Michelle's Genealogy Blog

Moved for now

2011-03-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting very much since I've been busy with other things, including redesign on my own website.

I've moved the entries from this blog to my website Family Findings under Genealogy Blog.

I'm not sure that I'll keep it that way, but feel like having less places to update will be a good thing for me. Simpler is good!

Cemeteries in Quebec, Canada

2010-07-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

My family just got back from a 4 day trip to my in-laws house in Lambton, Quebec, Canada. Is anyone else researching Quebec, Canada? Are you having trouble finding information on the cemeteries there? I have been. Even on the online maps, the cemeteries may be greyed areas, but they don't say the name of the cemetery. It made it hard to research ahead of time where I wanted to visit.

While there, I got my "boys" to go to three cemeteries with me. I already knew where they were and had even briefly been to 2 of the 3. My husband didn't understand why I was taking so many photos, but the first and last names all seem so common that once I get there I'm confused who I'm looking for. What's the problem with taking lots of photos anyway? They're all digital, so they're free. I was already looking at all the stones so it didn't take that much more time to snap a quick photo to study on the computer when I got home if it was a surname I was researching. Since the Drouin collection on Ancestry generally stops at 1930 (at least in the parishes I've been working in), the gravestones seem the easiest way to find the more recent dates. Maybe I should redefine "easiest". Easiest given that you don't mind driving 5-1/2 hours, have nice in-laws that let you use their house there for free and can whine enough to get your family to let you spend some time in the cemeteries. Ha-ha!

So, the verdict is in. I did take a lot of photos of people that I can't connect to the family right now but I also found a number of his direct ancestors and siblings of them.

I've started working on putting them on FindAGrave already. That site is sure hard to use for Canada. It lumps all the provinces together so you can't search on just Quebec when you're looking for a cemetery. Also, the cemeteries are getting put in inconsistantly. Some are "Blah Cemetery", some are "Cimetiere Blah" and others are "Cimetière Blah" (the last one with the accent is correct as far as the French goes, but not so sure it's correct on FindAGrave). Then, the accents on the names are another whole matter. I guess I'm entering them without them, but I hate doing so. When I started to post the photos, I even found that someone else had listed some of the names that I took photos for, so I posted the photos to go with those listings and am glad I could help someone else.

If anyone knows of a great site to see maps of Quebec towns with the cemeteries displayed, please post it to the comments! That would sure help make the most of a limited amount of time if some of the location research could be done ahead.

FindAGrave - My Activity Update

2010-05-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

I've been putting a lot of effort into posting stuff at FindAGrave recently. I have tons of cemetery photos, so I've decided to share. I'm working on Woodlands Cemetery in Cambridge, NY right now. I still have over 1,000 photos to post from that cemetery. I've added about 2/3 of the listings for that cemetery.

I've also made a few special trips over the past month to do volunteer photos for others. I'm glad to be able to help out that way.

Anyway, I've reached some milestones in the past week. I surpassed 3,000 listings and 2,000 photos posted. Yay for me! ha-ha.

To go to my contributor page, click here

Free access to old newspapers

2010-05-07T06:45:00.000-07:00

I've recently been enjoying the free newspapers at Fulton NY Postcards (don't let their website name fool you). They have tons of old New York newspapers scanned and available for browsing or searching. This includes papers from Glens Falls, New York. I even found some need obituaries from other areas of New York too.

I was particularly taken by this gem that I found about my second great-grandfather, Deranzel Henry, who rescued a drowning boy in the Battenkill River.

Since I'm writting about free access, Footnote is giving free access to their newspaper collection this month, so make sure to go do some searches before May is over.

Vermont Vital Records coming to Ancestry

2010-02-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

In my last post when I was discussing the New Hampshire vital records project (which the births are now indexed and online on Family Search), I mentioned that I was hoping for Vermont to be next.

Well, although it's not free for all on Family Search, I did receive a promotional email from Ancestry.com stating that Vermont vital records were coming soon. I'm excited that this great resource will soon be available. Horray!

