Category: Research Page 3 of 14

Anything and all related to research

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!

Mystery Monday: DNA Connection – But Where?

By Nichelle Barra

On 31 August 2015

In Discovery, DNA, Research

I shared a while ago about my grandparents getting their DNA tested for me and that I had been impatiently waiting for results. Those results had actually finished quite some time ago and I’ve been slowly learning and playing with the results. I haven’t done enough to merit a blog post… yet.

My chromosome browser with my maternal grandparents selected – It isn’t surprising that I share more segments with my grandmother; I definitely take after her 🙂

I do make sure to always answer emails about possible connections (something I have heard isn’t done as often as others would like). One thing immensely neat about having my grandparents DNA is that I can begin to narrow down connections as well!

To explain, I was emailed by someone, we’ll call him John Doe for the moment, saying that we have a 3rd-5th cousin match, which he is hoping may be able to solve some brick walls for him. So, to see what side he is related to, either my dad’s or my mom’s, I can now check to see if he is related to either of my grandparents – and he is! To my grandfather specifically; and he’s listed as being a 2nd-4th cousin. Nice, right? Which means that John Doe and I are probably 4-5th cousins, so we have a 3x or 4x great-grandparent in common.

I LOVE that I can do that now!

John Doe happens to be looking for a very specific geographic location – Canada. The lineage he is going after happens to be French Canadian. This is also excellent because my grandfather’s paternal line and my grandfather’s maternal grandfather all came over from central Europe; making it much easier to pinpoint what family we may be connected with.

With that, I have it narrowed down a bit. My 4th great-grandmother came from Montreal. Her name is Ellen (Belgard) LaValley. Her parents are Joseph and Sophia (Levereaux ) Belgard – all French Canadian.

So, I may have found the connection. Now comes the mystery – how are the two families connected?

At the moment, he is making a tree with his information, and I’m doing the same with my information and we are hoping to meet somewhere in the middle. And so far… we haven’t.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that I’m chasing down the wrong lineage. There is my 4th great-grandmother, Martha (Dean) Pape, whom I can’t yet confirm her parents names, and therefore can’t say for sure that her lineage is not French Canadian.

The line could also come from the LaValley’s, whom I only have as far as Joseph, Ellen Belgard’s husband, who came from New York but whose family could also be from Canada.

So many choices! Just think if I couldn’t have narrowed it down as much as I had! A moral of this story – get your family members tested! And as far back as you possibly can!

I did hear that my 2nd great-aunt is still alive (sister to my great-grandmother – and connected to the line I’m currently chasing), but I’ve never met her and I think it may not go well if I showed up and asked her to spit in a tube… 🙂

Stay tuned for more on this mystery! It has become my research focus for September!

Tuesday’s Tip: Indexing with FamilySearch

By Nichelle Barra

On 11 August 2015

In Research, Resources

Don’t you just love being able to type a name into a database like those on Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org and get results?

You may have noticed that not all databases get pulled into these searches though; but you are welcome to go through page by page, to find what you’re looking for. It takes a long time and can be quite tedious. Don’t you wish those items were indexed?

Well this is where you can come in and pay it forward to the genealogy community!

FamilySearch.org is currently hosting a World Wide Indexing event and anyone can become involved in this project!

Get Started

You can check out some more information here but it’s quite easy to get started. First, you do need an account with FamilySearch – it’s free! You fill out the form and you’re set! Very simple.

Once you have that, you can then begin indexing. First, you’ll need to download the indexing program.

It doesn’t take too long and then you’ll have a small icon that says FamilySearch Indexing on your desktop (well, that’s where I put mine anyway). Double click, log in – and start!

How To Index

Once you log-in, you’ll have a tip of the day show up. You can disable this or not. I leave mine up because the reminders are nice. Your screen will look somewhat similar to this:

You have three main spaces here: My Batches, My Messages, and what I call My Results.

My Batches

Here is where you have a list of files you have chosen to index. In the above picture, mine is currently blank. To download a new batch, you just click on the download batch button. You can also choose to work offline or online.

My Messages

Self-explanatory really. Right now there’s a message up about the Worldwide Indexing Event. You can dismiss these messages as you read them.

My Results

Here you can view several different tabs. The above picture shows my goals, which I currently have nothing set. If you wanted to set some goals for yourself, that’s where you’d do it and keep track of your goal.

My history shows your records you’ve submitted and your points. Your points just let you see what you’ve contributed to FamilySearch indexing for the month, the quarter, the year, and since you’ve started.

Arbitration Results tells you the percentage of how much what you indexed matches with a reviewer. After you submit your work it goes to an arbitrator who goes through it once more. This is a good tool for seeing where you may need improvement (especially when reading those handwritten documents!).

The Indexing Links is the last tab and has guides, tutorials, projects, wiki’s, etc. for you to look through if you so wish.

Downloading a Batch

As I said, you click the download batch button to get your documents. A box will pop up and here you’ll have some choices

In the upper right hand corner, you’ll see a link to edit your preferences. That takes you outside of the indexing program where you can choose your email preferences, project difficulty level, and project languages.

Once set, in the download batch box, you can choose to show all projects or your preferred projects. You can then organize the projects by project name, description, level, or points by clicking on the heading box of the category you wish to organize. For example, organizing by level will give you a result like this:

Notice that it has all the beginning projects listed and it goes to intermediate and then advanced. Organizing this way is nice, especially if you’re new to indexing.

