Tag: thrifty thursday

Thrifty Thursday and Review: The 15 Habits of Highly Frugal Genealogists

15 Habits Highly Frugal - Cover

Book Description from the author:

“Researching your family history can be fun, but like many hobbies, it can turn into an obsession, and an expensive one at that. There are many ways to save money while you pursue the “hunt” for your roots: some are just common sense while others are, frankly, ingenious. Also keep in mind that it doesn’t pay to be so focused on “frugal” that in the long run you either lose money or that genealogy is no longer “fun.”

The title of this book is misleading, and intentionally so. The fact is, you’ll find over 30 amazing ways to save money when purchasing genealogy-related products and services. You may already be using some of these tricks, but I guarantee that once you starting using some of the more unusual money-saving tips, you’ll say to yourself, “Now, why didn’t I think of that!”

Finally, the end of The 15 Habits of Highly Frugal Genealogists is filled with special offers exclusively for those who have purchased this book. These deals were specifically negotiated with certain vendors and most use links or promo codes that are valid through the end of 2015.

SPECIAL EXCLUSIVE SAVINGS!

As a reader of The 15 Habits of Highly Frugal Genealogists, you’ll have exclusive access to the following deals negotiated with specific vendors.

  • MyHeritage: Save 35% off a Premium Plus account and 1 year Data Subscription
  • Legacy Tree Genealogists: $45 off any genealogy research project
  • Hack Genealogy Boot Camp: 30% off any digital download
  • Legacy Family Tree: 15% off an annual membership at Legacy Family Tree webinars; 15% off Legacy Family Tree Deluxe Software
  • Shop Family Tree: 15% off any one item at ShopFamilyTree.com
  • Amazon: Various savings on genealogy products
  • Family Tree Tours: Save $50 on any tour booking
  • Flip-Pal® mobile scanner: Save $35 on a special Flip-Pal mobile scanner bundle
  • Larsen Digital: 10% off ALL conversion services including audio, video and more!
  • AncestryDNA: Free Shipping on all AncestryDNA kits
  • Evidentia: 20% off Evidentia software
  • Genealogical Publishing Company: 30% off all items at Genealogical.com”

Thomas MacEntee’s newest e-book The 15 Habits of Highly Frugal Genealogists does not disappoint! There are so many great pieces of advice in this short read and, as he said in the description, more than just 15. There were things even I had no clue about (and I consider myself pretty frugal). Here are a few of my favorites:

  • Holiday’s can mean FREE access for several websites! This is a great time to hear this one as Labor Day is this weekend and I’ve already shared some of the free access to come this weekend.
  • Cycling on/off your subscriptions and how to use Ancestry.com wisely and frugally
  • Ever cancelled your subscription and had them resubscribe you anyway? There’s a fix for that!
  • How to use Amazon.com to your advantage – there are some GREAT tips in the book about that (and not just genealogy related)!

Not only are the tips useful, but he also gives you a great list of discounts! The e-book is priced at $2.99 and the savings you’ll earn by following his advice and taking advantage of his discounts will make this book free and then some!

To top it all off, this e-book will be FREE to download starting tomorrow and through Sunday. Really, you have nothing to lose and so much to gain!

Full Disclaimer: I was given a copy of the book to review for my blog. All the opinions are my own!

Review: Essential Family Tree Forms

About a month ago, Geneabloggers Genealogy Bargains mentioned the Essential Family Tree Forms Library CD on sale for 25% off (it still is 25% off by the way!). The rave review from Geneabloggers and the price made this a simple decision for me. And this week, it finally arrived!

Essential Family Tree Forms

What Is It?

There are 75 worksheets/checklists/templates included in the CD. They are all a PDF but you can type into them and save the forms (which I love)!

