," Genealogy's Star blog, 9 Jan 2012.

Good Karma

2012-01-04T18:21:00.005-05:00

I've been answering random people's genealogy questions on Ancestry.com message boards for the past few days. Earlier today it occurred to me that it would be good karma if someone would respond to one of my message board posts that have been online for years. A few minutes ago someone did. The person was even a direct distant cousin. Now I call that a genealogy miracle. For those of you who are related or interested the family name is Ripke for this story. They are an offshoot of my maternal Whitehurst ancestors.

Have you had any good genealogy karma lately?

2012 Family History Resolutions

2012-01-01T11:14:00.003-05:00

Every year I see many genealogy miracles. I solve multiple end-of-line problems, progress in my own skills by leaps and bounds, and contribute to the family history community in important ways.

This year I've decided to go with the trend among other GeneaBloggers and write some goals so that you--my readers--can hold me accountable, and perhaps I will accomplish a few of the goals that I usually set on the back burner.

Name 10% of my 25,046 ambiguous genealogy files (pictures, historic documents, scanned genealogy charts, letters etc.) using the "Surname, Given Name(s) - Title (Optional Short Description) Year" format. Example: McCormick, Michael W - Diploma 2011; Some of my files have searchable names while other files still have consecutive numbering that was assigned by digital camera data or date scanned information. While scanning is the more essential step, I hope to get the files organized before I turn 120 or the world ends in December. I'm hoping the world doesn't end.
Transcribe 200 pages of family letters; Many of the letters that came into our possession have never been read by anyone in my immediate family and are still in original paper form or scanned only. Transcribing will give me a good motivation to read them and will make it easier for others to Control+F (search) for data in the future.
Go back at least one additional generation/individual on 5 distinct end-of-line ancestors; this should be the easiest goal as I can't imagine wanting to do anything else more.
Excel in a new full-time genealogy related career; While I've been working in the field since 2007, I graduated with a Bachelors of Science last month and moved to Provo to start a new career there.
Become an AG through ICAPGen; I'm within 70 hours of the application hour requirements--while I am well over the total hourly requirement, I lacked sufficient experience in one of the sub-regions. I'm partly through the four generation project.
Begin a Masters program in genealogy; I recently applied for the October 2012 postgraduate certificate program with University of Strathclyde.

Perhaps I will update you on my status quarterly and this may give me a chance to track and/or modify my goals. I'm not promising anything. Six goals is enough.

Highlights - September to December 2011

2011-12-21T14:23:00.001-05:00

16 December 2011- Archives.com, FamilySearch International, and findmypast.com join forces to create the 1940 Census Index. Read more.

Often various family history entities create their own indexes for important research collections. The 1940 Census is one of the largest and most significant collections to come forward. Through collaboration a better index can be created more quickly. It will then be shared between entities and users.

15 December 2011 - Pennsylvania Senate Bill (SB) 361 signed into law - my post

This law, now known as Act 110 of 2011, makes state birth and death certificates public record after 105 and 50 years respectively. Prior to the passing of this law, these records could not be legally put online and were impractical to use for research.

29 November 2011 - MyHeritage acquires http://FamilyLink.com and http://WorldVitalRecords.com

Read more on Renee's Genealogy Blog. MyHeritage is one of the most visited genealogy websites in the world, but has no office in the family history capital of the world--until now. FamilyLink's Utah office comes under the umbrella of MyHeritage. This positions the company to remain a significant contributor along side Ancestry.com, BrightSolid, FamilySearch, NewsBank and Archives.com.

17 November 2011 - BYU-Idaho offers Family History Associates - my post

This program will help students prepare for ICAPGen Accreditation.

14 November 2011 - ICAPGen Announces New Levels Program - Read more at EOGN
2 November 2011 - Virginia fights for positive genealogy legislation - Read more at EOGN
25 October 2011 - FamilySearch Data Centers and Second Vault - Read more at The Ancestry Insider
20 October 2011 - Michael W. McCormick creates a genealogy blog for BYU-Idaho
2 October 2011 - Leader Calls Upon Church Youth to Research Ancestors - Read more at The Ancestry Insider
17 September 2011 - LDS Temple in Philadelphia will increase family history efforts in the area

To learn more about the temple groundbreaking visit ABC 6. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are famous for their enthusiasm for and contributions to family history. It is speculated that a Family History Center may be built with the new temple and many LDS members feel that the spirit brought by having a "House of the Lord" in the area will be a benefit to this meaningful family work.

Amendt Genealogy Miracle

2011-12-19T10:01:00.001-05:00

1 Nov 2011, while a BYU-Idaho student - This morning I had a genealogy miracle. I knew that I had a lot to do for the college courses I was taking in this my last semester, but I also knew that my ancestors wanted to be found. I felt impressed to go to the Family History Center on campus. About a week ago I ordered a microfilm of a German Kirchenbuch (Church Book/Register) for Heuchelheim, Germany on which I knew the Amendt* family would appear. When I got to the center I put the microfilm on the reader and began to look through the German script from the early 1800s. Even after taking a class in German genealogy research, reading the film was difficult. Miracles often come through the people around us and that morning, a family history missionary with a specialty in German research--Sister Hart--was helping run the center. She helped me find the baptism record of my 3rd-great grandfather Philipp Amend (known as John Philip Ament after his emigration). This kind sister missionary even served part of an earlier mission near the area where these ancestors of mine were from. Running low on time, and trying to be as appreciative as possible, I asked her if she might create a transcript and translation for me. I needed to go to class.

The sister missionary kindly helped me read the record and even did a partial transcription and translation which I picked up about a week later. She went above and beyond by finding--on FamilySearch.org--two of my 3rd-great grandfather's siblings whose names my family was missing. They died young and when John Philip emigrated, over time the family's memory of those children was lost. I spent some more time going through the microfilm on my own with the aid of the transcription Sister Hart provided. I copied the originals of those two siblings' baptisms and several more records--including marriages and deaths--on 2 or 3 visits over the next couple weeks.

Throughout the experience I called my parents to explain what I was finding. With the encouragement of my mother, when I got what I could from the years covered by that microfilm, I ordered the next film. My parents were coming to my graduation the weekend of the 16-17th of December and offered to help look through the records when they arrived. After ordering the film I got a notice that it was on backorder and was concerned that we might not get to look at it before I had to move out on the 17th. Friday the 16th my parents and I showed up at the family history center to ask if it came in. I had not received the customary e-mail notification because the data entry missionary had not been in recently. The missionaries who were there looked through the unprocessed films and found that which I had ordered. I showed my parents how to recognize the records and they went on to copy several more protestant church records for our Amendt ancestors.

The right person happened to be there at the right time to help me on November 1st, I found many original records and some previously missing family members, improved my German research skills through practice, and enjoyed some family time looking through the film which barely arrived in time for us to review before I moved out the next day. These small and simple things witness the hand of the Lord in helping us learn about our heritage and finding our connection to the eternal family.

NOTE: This post explains part of the events which helped me know which microfilm I needed to order. With so much on my plate, it took me a couple months before I decided to order the film.

*Amendt surname also spelled as Amend or Ament.

Pennsylvania Opens Death Certificates to the Public

2011-12-12T14:31:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: As of 15 December 2011 Governor Tom Corbett has signed SB 361. It is now known as PA Act 110 of 2011. This puts the effective date at 13 February 2012. (60 days to take effect)
See the government website for further information on this law.

On December 6th, 2011 the Pennsylvania House of Representatives unanimously passed Senate Bill 361 which previously passed unanimously in the Senate. This bill will make all Pennsylvania Death Certificates from 1906 when they began filing until 1961 public record. The law requires the certificates to have been on file for 50 years before becoming public.

Prior to this law, death certificates never became public. With this new law these older certificates may be put online and used for genealogical research.

The law will be official on or before 16th February 2012. The bill has a 60 day period before it comes into effect, plus the 10 day period in which the governor may review it which ends this Sunday on the 18th. The governor will approve the bill by that date or it will become law by default. Because of the unanimous vote, there is no reason to fear a veto.

Stay posted for updates regarding when these records go online. It is expected to happen quickly on Ancestry.com. Three years from now the state archive website will also provide access.

BYU-Idaho offers Family History Associates

2011-11-17T02:34:00.001-05:00

Last week BYU-Idaho finalized the approval process for an Applied Associates degree in Family History.

This degree will be offered completely online. It is scheduled to be developed over the next couple years, with a couple courses being introduced each semester. The degree is designed to help students prepare for accreditation as a professional genealogist.

Please await the addition of this degree to the catalog.

Research/Interpersonal Recommendations

2011-11-10T00:22:00.002-05:00

"Our son Mike McCormick has helped our family immensely for generations to come and generations previous. I now feel more tied to these generations and have many many good stories of their lives to pass on and be connected to. All this, too, in a good way that keeps me interested, in a special way, in life and living."
J. Michael McCormick, father - Gardners, PA - 2011

"Mike has a wealth of knowledge and is very talented in every aspect of genealogy. He has the ability to inspire people of every age to learn about and gain a love of family history. Through prayer, faith, and perseverance he has solved many great mysteries. Mike has a special relationship with God, a spiritual gift, that by the spirit he knows what should be done to find our ancestors."
Susan McCormick, mother - Gardners, PA - 2011

“Michael is doing an outstanding job researching my family's genealogy, he is a true professional who produces superior results.”
James Schilling, cousin - Dover, DE - 2010

"The genealogy work that you have done for our family has been fascinating, really and well worth the investment."
Renae, sister - Provo, UT - 2009

Recommendations

2011-11-06T01:41:00.013-04:00

Research/Interpersonal

"Fabulous, just fabulous! Michael, I could not be happier with the research you have provided. Being 2 states away, it was not possible for me to access public and church records in Pennsylvania. You have been a valuable and trustworthy resource that has made my research easier and faster."

Randy Davis, client - Richmond, VA - 2009

"It has been great working with Michael. I very much recommend him for your research needs!"

Hillary, client - El Paso, TX - 2009

Click here for more Research/Interpersonal Recommendations

Volunteer/Self-motivation
"Mike McCormick has undeniably been a great asset to the BYU-Idaho Family History Center. As a volunteer he has developed a full Internet presence for the Family History Center that is another important tool to involve University students in family history research. He not only created a BYU-Idaho FHC Facebook page and a blog site but has updated our FamilySearch Research Wiki page and our Twitter account, tying these, along with our University FHC website and our library research guides all together into one cohesive Internet presence. While doing this he has been very patient and willing to spend the time necessary to teach us the mechanics and concepts of all parts of our Internet presence. We will miss him when he graduates."

Douglas and Aldene Poole, FHC Directors - BYU-Idaho - 2011

"Mike McCormick is the best genealogist and the most knowledgeable person I know. He can answer any question I might have about my genealogy problems either about research or how to use any research program. He is always willing to help others."

Mary L. Deibler, FHC Director - Gettysburg, PA - 2007

Academic/Teamwork

"I was privileged to have Michael McCormick as a student at Brigham Young University in my 'Writing Family History' class (History 433). He was an outstanding student and did an excellent job researching and writing a history of his family."

Nancy NeSmith, Professor - Brigham Young University - 2009

"I am happy to recommend Michael McCormick as a very proficient and dedicated genealogist, who goes the second mile in his research for clients, and also weaves in the historical and social contexts, to create a well-rounded product."

Gerald M. Haslam, PhD - Brigham Young University - 2008

"Michael and I took a genealogy class together at BYU. The class required a lot of team work and effort. Michael was a good team worker and provided a lot of valuable data to our group projects. I can recommend him for any genealogy-related job for which he is qualified."

Kimberly Fields, student peer - Provo, UT - 2008

Note: The year listed is for when the experience took place. In some cases, the recommendation was written later.

FamilySearch Family Tree in Beta

2011-10-20T20:57:00.002-04:00

Back in March I stumbled across a link to what looked like a beta of the new FamilySearch Family Tree and took some screen shots before the link disappeared.

Here is the post: http://enduringlegacygenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/03/familysearch-family-tree-leak.html

There are 2 other posts talking more about the same thing on my blog in March. At the time, I had no word from anyone officially what that was all about.

Yesterday, my fellow GeneaBlogger, James Tanner, posted about this beta: http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2011/10/beta-test-of-familyseachs-family-tree.html

Evidently, a document about this beta was released in April to a select few: https://help.familysearch.org/kb/guides/en/The_Case_for_Our_Tree_FamilySearch.pdf

There is a feedback page on FamilySearch.org for the beta:
http://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch/products/familysearch_family_tree_beta

As James Tanner mentioned in his blog post, FamilySearch likely does not give more information because this process is in the development stage. Betas for FamilySearch are known to sometimes last years as in the case of version 1 of new.familysearch.org which is now being moved to FamilySearch.org in the form of this beta.

PaHR-Access Pennsylvania Genealogy Bill (Major Update)

2011-09-16T11:23:00.002-04:00

After PaHR-Access' article of two days ago titled "Pennsylvania Dept of Health still fighting any change", Scott Sikorski's declaration today comes as a pleasant surprise. Sikorski is the Legislative Director of Senator Jake Corman who sits as Appropriations Committee chair. Sikorski stated that Senate Bill 361 will pass from the Appropriations Committee when the senate reconvenes on Monday, the 19th.

This action is expected to occur at about 12:30pm EST, but if there is a call for discussion the action may take place closer to 2:30pm, Sikorski said. Sikorski was helpful to answer all of my questions regarding the movement of this bill. While the Fiscal Note from the committee does not become public record until Monday, Sikorski was able to report that this bill would create "no adverse impact" on the finances of the state. Sikorski also reported that there is a standing agreement with Ancestry.com to digitize and index the death certificates at no cost to the state. While a date of availability has not been fixed, we may "anticipate a high priority" in the Ancestry.com process. The resulting records will be searchable at the Pennsylvania Archives Search Room as well as to Ancestry.com subscribers. In 3 years from the time the bill is passed the PHMC (Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission) website will make these same records available. This is the website which hosts the page for the Pennsylvania Archives. Being aware of FamilySearch International's intent to make these same record available I asked Sikorski about the potential availability at FamilySearch.org, and though he did not know the answer, he agreed to write a letter to find out.

While these are the aims of the bill as outlined by the Appropriations Committee as they prepare to pass it to the floor of the Pennsylvania Senate, the success of the bill continues to hinge on all remaining steps in the legislative process. Thanks for all of your enthusiasm and help in making this step in the process possible.

Is the Internet an Unreliable Repository?

2011-08-29T09:54:00.001-04:00

Several times this month I have come across websites that were temporarily down. In at least three of those I was trying to learn more about genealogy. The GenealogyGuys.com, BillionGraves.com, and Baltimore County Public Library websites were all down for different reasons at different times. The last website mentioned is down at the time I'm writing this post due to power failure during hurricane Irene.

So is it time to give up on Internet research and go back to the caveman days of visiting these places in person? No. That will not work. These websites are compilations of data not easily accessible in any one physical place. As far as I know, the Genealogy Guys do not have their own public library of knowledge at any physical address which I can visit. BillionGraves is a compilation of the collection efforts of thousands of volunteers visiting cemeteries world-wide. The Baltimore County Public Library has a ProQuest portal which my library card gives me free access to. There I can get more digitized issues of the Baltimore Sun for free than I can anywhere else... okay there is an "easy" fix for that one. I could go to the Maryland Law Library in Annapolis to look at the microfilms of the paper. That is what I did before ProQuest. My point is that the Internet provides resources that not only make access easier, but provide access to data in ways that make the old way almost obsolete.

