New Genealogy Online Forum

I received an invitation to join this forum, so I will give it a try:

"Ancestry purchased Rootsweb and renamed the boards. And thanks for reminding me about GenForum at http://www.genforum.com/ which is also owned by Ancestry. If the genealogy community wants their own Q&A genealogy site independent from any vendor, then here is our opportunity. And thanks for signing up there. Since I committed 3 hours ago, there's now 4 more of us. If we all let others know, we might be able to get our 200 needed fairly quickly." - Louis Kessler
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2553/genealogy?referrer=CS0JNkio5BdUZvrx04eTvg2

I encourage you to try it out. It is free.

Personally, I will also continue to use RootsWeb message boards and GenForum. FamilySearch also has forums. A Google search should find postings on all of these forums, so it may not be necessary to do separate searches on each of them.

Finding the maiden names of females in England and Wales.

Attendance at our Thursday night classes has dropped drastically with the arrival of spring, but this past week I had 5 students. To see the contents of the class click this link. http://billbuchanan.byethost17.com/ Then click the link to England and Wales below my photo.

We ran into a technical glitch. We lost our internet connection for about 10 minutes, but we perservered and it returned.

Finding the maiden names of females is relatively easy in England and Wales. The census will show you approximately when the marriage occurred. Then use http://www.freebmd.org.uk/ to look for the marriage. If you are lucky there is only one person with the name you are looking for getting married in that locality in that time period. In marriages after 1900, it will actually give the spouse's surname. For example, searching for the wife of William Shipgood in 1900-1920, we find:

Surname  First name(s)  Spouse  District  Vol  Page 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marriages Sep 1913   (>99%)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forsbury  Mary A  Shipgood  Camberwell  1d 1947   
Holliday  Robert V  Smith  Camberwell  1d 1947   
Shipgood  William  Forsbury  Camberwell  1d 1947   
Smith  Florence  Holliday  Camberwell  1d 1947   
William's wife's surname is shown as Forsbury, so we know he married Mary A. Forsbury.

Prior to that date you need to do a little more detective work, by finding the husband in the next census and seeing which wife he is with.

For example, looking for the marriage of Thomas George Ing in London, about 1865, we find:
Marriages Dec 1862   (>99%)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ing  Thomas     Luton  3b 9_1   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marriages Dec 1865   (>99%)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ing  Thomas George     Bethnal Gn  1c 691   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marriages Sep 1866   (>99%)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ING  Thomas     Berkhampstead  3a 519   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The one in Bethnal Green is the only one in London. Clicking the link to the page number, finds these people's marriages on that page.

Surname  First name(s)    District  Vol  Page 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marriages Dec 1865   (>99%)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Batt  Thomas    Bethnal Gn  1c 691   
Boulton  Eliza     Bethnal Gn  1c 691   
Forsbury  Martha Jane     Bethnal Gn  1c 691   
Ing  Thomas George     Bethnal Gn  1c 691   

So who did Thomas marry, Eliza Boulton or Martha Jane Forsbury? The 1871 census has the answer!

1871 Census of EnglandName Age in 1871 Birthplace Relationship Civil Parish County/Island
Thomas Ing 34  Paddington, Middlesex, England Head  Paddington  London [Coster monger]
Martha Ing 22  Paddington, Middlesex, England Wife  Paddington  London
Thomas Ing 5  Marylebone, Middlesex, England Son  Paddington  London
William Ing 4  Marylebone, Middlesex, England Son  Paddington  London
Location in 1871 Paddington  Kensington, St Mary Paddington

Obviously Thomas married Martha Jane Forsbury, and Thomas Batt married Eliza Boulton.

What work did a coster monger do? He sold fresh fruits and vegetables, usually from a portable stand or a wheelbarrow. (Sort of like Molly Mallone in the old song. "She was a fish monger, ... She pushed her wheelbarrow down streets dark and narrow, crying "Cockels and mussels! Alive, alive! Oh!") Some coster mongers were fortunate to work along busy streets with lots of hungry pedestrians; they were the equivalent of today's fast food outlets. McDonalds, Wendy's and so forth, didn't arrive in England until a century later.

Enjoy your English research!

Keeping your data in sych automatically

If you are using the same data file on multiple computers, you might want to look at having DropBox installed on both computers and keeping your data file there.

For me, it has been the solution to the problem of adding data at the FHC or archives without throwing my database at home into confusion. I love being able to update my PAF file from either computer, and from any location. I have had to train myself to close PAF and wait a minute when shutting off my computer for the night, to give DropBox a chance to save all of the latest changes. A 2 GB account is free from https://www.dropbox.com/ 

You may never need to Restore another backup. DropBox will automatically keep your data file in sych across multiple computers and smart phones.

Certificates no longer viewable in FamilySearch?

On FHCNET@yahoogroups.com the question was asked "Is anyone else still having trouble view images on FS, i. e. Ohio death certificates. It has been well over a month since I have been able to view one"

Someone else replied that you could see the certificates if you were signed-in.

I decided to give it a try.