In the meantime, did you know that the Vermont State Archives are willing to look up a record for you for free? Click here and then chose the Informational Copies link on the right to download a form to fill out and email back.

They've often emailed the record back within a week of my requesting it. Kudos to Vermont! I wish more states were as kind to genealogists as you are.

Family Search indexing-NH births

2008-11-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

I have to admit I'm a bit excited. FamilySearch's indexing project has started working on NH births up to 1900. I like that I can work on a project like this that will help so many and that this is not a database that is repeated over and over on the Internet. I've refused to index the federal census records for exactly that reason. I want to work on the projects that will provide new information for people.

New indexers are always welcome. It's an easy way to give back to the genealogy community. Please see FamilySearchIndexing find out more.

So, as I happy work away trying to get these records indexed, I have to admit that I'm hoping that they'll do Vermont next, or maybe New York. :-)

FTM 2009

2008-09-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd give an update to the FTM 2009 free upgrade situation. The afternoon of my last post, I received an email from The Generations Network apologizing about the situation. They said that their store was overwhelmed and that they'd have it resolved in a few days, at which time they'd issue a new coupon.

A few days later, I did receive the email with a new coupon. It had a link and said that I had to order through it. When I clicked on the link, it said that I had to wait over 2 hours for my time in the store. I promptly went directly to the store in another browser window, ordered the upgrade and the coupon worked. I'm so glad that I didn't sit there and wait.

I was very pleased that they even gave free shipping. The free upgrade was absolutely free! I didn't expect that.

Although there were so many problems getting my order in, the upgrade was shipped very fast. I had expected to wait a month or so, but I received it last Thursday. I've got it all installed and it recognized the database that I had pulled into FTM 2008. I can't speak on features since I use Legacy instead of FTM now but will probably fool with it sometime.

I have to say that the Generations Network faltered but did deliver (at least the physical product, not sure on the promises that they gave with the software). Thank you Generations Network.

Free FTM 2009 upgrade, although their store isn't allowing it

2008-09-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

I switched from Family Tree Maker to Legacy Family Tree software to record my genealogy a few years ago. It was a big transition, mostly for the user interface and how to do typical things like sourcing, which was much different but easy once you know how. Legacy helped me standardize my information and included a lot of error reports that I still use often. I could not believe the crazy stuff that FTM did with my data and it took me months of clean up. I'm not kidding--I spent all winter cleaning up data and I still work on it off and on to this day, 1-1/2 years later.

I found Family Tree Maker 2008 at BJ's for $19. I decided to buy it, more for the postcard collection CD that came with it than for the software. Although it had a neat new interface, it seemed like their big selling point was their online printing of books, which is not something I'm interested in. It also did not pull in GEDCOMs properly from Legacy in any format. I had a long list that I forwarded to the FTM developers. Most reviews that I read online of the software raved about it--not for the program but more for records they found on Ancestry.com which comes bundled with different versions.

Well, the Generations Network knew people were unhappy with the new software (which was missing most of the printing options and therefore not very useful) and nicely offered to give registered users of FTM 2008 a free upgrade to FTM 2009. I received the email last night, clicked the link and their website wasn't functional. I thought I'd go on and see how much they were going to hook me in fees and shipping to get this. I would have much rather had a download, but they don't seem to be offering it.

This morning when I try to get on the site, I get the message "Due to the high popularity of our FTM 2009 free upgrade offer, we are unable to fulfill your order at this time. Please check back later. Thank you, The Generations Network, Inc." If I go straight to the store, it won't accept my coupon. It seems like the full price of $39.95 for an upgrade of this software is rather steep, especially when they're giving it away for free.

It's kind of laughable. They're trying to make it up to people and then tell you "sorry". Way to go, Generations Network!

Genealogy Rip-Offs!

2008-05-07T04:05:00.001-07:00

Dick Eastman posted a great article today on Genealogy Rip-offs. He actually lists some of them to stay clear of. It's worth your time to read. It's shameful what some people will do to get money.