With the prevelence of researcher dependence upon the Internet along with a higher demand for records access, is it really acceptable for a website to go down for a few hours? I do not think it is. Granted, there may always be more disasters (natural or otherwise), but there are some good ways to at least alleviate the hosting problem. First, we must determine what the problem is. In the cases I am aware of the root problem was a power outage or a hosting service failure. In our day of cloud computing, with scalable hosting services, websites can maintain an online presence on servers in multiple locations. That way if one host has a server go down for any reason--including power outage--another server can pick up the slack. Then there is a question of cost effectiveness. Perhaps is should be the responsibility of cloud providers to offer back-up hosting at a price within reach of small businesses, two man teams, and public libraries. Maybe the Congress should make legislation requiring websites to have at least one back up server online which traffic would automatically be directed to in case of an outage. Some of these thoughts may seem a little extravagant, but after all we are in an age of convenience.

At least I can still go to the Facebook page for each website and ask if anyone else noticed the website failure. I did that in all three cases unless it was already explained on the Facebook page. That is a nice way to keep informed of the issues, assuming Facebook isn't down.

Facebook Relative Finder Review

2011-08-27T05:03:00.003-04:00

Relative Finder is a Facebook app that can be used by those with a new.FamilySearch.org account to find relationships to Facebook friends and famous people.

At first I was skeptical, but soon I found several Facebook friends who were generally 10th-13th cousins. It was fun to see my relationship to several friends. I never expected I was that closely related to them. I was thinking our common ancestor was closer to the time of Adam and Eve. It was similarly exciting to see relationships to Presidents and other famous people. Most of my cousins came from the same several common ancestors from one of my New England to England lines. Most of my mothers lines are German and we had no success there. That just means I need to do more research, or I need to find more friends with German lines from my ancestral towns.

My favorite part of Relative Finder is the ability to share your new-found family instantly over Facebook. As one developer noted, people prefer to interact on Facebook in this generation. Many people feel too busy to view a collaborative tree website, but will check Facebook regularly. I have already had several friends add this app since I started using it a couple days ago. While new.FamilySearch.org is in beta only members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which is FamilySearch's sponsor, and others who have been directly invited will have access to Relative Finder. Once the service opens to the general public, the most difficult thing will be to convince people who are not already interested to link their genealogy to a FamilySearch Account. As people see their friends post cool relationships, it will motivate them to do the same. I foresee this app contributing to thousands of new genealogy enthusiasts entering our community.

Pennsylvania Senate Genealogy Bill Update

2011-08-26T21:53:00.001-04:00

Mike Hengst, of Senator Ribbons' staff, sent me an update on SB 361 today. He explained why nothing has happened recently by reminding us that the Senate does not return to session until September 19th and the House not until September 26th. Mike Hengst has been working for this bill for the last decade and feels positive about the progress being made this session. He plans to meet with the executive director of the Senate Appropriations Committee next week "to make the case to list the bill soon after the Senate returns to session." Mike's attitude was positive with a parting call for action: "Just keep the letters going to the members of the Appropriations Committee – believe me it does help even if you haven’t been getting a response – folks are becoming aware of this issue here."

SB 361 is a bill that will change the way genealogy is done in Pennsylvania. Current vital records laws make genealogy research inconvenient through overly restrictive policy. For example, PA has no public vital records index.
Learn how you can help at the website for People for Better Pennsylvania Historical Records Access - PaHR-Access.

Most Powerful Earthquake in Virginia's History

2011-08-23T14:36:00.002-04:00

About a half hour ago, in the middle of a beautiful Pennsylvania day I felt my house shake for several seconds. It was like nothing I felt here before so I was beginning to be worried. I even went outside to see if our rather large evergreens fell onto the house. Well, I think I will turn on the news. :)

Why I Like Visiting Graves

2011-08-23T00:41:00.009-04:00

One of my favorite things in genealogy is to visit the grave sites of my ancestors. There is a special sacredness about being at the final resting place of an ancestor, not to mention it is refreshing to do genealogy outside now and then. Finding these grave sites represents a recurring theme among the family history miracles I've experienced. I recall how several years ago, in 2005, my family visited the Mt. Carmel Cemetery on O'Donnell St. in Baltimore. My father, mother, and I, split up to find the location of George and Margaret Grauling's, my 3rd-great grandparents', grave. My mother was the first one to spot it and she hollered excitedly for us to come over to see it. I know that was one of the most meaningful cemetery finds for her. Finding a grave site for the first time is exciting. The search often includes fun "detective" work, but sometimes it just takes a relaxing stroll through the cemetery. Honoring our ancestors by visiting their graves has been a bonding experience for our family. Over the years, we have visited the graves of close to 50 direct ancestors as well as countless others. With the assistance of Find A Grave volunteers and others, our family has access to pictures of another 20 or so direct ancestors' graves.

After a half-decade of wondering what happened to the record of John A. Whipple's, my Civil War ancestor's burial, I located him at the Soldiers Home National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Previously I only had the record that referred to the Capitol Barracks as his place of burial. It is likely that I would not have found his stone even if I had gone to that cemetery sooner. It was possibly the newest stone there and looked like it was recently replaced. Sometimes we want to find an ancestor "now," when perhaps God has better timing in mind.

On that same trip my parents and I stopped at the Rock Creek Cemetery to find my great grandparents' grave--Clifford and Helen McCormick. We did not find them at that time because the cemetery office was closed, but I went back a couple months later after getting the section number by calling. What happened next is exemplary of other discovery experiences I've had. After parking on a cemetery road that bordered that section, I came out of my car and walked forward. The very first stone I came to was the stone of my great grandparents and the light from the sun seemed to shine down directly on that very spot during that beautiful pre-Spring day in March 2010. For several minutes I stood there and took in the calm of the day and felt thankful for my great grandparents.

A more recent experience with a first time visit of an ancestor's grave was my visit to the grave of my 5th-great grandmother Barbara Doebel Paris. The Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in Baltimore had no notation whether a headstone existed for Barbara, but I like to visit my ancestors' graves even if there is no marker. My parents visited the lot a few months ago and found the headstone of her husband Leander broken in two, and another stone face-down in the dirt next to his. After informing the cemetery and calling a few times to follow up, the cemetery had both stones laid face up. On August 2, 2011 my parents and I visited the grave together. There is something deeply meaningful about caring for the grave of an ancestor.

Finding my 5th Great-Grandfather

2011-08-22T21:25:00.038-04:00

NOTE: This post has been formatted, edited, and updated, for easier reading on this blog from an earlier article.

As any genealogist knows, there are a few experiences that one always looks back on with amazement which push that person forward in their never-ending search. For me, one of these experiences was finding my 5th great-grandfather, John Whipple.

Cordelia Whipple
At a young age, I became curious about my genealogy.
I was excited to look at the genealogy chart my grandparents gave to my parents. It was written by hand with various circles, lines and marks connecting what seemed like a “treasure” map.

Cordelia Whipple

Soon I noticed the name Cordelia Whipple. This was my grandmother's grandmother and the line stopped there. “Why didn't we know more about her family?,” I wondered. Grandmother told me a few stories about the Whipple family, but it wasn't much. She never knew her grandmother.

Grandmother said that Cordelia had complications resulting from the birth of her second child, and Cordelia died soon after. This knowledge proved most useful in taking the next research step because it provided us with a death date.

The other two stories do not appear to be important, but they kept my curiosity alive. It was said that my Whipple family is related to William Whipple of the Declaration of Independence. Another rumor was that Cordelia's parents disowned her at her marriage to the poor German, Charles Ament.

Until I had some real evidence, those stories drifted around in my mind as my only perception of Cordelia's ancestors. I could never find evidence for either of those claims [except this poem] and I felt a little short changed to know so little.

I was just getting into genealogy back then. Most of my first substantial research consisted of trips to the Maryland Hall of Records or to cemeteries in Baltimore, to find my mother's ancestors. This was one of my first major efforts to research my father's side.

The Search Begins
While I was preparing to end my freshman year at college, I questioned whether I should come home for an extended break or stay there. I felt like the decision was an important one and I prayed to know what to do. No immediate answer came, but I began to feel a spiritual impression that, if I went home, the next year would be a good year for family history. The story of the Whipple research is only one example of how my family was blessed in family history as a result of my choice to spend the next several months at home. I thank my parents for their support which made it possible.

In mid-2005, the Whipple family was on my mind. With my additional experience in genealogy research, I planned to go to New York and look at the death indexes.

I wrote about the trip in my journal: "My parents, brother. . .and I are in NY. . . Today we research family. 9am, when the Rochester Library opened we went in. My mom worked in the Local History/Genealogy room while dad looked at old microfilmed Rochester papers and I used the NY State Vital Records Index."
- 22 April 2005

I still remember looking at the microfiche and seeing "Delia W. Ament, February 21, 1892." I expected to see the name Cordelia and it was under the name Cordelia that I had always previously looked for her on census records. I knew I was on to something so I ordered the death certificate and waited.

Miraculous Timing
After a run of intense success, there is a time of perseverance when one simply must plug on with the work. This was the case for the next two weeks. On returning from the Washington, D.C. Temple, my parents and I found that the transcript of Cordelia Whipple's death register entry was in our mail box. I took it as a sign that putting God first brings blessings. I also believe that knowing more about our ancestors is part of God's plan. Small things witness God's hand in our lives and I can't help but be grateful.

John A. Whipple
The certificate revealed that Cordelia was born in Nelson, New York, and her father's name was, John Whipple. Armed with those facts, I was able to find “Delia Whipple” on the 1860 census in Fenner, New York--a small town nearby Nelson. For almost three months I went through several sources, corresponded with Whipple researchers and experienced even more miracles.

Soldiers Home National Cemetery, Washington D.C.

One of the sources I discovered was John A. Whipple's pension record. I ordered the record through the National Archives website after finding him on an online index. I always wanted to find a Civil War story in my family. Now I had one.

John died when Cordelia was only four years old and Cordelia was raised by her mother, Jane, and stepfather Francis Cary. Then when Cordelia died, eight days after her second child was born, much of her family history was not passed on.

From 3rd to 5th Great
In looking at the 1860 census, I saw Elisha Whipple lived next to John and Jane. I realized that Elisha could be John A.'s father. One of the Whipple researchers I was e-mailing shared part of a local history about the Whipple family. It misnamed Elisha as John, but all the right people were there—Elisha's son John as well as his wife Lucy Dryer.

In the local history we read that Elisha's father was John also. They were a prominent family in a small town. There was a transcription on the Internet of John Whipple and Jerusha Inman's grave stones in Fenner. Because of that among other things, I was able to pinpoint them as my 5th great-grandparents. I will always be grateful to Dan Weiskotten who took the time to transcribe and map out every little cemetery in that area. [I just realized that he died during the months that I was doing this research.] Several of my ancestors were found due to his foresight. I never would have known that my 5th great-grandparent's stones were in the middle of a corn field.

John, Where are You?

In July 2005, my parents and I were near Fenner on the way home from a business trip. Not willing to pass up the opportunity, we decided to visit the grave of John and Jerusha. Even though Weiskotten's directions were detailed, we knew it would not be easy as we looked into the field of corn before us. We spoke with a nice elderly lady who lived near the field. She sent us down the correct row with a warning much like, “Things are overgrown back there.” With faith my parents and I proceeded along the path next to the field. We walked all the way to the end, pausing in places and began to wonder out loud if we were going to find it at all. The entire row seemed to be covered in weeds. Contemplating the necessity of concluding our search, we walked part of the way back. Then we paused, determined to find John and Jerusha. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. When I opened my eyes, the top of the stones were visible right in front of us.

Additional Research Notes
At this time, little is known of the family and none of the compiled genealogies that include this John Whipple are able to provide good sources for his parentage. Many un-sourced online pedigrees claim his father as Nathaniel Whipple.

John Whipple came from Rhode Island1 previous to the 1810 census enumeration. On that census he lived near A. Inman, presumably a relative of his wife, Jerusha Inman.

1. 1850 United States Federal Census, microfilm or on-line database, National Archives and Records Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20408-0001 , M432. 1,009 rolls of microfilm. Available also through the FHL and on-line databases like http://www.ancestry.com/

Spiritually in Tune - Blasius Grein

2011-08-22T21:07:00.005-04:00

A couple of months ago I was in Idaho at the David O. McKay Library, in the middle of a semester at college, when I felt a distinct impression to go to FamilySearch.org and look for my 4th-great grandfather, Blasius Grein. What made the experience even more memorable was that I had not yet begun studying for the day. I was sitting there, reading the scriptures and listening to some christian choir music to prepare my mind. Though the feeling to look for Blasius was specific and out of the blue, I recognized the event as part of a pattern of revelation that I have received throughout my life.

Long story short, I looked for Blasius, and within a couple of days I had all his ancestors going two more generations back, with some lines going as many as five generations more than I previously had. There have been times in the past few years that I wondered how my research could ever be as miraculous and spiritually charged as it was in 2005. That year was amazing for my research. My concern that it never could be that good again has been continuously proven wrong. The miracles just keep coming.

Waiting for a Genealogy Miracle...

2011-08-21T21:59:00.003-04:00

Sometimes reading a book like The Family Tree Problem Solver: Proven methods... will give me new ideas to break through my brick walls. Sometimes the solutions will come to me while I am taking a genealogy class from an institution of higher learning. Sometimes it requires consulting with someone else who can give the problem their fresh perspective.

If you really want to solve a problem keep that family on your mind all the time. Ideas will come to you. Be willing to try new approaches and go the extra mile. It is okay to switch your focus to another line for awhile, but let your mind wonder back to your brick wall often.

There is a principle in family history work that is not generally taught, but to me it rings the most true. That principle is faith. Faith is believing in something that you can't see, but is still there. I can't see it, but sincerely feel I am going to solve all my "brick walls" someday. Faith takes action. I have to do everything within my power to find my ancestors. Faith takes patience. I have hired a professional, taken a college course on Irish genealogy, watched a few webinars, read a well known book on the subject, and done everything I learned plus some, without being able to go past my Irish 4th-great grandfather, Charles McCormick. Patience requires that I do not give up. It requires that I continue on a path of learning my whole life.

Balance is another important principle of genealogy research that seems to be more assumed than taught. I could drop all my other goals, move to Ireland and spend the rest of my life looking at all the historic records that exist. That is an unreasonable choice for me. Good genealogy research requires balance. After all, Charles McCormick is not the only ancestor who deserves my attention.

Keeping that in mind, I wholeheartedly believe in genealogy miracles. Last Monday, the 15th, one of those miracle happened. Actually, they happen all the time.

Six years ago I found the names of my 3rd-great grandfather, John Philip Ament's, parents. They were on a census record in New York. All I had to do is realize that John Philip went by Philip when he was younger. Some things seem like common sense in retrospect. If all my wisdom and research came at once I'd never be able to process it all. I'm so glad I've learned how to research over several years time. One of the census records gave me the information that the Ament family was from Hesse-Darmstadt, but I never had more than that. I took a few other lines back into Germany after taking a German genealogy course, but somehow I was still missing the key piece of information I needed on the Ament family at that time. On August 15, 2011, I found which town in Hessen, Germany that the Ament family came from. I also got one more generation back. It was actually on an Ancestry.com Member Tree with a citation of a FHL film number of the German church records from which the information came. From looking at additional compiled genealogies alone I was able to take one of the lines, from that point, back to 1525. I'll verify what I can as time allows. Simply having the town and a framework to go by is wonderful.

Here is where the miracle is more apparent. The week before, one of my elderly cousins asked if my research took the Aments back into Germany yet. At that time, I did not know the town. Good timing isn't it? These genealogy miracles just keep coming.

BillionGraves Review

2011-08-21T16:34:00.009-04:00

BillionGraves consists of a website and smart phone app by AppTime, LLC.

Their goal is to get a billion graves (or more) put online.

