By Dennis L. Maness,
MLS
As did many of you I spent the last week of March preparing for
the 1940 Census and the first week in April searching it. I was successful in
some searches and failed in others and will have to wait patiently (hah!) for a
name index to be made. Besides the joy of finding my parents and grandparents I
also found my first bit of humor in what I’ve always thought of as interesting
when it came to my family but otherwise a basically dull document. I was searching
in the town of South Gate, Los Angeles County, when I found that, at the end of
that section of the E.D., the enumerator, N W Haddon, had written:
“Here Ends Block No. 1
And My District
Thank the Lord”
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In the first of my columns for this Blog I stated that I
would be learning right along with you about some of the sources that can help
build a family tree and history. This column is an instance of that.
Have you ever wished you could have the free help of
expert genealogists when you hit a brick wall or a rough patch in your search
for your family history? I certainly have and I think I’ve found out how that
can happen.
FamilySearch is one of the best sites on the Web for
genealogy. And I’ve discovered at least 3 ways of getting help from those
experts that I mentioned above—#1 is in the
FamilySearch Forums. To get there go to
FamilySearch and, at the top of the
page, click on the word “Learn”. In the section called “What’s in learning
resources?” on the right side of the page is a link to the Discussion Forums
with the statement “FamilySearch also offers numerous free research discussion
forums. With over 2,000 registered volunteers all over the world, it’s a pretty
good bet that if your question hasn’t already been answered, someone is ready
to help out.” Click on either the picture or on “Browse the Forums” below the
statement. Once you get there you might want to bookmark the Forums page for
quick access.
Since FamilySearch seems to be constantly changing (and
improving) some of what I write today may have changed by tomorrow.
On the opening screen at the top there is a search box
which you will be using a lot. Below that there is a blue line that contains
these links/tabs: “Register”, “FAQ”, “Community”, and “Today’s Posts”. Below
that is a green “Welcome” section which states: “Please be our guest to browse any topic listed below for helpful family
history research and FamilySearch product information provided by experienced
FamilySearch patrons. Simply select the forum of your choice to search for
information, ask questions or offer answers to others. An LDS or FamilySearch
Account is now required to post to the Forums.” That last part is quite
painless and will be important because the reason you are here in the first
place is to ask questions.
The next tab is for the FAQ. Click on the tab and then click on
the “Click here to access all our video demos” link. If you click on the
“Forums” link a drop-down menu will give you various videos to play. The best
place to start is the “FamilySearch Forums Overview” link. This will explain
“Threads”, Sub-Forums, Posts, and more.
One of the things I like about the asking-a-question section is
that either you or the person answering one of your questions can attach a picture
which may make the question or answer more easily understood. The forums are
organized into “Localities” (i.e. Places) and “Non-locality” (i.e. Subjects,
Things, or basically anything that isn’t about a place). The three examples
given in this section are “Beginners and General Questions” (“What Do You Do
When You Have Virtually No Information?” which had 115 views and 4 replies.
This is my kind of question!), “Using Technology” (“Citing familysearch.org as
a Source for a Document”—681 views and 6 replies), and “Latin Translation”. I
suspect I’m going to be using that last one when I look for old church records
in my European searches.
There is also the ability to “subscribe” to a particular forum so
that you will be notified when other questions or answers on the subject you’re
interested in are put on the site.
I’m not quite sure how one might use the next tab, “Community”, but
I see that one of the categories listed is “Social Groups”, under which is
“Surnames”. This looks like a good place to put one of your brick wall surnames
to see if other people are working on the same family. There were 122 different
surnames listed as I write this.
The next tab, “New Posts” is self-explanatory. When I clicked on
it there were 290 new posts listed, one of which, “US 1940 Census” (sound
familiar?) had almost 4000 views!
The last tab is “Quick Links”. Here you will find links to
“Today’s Posts”, how to mark forums read, a reminder of which Threads you are
subscribed to, and a list of private messages you have sent or received from
people posting questions or answers.
At the bottom of the page, after other useful links to
FamilySearch areas, is a “What’s Going On?” section that shows the activity of
this site; the last time I visited it read “Threads: 10,968, Posts: 52,378,
Members: 32,989, Active Members: 967” which, even though this is a fairly new
and unknown part of FamilySearch, shows a healthy use and growth.
FamilySearch Forums appears to be an excellent way to learn more
about a subject and get your difficult questions answered or at least
discussed. I suspect I will be using it more and more as I build my family
history.
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Remember,
as Legacy Family Tree’s Geoff Rasmussen says,
“Life is short; do genealogy first!”