You can read the article here on Dick's blog.

Druin collection now indexed! Hooray!

2008-04-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

Ancestry announced yesterday that their Druin collection in their World subscription is now INDEX! I am so excited. I sat down last night and found baptism and burial dates for a number of my husband's ancestors.

The Druin collection is Canadian church records from 1850 to 1967. I had mentioned a while back that I had been browsing through parishes to find all the children and such. The problem with browsing that if they moved, you don't always know what parish to look through. Now with the index, that is greatly simplified.

It's a great day for Canadian researchers!

Ancestry Drouin collection

Ancestry putting Rootsweb under it's domain

2008-03-27T03:51:00.000-07:00

There has been lots of buzz in the genealogy community in the past few weeks about Rootsweb. Ancestry, who is the provider of Rootsweb, has decided to move all the Rootsweb services under their Ancestry domain name. A lot of it looked like increasing their rank by increasing their page views. Many, however, took the view that Ancestry was trying to steal the free resources on Rootsweb and moved their USGenWeb pages elsewhere (although Ancestry denied this would happen).

There is a neat article on Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings blog that shows the trends of visits to the various genealogy sites that I found quite interesting. Check it out:

Genea-Musings: 5-year statistics for Ancestry.com traffic

Free Online Sample of Discovering Family History Magazine

2008-03-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

There's a new magazine from the publishers of Family Chronicle, History Magazine and Internet Genealogy. It's called Discovering Family History.

It's more designed to help get people started with the basics of research, but even more advanced genealogists may find some useful ideas.

You can download a free issue at their website at http://www.discoveringfamilyhistory.com/freepreview.htm.

LegacyChart

2008-03-06T04:04:00.001-08:00

Legacy 7 is getting ready to be released (I know, we've been hearing that for months). Part of the hype of this new release is chart capabilities.

There is a free download available so you can test-drive what we'll be getting in the new version of Legacy. This Legacy Charting free demo expires on June 15, but the full Legacy product should be out by then.

Check it out at Legacy Charting.

Enjoying the Drouin Collection on Ancestry.com

2008-02-22T04:51:00.000-08:00

I've been on vacation this week. It's been filled with cleaning and all those other mundane things that need to get done while I have the time. I took yesterday, however, to do more research in the Drouin Collection on ancestry.com which is part of the World Deluxe subscription.

I admit, I'm not a fan of all of Ancestry's policies. I've had a couple of instances when I've bickered with them over theft of my data (both times, although it took persistance, they removed the information). I have to say though that I love that they have these records online.

The churches in Québec, Canada used to record the vital statistics of its people until around the 1960s. The Institut Généalogique Drouin went through and microfilmed the records to preserve them. Most churches are filmed through 1940, although a few are through the 1960s. As technology changed, the microfilms were scanned. Most institutes that have a copy of the microfilms or scanned records charge for access to them, either a by the hour charge or by the record charge. So, having them accessible at home (so I can browse in my PJs) is awesome.

If you don't have the World Deluxe subscription, you should check to see if your local library has access to that subscription.

If you just need a couple of records and don't have other access to the Ancestry site, the American-Canadian Genealogical Society in Manchester, New Hampshire also has the digital versions of the records. They will provide copies of the record or by the hour access to the collections for a fee. See their website under Drouin.

I believe there are also copies at the American-French Genealogical Society in Woonsocket, RI, the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, MA and the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, IN. I don't know their access policies, so you'd need to research that yourself. Your efforts will be well worth it if you have Québec ancestors!

NY State employee arrested for stealing historical documents

2008-01-29T03:49:00.000-08:00

A New York State employee has been charged with stealing documents and selling them on E-Bay. This person, although he has pleaded innocent, has apparently admitted to stealing documents since 2002 and they recovered about 400 items. That's a long time and a lot of items before getting caught!

Boy, it seems like there have been a lot of these stories in the past year. I understand that people need money and tempations are hard to resist, but it's such a shame. Has this always gone and we're just suddenly catching people or were people "in the old days" more moral? Maybe the places that hold these documents should wake up and update their security policies for their employees. Most already have strict policies in place for visitors who want to look at the records.