The most successful venture in uploading headstone photos to date is Find A Grave with 66 million graves while BillionGraves only had about 50,000 graves two months past their launch.1

Find A Grave has been around for more than a decade. What makes BillionGraves think they can surpass 66 million? I don't know what makes each person think that, but I know why I think so. I've uploaded hundreds of grave images to Find A Grave so I am prepared to compare the services. I think BillionGraves has 2 keys to success.

Smart Phones
Crowd-sourcing transcriptions

What does a smart phone have to do with getting a billion graves?

Increased Speed of Photography - With the Motorola Atrix 4G smart phone I was able to photograph images more quickly than I could with either my DSLR or my 14 megapixel Kodak.
The Phone's GPS Organizes Everything - It will put them in the correct cemetery and will GPS tag every photo's location exaclty. This feature is exciting for many reasons, such as keeping track of which headstones have been photographed already and helping descendents find the headstone should they want to visit in person. On Find A Grave you had to select which cemetery to upload your photos to after you took your camera home and transferred the photos to your computer.
Instant Uploading - If you have a good data plan, upload images while you are taking more pictures. The phone does it for you, just set it up under the settings tab of the app. If your data plan is an issue you can simply wait until you get to WiFi, start the process, and the phone does the rest. You can even save more time by having your phone auto-delete images that have been uploaded.

How will crowd-sourcing help?

Crowd-sourcing means that anyone can help with transcription. All you have to do is go to BillionGraves.com and click Transcribe. The online transcribing form is easy to use. With Find A Grave you could transcribe them yourself or... oh, that is the only option. Personally, I am good at taking lots of pictures, but I can only transcribe a little at a time. This feature lets people help how they want to. You can even choose to only transcribe or to only photograph graves. It is kind of like a FamilySearch Indexing for graves.

Join today!
BillionGraves is in its infancy, but it is growing fast. This month all users who upload 1,000 or more grave images will receive a free BillionGraves t-shirt. I finished the challenge this morning. Hurry. There are only ten days left.

Which phones does BillionGraves work with? - iPhones and select Android phones

1. Gordon Clark of FamilySearch talks about the way services like BillionGraves will work with the FamilySearch Tree. He says BillionGraves has about 50,000 graves uploaded. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsVUWIaU2w4

BillionGraves' Goal
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We hope to provide an expansive family history database for records and images from the world’s cemeteries—but it’s not something we can do alone. We need you to help us by collecting images from your local cemeteries and transcribing the information those headstone images provide.

Help us make family history research more accessible to everyone. Take the BillionGraves.com iPhone/Android app with you when you go to the cemetery and contribute to the grave image database. Even if you don’t have the gadgets required to collect images for BillionGraves, you can still help build the database by transcribing the images so anyone, anywhere, can find ancestors’ graves with just a few clicks of the mouse.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Promotes Family History

2011-08-18T19:11:00.005-04:00

Many genealogy enthusiasts are aware that the largest genealogy organization in the world--FamilySearch--is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have you ever wondered why?

I received a notice today about updates to the family history initiative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [LDS]. More direction is being given to the younger generation of missionaries regarding family history and genealogy work. LDS missionaries as young as 19 are sent to locations determined by revelation through church leadership. Generally these young missionaries are known for their proselyting and service to the community. Those leaving on missions will now watch training videos which encourage them to talk about family history with those whom they share the gospel with. From 2005-2007 I served such a mission in Virginia and had the opportunity to participate in a pilot program called "The Gift of Family History." Family history enthusiasts within the LDS Church have long recognized the spiritual connections that family history helps to develop within individuals and families. Many individuals of other faiths likewise recognize a certain spirituality about family history research. Within the LDS Church I personally have learned to see the spirituality of family history from many different directions.

Family history teaches us that we are children of God.
When you start to get involved with family history, and progress backwards through the generations, your view of time changes. You begin to see that the 1800's, 1700's, 1600's... really weren't so many generations ago. You might think about how you know your parents or grandparents. They may have known their grandparents. Already from the memory of living people you may have jumped back into a world which you previously felt only existed in history books. While you are doing the hard work that it so often takes to prove your family line, you begin to feel a connection to your ancestors. When you serve people, you learn to love them. You've spent hours trying to find an ancestor so that they are not forgotten and somehow remembering them makes you feel as though your time on earth is more worthwhile. These feelings are not mistakes, they are not coincidences. God, our Father in Heaven, has set in motion a plan by which all his children can be remembered. In the Bible we read: "And he shall ^aturn the ^bheart of the ^cfathers to the ^dchildren, and the heart of the ^echildren to their fathers..." Malachi 4:6. Christianity is about love, Christianity is about service, Christianity is about family, Christianity is about eternity. Those who have gone on before us are just as real as we are.

I know that I have felt the blessings of family history in my life. Heavenly Father wants us to know we are his children and a Christ-centered effort to document our relationships going back to the time of our ancient forebears is all about that. I believe when we get to the other side we will have opportunities to complete our family pedigree charts all the way back to our Father in Heaven, but in the mean time it is the current of spirituality in the work of family history that makes the sometimes difficult work worthwhile.

Footnote.com becomes Fold3.com

2011-08-18T18:25:00.007-04:00

What a surprise earlier today!

When I went to footnote.com, I saw that it has been given a face-lift and a new name. The new name, fold3, is meant to represent a greater emphasis and honor for those who served in the military.

Many genealogy blogs have recently highlighted the War of 1812 pension project between FGS and footnote. It truly is exciting to see them taking on such large digitization projects!

I was shocked to see the changes in design for fold3, but I feel like the new design does honor the military emphasis.

Though I am pleased with the military emphasis in general, I feel it would be better as a temporary revamp of the site, or as a new dedicated section (a military tab).

In my view, there are two priceless things about footnote.com--the unique image viewer and the amount of unique record groups. Any major player can upload new record groups, so the interface is really what set footnote apart the most.

All image viewing sites which show readable images should implement the footnote viewer. The in-viewer navigation, search, and annotation are some of my favorite features.

Some of my favorite record groups are the city directories. I love being able to search for any word on the page. Searching by address has helped me find connections to relatives I previously missed. Some people moved several times between census years.

Comments on the footnote / fold3 blog indicate more disappointment than excitement.

Many individuals have expressed online that footnote's making a change like this, without informing their subscribers beforehand, is bad business practice. At the same time, I think it is important to step back and try to distance yourself from the initial rush of emotional dissatisfaction. Anyone who really feels hurt can cancel, but such a decision may be shortsighted. The former footnote.com's record collections remain intact. It is true that users will no longer be able to look toward footnote to add more amazing records about non-military topics, but this is only a first step in major changes to come. Rather than being pessimistic and assuming all changes will be bad changes, think optimistically of where this could go. Ancestry.com may eventually adopt the browsing and image viewer interface of fold3. There is nothing to indicate this will occur, but if Ancestry did this, we would still be able to view new record collections in all their "footnote" glory--simply under a new name.

To me it is worth the price to support their military digitization, if nothing else.

Highlights - January to July 2011

2011-08-15T09:16:00.000-04:00

20 March 2011 - Enduring Legacy Genealogy: FamilySearch Family Tree Leak!

This is one of the most unique discoveries I've ever posted on my Enduring Legacy Genealogy blog. A new version of the FamilySearch Family Tree was on FamilySearch.org for a few days in March, but it could only be accessed from first going to the Wiki and tricking the sign-in function on the site. I took some screen shots before the tree was taken down and posted them here.

27 January 2011 - GeneaBloggers: PA Vital Records - Your Help is Needed

Thomas MacEntee, of GeneaBloggers, uploaded a guest post to his blog which I wrote to solicit support for PaHR-Access' Pennsylvania genealogy legislation.

20 January 2011 - Have You Seen My Roots?: Follow Friday - PaHR-Access & Enduring Legacy Genealogy

Cheryl Cayemberg, of the "Have You Seen My Roots?" blog, highlights my efforts to inform others about genealogy legislation in Pennsylvania.

Highlights - August 2011

2011-08-15T09:01:00.009-04:00

18 Aug 2011 - Footnote.com becomes Fold3 - my post

17 Aug 2011 - 1940 Census will be Free on Ancestry.com in 2012 - their press release

16 Aug 2011 - Lingotek Enables FamilySearch Members to Translate Historical Documents - their press release

14 Aug 2011 - The Genealogy Guys Podcast: Episode 224

These podcasts are an hour chalk full of information. Towards the end of this podcast there is a Q&A in which the genealogy guys answer a question about obtaining the SS-5 (Social Security Application) of an ancestor. I've found this to be a great tool in genealogy research. The most interesting fact to me was the date by which all men had to file a SS-5. The SSDI is incomplete before 1962, but if you had a male ancestor living in the 1930's, he was required to file an SS-5 by December 31, 1937. To order a copy of an ancestor's SS-5 go to the FOIA SSA-711.

14 Aug 2011 - The Ancestry Insider: Coming Soon to a FamilySearch.org Near You

This post summarizes changes coming to FamilySearch.org according to Robert Kehrer, senior product manager for FamilySearch. Each points discussed has come up in the genealogy blogging community before, but it is a nice summary reminder of a few things FamilySearch is working toward. Such posts are always encouraging. Because I have heard this all before I know these things take time. I'm not going to watch the clock too closely for when the new features are released, but I will be very happy with what is coming.

11 Aug 2011 - Genealogy Gems Podcast YouTube Channel: Interviews with Genealogy Experts

There are several interviews available on this channel from RootsTech 2011 and a few from other conferences within the past few years. While each interview is "expert," the most memorable interview for me this week was "Family History and Mobile Strategies with Ty Hatch." This month I've been spending a lot of time exploring the new BillionGraves mobile app. This app uses crowd-sourcing to photograph and transcribe graves. A unique feature is the automatic geo-tagging. The BillionGraves apps were released in May and June this year. This interview with Ty Hatch, from 3 months earlier, discusses the genealogy mobile market and the need to use mobile technology such as geo-tagging.

9 Aug 2011 - Enduring Legacy Genealogy introduces a new blogging topic: "Inspirational"

Check out a line of posts highlighting inspirational and informative family stories from my very own family tree. I hope to post stories about my research as well as narratives about select ancestors in the future. These posts add a new flavor to my blog.

7 Aug 2011 - Genea-Musings: Best of the Genea-Blogs - 31 July to 6 August 2011

My post The FamilySearch Tree's "Universal" Future was one of the posts highlighted by Randy Seaver.

Highlights

2011-08-14T21:17:00.018-04:00

Enduring Legacy Genealogy Highlights include:
(1) my favorite genealogy blog posts with a short review,
(2) fun genealogy stuff I find online,
(3) posts that highlight my genealogy blog, and
(4) my most popular posts ever.

Highlights

Why a highlights page?
Randy Seaver's weekly "Best of the Genea-Blogs" posts at Genea-Musings inspired me to start this section of my blog. In the past I have made an effort to "tweet" links to my favorite blog posts. Those tweets seem well received and I plan to keep that up. You can follow me @EnduringLegacy. At the same time, I find that it is hard to go back and find links to some of the posts that have impacted me the most over the years. Sometimes it is hard to remember why a certain post impacted me. Highlighting such posts here will give me some room for reflection. Besides blog posts, I may share anything I found interesting in the genealogy world. Often I find something fun to share that does not require an entire post of its own. The highlights are listed by date of review.

Remember to Check FamilySearch... Again

2011-08-14T19:48:00.016-04:00

An inspirational post about research diligence and the constant expansion of FamilySearch's records collections.

My 2nd-great grandfather, Thomas Schilling, was on my mind after church today. He is my only 2nd-great grandparent whose parents are unknown. That is still the case after more than a decade of searching. I decided to say a prayer and start looking online. My main goal is proving who his parents are or finding a picture of him, but I have learned to find joy in every record found for an elusive ancestor.

After a few minutes of googling his name, I felt like I needed to go to FamilySearch.org and check for Maryland records that have been added since my last visit. I found a collection of Baltimore City probate records that had just been updated on 22 July 2011. I've been to the Maryland State Archives, where these records can be found, many times. The problem is that I always have so many records to look up when I'm there. I'm definitely thankful for the digitizing work of FamilySearch. Below I will include some screen shots from today's visit to FamilySearch.org.

I started looking at the list of Baltimore City probate records and when I picked a probate book to look at I was told to sign in. Though FamilySearch has allowed signed-in users to see more records than guests for some time, this is the first time I noticed the phrase "Sign in to view this image." There was a point that if you didn't know the value of signing-in that you simply would think there was no image available. I'm glad those days are gone.

Because this collection is not indexed by FamilySearch I had to go page by page, but it is okay. It was just like using the book index at the archive or courthouse. The only difference was that waiting for each page to load takes more patience than turning a page or cranking a microfilm. If you take note of the time on my task bar, you will see it took me quite some time. The good news is that, after feeling like giving up, I did find my ancestor Thomas Schilling.

With that index data I was able to go back to the list of probate books that had been scanned and pick the one I want. I was supposed to be looking for page 315. I then typed 316 as the image number I wanted because I knew the first image had no page number on it. The second half of that page had my ancestor's Estate docket entry.

This record hasn't answered my main question about Thomas, but it does lead me to a few other probate records such as his inventory. It is always interesting to see what goods an ancestor had and the value of each item. That is for another day.

There are three things I got out of this experience.

Follow your inner call
Find joy in every record found and
Remember to Check FamilySearch... Again

Finding John Whipple

2011-08-09T15:18:00.005-04:00

Click here to load a 3 page inspirational PDF article giving my experiences researching my Whipple ancestry.

22 August, Update:
This article has been edited for better blog viewing and can be seen at this post:
Finding My 5th-Great Grandfather

Disclosure

2011-08-07T10:22:00.003-04:00

Enduring Legacy Genealogy, LLC. is wholly owned and operated by
Michael W. McCormick.

The reviews herein are my intellectual property.

Posts may contain data derived from relevant articles and include quotes from individuals. If such is the case it will be explained in each post respectively by notation and, where deemed useful, hyperlink.

No compensation (neither money nor goods) has been received for expressing opinions on any product or service. Should that change in the future, specific disclosure will be provided here with mention in each post in which it applies.

Geneabloggers: Why is there a disclosure?

About

2011-08-05T22:52:00.035-04:00

Brief History
Enduring Legacy Genealogy began in 2007, offering professional research services. My goal was to help more people with their family history and gain experience. Both were a success. I specialized in "Internet genealogy and local research in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. (Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York.)" In 2010 the mission of Enduring Legacy Genealogy was altered to better reflect my changing goals as a genealogist.

Mission
Enduring Legacy Genealogy's mission is to help others experience family history success. This will be accomplished by working with organizations, reaching out to individuals, participating in volunteer work, and staying well informed of related opportunities.

Credentials and Experience

Researching since 1999
Volunteering since 2004
Professional since 2007
Association of Professional Genealogists Member

Education Emphases

History - Bachelor of Science, BYU-Idaho (December 2011)
Genealogy - 29 credits, Brigham Young University (GPA 3.55)
Communications - Cluster, BYU-Idaho (GPA 3.6)
Phi Alpha Theta
Extracurricular Volunteerism, BYU-Idaho: Student Ambassador, Get Connected (new student orientation), Student Representative Council, Pathway Mentor, and Student Support Recruitment Representative

Volunteer Positions

Family History Consultant, LDS* (2004, 2008-current)
FindAGrave Contributor* (since 2005)
Ancestry.com Contributor* (since 2005)
"Gift of Family History," Virginia Richmond Mission (2005-2007)
Assistant Stake Indexing Leader, LDS* (2008)
President of BYU Family History Society (2008)
Social Media Specialist, PaHR-Access* (since 2009)
Genealogy Blogger* (since 2009)
USGenWeb Archives Cemetery Photographer* (2009)
BillionGraves Contributor* (since 2011)
BYU-Idaho Family History Center Volunteer (2011)
BYU-Idaho Family History Center Web Presence Specialist* (2011)
FamilySearch Indexing Arbitrator* (2011)

* Many of the above asterisks may be clicked on for further information.
The title Assistant Stake Indexing Leader is more commonly called an Assistant Stake Indexing Director.

