Preserving your Memories
This show is amazing amount of information on Ancestry’s show Who Do you Think you are? If you are just beginning or have been researching for years, this is a must watch show. So many tips and suggestions, along with being very entertaining.
Who Do You Think You Are is back for a 3rd season and will premier this Friday, February 3 at 8/7c on NBC. Martin Sheen will lead off the series and other celebrities we’ve got lined up include Marissa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Helen Hunt, Jerome Bettis, Robb Lowe, and Paula Deen among others. Be sure to tune-in and see what each of our celebrities learns about their family history! We guarantee lots for surprises too. Check out the WDYTYA site here.
In conjunction with Season 3, Ancestry.com is running a Sweepstakes where 3 Grand Prize winners will win a trip of a lifetime to uncover their own family history valued at $10,000! The Sweepstakes includes a trip to the winner’s homeland to explore their family roots, round-trip airfare for two, hotel and $2,000 in cash, plus a 6-month Ancestry.com World Explorer membership and an Ancestry.com DNA test to discover their genetic ethnicity. 20 First Prize winners will receive a 6-month Ancestry.com World Explorer membership. To enter and see all the details on the Sweepstakes click here.
WorldVitalRecords and MyHeritage will be at RootsTech Conference. Here is a special offer to attend RootsTech 2012 Special Offer Expires Feb 5th. In it’s second year there will be tons of opportunity to meet other Genealogists, and learn more about how technology is helping build bridges with distant family members that may have information you can’t find elsewhere.
Meet Genealogy Bloggers Lisa Louise Cooke, DearMYRTLE, and Dick Eastman. Attend Sessions such as Mining Newspaper Archives, How to use WikiTree, and using Social Media to advance your research.
WorldVitalRecords will be hosting a booth at 514, drop by and see all the new things that are available to genealogists. Also download the latest Family Tree Builder 6.0, the many benefits such as maps, family photos, face tagging, smart matching, and private family site to name a few are available to you to use.
The buzz about the 1940 Census has been released and you can be part of the process. Genealogy organizations Archives.com, FamilySearch, and Findmypast.co.uk, will work together on the 1940 US Census Community Project. This project will work to involve online volunteers to publish name index to the 1940 US Census soon after the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) releases the records to the public April 2, 2012. All three partners will provide access to the free index on their websites. You can sign up to be an indexer at http://www.the1940census.com.
Last month, NARA selected Archives.com, to host the digitized census records. Ancestry.com
also has announced it’ll offer a 1940 census index and the record images free, at least through 2013.
FamilySearch’s RootsTech conference, taking place Feb. 2-4 in Salt Lake City, is open for registration. The early bird rate of $149 is valid through Jan. 13, 2012.
The National Genealogical Society 2012 Conference, taking place May 8-12 in Cincinnati, also is open for registration. Early bird prices ($175 for NGS members and $210 for nonmembers, plus extra if you want a printed syllabus) are good through March 20, 2012.
You can read more on Dear Myrtle’s blog that genealogy expert and Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian
Recently World Vital Records and MyHeritage merged combining the two companies into one large resource for Genealogists. WorldVitalRecords.com will continue to grow and be focused towards the skilled genealogist. The content on that World Vital Records contains over 4.5 billion names and continues to grow every day. With the newly added strength of MyHeritage the content will grow much faster in the coming months and Genealogists will continue to find a wealth of content valuable in their research.
Here are some keys benefits of World Vital Records
WorldVitalRecords.com is one of the fastest growing genealogy sites with collections including more than 4.5 billion names.
WorldVitalRecords provides you with:
· More than 4.5 billion historical names
· Birth, marriage, and death records
· Millions of newspapers dating back to 1739
· Millions of tombstone photos
· Hundreds of exclusive online databases
· Vital Records from 16 countries
· Social Security Death Index
· Thousands of yearbooks
· Millions more added each month
FamilyLink.com is geared to the socially oriented family member who though not a genealogist may experience a great desire to find and discover their past. Through FamilyLink.com that member can search and discover his family story and past. You find FamilyLink used often on Facebook and is very popular.
Family Tree Builder is a free desktop software application available for download from MyHeritage.com
FTB can be used to create a desktop based family tree and can then be uploaded to the MyHeritage site and shared with family and friends.
As a researcher I use many of these sites and find that the information is not repeat information. Both WorldVitalRecords and My Heritage are reliable resources that help fill in the gaps you may come across.