Full article here on Reuters.

Have you searched on the new FamilySearch Labs site?

2008-01-17T08:22:00.000-08:00

I wrote a bit back about volunteering to index records for FamilySearch. See that post here.

Did you know that some of the efforts by all these volunteers are already available? Best of all, they're totally FREE and include not only the index, but scans of the original records too!

The special site is at http://labs.familysearch.org. You do need to register for an account in order to access the site, but that is a small requirement.

You should give it a try today! If you do find this project worthwhile, it's still not too late to help. There are many projects currently being indexed. Please consider volunteering.

2007-12-24T15:14:00.001-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that I have picked back up my transcription work on New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life by The New Hampshire Publishing Co., Concord, NH, 1895. This is a wonderful volume. It's not often that you see a biography book mentioning the contributions of one or two women, yet this was a book containing 122 biographies of only women. Additionally, each biography is accompanied by a photo. You can't top that! A new biography will be posted each Sunday until they're all available.

Historical Rutland

2007-12-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

I found a cute little history book on Rutland, Vermont, which will have sections released on even days on my website Family Findings.

The book is Historical Rutland: an illustrated history of Rutland, Vermont, from the granting of the charter in 1761 to 1911 by Rev. F. E. Davison, Rutland, Vt.: P.H. Brehmer, 1911. It had a lot of photos, but my xerox copy was bad, so I didn't try to post them. I'm sorry about that. I would have loved to be able to include the photos. Regardless, the text of the book can be found here. By the end of April, the entire book will be displayed. Enjoy!

The Connecticut River Valley in Southern Vermont and New Hampshire: Historical Sketches

2007-12-15T10:20:00.000-08:00

I found a delightful book entitled The Connecticut River Valley in Southern Vermont and New Hampshire: Historical Sketches and have started transcribing it on my main site Family Findings under the History section.

The book was written by Lyman S. Hayes and published in 1929. It's a great resource for people researching the Rockingham, Vermont and Charlestown, New Hampshire area. It's not genealogies, but there are lots of fun topics on the area covered and some names mentioned. Consider it an easy to read compilation of historical essays on the area.

I've thoroughly been enjoying reading the book as I prepare it for free online access to you all on my website. There will be a new article pretty much every other day until the book is all posted. I think it will be worth your visit!

Remember to backup your data

2007-11-23T15:22:00.001-08:00

Computers are quirky. You just never know when something is going to go wrong with them. You want to make sure that you have multiple copies of your data. Imagine how devastated you'd be to lose your family database or all the scanned photos that a distant cousin emailed to you.

I've been using Mozy to save my files. It's a service that you download a small program and it will automatically backup your changed files as often as you specify. The original backup does take quite a while, but once that's done, it's pretty fast to update your backup.

The largest benefit to this is that it's an off-site backup. If your house burned down, having 100 backups won't do you any good if you kept them in your house.

You can get a free account to backup 2GB of data. Use my referral link (or type my referral code 4YXZQ1) and we'll both get another 256MB of free space. For each friend you refer after that who downloads and backs up their data once, you'll get an extra 256MB.

Why not give it a try? You've got nothing to lose and a lot to save!

Have you indexed today?

2007-11-22T16:01:00.000-08:00

Most of us wish that there were more records online for free. Would you be willing to help out in hopes that you get back?

FamilySearch is seeking volunteers to help them index records. You sign up at http://www.familysearchindexing.org, download a little program and you're in business! When you run the program, you download from various projects that they are working on (always your choice of which one you want to do). Then, the original record is displayed on your screen while you type the data into a spreadsheet that is also on the screen. It's pretty easy, well, easy if the writing is readible. If a page is too difficult to read, you can reject it and get a different page that you can read, either in the same project or a different one.

Imagine the difference that could be made if we all indexed just one page a day. Please consider being a part of this great project.

Oh, and by the way, yes I indexed today!