Click for Recommendations
Includes recommendations by clients, professors, team members, and supervisors.

Volunteer Work Archive

2011-08-05T22:35:00.021-04:00

My mission, in the realm of genealogy, is to help people get involved and have success. One of the most fun ways to do that is volunteer work. This page links to some of my work.

For a list of volunteer opportunities I recommend check out this blog post:
http://enduringlegacygenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/08/volunteer-opportunities.html

One of my favorite volunteer efforts is cemetery photography.
Sometimes my family has helped me with taking the pictures.
Here is a sample of our work:

BillionGraves.com Cemeteries Photographed
Idaville United Methodist Cemetery Idaville, Adams Co., PA
Mt. Olivet Cemetery Latimore, Adams Co., PA
Lower Bermudian Lutheran Cemetery* Latimore, Adams Co., PA
Sunny Side Cemetery* York Springs, Adams Co., PA

*Cemeteries listed were photographed completely except those marked with an asterisk. At least 100 graves were photographed for these marked cemeteries.

Find A Grave Contributions
My FindAGrave.com Contributor Profile

Records Provided in Partnership with US GenWeb Archives
Bott's (Wolf's St. Paul's Church) Cemetery West Manchester, York Co., PA
Presbyterian Church Cemetery York Springs, Adams Co., PA
Lutheran Church (Holy Trinity) Cemetery York Springs, Adams Co., PA
Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery York Springs, Adams Co., PA
Christ Lutheran Church Yard York,York Co., PA
Episcopal (Old White) Cemetery Huntington, Adams Co., PA
Rock Chapel Methodist Cemetery Huntington, Adams Co., PA
Zion Lutheran (now owned by Christ Lutheran) Cemetery York, York Co., PA
Bethlehem United Brethren Cemetery Butler Twp., Adams Co., PA
Grace Bible Chapel (Old Trostle Meetinghouse) Huntington, Adams Co., PA

Zoom.it Review Part 2: Microsoft I.C.E.

2011-08-05T18:59:00.013-04:00

One of the more time consuming aspects of uploading multi-scanned images can be putting them back together again. With the free software Microsoft I.C.E. (Image Composite Editor), all you have to do is drag and drop your scans. The picture below was 5 different scans from my desktop scanner.

My grandfather, Clifford C. McCormick Jr., is the sharp young man 12 from right, third row up.
Alice Deal Junior High Class of 1935

After dragging and dropping the scans, Microsoft I.C.E. fit them together perfectly within a few short minutes. The only thing I had to do afterward was straighten the image and trim the boarders. I used other free software for that: Picasa and Microsoft Paint. Then, if it is over 15 MB after the final edits, I run my picture through FastStone Photo Resizer to get it down to the size accepted by most online image hosts. One warning, to edit large files in Microsoft Paint you may need 6GB RAM. It uses a lot for some reason.

With this software you no longer need to wonder how to share your large image files. I look forward to seeing how you use it.

Zoom.it - A New Way to See Your Ancestors

2011-08-04T23:44:00.018-04:00

Zoom.it is a free service that lets you view a photograph in a new way with deep zoom and instant load speeds. Ever since reading Mark Tucker's post about Zoom.it back in February I have been meaning to try it with some of my biggest photographs.

My great grandfather, Henry H. Rowland, is the third person from the back left.
"HARVARD CLASS OF 1906
50th REUNION DILLON FIELD HOUSE
JUNE 13th 1956"

How I did it:

Uploaded Image to one of my Ancestry.com Member Trees
Clicked the image to open it in a new window and copied the URL
Pasted the URL at Zoom.it and waited for conversion
Pasted the provided embed HTML in this blog post

Before uploading I spent hours trying to get the best image possible. The images I chose to practice with were so large I had to scan them in multiple parts.

What I learned:

JPEGs for upload, save a TIFF version with your genealogy backups.
Use GIMP for free to manually combine multiple scan images and/or edit your photos
Stick to 15 MB or less for JPEGs
4 GB RAM needed for combining multiple scan photos
Scan at 600 dpi (less is inferior and more is unwieldy)

For the picture above I digitally cut the 3 scans with GIMP and alined them. Then, I smudged the lines a little to make them less obvious. In the future I hope to review an image composite editor such as Microsoft I.C.E. to see how it does with auto-stitching. At some point I may purchase a Flip-Pal scanner which scans large images in 4x6 sections and auto-stitches them with the provided software.

If you have any large images you'd like to see online, please try Zoom.it for yourself. Then comment here and let me know what works for you. (e.g. image hosts, editing software, & techniques) You can even leave a link to your Zoom.it image.

Thankful Thursday - Volunteer Opportunities

2011-08-04T08:29:00.015-04:00

Volunteerism is one of the most rewarding aspects of genealogy work and there are many ways for family history enthusiasts to give back. Show your gratitude for the genealogy miracles you've experienced by giving back today.

Listed below are volunteer opportunities that are available to everyone. Many of these opportunities can be completed from anywhere with Internet access. In some volunteer categories, the opportunities are much too plentiful to list them all. In the social media category, I provide links to the FamilySearch websites.

Volunteer in Your Community

Indexing Newly Digitized Records

Share Your Knowledge

Talk genealogy on Social Media (FamilySearch Social Media links)
Write a Blog (GeneaBloggers community)
Help with a Wiki (FamilySearch Records Wiki Project)
Help answer questions on forums (Try FamilySearch's forums)
Beta test new technologies
- FamilySearch Labs, BillionGraves Uploader, Family Village, etc.
Provide Feedback whenever you have a good idea

Legislation: Be Aware and Involved

PaHR-Access: Open Pennsylvania (Website, Facebook, Twitter)
RPAC (Records Preservation and Access Committee)

Which opportunities are your favorites? Are there any that I have not listed which you feel deserve attention?

BillionGraves.com vs. FindAGrave.com and Other Headstone Databases

2011-08-03T21:03:00.013-04:00

BillionGraves.com, along with their geo-tagging smartphone app, is a promising start up.
FindAGrave.com is a mature giant.
Interment.net is a valiant pioneer.
US GenWeb Archives Tombstone Project shows the strength of a passionate community.

US GenWeb Archives Tombstone Project shows the strength of a passionate community.
The project varies greatly from one state to the next and from one county to the next because each such jurisdiction is designed to be run by a different volunteer. Photographs are generally submitted to the volunteer in charge of that jurisdiction who uploads and transcribes them. This puts an undue burden on each area's volunteer. When smaller amounts of photographs were coming in this burden felt manageable. Since the Tombstone Project began in 1997, the number of people submitting tombstone photos to the internet has increased sharply. Submitting them to someone else to do the transcription and uploading is especially desirable if you happen to have photographed an entire cemetery. In 2009, I photographed ten cemeteries for the US GenWeb Archive. After the county volunteer processed those first ten cemeteries, and I realized the burden it placed on her, I looked elsewhere for my future cemetery photography efforts.

Interment.net is a valiant pioneer.
Also begun in 1997, Interment.net appears to be the first website run by a small group of individuals--2 people in this case--accepting tombstone data for open publishing online. Though the website claims initial popularity and is still available to this day, one major drawback of Interment.net is its failure to host headstone photographs. Nevertheless, because it is a separately generated and maintained database it may still be worth checking. While it was an important pioneer in its day, I choose not to invest my volunteer efforts into this database.

FindAGrave.com is a mature giant.
Since 2000, when today's Find A Grave website went online, the site has become home to over 65 million individual grave records. FindAGrave.com has many perks which helped lead to its position as the most well known online headstone host. Find A Grave's most notable unique feature is the ability to request a photograph of a specific grave marker. Since 2005 I have been a member of Find A Grave, but it was not until this year (2011) that I took it as a serious volunteer opportunity. In a matter of a few months I uploaded over 500 photos and added more than 300 individual records. I made sure there were records for all my direct ancestors whose place of burial I could determine, and I added many of the records from the ten cemeteries I photographed for US GenWeb Archive. On Find A Grave you can add records without photographs, you can add as many records or photographs as your heart desires without waiting for someone else to upload your work. You can link individuals in family relationships, organize individuals into files called "virtual cemeteries," request edits on records managed by other individuals, etc. You are in control.

BillionGraves.com, along with their geo-tagging smartphone app, is a promising start up.
There are two major things, in my estimation, that set BillionGraves apart from Find A Grave. First, pictures are geo-coded for you and, second, you can either photograph or transcribe (you don't have to do both). This cuts down the volunteer time required from those who want to help. BillionGraves.com relies heavily on crowd-sourcing. The cool thing is you can easily make a big difference in just a few minutes with almost no preparation. If you happen to be traveling and feel like taking a refreshing walk outside, pull out your smartphone, and within minutes you can upload several photos of headstones directly to the site. You don't have to file them into the correct cemetery unless you found a cemetery that hasn't been added to the database yet, in which case you can easily add the name. GPS tagging does the organizational work for you. Don't worry about transcription. You can always do that on a rainy day. I just came up for an upgrade on my cell phone plan and the single biggest reason I decided to get a smartphone was so that I can use the geo-tagging feature of BillionGraves.com's new Android app.

FamilySearch Team Digitizes Somerset County Maryland Records

2011-08-03T09:28:00.018-04:00

NOTE: The quotes are an extract from the July 30, 2011 article "Mormon documents digitized: Original records to be moved to Annapolis," http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20110730/LIFESTYLE/107300349. Unless otherwise noted all quotes come from Gary Miller, Somerset County Register of Wills for Maryland.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons, sent a 2-person FamilySearch team to Somerset County, Maryland last year to digitize the records of the Register of Wills office. Some of the Register of Will office's documents were copied to Annapolis previously, but the copying was incomplete. The cost to digitize the records of their office was estimated to run into the tens of thousands. In about four months, last summer, the FamilySearch team digitized the holdings of the entire office from the earliest records in the 1600's to 1940. Currently the digitized work is being organized and indexed according to Miller. "The Mormon work should come back to me this time next summer," Miller said.

Help index records for FamilySearch @ https://familysearch.org/volunteer/indexing

Other than the usual digitizing and indexing FamilySearch provides at no cost Miller was impressed that "the group working in Salt Lake City is taking every document and linking it to relevant documents whenever they could. Some papers that seem to have been lost or misplaced from files or cases, or appear obscure, will be associated with a number that corresponds with a will."

He was so impressed with the team's work that he recommended it to the rest of his state:
"Hopefully, in due time, the Mormons will do every office in Maryland."

As for the benefit to his office and those who come searching for data Miller said:

"This is good for the public because the next step is to provide public access to every document that this office had (prior to 1940). The original documents were so fragile I wouldn't let the public handle them. Soon they will be able to see stuff they once couldn't have."

"We are going to incorporate all of the images and index information they are sending us and put them [in] our system so you can sit down at the public computer here and pull up every document we have up to 1940."

The FamilySearch Tree's "Universal" Future

2011-08-01T00:08:00.018-04:00

NOTE: FamilySearch attended this year's Open Source Convention (OSCON), held on July 25th-29th in Portland, Oregon. At this event Gordon Clark of FamilySearch was interviewed. The latter part of this post is a summary of that interview.

Genealogically relevant data is being posted online at an intense rate. New technology expands crowd-sourcing techniques, smartphones allow instant uploads of records with GPS tags, advanced cameras can convert all types of media into digital format in less time than ever before, and "the cloud" provides flexible data storage options for all that new information. Throughout this technology boom several different companies and organizations have recognized the opportunity to provide better genealogy services.

Genealogy techies like me no longer ask, "Will the records I need ever be within my reach?" Now we are more concerned with, "Do I have to spend hours looking at different websites? Why can't I see everything I want in one place?"

For those not familiar with technology this question may seem deceptively simple. With several different companies and organizations involved it is unrealistic to believe there will ever be one website onto which all genealogy data will go. Such effort toward a genealogical monopoly is not only overwhelming administratively, but would harm the entrepreneurial creative spirit. It is also difficult to imagine the look of a website on which all the historically and genealogically relevant data about an individual could be put in one place. There is simply too much data.

Many online family tree services allow images to be uploaded to the user's tree. For example, if I take a headstone picture and upload it on FindAGrave.com I can also upload it separately to my tree on Ancestry.com. Every time I upload a file to another website it is duplicating the file's web presence--in hopes to increase the odds it will be seen--but with the new concept being worked on at FamilySearch uploading on multiple sites becomes unnecessary. Using what is called a Person Identifier, any data about your ancestor can be linked to the Family Tree. During this year's OSCON, Gordon Clark of FamilySearch explained his company's vision regarding the FamilySearch Family Tree and the way it will become "universal."

"You link to the data... A good way to look at that is when in geo-mapping the anchor is a longitude and latitude... we want to have a clear understanding of who this person is, where they are in time, and who their parents and who their children are. Then that person--our person ID which we hope will be universal someday--then all the richness of the material on the web which has been digitized can be linked to our person in our master tree."

This vision of a universally linked tree allows FamilySearch to avoid duplication in technology development and use of resources. FamilySearch's position as the largest genealogy organization in the world came about through their focus on volunteerism, free data access, and efficiency. To an audience of software developers at OSCON, Clark said, "Web services is what we're all about... what we're all about is the building up of the data and the sharing of the data so there can be lots of innovative applications..."

FamilySearch's data is built upon a platform so they have API's (Application Program Interface) for app developers to use which enable users to interact with FamilySearch data from within 3rd-party apps. Clark explained the purpose of FamilySearch API's:

"...to generate more clients, more innovation--in how you access the data that we have."

Suggested uses of the FamilySearch API included

Mobile applications that search FamilySearch
Applications that consider the audience, including:
culturally oriented applications
applications that consider age of user
applications that consider computer skill of user

FamilySearch's vision of sharing data openly was being expressed at the BYU Family History Conference at the same time that OSCON was live in Portland. Ransom H. Love of FamilySearch spoke about the budget problems of archives and FamilySearch's efforts to help digitize and index records. Generally, when FamilySearch microfilms, digitizes, and indexes the records of an organization the only "payment" is a copy of the records to be held by FamilySearch. For legal reasons, some organizations may wish to retain full control over all copies of their data. With this in mind FamilySearch has recently begun undertaking select preservation efforts without requiring a copy of the records.

With FamilySearch's long-term vision, flexibility, and encouragement of innovation family history lovers can expect many new tools and resources to advance their work.

Family Village Review

2011-07-31T23:10:00.005-04:00

Family Village in alpha came out several months ago at which time the concept sparked my interest. In the more recent beta stages of this Facebook app I decided to give it a test run.

Facebook and Facebook games have become popular as of late among a crowd not necessarily prone to interest in genealogy. There is a movement growing in the genealogical community to reach out and bring more people in by making apps that work better with these new audiences. These apps generally take advantage of mobile technology and/or social media. Family Village is a prime example. Lovers of FarmVille and other similar Facebook games will recognize a familiar feel. In this game the player controls a village by building new buildings, populating the village, and assigning jobs to the villagers. The twist is that villagers are the people in your family tree and while you play the game it automatically searches FamilyLink genealogy databases (such as WorldVitalRecords) for documents about those ancestors.

I played the game for several hours and over a period of a couple weeks starting the last Saturday in May. By the end of my first day of playing several issues with the game were apparent, the most disappointing being the search function. Only once was something found that correctly identified an ancestor of mine. The search is limited to FamilyLink databases. After holding a subscription to WorldVitalRecords--one of their databases---for 2 years, I canceled my membership because it provided too few records relevant to my family history research. I have instead found websites like FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com to be worth the price--free in one case. If Family Village used the FamilySearch API in their app then all of the records on FamilySearch.org could be searched for free from within the Facebook game. That would add significant value and no additional cost to the developer. A manual search option or search filters could also improve the search experience. Many other improvements could be made to make the concept of Family Village a success. I continue to believe the concept of Family Village is a good one, but the time investment to play it is not worth the minimal genealogical return it provides in its current state. The company acknowledges Family Village is still in beta and has several improvements on the way.