Get 20% off Family Tree Maker 2012 at Ancestry.com ends in 2 days. It isn’t to late to get this discount on the latest, improved software. You can still search for all the wonderful resources through Ancestry.com
as before.Features will include
TreeSync — lets you easily synchronize your tree in Family Tree Maker with an online Ancestry.com tree.
Access and update your tree anywhere. Continue your research wherever you are whether it’s through your computer, Ancestry.com, even your iPhone or iPad.
Easily share your tree with your family, and even work on it together. Your family and friends can view the online version of your tree without any software or a subscription. They just login with their name and email and they can always see the latest version of your tree, and can even work on adding to it if you’d like them to.
Collaborate with the largest, most active family history community in the world. You can keep your online tree private or make it public so that others researching your family can always find the latest version of your research. You may connect with others who have insight on your ancestors or even rare photos to share with you. And you may even find relatives you didn’t know you had.
Blended family view — shows combined families, including stepfamilies and adoptees at a glance.
Improved Smart Stories — give you new tools for adding and editing details.
Chart personalization — lets you personalize charts by adding text and displaying generation labels such as parents, grandparents and great–grandparents.
Index of individuals report — lists every individual in your tree, plus their birth, marriage and death dates.
Customized fact sentences — let you change wording and choose what data is included in sentences that Family Tree Maker generates for certain reports and Smart Stories.
Descendent charts between two people — make it easy to choose two individuals in your tree and create a descendant chart that shows their relationship.
Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet
I talked about Cyndi’s List the other day and how much I enjoy visiting her site. There is so much information on Genealogy on her site. Everything from researching old adoption records to state records. She has it all listed, ready to research or find where to access thse documents.
I have been a student and huge fan of Family Tree University for almost 2 years. This is where I have gotten the 101 Brick Walls, Google For Genealogists, Photo Rescue, and Cemetery research. There are so many kits, Expert Webinars, and books to explore in Family Tree University. I will look there before anywhere else first when I am looking for Genealogy Resources. They still have plenty of the Google for Genealogist packs available.
There are a few days left with Ancestry.com free weekend. Ancestry.com is a great place and the largest resource for Genealogy. However, there are many different sites to find this information; some may have more information than others. Here is a list of the various links, and their benefits.
Ancestry.com: the largest and oldest site that has forums that allow researchers to share information between each other. Ancestry.com
also interfaces with its Genealogy software Family Tree Maker 2011 PLUS Deluxe Family History Toolkit Bundle at Ancestry.com
. RootsWeb General Search
is also connected to Ancestry.com, and is a free option. The amount of resources you can achieve on Ancestry is limitless. Search Military Records
, Historic Newspapers Online
, Social Security Death Index
, Adjustable Surname Search Link
, Search Birth, Marriage and Death Records
including Obituary Collection
.
WorldVitalRecords.com is another Utah based subscription research site. It offers many of the same benefits as Ancestry.com. It is the host company for Family Link, also known as We’re Related on Facebook. The link that us Genealogists use to link up our family on Facebook.
OneGreatFamily, Archives.com
, are also paid subscription sites. Not as large or as old as Ancestry.com
.
There are some really useful Genealogy sites that are free, FamilySearch.org, RootsWeb General Search.
There are also volunteer organizations where you can seek the help of Genealogists in the local area’s that your ancestors lived. RAOGK.com, is a really helpful site, one that I volunteer for. I also follow Cyndi’s List, her site is full of useful information and easy to follow.
There are many sites out there to research your Genealogy. Some are paid subscriptions, some are free. I personally am leary of most the free sites that have been popping up. How secure is their information, is that data verified information? RAOGK, Family Search, and Cyndi’s list are the ones I trust the most if you are going the Free route. I know that those sites are secure and verified links.
There are many sites out there that meet several different needs for every Genealogist. All of them have added features that include web sharing. A few years back I searched for genealogy software that offered photograph and Web design features. Preserving my families photos is very important to me. There is so much that I had never seen, and wish I knew the stories behind the faces. As a military family we travel around quite a bit, so the web is a useful tool to keep in touch and share data with family. The newest features of the new Family Tree Maker 2012 will make sharing a lot easier for families. These new features are:
As with the prior Family Tree Maker Software organizing media files, enhancing your family trees with Charts, photos, audio, video, and much more will still be included. September 2011, Ancestry.com and Family Tree Maker is releasing the newest version FTM 2012. I am looking forward to receiving my copy of family tree maker this month and sharing with you all my full review of the software.
Don’t forget this is the free week on Ancestry.com