I tried viewing an Ohio death certificate, signing in, then doing the search for the death certificate of:
Name: Nellie Watson
Death Date: 13 Dec 1926
Death Place: Toledo, Lucas, Ohio
As previously, I found the transcription, but this time I received the message "Image is not available online." Fortunately I had saved the image of her death certificate a few months ago, when it was viewable online.
So the certificates (at least some of them) are not viewable on FamilySearch.org at the present time, and it makes no difference whether you are signed in or not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lois Casson sent this reply she received from FamilySearch Support:
Sometimes images are blocked by temporary internet files and cookies on your browser history. Deleting these files often gives you access to the images. See instructions at: https://help.familysearch.org/help/viewdocument?documentId=105483&sliceId=SAL_Public&userQuery=clear+cookies
If this does not work, try clicking on the "back to search results" link, then clear the files and cookies again and then click on the name for the image you need.
You may need to close the browser and open familysearch.org again to access the images.
If the above solutions do not work, try opening familysearch.org in a different browser, like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. You can find free downloads for these browsers online.
We are trying to pinpoint the cause of your problem for the engineers. We would appreciate your sending the name, event, location, and date of the person you are searching. We also need to know the name of the collection you are searching.
Sincerely
Family Search
support@familysearch.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interesting!!!
I tried it with Firefox and the image is present! But it was unavailable in Internet Explorer.

What do you do when nobody comes?

On last Thursday's shift we had no classes scheduled and no patrons came. But it was still a productive evening. My partner on the shift that night had replaced his dead desktop computer with a new laptop a few weeks previously, and was unable to sign in new.FamilySearch.org. His daughter had registered him in nFS and had used her own email address, so the sign-in/password recovery system didn't work the last time I had spoken to him about it. In the interval he had phoned to change the email address. It seemed that things should be very simple.

Not quite! I guided him through the process of having his sign-in name emailed to him automatically by FamilySearch. He then phoned his wife and asked her to check for the email message. She told him that she had never been able to access email on the new computer. At this point he decided to go home and fetch the laptop. When he got back I checked Windows Mail and sure enough, he needed a password to access his email. I helped him find the phone number for his ISP, and after verifying his identity, they reset his password. Now he could open his email from FamilySearch and get his sign-in name. I was going to guide him through the steps of recovering his FamilySearch password, but he remembered it, so that was unnecessary. When he signed in, Internet Explorer said that it was not the password that was saved for that sign-in name. I asked him to ignore the warning, and in a few seconds he was happily looking at his family pedigree.

Later I even helped him with some research on his wife's family line.

So it was a nice productive evening ... even if no patrons came. But this week we have a class on German genealogy research, and I hope we get a good turn-out.

Technical problems

I use the free screen-sharing program from mikogo.com for teaching my lessons at the FHC. About 7 PM, as I was about to begin my lesson, it stopped working. The internet access went down. The wireless network in the chapel was working fine, I could even print over the wireless network, it was the network's access to the internet that was "down". I unplugged the power from the DSL modem, the hardware firewall, and the wireless router; then reconnected them; and rebooted two of the computers; but it didn't restore internet access. We phoned the Stake Tech Specialist, who told us that the problem was probably with the telephone company's equipment. I phoned the telco, navigated their automated support maze, and was asked by the mechanical voice to leave a number where they could call me back. When we locked up the FHC at 9:30 PM they STILL had not called. This was all rather disappointing for me and my students.

FamilySearch Research Wiki

In response to an invitation to create a wiki page for my Family History Centre, I created one for the Edmonton Alberta Family History Centre. After some debate with myself and with the director, we settled on the American spelling of "center" rather than the common Canadian spelling of "centre".

I ran into some snags with links and had to redo nearly all of them. I learned (again) to input the link text, then select the link text, then click the link icon and paste in the URL. Otherwise the links would work but the URLs were visible, sometimes two or three times for a single link ... very messy! The URL for the map spanned 5 lines of code, so it looked especially ugly and confusing, but it looks good now.  

I also wanted to do a good job of including links to other resources for the Edmonton area, which required additional effort, but should be helpful to researchers.

Check it out!
https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Edmonton_Alberta_Riverbend_Family_History_Center


Here is the original invitation from FamilySearch:
"If your FHC doesn't have a wiki page, I encourage you to create one. There is a template that simplifies things. In the last few days, a person with the Family History Department has developed a quick and easy way to create a page on FamilySearch Wiki for your FHC. A few were online before, but they have made it easy to put up a page, then edit it to your center's individual needs and circumstances.
First, go to this page.
https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Template:FHC_page_outline
You'll see a sample showing the various parts of the page and its layout. The instructions on how to set up the page are below, in the gray box. Note, a few centers have pages, and others have been created using the center's official name, to help get some started already. You can search for your center's name to see if there is an article already.
It may take a little bit to get the hang of editing in the wiki, but we have user group meetings, one is for new users, click on the community meetings tab on the far right of any page to find the meetings and their times and call-in phone numbers. Most meetings are for specific projects, or are more technical, but some are for the newest and otherwise novice users of the Wiki when it comes to editing."