Family Village has a wonderful concept and deserves to be watched. My recommendation is to keep track of this app. There are several minor upgrades that are being put into place on a regular basis making it a better game. One major game-play upgrade occurred when I booted up the game while I was in my couple week testing phase for this review. I simply hope that when it comes out of beta FamilyLink and Funium will have addressed the issue with search.

In the mean time if you are looking for fun new technologies that help advance the work of genealogy I suggest trying out the new headstone photography and transcription crowd-sourcing program, BillionGraves.com

PA Senate Bill 361 Given First Consideration

2011-06-09T12:57:00.005-04:00

Since 2007 genealogists have come together under the organizational head of PaHR-Access for the purpose of making Pennsylvania Vital Records open for genealogical research.

Last session the bill made it unanimously past the PA Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee for the first time (September 2010) before the 2 year legislative session ended.

Half way through the first year of this new session our bill has reached that same point.
For this I am thankful!

June 8: PA Senate Bill 361's First Consideration on the floor of the state senate.

To understand the process the bill will be going through please read [PDF] Law Making in Pennsylvania.

UPDATE:
June 14: Referred to the PA State Senate Appropriations Committee.

Senate staff sources suggest this bill will remain there into the Fall season.

If you would like to help this bill move through the legislative process please contact the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair and members.

There is a chance the bill will move sooner with enough expressed interest.

Maryland State Archives - 100% Digital

2011-03-30T10:50:00.006-04:00

Maryland Archives went digital, no more microfilm printers

I noticed when I was at the Maryland Archives yesterday that the microfilm printers were not being used. I thought, "Great! Now we can get something done." Then we noticed a sign. It went something like this:

Due to cost of microfilm printer maintenance this service has been discontinued and printing must be done from the computers in the search room. Type in a film number to see if it has been digitized. If not, file a digitization request which will be completed in approximately 1 hour...

We went to the front entrance desk to set up our printing account. You get a Patron # and choose a pin. Every time you find a page you want and click print you will type your Patron # and pin. It subtracts from a pre-paid amount which can be added to the account in multiples of $5. One of my research partners and I shared an account. Each copy is $1. Those who are familiar with the archives will remember microfilm copies were 50 cents and while this %100 price increase may seem steep to some I felt it was a small price to pay for the modernized system.

I was unable to find any press releases or information about the digitization process at the Maryland State Archives website or anywhere else online for that matter. I hope readers and bloggers who read this will help spread the news about the changes.

Even though most of the digitized records are not online, to me, this seems like a huge step towards getting it there. The records that are online are mostly browsable only, with no index provided. Finding the records you want takes a lot of patience both with the website and with browsing the records. You can use the same page to find the film numbers you need for your search at the archives to find any online copies of the records you want. From the main page, clicking "Family Historians" and then clicking "How to find specific records" will take you to the best place I know of to find what the archives has.

Tech Tuesday - FamilySearch Family Tree

2011-03-22T07:28:00.017-04:00

NOTE: This Family Tree has not been released officially to the public yet. In order to view the family tree you may have to try a method listed in my "...Sneaking up on you?" post linked to below. One user reported not being able to access the tree with that method due to not having access to new.familysearch.org.
Those with new.familysearch.org access are currently able to access this tree.

On Sunday I stumbled upon the long awaited FamilySearch Family Tree when using the FamilySearch.org website.

You can read more about my experience Sunday in my post:
FamilySearch Family Tree: Sneaking up on us?
For screenshots of the new tree see my post:
FamilySearch Family Tree Leak!

In this post I provide you with some similar technologies to compare this new Family Tree with so you can better understand what is different about this new way of viewing a family tree.

This Family Tree is one big collaborative tree built on the submissions of FamilySearch users.
The technology is not entirely new in the world of genealogy. In fact some impressive ventures have already happened and died out trying to do this same thing.

OneWorldTree was one of the sites I remember using and then it was taken on by Ancestry.com and it changed a bit in navigation and editing ability. It no longer accepts direct submissions.
OneGreatFamily is another service designed to provide one big tree for everyone, but it is less popular than others, partly due to the immediate use of screens asking for payment.

Current successful family tree ventures include sites like
MyHeritage and Geni

More than these other services I would compare the FamilySearch Family Tree to the Ancestry.com Member Trees except the Ancestry trees are maintained separately and linked through "Member Connect" while the FamilySearch Family Tree is one big inseparable tree.
While I spend less time with the MyHeritage and Geni services I understand that they are like Ancestry.com's Member Trees in that they are separately maintained and can be linked to other trees.

Current features of FamilySearch Family Tree

Navigating the tree currently available at new.familysearch.org
Searching the tree currently available at new.familysearch.org

Some of the features to be added in the future

Discussing individuals on the tree
Adding sources
Adding photographs 1
Editing the Family Tree
LDS Account related services

This Family Tree has been in development for several years in the form of new.familysearch.org which has been available to select individuals in my area since late 2008. Officially it is still in beta on the new.familysearch.org system.

The goal at FamilySearch is to move the functionality of that beta system into the more user friendly "Family Tree" system at FamilySearch.org

For this Family Tree to do everything users want it to do we will have to learn patience. Keep in mind that this technology will replicate much of the best of several family tree sites while remaining entirely free. This takes time. For now, the public may wish to stick with some of the other services I mentioned.

ABOUT FAMILYSEARCH INTERNATIONAL
FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

FamilySearch Family Tree Leak!

2011-03-20T20:59:00.014-04:00

NOTE: This article contains screenshots which can be clicked for a larger view of FamilySearch.org website changes.

Read my post from earlier today to find out how I stumbled upon this.

The first page you'll see on the new Family Tree is the "Tree" page:

After clicking any name you'll be able to view the tree from there or see the individual's details ("Ancestor" page).

Here is the "Ancestor" page for my ancestor Moses Cherry:

Because the link to this page was in a less noticeable place - the wiki - I am assuming FamilySearch does not expect the public to be using this yet. Not to mention I had to trick the system to get logged in.

The ordinance function for LDS Account holders is not ready yet so we will still be using new.familysearch.org.

There are some definite pluses to this new version of the FamilyTree moving away from new.familysearch.org

Navigating the tree is much easier than on new.familysearch.org
There is already a working search function which could be used by the general public soon

There are also some signs of coming improvements.

There is a place for individual photographs
A sources tab for each person

This is not the Wiki style many of us bloggers have been anticipating, but SCOE will likely be an issue for some time.
Learn more about the wiki concept and SCOE here & here.

My conclusion? The functionality clearly needs some work, but the fact that it is online at all amazes me!

FamilySearch Family Tree: Sneaking up on us?

2011-03-20T18:58:00.019-04:00

NOTE: This article contains screenshots which can be clicked for a larger view of FamilySearch.org website changes.

After reading GenealogyStar James Tanner's post from earlier today I decided to do a little digging around on FamilySearch.org and see what is new.

Keep reading for the secret of how to view the new FamilySearch Family Tree before anyone else knows it is online!

First off I have to say that I notice little changes almost every time I go to the site which happen so often that I think several things get missed by us bloggers.

The biggest change I noticed today was a link which did not appear at FamilySearch.org, but appeared when I went to the wiki - "Family Tree" (the first link next to FamilySearch logo)

Clicking on this Family Tree link takes me to https://familysearch.org/tree/
This page asks me to log in, but that function is not working for me so I am stuck there, but I noticed something...

Above the sign in box are three links: Tree, Ancestor, and Search.
What could this all be?

It seems like new.familysearch.org is closer to being part of FamilySearch.org than I guessed.

Some websites load annoying boxes asking you to authorize or log in in order to continue viewing the site. I have a trick for you, but it is hard to time - click the stop button repeatedly right after clicking refresh and before the annoying log in box appears. This way you will be able to see stuff otherwise restricted. In this manner you can trick the system into letting you preview the 3 different tabs. :) hehe... I'd tell you what I saw, but I'll let you try it.
I'm excited...

Oh, and if you want to do it the easy way you can log in by clicking https://familysearch.org/, signing in at the link on the upper right of that FamilySearch.org page. Then add /tree so that you are at http://www.familysearch.org/tree. The pop-up log in does not work for me, but if you log in the way I just explained you get access to the Family Tree already. Wow!

I am going to give you a few minutes to take this all in... Okay, I can't help it anymore, I'm going to do another post with screenshots of the Family Tree.
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A couple other website update tid-bits:

VIEWER
Recently I spoke to Brian Pugh for more details on the HTML viewer he mentioned in his speech at RootsTech 2011. Going to any historic document you will see the document within what we call a viewer. There have been some good blog discussions lately about ways this viewer could be updated in the near future. Brian was able to tell me how to access the HTML version of the viewer. Simply remove "/show" from the URL in your browser's address bar and hit enter to load the image in the HTML viewer.

While functionality differences are not earth shattering in scope, it is fun to know there are 2 versions of the viewer online right now.

LEARN
The new YouTube channel has been preparing for the past couple months so that the "Getting Started" videos could be integrated into the Learn tab at FamilySearch. They have finally been integrated and can be watched from the comfort of FamilySearch.org

Maine Bill LD 258 on Open Access to Vital Records Passes Committee Hearing

2011-03-07T19:33:00.005-05:00

Please read Maine Bill LD 258 on Open Access to Vital Records Passes Committee Hearing article on EOGN. Due to copyrights I could not copy it here, but I have provided some comments below.
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For the past few years I've been spending countless hours promoting a similar cause in Pennsylvania. Tim Gruber founded a grassroots organization called PaHR-Access to organize efforts to have older PA vital records made public. None of these state records are public in PA. Our bill simply asks for deaths 50+ years on file to become public as well as births past 100 years.

In Maine the goal is to change it from being vital records 100 years old that can be accessed to pretty much everything. The Maine bill is more helpful for genealogists as the options to acquire the vital records will be more open under this proposed bill.
You can read the Maine bill here.

As a supporter of the cause in PA I felt it was only right that I write about what is happening regarding such legislation in Maine. Please support both causes by contacting the appropriate legislators.

As far as PA goes this is how you can help:
We really need the support of the genealogical community. We'd appreciate blog articles highlighting our vital records bill SB 361 and we encourage everyone to contact PA legislators to promote the bill.
Learn more:
http://users.rcn.com/timarg/PaHR-Access
http://twitter.com/PaHR_Access
http://on.fb.me/PaHR-AccessFB
Read the bill here.
Last year it was moved through the Public Health and Welfare Committee, but the session ended and this year it has not yet moved. We are assured it is supported, but they want to hear from more of us.
Two people that influence the bill right now are:
Senator Patricia Vance, Public Health & Welfare Chair
717-787-8524
Dwayne Heckert, Executive Legislative Specialist (PA Health Dept.)
717-783-3985
Please call them to express your support at minimum. Your following up with them continually and your educated promotion of the bill is even better.

FamilySearch: newFamilySearch begins public Rollout

2011-02-28T20:26:00.003-05:00

newFamilySearch begins public Rollout, it's not just for Mormons anymore

FamilySearch has been running a new Family Tree system called newFamilySearch for members of their parent organization The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was pleased to have access to this beta and see it grow since 2008. The website can be found at new.familysearch.org

The idea is to make one family tree for everyone who has ever lived on the earth. It isn't a new concept among genealogists, but having a big player like FamilySearch working on this project leaves us expecting something that will change the way we do genealogy forever. My review? That expectation is a valid one.

The system isn't as smooth as many other family tree websites, but the concept is highly promising. We may see some major changes before the tree comes out of beta. One change that is being discussed is creating a more wiki like environment for the tree.

Don't get yourself too excited. Rumors have been around for awhile that newFamilySearch would rollout to the public soon and that it would start with a small test group before going to everyone. The good news is that we have received word that the test group has been selected.

Read more about the Public nFS Rollout here.

PaHR-Access: Senator Pat Vance plans to move SB 361 by June 30th

2011-02-28T19:22:00.012-05:00

NOTE: PaHR-Access addresses Pennsylvania vital records legislation. All interested individuals are encouraged to contribute to our efforts to make PA records available to the public. Learn how

Feb. 1
Our cause given a legislative form in SB 361
Referred to PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE Chair Senator Patricia H. Vance.
Senator Vance's Staff, Joe Marsicano, reported Senator Vance's intention to speak with new PA Department of Health Secretary Dr. Eli N. Avila before passing senate bill 361 through her committee.

Feb. 7
20th Senator sponsor added to SB 361

Feb. 28
Senator Vance's Staff, Amy Long, reported that Dr. Eli N. Avila has not responded in full to Senator Vance's inquiry, but that Senator Vance continues to support SB 361 and they believe it will be moved from her committee by June 30th. A backlog of legislative work makes moving this bill more quickly a difficult task. Senator Vance's staff encourage our calls and visits regarding this issue.

Please help make PA Vital Records open to the public by contacting Senator Vance's office to express your support. Follow the link to the list of her staff above or use the contact information here:

Main Capitol
Senate Box 203031
Room 168
Harrisburg, PA 17120
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Ph: 717-787-8524
FAX: 717-772-0576
TTY: 800-364-1581

Other ways to help include spreading the word about PA SB 361 which you can read in full here, as well as contacting other PA legislators to express your support and request their cosponsorship.

FamilySearch: Family History Center Subscriptions

2011-02-13T16:58:00.009-05:00

Today's article is motivated by an article from Renee's Genealogy Blog on 9 Feb 2011. Ancestry.com is now available for free (again) at Family History Centers.

When I went to church today I stopped to look around the Family History Center as I often do and I noticed the new portal: www.fhc.familysearch.org
It must be viewed from a FHC computer with LANDesk installed so I got some screen shots for you.

The portal is broken into three categories: Genealogical Resources, Classes & Workshops, as well as One-on-One Assistance.

Genealogical Resources includes links to Premium Subscriptions, FamilySearch, FamilySearch Indexing, and FamilySearch Microfilm Ordering (sorry locals, microfilm ordering online is still not available in the United States).

Classes & Workshops include links to Online Research Courses and the new FamilyTech section of FamilySearch.org

One-on-One Assistance links to FamilySearch Records Wiki, FamilySearch Forums (still in beta), and FamilySearch Help Center.

I spent some time today clicking around the various websites. While all of the content is worth a discussion the content that can only be accessed from Family History Centers is the Premium Subscriptions section.

Here is the new look for Ancestry.com from the centers:

It appears to be a little more modern of a look than the old library version, similar to the non-library version, but lacking all the personalized features of a personal account.

Besides Ancestry.com, several other websites can be accessed for free from there and I took some screen shots to share with you which I have posted below. If you click any of the screen shots you may see a larger image.

Footnote

World Vital Records

British Library Newspapers

findmypast.co.uk

The Genealogist

American Civil War Research Database

I had some trouble with findmypast.co.uk because it did not appear to be logged in. I hope that FamilySearch will upload some webinars on how to use these websites. I have some ancestors from the UK, but these UK websites are run quite differently than what most of us in the United States are used to. I'd be happy for advice from any of my readers and hope this look into the new Family History Center portal has been helpful.

PaHR-Access: Named SB 361

2011-02-01T13:05:00.007-05:00

Update from Senator Robbins Office:
"Since last week Senator Browne has joined as a co-sponsor to the bill. In addition we now have a bill number – Senate Bill 361. The bill was submitted today for introduction, but it will probably be a couple of days until it is assigned to a committee."