Once you find a project you’d like to work on, you can indicate how many batches you’d like in the lower left hand corner. You can use the arrows or type it in but you can’t have more than 10 batches at a time. You can also click the view sample button if you wish to see what it looks like before taking on a project.

So once you find a project you wish to work on, select it, choose how many batches you’d like, then hit ok and it will take you to the project indexing screen.

There are three boxes on this and are self explanatory. You’ll want to focus at first on the bottom right box for the specific project instructions.

Each project is unique, so I highly recommend reviewing all the instructions for the project before indexing. You can also see many image examples and see exactly how and what they want you to index as well as what to do when you can’t view the image or read the handwriting. A lot of this repeats and you’ll become more and more familiar with the process as you continue to index.

Once done with a batch, you submit it and it’ll disappear from your list on your start page.

What if I Can’t Do It?

No problem! Just send it back. There’s a handy button for that:

For whatever reason you can’t complete a batch, you can return it. If it’s too far above your level, you downloaded more than you can do, etc. Just send it back! It’ll ask if it is something for other indexers or if there’s a problem with the image, so click what is appropriate and send it back! No harm done 🙂

You’ll notice that there are due dates for batches. (In the list of projects, ones that are close to their due date can be in red to draw attention to them. So be aware that those have a shorter time-limit than the rest.) Once that due date is up, the batch will be removed from your start screen. So be sure to take on as many batches as is feasible for the time frame! If you decide to download the batches and work offline, you’ll need to be even more cognizant of that time frame.

Worldwide Indexing Event

If you’d like to find some more information on the event, check out Dear Myrtle! She has had several posts on her blog about it, like Saturday’s post. She also has a schedule of events if you wish to participate with her! Today’s indexing session is complete but check out her schedule for other events.

The event goes from August 7-14 so you definitely have time to contribute! There is a goal for 100,000 people to participate in this event and they are nearly halfway there! It’s a lot of fun to index regardless of this event so even if you don’t make it during this week definitely check it out and help other people find their ancestors just a bit faster. 🙂

You can check out the FamilySearch Indexing Facebook Page or the FamilySearch Facebook page too for more information.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with FamilySearch.org nor a member of the LDS church; I happen to find indexing fun and enjoy being able to help others search a bit easier 🙂

Tuesday’s Tip: Naturalization Records

By Nichelle Barra

On 4 August 2015

In Research, Resources

Back in March, I wrote about the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the types of records you can get from them.

I also mentioned that I had sent for a genealogy index search for my 2x great-grandfather, John Michael Stalmacher. Yesterday, I received this glorious letter in the mail:

So I immediately filled out a request for the information!

That was about a 90-day wait to get the letter that states that yes, they have his file. Now I have another 90-day wait for the file. I did ask for it by email, which was cheaper and I’m hopeful that it will be faster as well.

Getting the Information

First – Search Request

So, how do you go about getting all of this information? First, I filled out the search request (first box on the page) for the index search request. I did not have a file number for John Stalmacher, so I had to have them search for one. The cost is $20 just for the search, and no, you can’t go there yourself to do the searching.

You’ll need this information:

Name of immigrant
Immigrant’s Country of Birth (you can choose other to type in a country)
Immigrant’s date of birth and then you indicate if that is the estimated birth or exact (if estimated, you’ll get a warning that if the DOB is less than 100 years, proof of death would be required to release information)
Immigrant’s Date of Arrival – either the exact date or date range
Where did the immigrant live in the US and when – you can put a range for the possible dates if unknown (I used census information and draft cards to help fill this in)
Optional information that include a maiden name of immigrant, other names, or names of other family members as well any other information that can help a search. For this part I filled in that in 1920 he was an alien and in 1930 he was naturalized according to census records.

Then you wait. Sometimes it can come in 3-4 weeks but it could (like mine) take up to 90 days. Be forewarned, I got a letter within a week from them and got very excited. Then I opened it to find it was just the confirmation that they got my request and gave me my case number. That case number is important though as you use it to check your status.

Once the status shows the search is completed, wait for about 6-7 days to get your letter that looks like the above.

Second – The File

Once you get that letter, you can then request your file! Check out my previous blog post about the USCIS (link in the beginning) to read what kind of files you can hope to get. The file for my ancestor is a C-File or Certificate File. I am hoping it will have when he arrived in the U.S. as well as his place of birth. It says Russia on the letter but he also says Poland in other records (which is also where his younger brother was born). So having a city could help me to see where exactly and then look at the border changes that happened when he filled out certain forms. Plus, that will lead to possible baptism records, which could lead to parents, etc. etc.

Don’t Forget to Check Your Local Court Records!

Now, if you happen to live in an area where your ancestor applied for citizenship, you don’t necessarily need to go through all of this. You could just go get them from the court indicated in the letter. They may not have the information, that’s always a possibility you should be aware of. Of course, calling ahead of time (or checking out the website) can help you to find where the information is held and what kind of information they have and I’d highly recommend doing that before heading over.

For me, the cost of gas for such a visit is well over the cost of the emailed information. Of course, not waiting may have been worth it… but I can’t schedule in a visit during the week for a few months anyway so this is the course I’m taking.

Do any of you have successful or not successful stories about searching for naturalization records? Share below or on Facebook!

Category: Research Page 3 of 14

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

Mystery Monday: DNA Connection – But Where?

Tuesday’s Tip: Indexing with FamilySearch

Tuesday’s Tip: Naturalization Records