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Educational Opportunity – FutureLearn: Online and FREE!

 Future Learn is an online educational site that offers a selection of courses from several different universities. They offer language courses, historical courses, writing courses, and pretty much anything you can imagine. The best part? They have FREE courses! If you choose, you can buy a Certificate of Achievement at the end of the course but that’s optional.

I have taken historical courses from them and recently took a six week genealogy course that was done by the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. If you are unfamiliar with that university, you should check out the link for some of their amazing courses they offer. Although pricey, they offer certificates and degrees in genealogical studies. Of course, their research is more UK based but you can take it online, which is a nice choice (although really, I wouldn’t mind if I had to go to Scotland!).

The course from FutureLearn is called Genealogy: Researching Your Family TreeIt starts 18 July and runs for six weeks. FutureLearn estimates the time per week to be about 4 hours and I’d say that’s at the maximum. You’ll likely spend less time than that per week depending on how much interaction you do.

Here is a rundown of the course:

  • Ideal for beginners who are just getting into genealogy
  • Great refresher for those who aren’t beginners – it’s always great to go back to the basics and be sure you haven’t missed anything. Not to mention, new ideas come out all the time!
  • Ideal for those with UK ancestors as it discusses many of UK resources
  • Shows how DNA can work into your genealogy
  • Allows for discussion among classmates

The course is something that can easily fit into your schedule. You can take your time and do a bit each day, or spend a few hours on the weekend going through all the week’s lessons. Either way, it is easy to work in.

After taking the course just recently, here are my thoughts:

Pros

  • Nicely paced – very easy to follow along
  • All videos have a transcription – this is wonderful when they begin to discuss DNA. You can download the transcription for further study as it can be complex at times.
  • Solid methodology
  • Includes how to do citations (always a pro for me!)
  • Includes resources for UK research

Cons

  • Includes resources for UK research – this is both a pro and a con. If you don’t have UK ancestors, then a lot of the resources may not be useful to you. The instructor does mention US resources too, but as the course is done by the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, it makes sense it would focus on records available there. Just something to be aware of.
  • Really, this isn’t a con, but more of something to keep in mind – this course is taught by University of Strathclyde, as already mentioned, which means that they use different terms than genealogists in the United States will. In the first week, you’ll discuss source types and this is where the US and the UK differ quite a bit:
    • US: Original source = UK: Primary Source – this is the first form of something and normally created close to the event – historical fields in the US also call these primary sources
    • US: Secondary = UK: Derived Primary Source – these are normally a step away from the original. So an index, a transcription, an abstract, etc. Someone used the original to create those and since it goes through another person, there’s more room for error.
    • US: Authored = UK: Secondary Source – the US description is self-explanatory really. These are resources where someone else has looked through research and put together an analysis or interpretation. Historical fields in the US also call these secondary sources.

Why does the US differ on this? Because when genealogists in the US analyze the source, we identify the information in it as primary or secondary. For example, a death certificate is an original source. The death information is primary, meaning it comes from a person who was there at the time of the event, like the doctor who attended the death (normally – I’m sure there could be an exception to this). However, the birth information can be secondary, meaning it comes from a person who was not there at the time of birth, like the spouse or child of the deceased.

This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just something to keep in mind if you are in the US doing research as you’ll notice the change in these terms. For more information, and a good website to book mark, see Evidence Explained QuickLesson 17: The Evidence Analysis Process Map.

Overall Response

I do recommend this course for beginners to experienced genealogists. It’s a lot of fun, has great information, included new (to me) research resources, and I always enjoy interacting with other genealogists. The six weeks flew by for me and I had no problem fitting it into my schedule and found the website very easy to use.

So, what are you waiting for? Go sign up! 🙂

FutureLearn

 

Tuesday’s Tip on Wednesday: FamilySearch.org

This would normally be a Tuesday’s Tip but I was trying to finish many things yesterday and didn’t get the chance to do a blog post. So here it is today!

familysearch main page

Yesterday evening, one of the local genealogy groups hosted someone from the LDS church to come and talk about FamilySearch.org. I am already familiar with the website and I have an account because I index with them, so I wasn’t quite sure what I would learn from the talk as I thought she would discuss some of the beginner type of items. I was pleasantly surprised at how wonderfully informative the chat was!

Here are two of the best things that I learned:

  • When you have a family tree on their site (free and ALWAYS public – you can’t make it private), there are many different ways to view it:
The familiar landscape view

The familiar landscape view

The familiar portrait view

The familiar portrait view

My FAVORITE way to see things! The Fan Chart

My FAVORITE way to see things! The Fan Chart

New to me, the Descendancy View

New to me, the Descendancy View

I did not know there were that many options! As you can see, my tree is very sparse on familysearch.org but I plan on changing that!

  • Once you begin a tree on FamilySearch.org you can go to treeseek.com, which is part of FamilySearch.org. You can sign in with your familysearch log in, and then you can create a BEAUTIFUL fan chart with 9 Generations!!!! There are other very neat things you can do there as well like photo charts, name clouds, pedigrees, and smaller generational charts:

Treeseek

 

Overall, the presentation was great and left me excited to put a tree on FamilySearch.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when using FamilySearch for your online tree:

  • The purpose of FamilySearch is to find the dead, not the living. So if you want to find more and more cousins, this may not be the best site for you.
  • FamilySearch has open, public trees ONLY. If you want private, you won’t want to use this site, but you will also lose out on some of the neat things I showed you above.
  • People can change your tree – because it’s public. Of course, you can discuss these changes with the person who changed it and undo the changes or keep the changes as the discussion progresses. This is a big hurdle for many people to get over, if at all. Having documentation to prove one way or the other is incredibly helpful.