Our total known cosponsors is at 17 including: Alloway, Baker, Browne, Dinneman, Earll, Eichelberger, Erickson, Folmer, Fontana, Gordner, Kasunic, Mensch, Piccola, Pileggi, Rafferty, Tartaglione, and Yaw. Including the sponsor this bill was introduced by at least 18 known senators this session. This is a good indication of the Senate's support of the bill.

The last 10 bills listed at http://bit.ly/PaSenate have an average sponsorship group of 10 Senators. The greatest being 24 and the least being 2.
More senators support the bill, but have so much paperwork to go through etc. that they did not sign on at this point. Be encouraged!
At the same time we have more work to do to promote this bill and will be posting updates about what you can do to move it through the committees soon.

PaHR-Access updates can be set up to go straight to your cell phone or if you are an avid Twitter website user you may like to add them to your Twitter feed: http://bit.ly/PaHRTweet

THIS JUST IN:
Tim Gruber, spokesman for PaHR-Access
" ...a legislator can become a cosponsor after the bill is introduced. In some ways it makes it easier because you have a specific bill to refer to... We would like as many as possible... Once a bill has been assigned to a committee we will target the chairperson and the other members. It should go to the Public Health and Welfare Committee as it did twice before and it looks like it has the same members as last session. Thanks for all the help."

FamilySearch: Super Indexing Sunday

2011-01-27T07:41:00.002-05:00

Yesterday the National Genealogical Society blog wrote "Reserve 6 February 2011 for Super Indexing Sunday"

Rather than rewrite the same thing I have posted this excerpt here for your information:

Ken Sisler, a family historian who lives in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada has put together a Facebook Group entitled Super Indexing Sunday to announce a grassroots effort to index genealogical records through the website indexing.familysearch.org. The goal is to break the record of approximately 1.9 million records indexed in 1 day which took place in January 2011.

My only addition is a plea that you prepare for this event by doing a batch before then to make sure you are warmed up and ready. https://giveback.familysearch.org/indexing
Also if you use Facebook be sure to add the event so a tally can be kept by Ken Sisler of how many participate.

Ancestry.com: Expert Connect Closing

2011-01-24T16:09:00.001-05:00

The following is an e-mail from the Ancestry.com Expert Connect team:

Dear Expert Connect Service Providers,
In March of 2009, the newly formed Ancestry.com Expert Connect team mailed hundreds of invitations to outstanding providers of genealogical services like you, with a message to come join a new marketplace called Expert Connect. Since that time, thousands of people with a gift for research and a desire to make some money have signed up as independent professionals. Expert Connect has been a great place to engage clients, pick the work you like to do, and have all financial transactions handled for you.
Though this service has been a positive experience for many of you, Ancestry.com has decided to focus on other business priorities. As of March 18, 2011, Expert Connect will no longer be a service that Ancestry.com will offer to its members. New project postings, bidding and awards will be discontinued February 3, 2011.

We expect that many of you may still be working on current projects with clients that have come through the Expert Connect service. We fully encourage you to finish out these projects over the coming months, and if needed, continue relationships with the clients you have made connections with along the way.
As some of your research projects may take longer to complete than March 18, 2011, please use the Message Board to exchange direct contact information with your clients. Make arrangements to do your remaining projects off of Expert Connect, directly with your clients. You will, of course, also need to arrange an agreeable payment method directly with your clients. Then, use the 'Modify Terms' tab to cancel your project on the Expert Connect system.
To prevent engaging in new projects that will also take you past the March 18, 2011 date, do not post new projects, or bid on any projects as of Feb 3, 2011.
We thank you for your involvement in Expert Connect and for sharing your expertise with Ancestry.com customers.

If you have any questions or comments about please contact us at:
http://expertconnect.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/expertconnect.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

Sincerely,
The Ancestry.com - Expert Connect Team

Second Life Review, Family Village Alpha release, and other techie thoughts...

2011-01-23T22:54:00.009-05:00

In the past I have suggested to FamilySearch the benefits of game technology for genealogy, specifically suggesting that they create a stronger link between Facebook and FamilySearch Indexing. One of my suggestions was that scores could be compared with Facebook friends automatically by linking your Facebook and FS Indexing accounts. Thus initiating a healthy competition that has potential to increase participation in Indexing.

Recently I got a tweet from Dan Lawyer of FamilySearch regarding FamilyLink's new Family Village Facebook game. I've blocked almost every Facebook app invite I've received. There is too much to be done with genealogy for me to spend time on almost pointless games I think. Family Village is in testing stages, but if you search for the app on Facebook you can get added to a list of people they will consider letting help test the program. When I saw the ad from FamilyLink about the new app I was pleased with the creativity and happy to see a new audience being reached. It stopped there. After seeing a trusted professional give it a good review I'm on the list and will let you know what I think after I get a chance to play.

I'm usually against games that take hours of alone time to play, which includes all MMORPG, but I decided to check out Second Life this weekend after reading a recent article in APG Quarterly. Pres. Laura Prescott of the Association of Professional Genealogists was talking about the genealogy teaching opportunities available in Second Life. I made an avatar and went to the Just Genealogy castle where I took this picture. If you are already using Second Life I love the idea of discussing genealogy there. It took me so much time to set up my avatar and find the castle that I don't expect to use it much myself. I'm definately grateful for simple social media like Facebook and blogs.

Mailbox: PaHR-Access

2011-01-23T08:58:00.002-05:00

The following are responses to questions I've recently received about PaHR-Access:

Was it in the backlog of state bills all last session?

Senator Robbins' vital records bill SB 683 was Referred to the Appropriations Committee as of October 12 of last year. To our disapointment this proved too late for it to make it to the floor before the session came to an end. An excerpt from the official PaHR-Access website explains further:

All bills routinely go through this committee so a cost analysis can be added. Fortunately for this bill there is no cost involved. If anything it would actually generate more revenue on a straight user fee basis. Next up is to get Chairperson Senator Jake Corman to bring the bill for a vote in this committee. If it is approved it would go back to the floor of the State Senate for a final vote by the State Senate. (Click for full article)

Do you feel like Senator Robbins’ written proposal will get PaHR enough co-sponsors to get it to the floor in the near future?

Under the last session SB 683 had 16 cosponsors. As of January 20 we already had 15 reported cosponsors for the new session. I'm uncertain how many more weeks Senator Robbins will choose to gather cosponsors. (Click for related article on official site.)

It seems like a win/win situation for everyone involved were it to become law. I find it interesting that this state hasn’t made it’s death certs open access; are they not even public domain? (This is the only thing I am confused about--unfortunately I do not know the semantics surrounding the term “open record”).

Legislators and PaHR-Access volunteers use Open/Public record interchangably. I am aware that there is an important difference in the words in some settings, but they seem to refer to the same thing here - the goal is simply allowing non-vital-records-office-employees to search the records.
The PA Health Dept. has this to say about the situation at their website: "Pennsylvania law protects and restricts the release of vital records; as such, vital records are not public records and cannot be searched online... IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING RIGHT-TO-KNOW LAW: Death certificates maintained by the Division of Vital Records are not public certificates and, therefore, cannot be released under the provisions of Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know-Law."

I feel like the state library & archives getting their death certs’ name/date data up on family search for free should have them banging on the governor’s door; however, they’ve been cut so bad from the budget that they probably can’t afford to do much of anything past operations in their current state of restructure, and I’m sure you’ve encountered this.

I'm a little frustrated as I think about the political problems of the PA budget. I suppose that frustration is among all PA citizens. My theory is that if something needs to be done, do it. When you have enough genealogists wanting these records you have a workforce larger than most people dare imagine. They would gladly volunteer countless hours at no cost to PA. I'd come make the changes myself if they'd let me.

What is PA’s (archives, library, legislature) primary conflict with the bill? Is it a case of “we’ve always done it this way,” or do certain people have specific problems? Also, wonder if it is a simple case of backlog, as mentioned above. The National PAHR bill http://www.archivists.org/pahr/ has died in the backlog of the house floor, despite heavy Senate support, for the past three sessions, I believe. This new session will be the fourth try, but the House majority under Eric Cantor is devoted to reducing federal spending http://majorityleader.house.gov/ and an agenda of impassioned budget cutting no matter the social costs.

Those who have contacted the Health Dept. last session and the previous session have been told of concerns such as the following:
Financial, Identity theft, sensitivity of information (cause of death), and social security numbers.
Volunteers at PaHR-Access have researched all of these issues and found them to be without cause.
As we have discussed, the bill proposed is designed to be low/no cost. It has also been pointed out that an index the public could search will increase orders of certificates if that is the path they choose to follow.
Health Dept. staff appear to be burdened by genealogy requests and they emphasize the inability to expedite them. It takes them 4 months expected time to process a genealogical certificate request. It seems like moving the older certificates to the PA State Archives would remove a significant burden on their staff.
All social security numbers of deceased are already free online and known as the Social Security Death Index. This tool is designed to help combat identity theft so that anyone can make sure a SSN being used is not for someone who has already passed.
On a national level, knowing the cause of death of our ancestors is recommended. Some states remove the cause of death from certificates copied for genealogy and if PA wanted to they could. I recommend that it is not removed from genealogical copies. The U.S. Surgeon General talks about the importance of people learning about their family medical history: http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/

I did a little work on the familyseach wiki a while back—not much, but I was impressed with it. When does everything merge?

Please browse FamilySearch.org to become familiar with the workings of FamilySearch. Historical Records can be searched from the home page. You can also browse the collections indexed or the image only collections. The FamilySearch Wiki is part of the Learn tab. They are two different technologies on the same site. The wiki discussed collections, the years they cover, where you can find them, what data is in the collection etc.

A enormous user base that can feed metadata to the original documents would be unprecedented, and an amazing use of crowdsourcing. Check out some of NARA’s recent initiatives http://blogs.archives.gov/aotus/?p=144.

FamilySearch: "a bajillion times faster... six months to a year away" by Dan Lawyer

2011-01-21T17:20:00.002-05:00

Lawyer said one way to improve the chances of genealogical success is to stop thinking "My Tree" and start thinking "Our Tree." He suggested genealogical research could be something akin to Wikipedia, which is slowly gaining credibility as people add and subtract information from the popular website.

"People want to make the data right," he said. "But people feel better if they can see evidence that supports changes."

Lawyer sees a day coming when documentation can be scanned into the database that proves without dispute a particular date or place. That day is probably only six months to a year away, he said.

"The goal is to release as much as possible for the lowest cost possible," Lawyer said.

To facilitate that end, much more help is needed with indexing records. Currently, 2.4 million records are waiting to be done, with more coming online every day.

"That's one way you can help," Lawyer said. "That will make it go a bajillion times faster."

The above is copied from this Mormon Times article.

Mailbox: PaHR-Access

2011-01-20T10:48:00.012-05:00

Another one of our readers has asked about PaHR-Access and here is my response with his comments in bold. The interest in this bill is skyrocketing.

As you know the Pennsylvania State Library system's budget was cut by 44 percent last FY (or this FY?) ...

Genealogists are by far the primary users of archives, and if they are actually getting 11 dollar a pop from these people, ...

I posted to my blog to clarify the costs. I ought to have corrected this in my initial Mailbox post in which I quoted a comment from a person who gave misinformed information about cost.

then they will not provide open access content. ...

The attachment is a copy of a selection from Senator Robbins memorandum requesting cosponsorship from all PA senators.
or view the full memorandum here.

Digitizing is very expensive...

The bill to make the certificates open record does not require digitization. We are simply hopeful that FamilySearch will offer to do it for free as they have done. FamilySearch.org has countless collections of digitized death certificates for other states. The issue is that in PA they are not open record so they would not be allowed to do this until we get that law changed. It is different in each state, but most states have made them open record and many have already digitized.

and requires continuous upkeep...

FamilySearch Indexing ( https://giveback.familysearch.org/indexing ) is a program that anyone can get on and look at the digitized copies FamilySearch made and index. It is like your wiki idea in that thousands of people sit at home on their computers and type the information from original records. The typed index can be linked to the original certificate. The index will allow for name and date searches at FamilySearch.org. This will become possible when law allows public access. FamilySearch volunteers can have thousands of names done at no cost and it will become a free searchable online system. If PA doesn't want it to all be done for free and free online they can restrict it. PA can make FamilySearch only release a name and date index for example. That would skyrocket PA income for copies because the public could free and easy find the name of their ancestor and once they had a cert number they would mail the money to pa and get their cert in the mail. This is a good plan if they want to make more money.
Upkeep is a good point the health dept would have to ship a years worth of birth and death certs to the archive every year and the archive should then in turn microfilm a years worth every year. It is work, but most states already do this. It is a much better system than 50 year old certs rotting in the health dpt.

and the further you get from a paper record, the less reliable the new document will be...

The SB will require those certificates becoming open record 50 yr old death certs and 100 yr old birth certs to be transfered to the PA State Archive. Currently the PA Dept of Health keeps all of them, even the ones from 1906 - when PA started recording certs. on a state level. This will give the Pa Archive a better source of income as they will have completely new income based on the fees charged for copies. This is the way it is done in most states - older certs go to the Archive and become open record for genealogist while newer certs stay in the dept of health.

It seems like common sense to me that we don't want grimy genealogist hands :) all over the originals and most states microfilm all the originals and some states lend out the microfilm to FamilySearch to make copies. A microfilm copy could be kept at the Archive in PA and also in the famous Granite Mountain Vault in the Salt Lake Valley owned by FamilySearch. The bill does not require them to microfilm so the bill does not require any extra expense theoretically. It only requires whatever expense it would be to physically move the older originals to the archive building. Then it would be up to the building to use common sense in preservation.

Now data entry costs much less and a user generated wiki will save them money...

I believe that FamilySearch would be willing to make indexes and digital copies for free so that PA would incur zero cost for that.

PA will (sadly) loose a reference archivist or too, but they are facing restructuring as it is...

As I said none of the certs are held in the archive. This bill will actually require older certs to be moved to the archive and give theoretically more purpose for the archives existence. They really ought to be held there. It makes no sense for a health dept. to hold records for people who died 50+ years ago. Some Health Dept. employees have even been known to complain about genealogy requests and they refuse to treat them with the same priority as others. It has been known to take months before hearing back. Transferring them to the archive will remove a burden from the Health Dept. and is very likely to decrease wait time for copies.

PaHR-Access Update: Senator Robbins is Reintroducing his Bill

2011-01-20T10:40:00.002-05:00

Pennsylvania State Senator Robert Robbins is currently circulating his vital records for cosponsors. Once he gathers more cosponsors in the next few weeks the bill will be introduced and a number assigned. So far (fifteen) State Senators Alloway, Baker, Dinneman, Eichelberger, Erickson, Folmer, Fontana, Gordner, Kasunic, Mensch, Piccola, Pileggi, Rafferty, Tartaglione and Yaw are cosponsors. We ask for your help in getting the other state senators to become cosponsors of this bill. A visit, phone call or email to their offices should help. Here is the list of the senators (click on the senator's name for contact information): http://www.legis.state.pa.us/

It is basically the same bill (with some minor alterations) Senator Robbins introduced in the last session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly 2009-2010. It calls for birth records more than 100 years old and death records more than 50 years old to become open records and available to the public at large. The bill also requires the records be maintained by the Pennsylvania State Archives once they become open records.

Although his bill does not require they be made available online it is an absolutely necessary step that makes it possible for them to be made available online. Because of the expense of digitizing and data extraction it is our hope the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will then be able to engage an outside party to take on the expense and do the work such as the Genealogy Society of Utah which has already done the same thing for numerous other states.

Now that Tom Corbett is the Governor of Pennsylvania be sure to send him a message of support for this effort. He will not know unless we all tell him about it.

PaHR-Access: Cost Correction

2011-01-20T09:54:00.004-05:00

In the last post I did not address the actual cost, but in order to avoid the spread of false information I am posting on the current official costs of death certificates in PA.

