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Hitmill.com's Family History and Genealogy Corner
A genealogy resource for those of you wishing to research family history and genealogy on your own, what genealogy software to use, genealogy books and how to get started with researching family genealogy, in other words, a tutorial about how to research family history..
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As odd as this may sound, you have to know something about your own family history in order to research your family genealogy. One reason is that people after 1930 DO have names on census records however online census records stop after the 1930 online census (ancestry.com). In order to research backwards we need the birthdates or year=of-birth of people, which can be estimated from their age on a census record. I was researching the surname of Johnson and found 33 Fred Johnson's for the year 1880, so it also helps to know which state and county they were in. Now is the time to gather family history from the older family members and to take notes, based upon what they know. Fifteen years ago we spoke with the family historians, in their 60's through their late 70's and gather together information from each living relative, each living family, families of cousins, all of the descendants of our ancestor who was born over 150 years ago. By 1994 we had only one name of our ancestor and the state where he was born.. but we continued looking at online records, and now have 7 brothers of that ancestor and in another surname, the descendant line had only the name of our ancestor's father.... by checking other online family trees we now have 5 siblings from that family all of whom immigrated to America, and each of whom was seen on the online census records for the same year, in the same town and county. After a while they separated and went separate ways, but were still tracked based on the family given names on the census records.
Census records are probably the least reliable of information due to inaccurate spelling of names, inaccurate ages and names given by the immigrants, and others. Therefore other records must collaborate your information such as birth, marriage, and death records, all collectively called the Vital Statistics. You may also glean information from Wills, Land Deeds and Records, and Court Proceedings. Then try the old newspaper archives for news articles regarding the ancestor whom you are researching. The databases for Vital Statistics for counties and states are still lacking for some years. I cannot find any 1890 census for the County I need in Minnesota. Illinois did not record marriages back in the 1850's... but we found a photo. image of the hand-written "marriage document" which includes the names of the bride and the groom, the signature and title of who married them, the state and county and the date of the marriage, which occurred in 1854 in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, so this being before the State of Illinois recorded any databases, a truely unique and important document (a piece of History). (It makes me wonder if other hand-written documents are archived somewhere for that County and State.) I would have to write that State's Historical Society, send them an image of the document, donate it, and ask about any other similar hand-written records. Again, you may over-look your ancestor if you do not know that their three given names were used on documents interchangeable. The bride was Dorothea Johanna Maria + last name but on the marriage document she had written Johanna D. M. + last name. The groom also used his second name on the marriage document...which was part of the Christening Name... instead of using Joachim J. + last name, he used John J. + last name. The researchers finding this knew already the rightful full names of each person from prior research.... so it was recognizable. We knew a marriage occurred after they arrived in New YorK, and before they settled in Minnesota. There was no church parish record of the marriage in Minnesota so the logical place to look was in Illinois... where families of relatives had waited before moving together into Minnesota.
Some online notices say that no census less than 72 years old will be released online, to protect the living. This would mean that the 1940 census would not become available online until 2012... The last online census as of this writing is the 1930 census available online at ancestry.com but you need to pay a subscription to use this site and there are two types of subscriptions: one type is for national files, and the other site is for all files including overseas files and the files or databases of censuses in other countries. If you are a newcomer to family research and have not yet found immigration records, or not yet had a need to delve into international databases, keep it simple with an introductory or trail subscription, like a 30 or 90 day, subscription... you will need to use a debit or credit card when signing up for your subscription, UNLESS a free subscription came with some software you just bought... Welcome signs will appear in your email when you sign up at ancestry.com...be sure to use a "handle or username" instead of your actual name... to protect your privacy..
Collecting Information and Making Memories
Try to get ahold of and keep old family records, Bibles, deeds, scrapbooks, photographs, anything like this will help you, even old court records, marriage documents, and save grandparents or spouses documents when they pass away, and give them to grandchildren who will cherish these documents later... I have just received a photocopy of a relative's fishing license from years ago and think that is just so cool to have... I love it.. I also have a grandmothers leather-clad "reader" from her early days in school as a child... ask around the family for these heirlooms... then keep them in a safe airtight place, protected between two sheets of acid-free paper...
