Archive for How To
One of the things I always look forward to is my Ancestry Magazine that comes every other month. While I consider it something that I do in my leisure, it always seems to spur on my imagination for new places that I have not looked for missing ancestors.
Executive Editor Loretto (Lou) Dennis Sucs has posted a great list of 300 Family History Sources on the Ancestry Blog that you may find interesting and give you some additional places you may not have thought of for missing family.
If you have any that are missing from the list let me know by commenting below so that we can help other researchers.
Enjoy
Filed under: How To | ancestry magazine, family history, family research|No Comments
For most people living in the US who are looking to trace their family history, most long lost relatives of recent years can be found in United States repositories. However, what happens when you discover the country your ancestors originally immigrated from?
Since the advent of the internet, there are quite a large amount of records available online but not all. There are also massive amounts of information on microfilm for viewing at your local family history center, but again, not all records worldwide have been put to film. This leaves only one option; performing research within the community your family originally hails from.
»» Hiring A Professional Genealogist Abroad To Conduct Your Family History Research
Filed under: How To, In the News | genealogy research, personal researcher, professional genealogist|No Comments
By Tamie Dehler
Special to the Tribune-Star
All genealogists are challenged to some degree when they have to read and interpret documents in original handwriting. And the further back in time the handwriting sample is, the greater the challenge, until our own language looks foreign to us. A Web site aimed at scholars and researchers aspires to change all of that. English Handwriting 1500-1700, an online course, is a remarkably professional and thorough course of study, certainly equivalent to a college class.
The site is at www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/index.html and contains 28 self-guided lessons ranging in degree of difficulty from 1 to 5. Each lesson divides the computer screen into four sections: the first shows the sample text that you are to work with. The second section is your transcription window, where you type in your interpretation of the sample text. The third section gives you information about the sample you are working with, a description of the hand (type of writing) and the date it was written. The fourth section consists of various help buttons you can click on, view a transcription of the sample, show the written letters of alphabet in upper or lower case, see a table of common abbreviations, and take a test on this sample. The material in the 28 lessons starts with a level 1 in difficulty (I found this level easy) and works its way up to a level 5.
The site also has lots of supporting data, which should be looked at before attempting the courses. Included is a historical introduction that describes and illustrates the inks, resins, writing instruments, and surfaces used. This part gives the recipes and methods that were used to make a usable ink or to prepare a surface for writing, and it illustrates examples with actual pictures rather than drawings.
The transcription conventions section defines, lists, and gives examples of methods of abbreviation, which includes contractions (leaving out letters in the middle of a word, such as “Dr” for “Doctor” ), suspension (leaving off the end letters of a word, such as “etc” for “et cetera”), and brevigraphs (using a symbol to indicate a word or part of a word, such as “&” for “and” and the Greek chi-“X”-for “Christ”). Tildes (~) were placed over a letter to indicate that letters in the word have been omitted. Superscripts were letters written smaller and placed above the baseline as a sort of shortcut. The punctuation marks used (quite different from modern ones) are also discussed and illustrated.
The alphabets section illustrates two “hands” or styles of writing used in various documents-the Italic hand and the Jacobian Court hand. The user can view written examples these hands as well as examples of the upper or lower case letters of the “secretarie” alphabet, which was used during this time period.
The section on dating and describing hands tells how some of the different hands evolved over time and defines different features of writing and letter formation. Dating can be tricky, as the date on a document might actually be the date it was transcribed by the writer from another, older, document.
The sample transcriptions section is a shortcut for those not wanting to take the 28 lessons, but still wanting to look at each of the sample documents and study it along with it’s transcription.
This is a great site to visit to refine your skills in transcribing old handwriting. Anyone graduating from this online classroom will be close to an “expert” by the time they are finished. The site is free to use with no registration.
• If you are interested in going to the Allen County Public Library for a research trip Nov. 12-14, contact David Bonnett at davidbonnett@verizon.net or visit the WVGS Web site at www.inwvgs.org for trip information and prices.
Filed under: - Handwriting Research, How To | deciphering old handwriting, genealogy|No Comments
Often times when searching genealogical records from any given “large” database site it can be easy to get lost or not find what you KNOW should be there because of the search tools that are provided to search the site.
Stephen Morse has an incredible site he calls “A One Step Portal for On-Line Genealogy” on which he has built some very advanced search pages to search the following records:
Ellis Island, Other Ports, US Census, Canada/UK Census, New York Census, Vital Records, Calendars, Maps, etc., Foreign Alphabets, Holoc & East Europe, Genetics (DNA), Creating your own Search Applications
And More… bookmark this one and make sure to read the How to Use this site file he has.
Even if you have searched some of the sites on your own you may want to consider giving it a try again, especially if you have come up “blank” in the past and feel confident that your ancestor should be listed.
Happy Trails..
Filed under: - DNA/Genetic Genealogy, - Immigration, - Vital Records, Canada, How To, UK, US Federal | - Vital Records, canada UK census, ellis island, foreign alphabets, genetics, new york census, us census|No Comments
The Google search engine was launched in 1999 and since then they have refined it in such a way that you can narrow neraly any kind of search possible using common symbols called operands.
Genealogists figured this out quickly and for many this is the first place they begin researching because it can give you clues that you may not have thought of by the results you get… and its free.
Operands are nothing more than symbols that you use before, after or between words or phrases to narrow your search which act as filters for you. This is helpful because of returning millions of pages you can get a few thousand or hundred very relevant links to look through.
The most common operands are
+ or AND - Using a + or the word AND (in all caps) between two words, for example a first name + last name, or first name AND last name will return only sites that contain that first name and last name in combination. You can use it for more than just names: first name + last name + state + city, last name + year, and the list goes on.
“” - Using quotes “first name” around any word or group of words will only bring back sites that contain that EXACT word, or phrase. If we use our example above and search “first name + last name” + state + city our search is narrowed by sites that contain the first name and last name SPECIFICALLY for that state and city. Maybe you dont know the first name of your ancestor, you could type “lastname” + city + state and narrow from there. Very often this type of searching will bring back family websites that you never knew existed… try this “daniel + hogan” + city + state.
- (minus symbol) - The minus symbol does the exact opposite of the + symbol. Using it can exclude words you don’t want to be considered in your search. Be careful not to go crazy with this one, you dont need to exclude words like, and, the, if etc.. For example lets say I am looking for Daniel Hogan only, not Dan Hogan. I can type “Daniel + hogan” + Iowa + farley - “dan + hogan”. Perhaps I want to find Daniel in every state but Iowa, I would use “Daniel + hogan” + united states -Iowa. Make sure you watch your spacing here placing a space after the - symbol will not return the correct results.
* - * or the wildcard symbol is another fun operand and usually brings back many more results for you. This is helpful in situations where perhaps you don’t know all of the information you need like a first name of a family member. An example might be * “hogan” + Ireland or * “hogan” +Ireland. Give it a try, you can use more than names a wildcard is a wildcard and can bring back some really unique results.
.. - The double dot put directly between two numbers denotes a range to narrow the results down. This is great for finding information between ranges of years. Using our “hogans” above example we might use “hogan” +Ireland 1800..1900 Note that there are no spaces between the numbers or the dots.
These are the most “common” operands and there are many more but if you have a hard time remembering them you can always use the Advanced Search button on the main page of Google next to the search box to help you along.
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