There are two very different prices depending on whether you know the exact year of death.

"There is a $9 fee for each certified copy. This fee may be waived for individuals who served or are currently serving in the Armed Forces or their dependents." PA Dept. of Health

"If the year of death is unknown, an applicant may request a multi-year death search. The fee is $34.00 for a search of two to ten years (this fee includes one certification). Additional years may be searched at a rate of $25.00 for a span of two to ten years." PA Dept. of Health

Mailbox: PaHR-Access

2011-01-18T15:41:00.002-05:00

Claudia's Genealogy Blog said...
They get $11 per request....the state of PA is not going to give up that revenue and put it for free on line. Not only that it takes weeks to months just to get your certificates.
It sounds good in theory and I would love to see it, but I do not think it will happen.
January 14, 2011 4:57 PM

I am aware of several problems with cost and time. I assure you that all of the problems have been considered and viable solutions have been found. Sharing those solutions at this time does not seem to be the crux of our problem. We are avoiding the problems of financial disagreement completely by focussing on only making them public record. They may continue to charge money for copies, but at least when they are open record genealogists will be able to search them. If they still want to charge for copies they can. The bill being introduced this session calls for transferring the records of death over 50 years old to the PA State Archive. The Archive could choose to still charge any fee they deem necessary for a patron to make a copy once they have found the certificate they are looking for. At least this removes all the problems with how long it takes. You'd be able to go look for the record yourself. Even though the bill does not require it, it is very likely that FamilySearch will make a deal with the Archive once they become open record and they will all be digitized for easier searching at no cost. FamilySearch does those kind of things for free. I have no doubt that this law will change and we will see a miracle happen in PA genealogy.

PaHR-Access News: Senator Robbins is Reintroducing his Bill

2011-01-14T07:53:00.001-05:00

January 14th, 2011:

Senator Robbins is Reintroducing his Bill

Pennsylvania State Senator Robert Robbins is currently circulating his vital records for cosponsors. Once he gathers more cosponsors in the next few weeks the bill will be introduced and a number assigned. So far State Senators Alloway, Erickson, Folmer, Fontana, Kasunic, Pileggi, Rafferty and Yaw are cosponsors. We ask for your help in getting other state senators to become cosponsors of this bill. A visit, phone call or email to their offices should help. Here is the list of the senators (click on the senator's name for contact information): http://www.legis.state.pa.us/

It is basically the same bill (with some minor alterations) Senator Robbins introduced in the last session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly 2008-2010. It calls for birth records more than 100 years old and death records more than 50 years old to become open records and available to the public at large. The bill also requires the records be maintained by the Pennsylvania State Archives once they become open records.

Although his bill does not require they be made available online it is an absolutely necessary step that makes it possible for them to be made available online. Because of the expense of digitizing and data extraction it is our hope the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will then be able to engage an outside party to take on the expense and do the work such as the Genealogy Society of Utah which has already done the same thing for numerous other states.

Help Change PA Vital Record Availability Law - PaHR-Access

2011-01-13T09:08:00.002-05:00

Every year since I started blogging genealogy there has been a post about PaHR-Access. This didn't happen by accident. I am very interested in helping this movement and am requesting that you read about it, inform your friends and take action.

Please visit this website to learn the issues and how to help.
http://users.rcn.com/timarg/PaHR-Access

It is a new session in PA (2011-2012). The bill to make vital records open to the public was about to be voted on last year, but with a new session we must start over. Since 2007 PaHR-Access has been working as a grassroots organization made up of volunteers like you who find out the issue and write to PA representatives asking for their support.

The main goal is to get death certificates 50 years old to become public record so genealogists like us can use them to trace our tree. Currently they are possible to order, but there are no public indexes, and you are not permitted to expedite genealogical searches. The people who do the searches are government employees and not interested genealogists. If they "don't find" them they will simply keep your money and send you a letter months later saying it couldn't be found. If you want to try again you have to send more money.

FamilySearch changes with 2011

2011-01-13T08:57:00.003-05:00

The previous FamilySearch sites such as FamilySearch Pilot, Beta, and Wiki are now all at FamilySearch.org

Genealogist have been expecting such consolidation and a list of improvements to the site for some time. A 10 January 2011 news release from FamilySearch to Consultants, Directors and other leaders has confirmed plans to continue with website updates. It came under the heading: "FamilySearch Accounts for the General Public"

The new.familysearch.org website will, sometime in the future, become integrated into the familysearch.org website and become the “Family Tree” menu option. The new.familysearch.org website will then go away. Since the general public has access to familysearch.org, there needs to be a way to distinguish between members of the LDS Church and those who are not LDS Church members. Therefore FamilySearch accounts were created. Anyone who is not a member of the LDS Church can register for and get a FamilySearch account. Members of the LDS Church can register for and get an LDS Account. Familysearch.org accepts both LDS Accounts and FamilySearch accounts. Consultants need to know the difference in the two types of accounts and be able to help members and the general public register for the appropriate accounts. Clicking the Create a New Account link on the familysearch.org website will allow anyone to register and choose either an LDS Account or a FamilySearch account. Once Family Tree is moved to familysearch.org, only those with LDS Accounts will be able to see information about temple ordinances.

Other policies of interest to family history consultants were included in the e-mail.

Preview of New Version of FamilySearch.org

2010-08-22T04:18:00.000-04:00

Pennsylvania Vital Records Held from Public

2010-08-16T12:45:00.000-04:00

4 Minutes from You = Success for Pennsylania Genealogists

2010-08-07T09:52:00.001-04:00

Help us with our Pennsylvania genealogy. Please join the PaHR-Access Facebook group and do the first 4 steps. It only takes 4 minutes and your voice of support will make a big difference!

Sneak Peek to August version of newFamilySearch

2010-07-25T18:17:00.003-04:00

Expected to start beta mode this week at ftbeta.familysearch.org
newFamilySearch has added a few updates to the site.

If you among Asian LDS you will be excited to know you can now enter many names with your native character set. There is even a way to make sure those names get sent to people who can read them.

For Russian and Italian speakers you can now use newFamilySearch in your language.

Disputes are being removed, but for now they will simply not allow any more to be added. This is being done to encourage friendly discussion on a message board for each individual instead of the more harsh disputing of facts attached directly to the person.
This hopefully will encourage the resolving of disputes, but I personally am worried that I might miss this feature as it was a groundbreaking feature of earlier versions.

A couple other bugs were fixed, but the above are the major items. This update seems smaller than last, but I guess that is because I can't speak any of those languages I mentioned earlier.

FamilySearch expands holdings, ancestors found

2010-07-08T20:05:00.002-04:00

After researching my family for more than a decade I am still finding things as FamilySearch expands their holdings. Recently at pilot.familysearch.org I found the entries for two of my direct ancestors in the NJ Death Certificates Index. Now I can get their certificates and for the first time, prove their parentage.

Stay up-to-date with updates to FamilySearch services on their Facebook page.

It is that time again, new FamilySearch receiving an update.

2010-06-16T02:40:00.004-04:00

Click this link to see the official statement for what will be new with the June 2010 release.

As usual, each update leaves me hungry for so much more in terms of updates, but I must say I see this as a significant turn for the better.

Making disputes, finding notes and commenting on data on the family tree was seen by many users as overly difficult. Now we are given a very simple way to add our thoughts to a person. One might dispute, ask for help, save stories etc. with this feature. It is very streamlined and user friendly.

The down side, in my opinion, is that it is a little too streamlined. It seems to me that it would help the system greatly if each discussion topic could be identified in some sort of predetermined menu as being of a certain category. Categories might include: disputes, questions, research notes, transcriptions &c. When viewing the discussions in the details box a filter should be added so that those individuals who have many discussion threads attached will be easier to navigate through their discussion threads. The filter might allow a person to view only discussion topics labeled as disputes or perhaps only those labeled as questions etc. A feature to search the discussion threads for a person looking for specific words or a phrase would also help find previously viewed threads that are now overrun by others in a person of high interest. Further data should be gathered. For example, a drop down menu activiated when selecting dispute as the discussion topic type should allow a person to select the fact they dispute (name, gender, birth date, birth place, relationship to [then the person would be selected whose relation to is disputed]).

I don't like the idea of getting rid of the old dispute system entirely. I think by selecting dispute as a category a link should be formed to a familiar dispute symbol next to the disputed fact on other screens. That link should take a person to the relevant discussion topic.

New Family Search Indexing Facebook Page

2010-04-04T23:18:00.005-04:00

Michael W. McCormick is a fan of

FamilySearch Indexing

Create your Fan Badge

If you are interested in helping further the cause of genealogy please become a friend of this page on Facebook.

FamilySearch Indexing is an easy to use program where you can volunteer to help create free searchable indexes.

At your convenience you can download a "batch" or an image or set of images which you will be prompted to transcribe.

When collections are indexed they are added to the pilot.familysearch.org site where they can be searched.

Even if you personally can not contribute any time to help with this please become a fan and let your friends know.

Your relatives may be the next ones to be indexed!

March 2010 - new.FamilySearch.org Update

2010-03-31T09:02:00.003-04:00

Note: This article will be of interest and use only to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Yesterday I went to new.FamilySearch.org (hereafter nFS) to help a member of my local Branch sign up and learn how to enter data. At my surprise, I found that I could no longer log in with my original sign-in name. With excitement I read these words on my screen:

We are changing the sign-in system so that one user name and password works for participating FamilySearch Web sites. From now on, please use your LDS Account for new.familySearch.org. If you don't have an LDS Account, enter your new.familysearch.org user name and password, and we'll help you upgrade.

At first I expected to be asked to merge my accounts like I did with FamilySearch Indexing, but was pleased to find that this is not necessary. Anyone who already had a LDS Account (as I did) could simply log in using that account. All their previous work under the old sign in was right there! If you never made an LDS Account then you would be prompted to do so after using your nFS sign-in name.

Having one sign in for all church websites will significantly decrease the frustration an LDS member will feel when asked to get on one of the church websites. Anyone that has been on their ward website, FamilySearch Indexing, FamilySearch Wiki or nFS (to name just a few) will be able to access the other websites with the same user name and password. Thus only having to go through the registration process once.

As a Family History Consultant I find that many members do not have the information they need to register easily on hand. A person's record number and confirmation date are necessary. Using one user name will decrease the time I spend as a Family History Consultant walking people through the registration process. I am so happy that I can now focus more energy on helping people with the important part: family history and temple work!

There are some other updates to the website that make it much more user friendly. The ordinance list now completely self loads instead of stopping at the most recent 20 ordinances reserved. The link that was at the bottom of the screen to extend this list was difficult for many to notice. People wondered what happened to their lists when they had reserved over 20 individuals. Now I can see my 155 rows of ordinances waiting to be completed which not only is easier to work with, but does more to encourage me to get the work done.

The Family Tree view is more user friendly. I found that it was much easier for me to discover how to edit information from this view after the March update. Before this update I could not figure out how to edit information here. Now I found that double-clicking a name brings up an individual's detail box where I can change whatever I want.

I also found that when navigating away from the tree and going back it is much easier to pick up where one left off. I feel that there is much more work to be done though this update is a HUGE user friendliness improvement. When I clicked on my 3rd-great grandfather Samuel McCormick in Family Tree view and then moved back to Family Pedigree with Details, I expected to see my ancestor Samuel McCormick. It disappointed me that it does not work that way.

Which ever person is in the primary view on the Family Tree will be in the primary view when switching to Family Pedigree with Details and vice versa. In order to change the primary person in Family Tree view you must right click a name and select the appropriate option. I am an experienced family history website addict and it took me some playing around to realize that right clicking a name in the Family Tree view allowed me to "Show Ancestors" or "Show Descendants." For the average user, I think they will wonder why they keep losing their place when that was "fixed" with this update.

I did notice that even this did not always work. Sometimes within my nFS session I would click a different tab and click back to test this upgrade and the tree would be back on my name, even after I had put it on someone else a couple of times.

Overall, this update is AMAZING! I simply can't wait until the next updates come because I know if I am confused at some things still most of the members I help will be tempted to throw their hands in the air and wait for the next update.

History of Compiled Genealogies within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2010-03-18T17:33:00.001-04:00

This article was directly copied from a BYU, Hist 482 manual with minor additions in order to mention some newer systems that were not in the original. This article is for education purposes only and personal authorship is denied by the administrator of this blog.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been creating indexes and gathering other compiled materials since the creation of the Genealogical Society of Utah in 1894. Both the IGI and the Ancestral File have predecessors that still have value to researchers. To understand those of the IGI, it is important to understand that the IGI is in reality an index of names of individuals or couples, submitted from among their own families or by extraction of consecutive entries in original sources such as census or church records by members of the LDS church. The only difference between the IGI and the LDS Ordinance Index (found only at LDS Family History Centers) is that the latter has the dates and temples for the LDS religious rites that were performed on behalf of those deceased individuals.

The history of the systems used to submit names for performance of LDS religious ordinances will help to both understand the strengths and weaknesses of the IGI, and to identify other sources related to those earlier submission processes. Beginning in 1844, baptisms were performed on behalf of the dead. Other religious rites for deceased persons did not begin until 1877, when the temple in St. George, Utah was opened. From those earliest times until into the mid 1920s, a member of the church merely selected a name of a deceased person and went directly to a temple (by 1927 there were seven such temples) to perform the ordinances. Each temple maintained a register of such ordinance work. In 1925 the secretary of the Genealogical Society of Utah objected to the duplication and inefficiency in the system, suggesting that an index be created of all work already performed, and that in the future all names submitted be checked against that index and cleared before ordinances were performed. From that request the Temple Index Bureau (TIB) was created. The TIB only indexed those ordinances known as endowments and, therefore, did not necessarily contain names of persons for whom baptisms (performed before 1877) or marriage sealings were performed. The TIB was a file card index and grew to fill a large room with millions of cards in hundreds of file drawers before it was discontinued on 1 January, 1970.

In 1943, the means of submitting names to the temples was changed from one of submitting individual names to submitting complete family groups on family group sheets. That system likewise continued in use until 1 January, 1970, when it was replaced by a computerized system. The original family group sheets submitted were filed in binders and stored in the Family History Library in Salt Lake in what became known as the Family Group Records Archives—Main Section. Endowment ordinances that appeared on these sheets continued to be added to the TIB and a notation was placed on the TIB cards in the form of a C and/or a P in the upper right hand corner of the card to indicate if that person appeared as a child and/or a parent on a family group record. In addition to the information currently found on the IGI, these sheets often had source notes and other comments about the families. Throughout this period, individual temples continued to also maintain registers of work done. In January 1970, use of both the TIB and the family group records was discontinued and the temples shifted to a computerized system of record keeping. At that time nearly all submissions of names of deceased persons were done on 8½ by 11 inch sheets on which the names of from one to six individuals or married couples could be listed. In addition to space for each person’s or couples’ vital statistics, a space was provided for notes concerning sources of information. All of the vital statistics, along with the dates when temple ordinances were performed, were entered into a computer and the resultant index was initially known as the Computer File Index. In the early 1980s, the name was changed to the International Genealogical Index. As a result of this historical development, information on names submitted to the temples for ordinance work can be found in four sources:

Temple Registers. Most are available on microfilm, as identified in the Family History Library Catalog.

Temple Index Bureau. Available on microfilm at the Family Search Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake and on microfilm at the Family History Center in the library of Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, it is only available for consultation by members of the LDS Church.

Family Group Records Archives. These are available in their original format at the Family Search Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake, and on microfilm that can be ordered to Family History Centers throughout the world.

