How would you find them without an index?

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="75"] English: 145-volume stack of the 1959 World Book Encyclopedia printed in Braille. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

How's that for a question?  Back...way back...when I first began researching on the internet, there weren't

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="75"] Advertisement for Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1913 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

very many records that were "indexed."  What that means specifically can be explained best by thinking back ....way back....when we had giant sets of books like the Encyclopedia Brittanica or World Book Encyclopedia.  There were thousands and thousands of pages of articles that talked about everything you can possibly imagine.  Have you ever used an encyclopedia?  If not, I can tell you that they were usually 20 to 25 volumes, each of which contained 400 or 500 pages of information.

Now picture having an encyclopedia in place of Google.  Except that this imaginary encyclopedia isn't even arranged alphabetically.  Everything is just sort of piled in there, stuck every which way with the first article about watermelons followed by zebras then something else totally unconnected to what came before or what came after.  How long would it take you to find the article about Hawaii? I can tell you, you'd be late for dinner!  But these volumes were "indexed" so that you could go to the back of the book and look up your subject in an alphabetical index.  That would send you not only to the right volume, but the exact page you needed....a primitive Google, if you will!  No bells and whistles....just words and pictures.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="75"] English: Google Logo officially released on May 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

Welcome to the world of un-indexed US Census records or un-indexed city probate files or un-indexed anything!.  How is it that finding what we're looking for is so easy today?  The answer is simple: indexing!

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="75"] Adriana Hernandez baptized 1925 (Photo credit: GoCal83)[/caption]

 

So who does all this indexing? Family Search just announced that they have a billion records indexed.  That will sure help all of us in our diligent search for any genealogical records.  But the mystery remains: Who does all this indexing? The answer is so simple, I'm sure you already know.  It's you and me!  Well, I can say "you" if you've ever signed up as a volunteer indexer.  How did the search engines get the 1940 US Census up and searchable so fast?  Indexers, volunteer indexers.

Here's my point: If everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY could find the time to get involved just a little imagine the amazing, mind-numbing volume of records could be indexed in a single day!  Family Search has already had one "mass indexing day" back on 2 July 2012 when a total of nearly 50,000 indexers and arbitrators set a record for the most number of indexers working in one day!

Well they're planning on it again and YOU can help!  On Sunday, July 20, 2014 at 9 PM eastern time and continuing for 24 hours, Family Search is challenging all genealogists to break that 2012 record and index as many records as possible. Have you been indexing right along?  Then please be sure to participate in the "World Indexing Project" by indexing just one record...and more if you can!  But they're only asking for 50,000 plus to help with just one record.  That's all!

If you've never indexed records for Family Search, click on the "Indexing" tab on the home page and you'll discover how interesting it can be for a researcher to see how it all works.  Here's the "Worldwide Indexing Event" page at Family Search and here's "Worldwide Indexing Event" at their Facebook page which was set up strictly for this project. If you've never been to the site, you'll have to establish a user name and password.  But there's no cost, no membership fees, no worries!

Good luck!  Give it a shot!  No one starts out running, there's a short learning curve with plenty of on site assistance every

step of the way.  Like the commercial, "Try it!  You'll like it!!"

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Genealogy Hangouts On Air..from Australia!

Well....it's done.  For what it's worth, I had a great time. This was my first opportunity to be a "guest speaker" on an international level. (Thanks to Fiona Tellesson!)  But that's only because I had a chance to talk uninterrupted as long as I wanted.  Sort of!  So I'm blogging this to give all my faithful followers a link to the Google Hangout we recorded with Fiona. She has been conducting these "Hangouts" for a little over 2 years.  She asked me last week if I'd like to "appear" and I said I'd be happy to.  And I'm putting this out there because although I speak to local groups from small to relatively large, this is the first time I've had the floor with what turns out to be an international audience.

It's just less than an hour, but they told me that it turned out to be very interesting. So if you watch it for 5 minutes or 55 minutes, I'd appreciate it!

Once again, click here to go to the YouTube presentation.

Thanks!

Detail of the House of Stuart Genealogy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Genealogy Hangouts On Air..from Australia!

Well....it's done.  For what it's worth, I had a good time.  But that's only because I had a chance to talk uninterrupted as long as I wanted.  Sort of!  So I'm blogging this tonight to give all my faithful followers a link to the Google Hangout we recorded with Fiona Tellesson.  She has been conducting these "Hangouts" for a little over 2 years.  She asked me last week if I'd like to "appear" and I said I be happy to.  And I'm putting out there because although I speak to local groups from small to relatively large, this is the first time I've had the floor with what turns out to be an international audience.