One thing I found interesting is that our presenter showed a video where they discussed “my-tree-itis” where you don’t want to share your information or allow others to make changes on your tree. Since I have a private tree on ancestry.com, I completely get this! When people want to change things I admit that sometimes I take it personally; however, if they have evidence to back up their claim, I will gladly change the information!

I can see both sides to the arguments: keep it private so you know the information is correct and share with those you choose; keep it public so others can benefit from it as it is their family as well, which is also what genealogy can do for you: find new family members!

With those two arguments in mind, I did create a tree on the website. I’m starting from scratch on there though, not uploading a GEDCOM. The reasoning is because the ancestor may already be in the system and this prevents creating new people when a merge would be plenty. So, now I have a place to keep all my familysearch research! Will I add items I find outside of FamilySearch? Maybe, more so if it helps to get further back in a generation. I appreciate that this site is for helping and sharing with others who are family. I also appreciate that you can discuss changes on your tree to show why you believe as you do. I’m willing to give it a shot!

 

Have any of you used familysearch.org as your main tree online? Pros? Cons? Advice?

 

Happy hunting everyone!

Tuesday’s Tip: Look Before You Search

Where to begin???

Where to begin??? By Bobak Ha’Eri (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

As a teacher, I learned very quickly that reinventing the wheel was a waste of time and effort. After trying that a few times (yes, sometimes I can be a slow learner!), I decided to always look to see if what I had in mind had been done before. Often I’d be able to find what I was looking for or something very similar that required only small modifications. This was a lot less work and headache for me!

This same principle applies to genealogy as well. You may be searching for an ancestor that has already had some of your questions answered! The question then is how do you find this out?

  1. Check the library – libraries are one of the best places to start depending on your question. It’s best to use the library in your ancestor’s locality as well since they will have access/knowledge about records specific to that area, not to mention that if the family was prominent in the area there could be one or more books about the family too.
  2. Contact the local genealogy group – I’ve talked about this here and what a great resource this is for people! They can have many unknown to you resources that could be possibly help smash that brick wall of yours.
  3. PERSI – libraries will often have access to PERSI which means you can search historical and genealogical journals for your ancestor. Check out the PERSI link for more information on how to do that!
  4. Internet Resources: Here are some examples of what I mean
    1. State Library – MANY states have a section on their website dedicated to genealogy. Sometimes you can even find a great treasure like SeekingMichigan.org, which is founded by the Library of Michigan and the Archives of Michigan. Their death records have saved me MANY trips!
    2. State Archives – Same thing as above – some great resources/documents are already available online and may point you in the right direction!
    3. USGenWeb Project – This volunteer run website has something for every state (although some more detailed than others). A lot of these has some historical tidbits that could possibly mention an ancestor or something that can give you clues as to what is available in that county/state.
    4. Cyndi’s List – a great place to look for some ideas and other resources
    5. FamilySearch Wiki – probably one of my favorite places to go to for some preliminary research. Not every state/county will have the same amount of information but these are still wonderful places to search through. They will usually tell you about boundary changes, any record loss, the county seat, nearby counties, and resources available, at least on FamilySearch, for that county/state. Such great information!
    6. Google – of course, you can always google the name you’re looking for. Sometimes websites can be brought up that mention them (I’ve been contacted by cousins who found my blog this way). There are many tips and tricks out there for using Google as well. EOGN has discussed this many times, there is a Cyndi’s List for it, and even FindMyPast has discussed it. It’s a great place to look!
    7. Google Books/Archive.org/Genealogy Gophers – there are several ways to search through old books without leaving your home. I discussed Genealogy Gophers here. There is also archive.org which, among other things, is a library of free books that you can read (and search!). And there is Google Books – which can be free to read as well. Getting the book depends on the copyright, of course, but these are all places to check out before you really dive into that brick wall of yours.

One thing to remember though is that this is just the beginning of your search. It doesn’t end there! Many times you’ll still need to verify the information you find with documentation since many old books won’t tell you what source the information came from. Preliminary searches are simply to see what has already been done or who else is looking for them. Searching this way can give you insights on what records to search, what records still exist, if there are any cousins out there looking for them, if the ancestor has already been a subject of someone’s research, etc.

 

Are there any websites or places I left out for preliminary searches? Comment below!

 

Happy hunting!

 

Tuesday’s Tip: Elizabeth Shown Mills’ FAN Principle

By not mentioned [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

By not mentioned [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

MANY of us have that one brick wall that really just… irritates us. Well not irritates, but frustrates us because we can’t seem to figure out parentage, for example, on that person – or any family for that matter! There can be a variety of reasons for this to happen – the census records where the ancestor was living with his parents wouldn’t list everyone’s names, by the time you have records for him he’s already married with children, he has a very common name, etc.

So what do you do?

One principle that Elizabeth Shown Mills has created is called the FAN principle, or the FAN club, or cluster research. FAN stands for friends, associates, and neighbors, and the acronym makes it easier to remember, so I prefer that name. The idea here is to broaden your research scope to those whom your ancestor associated with on a daily basis. Who were his neighbors? Were they always his neighbors? Using census records, were there any families that moved with him or stayed nearby? Whom did he sell land to? Or buy land from? What about church associates? Colleagues? His children’s spouse’s family? Who were the witnesses to his marriage(s) or baptisms for his children? Did his children ever live with other people before getting married?

This goes beyond just searching for those with the same surname in the county and surrounding counties of your ancestor (but that is also a good idea)! It gives you a much wider picture of your ancestor’s life. The FAN principle is also EXCELLENT when documents you want/need have been destroyed or just don’t seem to exist. By using indirect and negative evidence like this, you can come up with a soundly researched, coherently written conclusion for a proof argument.

For more reading on using this principle, check out these resources:

Have you used the FAN principle before? Leave comments/questions below about your experience!

 

Happy hunting!

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