International Genealogical Index. This index contains not only names of persons whose LDS temple work has been performed since 1 January 1970, but, through a major transfer effort to vital statistic information from the first three sources discussed. For names submitted by individuals and not added by extraction programs, a copy of the original sheet as prepared by the individual submitter can be viewed on microfilm. The pamphlets on the IGI explain the process of identifying batch numbers and searching for these in the FHLC. The researcher should remember that none of the information concerning submitters and their relationships to the deceased person, nor the information concerning sources, was transferred to the IGI. Also, the IGI does not contain information about baptisms for the living performed outside of the temples that may appear on the TIB cards.

Today all of the former systems have merged into one, newFamilySearch. While newFamilySearch will always be a work in progress, as people continue to add data, it fulfills the purposes of the earlier systems: preparing names for temple work, avoiding duplication and recording sources.

Prior to newFamilySearch, Pedigree Resource File was the means of submitting one’s genealogy for safekeeping and sharing. Before that it was Ancestral File. Rumor has it that when the FamilySearch website was introduced it was discovered that transferring the offline Ancestral File database to an online environment was not going to work. Some say it is at that realization that the new database was introduced. As early as the 1920s, the Genealogical Society of Utah encouraged its members to submit copies of their genealogies to the Society for those purposes. Those early efforts through 1963, now known as the Old Patron section, are available though the FHLC. Beginning in 1963, the LDS Church urged its members to submit at least their first four generations on family group sheets. These—with an incredible amount of duplication and contradiction—were gathered together in the Family Group Records Archives—Patrons Section. They likewise are available in the original at the Family Search Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake and on microfilms that can be ordered to Family History Centers throughout the world.

Even in geographic research areas where one may think there would be of little value, these indexes should be checked. I cannot count the number of times I have sent Latin American and southern European researchers into these collections and they have returned disappointed at not finding anything. Nevertheless, just when I have begun to consider not having them do so anymore, I have found in these indexes such valuable materials as complete parishes in Bilbao, Spain that are indexed on the IGI, or a series of over four hundred family group sheets from the colonial period in Jalisco, Mexico extending a line back to the 1520s that can be found in the Family Group Records Archives Main Section and accessed through the IGI. These indexes should always be checked when new surnames, time periods or places become available during the research process.

This article was directly copied from a BYU, Hist 482 manual with minor additions in order to mention some newer systems that were not in the original. This article is for education purposes only and personal authorship is denied by the administrator of this blog.

Who do you think you are?

2010-03-06T08:48:00.001-05:00

"Who Do You Think You Are?" genealogy show on NBC brought overwhelming traffic to the popular genealogy website, Ancestry.com last night. Soon will come a day when the majority of Americans no longer think genealogy is only for the older crowd.

If you have been intensely involved with genealogy already you may know that CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) already had a show called "Who Do You Think You Are?", part of which can be seen on RootsTelevision.com (There was recent talk about closing RootsTV so it might not be available for long.) The show appears to be the same, except each network features different people on their episodes.

The same title sometimes shortened to WDYTYA with the same logos are used for an Ancestry.com sponsored genealogy conference in the UK.

newFamilySearch Beta

2010-03-02T16:49:00.005-05:00

Received an encouraging message today
from nFS Beta Release Team:

The Family History Department is looking for individuals willing to help us test the new FamilySearch on the Internet. Our goal is to start testing soon. Any help you can give is very much appreciated. All genealogical data you may enter during the test will be discarded after testing. However, a new registration system will be tested, and user names and passwords created during beta testing will last beyond the test period (more information about this will be included in future letters).To participate in this test, do the following:

1. Look for another e-mail, which will include test instructions and information about when to begin testing. Please do not start testing until you receive the test instructions and the date that testing will begin. Carefully review the test instructions. They will include a link to the test site as well as some exercises or challenges to help you test some of the new and existing program features.

2. Follow the test instructions, and give your feedback through the Feedback link. Please test in your primary language even if that language is not English.

3. After the beta test is completed, we will send you a link to complete a simple survey.

We look forward to your participation and are grateful for your help.If you cannot help us test at this time, please ignore any further communications about this test. We hope you will be able to help us in the future.Please do not respond to this e-mail. It is for your information only.

Thank you. FamilySearch Beta Release Team

Watch our Video Blog

2010-02-27T20:51:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW-g1Yethqs

Black Friday Sales

2009-11-27T15:33:00.002-05:00

This morning I went Black Friday shopping for the first time in my life and while I did not see anyone get hurt (thankfully) I think I may stick to online Black Friday shopping from now on.

I hope your shopping trips were as successful or more so than mine.

I did not see any genealogy services on blackfriday.info but I think there should be sales on genealogy research so until the end of 2009, if you contact me and pay for a research project you will receive the 20% discount. Just mention this post.

Cemetery Records Updated

2009-11-10T23:16:00.003-05:00

Go to the Archives page and you will see there have been a couple more cemeteries added. Two more have been announced, so keep a look out for more, especially if you had ancestors in York or Adams Co. PA

People for Better Pennsylvania Historical Records Access

2009-11-06T13:06:00.001-05:00

People for Better Pennsylvania Historical Records Access:
"November 4th, 2009:
Getting Our Bill out of Committee
Our bill (HB 931) is 'Stuck in Committee'. In an effort to get it out of committee and voted on by the entire PA State Assembly we could use your help in getting the head of the House Health & Human Services Committee Rep. Frank Oliver to have it voted on by that committee.

Below is a sample letter addressed to the Rep. Oliver. Feel absolutely free to change or rewrite as you please, to use one of the sample letters from the main page of this website or write your own letter. But please send a letter or email or something. Any letter or email sent is better than no message and a message not sent accomplishes nothing. Silence will not draw attention to the bill. Even if you have already sent a message about this cause it doesn't hurt to send a second one. It only shows you consider this cause to be important. It also doesn't hurt to send a message to the other committee members. The link to find them are also below:

Letter to State Representative Oliver
The members of the House Health & Human Services Committee can be found at: HHSC"

As a very calm genealogist I spend hours looking through records to find even one name of an ancestor.
I am willing to do it. It is so much fun for me! I love it!

What is the problem you ask???

PA currently has laws against open access for even the oldest Death Certificates which prohibits millions of people from finding more about their ancestors!
Sure they say they will look a record up for you if you pay them, wait a few months, give them a copy of your ID, sign your life away, etc. etc.
But who thinks that is fair???

FamilySearch Labs

2009-10-26T07:39:00.002-04:00

For some time I have had a link to FamilySearch Labs Blog listed on the side of my blog as one of my other favorite genealogy blogs.

I have not made an effort to duplicate all the announcements from these other good blogs and I recommend you subscribe to them. I was surprised when recently I was informed of a new service in beta by FamilySearch that was not detailed on their Labs Blog. Generally all of their beta or pilot projects are discussed there. Goes to show they just keep on going even if we do not get the news updates. It is comforting to know that such an influential genealogy organization is moving forward with so many projects.

The project I speak of is Community Trees. Check it out: http://histfam.familysearch.org/

I can't wait until all of their tools are brought together into their home page:
http://familyseach.org

FamilySearch Indexing Upgrade

2009-10-26T07:35:00.002-04:00

There is always so much exciting news going on in the world of genealogy. Today I became aware of some upgrades to the FamilySearchIndexing.org program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Many genealogical websites offer the opportunity to volunteer your time to help others find their ancestors more easily. This effort consists of reading images of original records like census and vital records so you can type what you see on them.
The typed 'index' can then be searched by researchers.

Recently a few changes were made to make the process more user friendly.
Look closely. There is a hint of many more projects to come.
See details here: https://fch.ldschurch.org/fsinformation/Messages/en/FSI_New_Features-Oct_2009.pdf

Christ Lutheran Church York, PA Cemetery Photos/Transcriptions

2009-10-24T17:11:00.003-04:00

Our newest cemetery collection is from Christ Lutheran of York, PA
View it here.

Cemetery Transcription/Images Added

2009-10-20T22:06:00.001-04:00

Christ Church Episcopal
Colonial English Parish
Founded 1746

York Springs,
Adams County, Pennsylvania
Created October 20, 2009

All photos taken June 17, 2009 and
contributed by Michael W. McCormick
View text transcription of this cemetery

Tombstone Images
Beales
Maria Caroline
Miller
Charles G.
Taylor
Juliet M. Hamersly
Unknown
Unknown

For additional information on this cemetery, please contact
Ye Olde Sulphur Spa Historical Society
Adams County PA USGenWeb Archives - Tombstone Photos
Adams County PA USGenWeb Archives - Index
USGenWeb Archives - Pennsylvania
Created for use in the USGenWeb Archives by
Kathy Francis © 2009

Cemetery Photography Project Continues

2009-10-16T20:16:00.005-04:00

Cemeteries are a favorite place for many genealogists. We love to find out about those who have gone before us, though we often tire of being in front of a microfilm reader or computer screen for hours on end.

A walk in the cemetery is just the kind of break a passionate genealogist needs.

For those of you who don't know Enduring Legacy Genealogy has been partnering with the USGenWeb Archive to photograph local cemeteries.

As of this article we have published three full cemeteries on the Internet. The most recent are:

Presbyterian Cemetery, York Springs, Adams Co., PA (14 Oct 2009)
Lutheran Church Cemetery, York Springs, Adams Co., PA (15 Oct 2009)

Even if you do not have ancestors in these areas you may find it interesting to look through these. ELG is accepting volunteers to help with the process of photographing cemeteries. No matter where you are, we challenge you to take a walk, take your camera with you and when you are done feel free to e-mail them to us to have uploaded to the Internet. If you are the one who took the photograph your name will be included as contributor on the Internet when the photos are uploaded.

We thank our first contributors to this project who helped with the York Springs Lutheran Cemetery.

How to Find Living Relatives

2009-10-05T22:36:00.012-04:00

Planning a reunion? Don't know how to find those cousins who moved accross the country a few generations back? Learn how to find just about anyone.

Years ago one of my many favorite genealogy sites was ZabaSearch.com
Everyone needs a little more zaba. I was there when it was new. I was there when it was no longer available for free and now I'm back when I see that I can get good stuff for free again. When it wasn't so free I began turning back to other sites.

Over the years I have come to love Intelius.com because without paying you can see relatives of most living people (their immediate family who have lived at the same address.) Intelius will list the ages for free too which you can calculate approximate birth years from. (You have to search for each name individually to find a person's age.) ZabaSearch will give a persons birth year and sometimes month next to their name for free too. There once was a very good website where you could get almost anyone's birth date who was living or recently passed. I forget the URL because I was also there when it closed. There is a site BirthDatabase.com that tries to do the same, but in my opinion is no better than the two search websites I just discussed.

For those of us who are really into the web wouldn't it be nice to be able to find living relatives' profiles on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace by searching one simple site? I thought so. Then one day I saw an ad on Ancestry.com for MyLife.com which promised just that. It works better for that purpose than any other site I know about, but it has a long way to go. I use a combination of these and a few others in this order of usefulness:

ZabaSearch

Intelius

Facebook

Ancestry

MyLife

So you know what websites to use, but how do you use them. Let me use an example. One of my many genealogy goals I set awhile back was to contact and keep in touch with all the descendants of my 3rd-great grandfather Samuel McCormick. Because my great grandparents had some interest in keeping in touch with their family I had the names of many of Samuel's descendants within a couple generations of him. It cut off around 1900 on most lines though. I filled in gaps by tracing them forward on the census (to 1930). I gathered all the Social Security Death Index records I could, as well as other records that can be found on Ancestry. Then phonebooks and directories come in. Often a person who was a child on the 1930 Census will be an adult on the directories of the 1980's-2000's on Ancestry. If the person's age and location are nearly the same you can judge you have found the right person. Often the phone numbers on these records are out dated (it doesn't hurt to check.) If they don't work that is when you look on the other sites like Intelius.com to get a more updated number. ZabaSearch often gives you many of the older listings for people too which is good for tracking moves, but you may find yourself trying ten numbers before you get to the right person. It is so worth it when you get back in touch though. Then on these sites you often can find the younger generation between 20's-60's in age who may potentially use Facebook. Search for all of their names on there and you have instant e-mail connectivity as well as an easy way to share pedigrees and photos.

Happy hunting, cousin!

ELG Supports PaHR-Access

2009-09-24T13:36:00.002-04:00

"PaHR-Access (People for Better Pennsylvania Historical Records Access) is strictly a grassroots organization started in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania in August of 2007. It was first known as People for Better Access to Pennsylvania Historical Records (PBAPHR). The name change took place in early November 2007 to allow for a more pronounceable acronym (i.e. par-access)."

The mission of PaHR-Access is to promote legislation that will make directly accessible vital records of our deceased Pennsylvania ancestors. These records are some of the best sources to expand our pedigrees as they will often list parents names. Having a copy of the record will also help us build stories about our ancestors. Even those who have no genealogical interest may benefit from statistical knowledge and/or history as well as potentially learning their ancestral medical histories. Some such records may be obtained after long processes, mail-in forms, identification and fees currently, but anyone who has done this will understand the need to have direct public access.

Though not officially affiliated ELG has grown alongside PaHR-Access for the past two years. With permission of the administrator, Tim Gruber, the founder of ELG created a social network group on Facebook to help make others aware of this cause. For some time we were running ads on the Internet to help inform individuals of the need for action. In local churches we posted fliers and were able to obtain a majority at one congregation to send letters encouraging PA House Representatives to stand with us on this issue. The majority of my contact with state governmental officials on this topic has shown their opinion is in the affirmative.

It is a slow hard process as with most changes in legislation, but with continued effort we will prevail. Anyone who has ancestors in Pennsylvania will benefit from the passing of the recommended legislation directly. Though I have few Pennsylvania ancestors I take a personal interest in this for my clients as well as the entire community.

It is encouraging that several genealogical and/or historical organizations have been endorsing the movement.

Please do whatever you can to contribute your time. You can go to the website by clicking the title on this post or get ideas here.

eLegacy Genealogy YouTube Channel

2009-09-23T22:59:00.000-04:00

If you have been to our website lately you have noticed the use of YouTube video(s) in helping you navigate through our many resources. As of this post we have one website navigation video and one video in which I enthusiastically introduce myself and my connection to ELG. In order to benefit from the convenient tools and presentation abilities available for videos on YouTube we have released our official YouTube Channel this month. Check it out here: eLegacy Genealogy
Not to give too much away, we are developing ways to use video in reaching our audience. If you would like to contribute to these developments leave a comment.

Volunteer Partnership with USGenWeb Archives

2009-09-23T22:50:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month ELG announced a partnership with volunteers at USGenWeb Archives. The goal of this project is to make available tombstone photograph collections of local Adams and York County, PA cemeteries. Such volunteer provided online cemetery records have been key in my research for my ancestors and I'm glad to be contributing to the overall effort. On 20 Sep 2009 the first wave of this project was officially released in connection with Kathy Francis of the York County, PA USGenWeb Archive. Bott's Graveyard was the first cemetery to be uploaded. You can browse the photos here: http://usgwarchives.net/pa/york/1picts/cemeteries/botts-wmanchester/botts.htm

ELG introduces BLOG

2009-09-23T00:42:00.002-04:00

After seeing the inefficiency of the first version of the Enduring Legacy Genealogy website from late 2007-2008 I scrapped it and made this blog a companion to my new website. I have admired genealogical blogs from other enthusiasts for some time. The AncestryInsider & Renee's Genealogy Blog were my primary inspirations. With the increased popularity of my services and demand for genealogical advice, news, and tips, Enduring Legacy Genealogy brings you our own WebLog (blog). Content may include select genealogical news from areas such as Pennsylvania, Baltimore, the north eastern United States, Germany and Ireland. My favorite topics include new genealogy technology, what is new with FamilySearch websites, and genealogy volunteerism.

UPDATE:
August 2011. The official website of Enduring Legacy Genealogy has moved entirely into this blog.