It's just less than an hour, but they told me that it turned out to be very interesting. So if you watch it for 5 minutes or 55 minutes, I'd appreciate it!

Once again, click here to go to the YouTube presentation.

Thanks!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350"] Detail of the House of Stuart Genealogy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

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"...with special guest, Dave Robison"

How 'bout that!  In the past several weeks, I've been participating in many "Google Hangouts."  They're much like GoToWebinar, but they're free to use. Call them a virtual meeting. For example, "Monday's with Myrt" is a genealogy discussion with participants from, literally, around the world.  You can find them posted here.  One of the people whom I've "met" is an Australian genealogist, Fiona Tellesson who has been conducting "Hangouts" for quite some time and has several each week.  Her audience is not just restricted to Australia as she has become an international genealogy Hangout facilitator.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="75"] Australian Coat of Arms (adopted 1912) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

I told you all that so that I can tell you this:  Friday, April 18th at 6 PM eastern, her show or Hangout is featuring yours truly!!  How 'bout that??  I'll be interviewed by Fiona for this week's broadcast and I'd like to invite everyone to come on in and watch the show!  Here's a link where you can find out a little more about it and, I think, sign up to "attend."  If that doesn't work and you'd like to attend, send your e-mail address directly to me at dave@oldbones.info and I can send you an invitation directly.    I know it's short notice, but we just finalized all of this earlier today.

The Hangouts are a lot of fun, usually very informative and for those who conduct them, free!  I've been using them for the New England Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists (NEAPG). It's a lot cheaper than driving hundreds of miles to get to a face meeting somewhere in New England.  I've also arranged to have some relatively famous, nationally known speakers come to our Western Massachusetts Genealogical Society meetings by simply having them "Hangout" with us.  They don't have to travel and thus, our expense to have them speak to us is minimized!

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"New and Improved" Web Site

Did you ever think about that odd marketing phrase, "New and Improved".  My question is this: How can it be improved already if it's new?

I'll leave that question to those who stay up late at night pondering philosophical questions and various koans! Koans: I learned that word from working crossword puzzles and this is the first time I've had a chance to use it.   Merriam-Webster defines a koan as a "paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment."  Pretty good, huh!

But I write this blog to brag a little about remodeling, renewing, improving and restyling my web site, Old Bones Genealogy of New England.  It's still with Go Daddy.  Sometimes I'm happy about that and other times...they really set me off!  But it's paid for until the middle of this year, so I'll continue to give them the benefit of the doubt.  The singular reason I give them a lot of slack is that they ANSWER THE PHONE!  And the support personnel were all educated in North America. In other words, they understand me and I understand them!

But there were a few wrinkles, a few roadblocks, a few frustrations.  I never knew that I was working all this time with "version 6".  Version 6 is apparently one of the worst bits of software that Go Daddy had released on an unsuspecting customer base. I found it galactically frustrating.  (Is "galactically" a word???)  Whenever I tried to change the copy on any particluar page, it was a struggle of mind over technology!  When I tried to change a font, the color changed.  When I tried to put the color back to where I wanted it, either the whole text box would disappear or the background color would change.  And that's just for starters.

Here's the good news: The junk they called Version 6 has been replaced with Version 7!  Are you as ecstatic as I am?  I knew that 6 was junk and the jury's out on 7.  The bad news was that I had to pick a completely new template and rebuild the whole thing from scratch.  I'm not sure if I got every element in there that I had before, but I'm sure I'll be tweaking this thing into the wee hours of many mornings!

All I want to do is continue my research and help as many people as I can with theirs.  Thus the blog, the website and a lot of time putting together genealogy programs for whoever would like me to conduct a program for their institution.

So to make me feel a little bit better, please take a look at Old Bones Genealogy of New England. Let me know what you think.  And be nice!!

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You've Finally Found that Elusive Relative, but.....

 

Ancestry.com (Photo credit: LollyKnit)

If there's anyone on the planet who is more enthusiastic than me regarding family research, I haven't met them.  I'm especially focused after preparing for and delivering an instructional lecture on just that very subject.  I've been lucky enough to have been able to book 6 different venues for a variety of programs.  Some are "one-night-stands" and others are 3, 4, 5 even 6 individual sessions long.