If you use Family Tree Maker which supports ancestry.com you should know that there is a user agreement whereby the information you think you are using on your own computer for your own use, may wind up on some online database belonging to ancestry.com.
If you want more privacy, I recommend you use RootsMagic and do not voluntarily upload any databases unless you wish to. You can customize reports using RootsMagic and I recommended ordering the book named "Getting the Most Out of RootsMagic" so you can look up answers to typical questions and research solutions to data problems , such as errors and having people you need to merge or to delete.
RootsMagic has a downloadable "free trial"... I used it after ordering the regular package of RootsMagic.... makes a great gift for any family member interested in family history. I had to allow for 6 to 8 weeks before delivery so was able to use the free trial while I waited for the software to arrive... Order far enough in advance (October) to have it arrive by Christmas, if it is a gift.
When you finally have your ancestry.com subscription, you hopefully used an alias "handle" and not your real name... you contact people with related Family Trees (through the ancestry contact service.) For instance my handle might be MikeBikes83 and that is what the person sees when I send them information, but I gave my "real email" to ancestry when I made my account so that when a user of ancestry.com replies to my inquiry, they are answering MikeBikes83 but it really comes directly into my regular email box... automatically, so I can read the e-mail and reply back... Sometimes you will find a new relative or distant cousin you did not know about, and a line that the family lost track of before 1920 or earlier...'Tis fun to find the new relatives... and to trade pictures and information about older ancestors.
If you have an extended project and you see that you have much research to do, and you are trying to state sources for each item of information you type in, then you will want to take a look at GenSmarts which will work with several online genealogy sites, some genealogy museums, if you have access, and work with your RootsWeb software quite well...
GenSmarts is sometimes bundled or sold with RootsWeb in a single package...ask the RootsWeb Tech Support or Sales people about bundling them together for a single price, so you can save money...
More Genealogy Sites
Mormon Church: Family History Centers
If you know the specific town a relative came from... try finding a name of a relative in a specific area by using the LDS site called FamilySearch.com.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Mormon Church and usually there is one in most larger towns over 30,000 pop. or so, and some smaller towns. Most Mormon churches each have what is called a Family History Center where you can order tapes of databases and census information and vital statistics from other countries, sometimes on film databases by year or a range of years, but for one particular area. It is not like having a searchable national census, but something you devote time to, reading each name. When you order a film (see familysearch.org for film ordering informaton) expect that it sometimes takes 6 to 8 weeks to arrive, you get a phone call from the Family History Center that your film has arrived, and you make an appointment to view the film at the Mormon Church Family History Center. The FHC will return the film back to the Utah archives when you are finished viewing it.... the films are not taken home with you... they are Church property and stay at the Church, and go to the Church Family History Library... the films were just on load to you.
WorldVitalRecords.com/
This is a paid-subscription site which is fairly new and currently expanding rapidly with the growth of online databases at its dispostal. WorldVitalRecords.com.EllisIsland.org
A free site for immigration records is EllisIsland.com which relies on donations to keep it from becoming a paid site. It costs money to maintain large databases... I have now given you the sites which I enjoy using the most often, and the software package of my choice was RootsMagic used in conjunction with GenSmarts to save me time. I refer back to the book "Getting the Most Out of RootsWeb" whenever I have a question or want to add a multimedia file to a project, and it lets me maintain a "Scrapbook" which I can print out.
Nothing wrong in asking your relatives for a picture to scan into a greyscale .jpg file or black/white photo to put into a family book project...
Beyond the Sites I Used... and the Book Sites
The next section gives you extra genealogy sites to investigate. Any book sites and other genealogy sites I have limited information for so am willing to share and to post your experience with any of these other sites.
Send your comments and experiences with the sites to the Webmaster, address below..
Family Genealogy Books
Amazon's Genealogy Books: For now, I defer to Amazon.com for books about "Family Genealogy Research". Those of us with computers may also defer to more links about the related sites, and online tutorials and help guides.