  • Basic Genealogy Forms
    • Includes the usual pedigree (5-generation) and family group sheet but ALSO includes an adoptive family chart, a step-family chart, and a source list!
  • US Census Extraction Forms
    • 1790-1940 – These are really great when pulling information from census records and you can’t for whatever reason download/print the actual image of the census record.
  • Checklists
    • For census records, home sources, military, and just records in general. There’s also a handy cousin-chart and an example for source documentation.
  • Immigrant Research Forms
    • Includes an ancestral village worksheet, customs lists, and passenger lists through the years along with a passenger list search worksheet
  • Online Research Helps
    • Includes an ancestor worksheet for online searches and an online search tracker
  • Person Worksheets
    • Includes an ancestor worksheet, a biographical outline, a living relative search worksheet and a military service record sheet
  • Photo and Heirloom Forms
    • Includes sheets for recording your inventory of archived items, heirlooms, and photos. It also includes sheets for ancestral homes, recipes, helping to identify pictures, who has what and where, etc.
  • Records Worksheets
    • Includes worksheets for: birth, death, marriage index, deed, land, cemetery, news clipping, and burned county information
  • Research Logs
    • A great table of contents chart for your files along with the usual items you’d expect: correspondence log, note taking forms for library research, research items like a journal, calendar, planner, and log.
  • Research Trip Aids
    • Wonderful charts for helping you to research the repository before you go, as well as a great budget planning sheet and a packing list.
  • Story and Tradition Forms
    • Great for family get togethers! These include a family interview sheet (in case you weren’t sure what to ask), a family stories sheet, any family traditions, and a record for your oral interviews.
  • Surname Worksheets
    • Sheets for recording the story behind a certain name, any variations in the spelling of the name along with when and where, and a great surname worksheet where you can keep track of several names (and their variants) in one place.

Pros

The Ancestral Village Worksheet was something I hadn’t thought about until I saw the sheet and I can see how useful it could be! Certain items, like other historical names, are incredibly important to remember when looking for your ancestors!

The Passenger List Search Worksheet is great when you’re looking for someone with a name that could be spelled and transcribed many ways. This sheet has you write down everything you already know in order to help you better search for your ancestor in a passenger list database.

The Online Search Tracker and the Ancestor Worksheet for Online Searches are unique. As a professional, this is a great chart to use when I am quickly doing a surface search for someone, but have not created a tree for them yet and just need some background first. This is a great place to keep the information organized.

The Ancestor Worksheet I could see being very useful when you hit a brick wall. It’s a great place to quickly put all you already know about them in one place and then see what you could be missing.

The Correspondence Log does not need to be just family. I keep one that goes for everyone I’ve asked for information on whomever I was looking for. This includes when I ask societies or libraries. It’s a good habit to get into!

I really enjoy the Research Trip Aid items. They are wonderful and I can already tell I’ll be using the budget one frequently. The set up for the repository worksheet is great as well as it includes things people may not think about right away like are they closed for lunch? What restrictions are there for electronics? Or is anything stored off-site? All great questions you should know before you go!

Cons

While useful, I don’t know that I’d create checklists for things like JUST census records or military records. I tend to look at one person and see what I have for them, so that makes the records checklist probably the most beneficial for me.

I am a proponent of citing something instead of nothing so the included citation cheat sheet will help with that. However, it is missing a few components that I feel are important (like who you are specifically looking at), but for those who haven’t cited before, it is still a great start.

Some items, like the Photographic Record, Heirloom Recording Form, the Military Service Record, and the Recipe History Recorder are nice for presentation. If you aren’t going to present that information in some way, I don’t find them incredibly useful. All that information can be recorded elsewhere (although the Heirloom and Recipe Recorder do leave room for memories/stories about said heirloom/recipe).

As mentioned, the Correspondence Log is a great habit to get into but this one lacks information I would want to include. Besides the basic columns in the log (date, who to, address, information received, sent, or requested), I also like to include information on the person I’m researching, the specific question I had, if I sent money, and then the result. Since this is just a family log, I suppose it doesn’t need as much detail, but I just use a bigger one that I created.

Overall

I’d say this was a sound purchase! The price was great and I already see many worksheets/templates/checklists that I will be using in the future. This may be less of a value to someone who has been in genealogy for a while and may have already created similar documents. I hadn’t yet though and I find many of these to be quite beneficial!

 

 

Thrifty Thursday: Free Webinars at Legacy Family Tree Webinars!

So life got busy there for a while. It’s settled down now and I will get back to my regular blog posts next week!

Here’s a short one for today – FREE Family History Webinars for 2015 by Legacy Family Tree webinars! Now, you have to view it live to get it free but if you can make the time, this is a wonderful resource for education!

PTDC0072

It’s a light font on the side so if it’s too hard to read, go to the link above and then click on the print brochure button for the pdf copy. The side information gives information on what a webinar is, what you need, and the cost (free if you view it live).

Don’t forget all of the free access items this weekend! I’ve posted about it on Facebook and I’ll post about it again tomorrow 🙂

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