 So I'd like to start with last night.  The weather was threatening and, frankly, we didn't get all the people who signed up to show up.  So there was a smaller, cozier group.  One attendee is the head archivists at a local repository.  Imagine how I felt trying to teach someone who probably has forgotten more than I know! Another person was a middle aged man who has been researching for many years. We also had a newby, a tyro who was uncommonly enthusiastic....but not more enthusiastic than me!!

This 2-session program is a somewhat condensed version of my usual 4 or 5 session programs.  So we all had a lot of

 

English: Google Logo officially released on May 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

ground to cover.  I decided that since there were more people there who were relatively experienced, I'd dive into tips and strategies to use on Ancestry, FamilySearch, Google and others.



Which (finally) brings me to the subject of tonight's blog.  And it's this:  There are 2 categories of information that can be found at any genealogy research website.  One of the more reliable sets of records are the public records such as census, probate, military, christening, birth, marriage, death and so on.  Whenever I find a "hint", if it includes public records, I'll take the time to check out those records and make a judgement as to the accuracy of the data and its relevance to the subject person.  That's the easy part!  

What's more challenging is to help "students" understand the pitfalls of privately uploaded Public Member Trees with little or

 

Maria Hernandez baptized 1920 (Photo credit: GoCal83)

no supporting documentation.  Ancestry calls these trees "Unsourced".  So many "enthusiastic" researchers are too fast to grab data and put it up on the internet to help build their trees, not realizing the danger.  If its out there, someone will download it and take it for gospel simply because it was on the internet. After all, if it's on the internet, it must be ironclad fact.  Not so fast!



Now in the interest of disclaimers, I've used the data from many of those Public Member Trees without too much worry, but only those trees that have sources already attached.  That doesn't mean that I grab it and run.  I will do the same thing as I do with the public records.  I open that member's tree and take a look at what has been attached to it for sources and go through the same process of judging the accuracy and relevance.  If a Public Member Tree has information on individuals that may have a fit in my family, it's worth the effort to move slowly on trusting someone else's work.

English: Screen capture of FamilySearch.org web site (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Learn or Refine Your Genealogy and Family Research Techniques

We're starting a new year at the Chicopee Public Library.  In addition to the "Research Clinics" we run every Thursday from 9 AM to 4 PM, I will conduct a variety of classes on the "art" of genealogy and family research.

The upcoming series will be 2 sessions on Monday evenings February 3rd and again on February 10th.

We'll be talking about what to look for, what to expect, what is "free" and what is not, web sites (and there are HUNDREDS!) and how to use them, research strategies, tips and tricks to find what you're looking for and, most importantly "IT'S NOT ALL ON THE INTERNET"!!  Where to find those documents you need that are not available just by clicking through sites such as Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org.  Even how to use Google to "Google your ancestors"!  And a crash course in DNA.

Alternately, another genealogist, Alan Doyle Horbal of Adams, MA, will conduct classes as well in a clinic format.

These classes are designed for beginners to intermediary researchers and have been very well received by all who have attended in the past.

If you're nearby and would like to attend, call the Reference Department at (413) 594-1800 ext 108.

See you there!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1590"] English: Image of Chicopee Public Library (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

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Genealogy and Family Research at Chicopee Library

We're starting a new year at the Chicopee Public Library.  In addition to the "Research Clinics" we run every Thursday from 9 AM to 4 PM, I will conduct a variety of classes on the "art" of genealogy and family research.

The upcoming series will be 2 sessions on Monday evenings February 3rd and again on February 10th.

We'll be talking about what to look for, what to expect, what is "free" and what is not, web sites (and there are HUNDREDS!) and how to use them, research strategies, tips and tricks to find what you're looking for and, most importantly "IT'S NOT ALL ON THE INTERNET"!!  Where to find those documents you need that are not available just by clicking through sites such as Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org.  Even how to use Google to "Google your ancestors"!  And a crash course in DNA.

Alternately, another genealogist, Alan Horbal of Adams, MA, will conduct classes as well in a clinic format.

These classes are designed for beginners to intermediary researchers and have been very well received by all who have attended in the past.

If you're nearby and would like to attend, call the Reference Department at (413) 594-1800 ext 108.

See you there!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350"] English: Image of Chicopee Public Library (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

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