Census and Vital Records

This is my handout from the lesson I taught last Thursday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Census - An Indispensable Resource for Family History

Censuses have been around since the earliest recorded history, especially by centralized governments all over the world. For example: The Old Testament book of Numbers gets its name from a census that was made when the pyramids were new ...
In the New Testament, the journey of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem was for a Roman census related to taxation ...
Whenever governments wanted to know who is available to form an army or to pay taxes, it was time for another census ...
In more modern times, most of the Western world has a national census every 10 years. This allows you to follow a family backwards in time, giving a rough time-line of moves and births, marriages and deaths.
Here is the family of James Lidgett and Mary Ann Tyson in Lincolnshire, England.

The chart is compiled from census records spanning 41 years. The census gives the birth places and approximate birth years. This makes it relatively easy to find vital records.

Name	1861	1871	1881	1891	1901
James Lidgett born Ludford Parva, Lincoln	1845	1845	1845	1845	1845
Mary A Lidgett born Ludford Magma, Lincoln		1846	1845	1846	1846
Edith Lidgett born Ludford Magma, Lincoln		1869	1869
James LIDGITT born Ludford, Lincoln			1872
Sarah J. LIDGITT born Ludford, Lincoln			1875
Charles W. LIDGITT born Ludford, Lincoln			1876	1875
Mary Ann LIDGITT born Ludford, Lincoln			1878	1878
George H. LIDGITT born Ludford, Lincoln			1880	1880
Thomas LIDGITT born Ludford, Lincoln			1881	1882
Fred Lidgett born Ludford Magma, Lincoln				1884	1884
Earnest Lidgett born Sixhills, Lincoln				1886	1886
Agnes Lidgett born Sixhills, Lincoln				1888	1888
Auther Lidgett born Benniworth, Lincoln				1890	1891

Vital Records

By "vital records" we mean records of major life events: birth (or christening), marriage, death (or burial). In different time periods, vital records may be kept at the national level (e.g. England and Wales), or at the state/provincial level (e.g. Canada), or at the municipal/county level (e.g. USA), or they may be kept at multiple levels – even in the countries listed above. In addition, vital records may also be kept by non-governmental organizations such as churches. Local newspapers may also record births, marriages and deaths.

Primary or Secondary Sources?
This question becomes important if different sources provide conflicting data. A primary source is a record created at the time of the event, by someone who was present. In a court of law this would be referred to as "eye witness evidence". A secondary source was created at a later time or by someone who wasn't present. In a court of law, this would be referred to as "hearsay evidence" (probably true, but open to challenge).
Your research will have greater credibility if you can support your data with sources. Your sourcing should allow other researchers to know (a) what you found and (b) where you found it. It can also be important to explain the basis of conclusions you have drawn from the evidence. PAF's notes gives plenty of space to do this.

Canadian Place Names Have Been Fixed in nFS/FT

Yesterday, our Area FH Advisor's blog reported that this long-standing issue has been resolved.
I tried it out with some of my place names, and it is working properly.
So, anyone with western Canada place names in your database can now use the nFS standard place names for this area with confidence.
http://peterfh.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/has-the-problem-with-western-candadian-place-names-in-nfs-been-fixed/

The Updated www.FamilySearch.org

The Updated www.FamilySearch.org

(December 2010)

In December 2010, the main FamilySearch website was changed. The former beta.familysearch.org became the new gateway for doing web searches. For some time, the beta site had become the destination for the results of indexing projects. It also became the destination of un-indexed (browsable) image collections, that can be viewed like a series of pages on a microfilm ... which is exactly what they are. i.e. The film is digitized and catalogued but without a detailed index (If you know the place and approximate date of an event, you can usually find it within minutes. But without this information you may not find it or you may, but it will take a long time.)

The databases at www.FamilySearch.org are a work in progress.

It is definitely the place to search for new record sets, but for older record sets, better access is available on the old FamilySearch.org website. To get there, click to blue link on right-hand side of the home page, the link that says “Go to previous site”. Then click on Advanced Search or Search Records menu > Advanced Search, to view the familiar searches:

All Resources

Ancestral File

Census for 1880/1881 USA / Britain / Canada

International Genealogical Index

Pedigree Resource File

US Social Security Death Index

Vital Records Index for Scandinavia and Mexico

Items from the old site will continue to be added to the updated site, but at the present time, the following are not available on the updated site:

International Genealogical Index patron submissions

Ancestral File pedigrees (only individual details are viewable), no GEDCOM downloads

Census for 1881 Britain

Pedigree Resource File

The new site has the remaining items, classed in two categories:

Historical Records, includes census, parish records (including IGI), vital records, passenger lists, browsable images ... lots of new records!

Family Trees presently consists of individual records from Ancestral File.

The remaining information from the old site will eventually be added. Access to census images from affiliates is also supposed to be added when we are signed-in, but is not currently available.

You can select a database to search, or do a general Advanced or Basic search. Wildcards are accepted.

This information comes from the electronic publication “Adjusting to the new version of www.FamilySearch.org (8 December 2010)” from FamilySearch