Digging for Roots Online

 By Dennis L. Maness, MLS

  

I love genealogy conferences. But they have two drawbacks: they cost a lot, especially when you add in travel, food, and hotel expenses and secondly they cram so much into a few days that you can get overwhelmed and probably forget some (much?) of what you learn. But I’ve discovered a supplement and sometimes a substitute—the genealogy webinar.

Dictionary.com defines a webinar this way:

“…a seminar or other presentation that takes place on the Internet, allowing participants in different locations to see and hear the presenter, ask questions, and sometimes answer polls.

The best place to start is to check out the listings on GeneaWebinars, which describes itself as “a calendar and blog devoted exclusively to coordinating online genealogy seminars.”

Here you’ll find a calendar of upcoming webinars;

 

and a “How It Works” essay.

In this post I’ll talk about some webinars I’ve attended and some that I’ve heard good things about.

The first is my personal favorite, Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

Most of the webinars are at 11 AM on Wednesdays but if you can’t watch them then they are held for free viewing for about 10 days on the Legacy Family Tree Website. After that you can purchase them on CD.

This is a sample of what topics have been covered just this year:

“The 5 C's for Success in Genealogy Today” by Barbara Renick

“Neglected History” by Megan Smolenyak² (and may I say I paid big bucks to hear this same talk at SCGS Jamboree this year; you could have seen and heard it here for free!)

“The Genealogy Cloud: Which Online Storage Program Is Right For You?” by Thomas MacEntee

“Digital Images for Genealogists and Technologists: scanning, digitizing, editing, and preserving your photos” by Geoff Rasmussen

“Researching Your German Ancestors” by Kory Meyerink

“Obituaries: Clues to Look For. Tips for making sure you get the full benefit from an obituary notice” by Thomas Jay Kemp

“Ten Brick Wall Tips for Beginners” by Marian Pierre-Louis

“Tracing Immigrant Ancestors” by Lisa Alzo.

This is just a small sample of the topics covered. And did you notice the presenters? They are top-of-the-line and nationally known genealogists.

Next are the webinars put on by the Southern California Genealogical Society (SCGS).

As they say on their site: “Jamboree Extension Series presentations will be scheduled on the first Saturday and third Wednesday of each month. Saturday sessions will be held at 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time; Wednesday sessions will be scheduled at 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time…. The live broadcast of each session is open to the public and FREE to all everyone (space is limited to 1000 attendees). Webinars are recorded, archived, and available for the next twelve months day or night, in the members-only section of the SCGS website.”

Here’s a sample of their past webinars:

“Me and My Laptop: Getting the Most out of your Laptop while Researching Onsite” by Linda Woodward Geiger

“Seeing the Patterns: Organizing Your Information” by Michael John Neill

“Grandma’s Flak Jacket: Why Your Children Need You To Do Family History” by Janet Hovorka

“Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker. Researching Your Ancestors’ Occupations” by Denise Spurlock

“The Genealogist as CSI” by George G. Morgan

Family Tree University sponsored by Family Tree Magazine.

These are for-pay webinars and a little too pricey for my poor budget but I’ve heard good things about them.

Here is a list of future webinars:

DearMYRTLE

This site has free webinars on such subjects as:

Instagram for Genealogists featuring Carrie Keele

FAMILY TREE MAKER WEBINARS feature one-on-one training provided by Russ Worthington

Ancestry Trees can Jumpstart Your Genealogy Research

Michael John Neill has a reasonably priced for-pay site

Topics include:

Sections, Townships, Base Lines, etc--Land Descriptions in Federal Land States.

Did Your Ancestor Get a Civil War Pension?

Charts, Charts and More Charts.

The Genealogical Proof Standard for the Non-Professional.

Creating Families from Pre-1850 Census Records

There are still other webinar sites you might enjoy (check out the Geneawebinars site listed above.)

Genealogy webinars started becoming common and popular around 2010 and continue to grow in both number and quality. Try some out today.

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Remember, as Legacy Family Tree’s Geoff Rasmussen says,

“Life is short; do genealogy first!”

San Mateo County Genealogical Society’s

September 2012 Workshops at

Cañada College Library

Workshops are $5 for SMCGS Members - $10 for Non-Members

Workshops are FREE to Cañada College Faculty, Staff & Students

September 4, 2012 – 2:30-4pm

SCOTTISH ROOTS ONLINE – With Cath Trindle, Professional Genealogist

A hands-on opportunity for those with Scottish research to explore some of the great websites devoted to Scottish genealogy. This workshop will highlight government sites, pay for view and subscription sites as well as some of the many free sites that help us further our Scottish research. No Scottish in your family? Come anyway. Other attendees may appreciate an extra pair of computer savvy hands.

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September 6 and 13, 2012 – 4:30-6pm

BEGINNING GENEALOGY – With Chris Green and Diane Smelker

Learn how to get started with researching your genealogy. Session One will cover “Looking at Home and Talking to Family” and “Census Basics 1900-1940”. Session Two will cover “Major On-line Resources”, “Vital Records Overview” and “Bay Area Libraries With Genealogy Resources”. Additional classes on request.

Tuesdays September 11, October 9, November 12 and December 11

Drop In Workshops

SPANISH RECORDS IN THE NEW WORLD – With Lucy Sweeney

Lucy will help anyone with Spanish records in the New World: Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America. We will search for records, translate those we find, and add information to the person's family tree. Receive one-on-one assistance with your Mexican and Hispanic research.

Planning to attend? - Email librarian@smcgs.org

Digging for Roots Online

By Dennis L. Maness, MLS

   

Call me old-fashioned but I love books! But I also love computers and what they can do, especially on the Internet. And, as I’m sure all of you do, I love genealogy. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could combine all three of these loves? Well, that’s what this post is about—genealogy books on the Internet!

There are books all over the Internet (a Google search for “~genealogy books online” gave me 3,800,000 results!) but for our purposes we’ll discuss the Big Three--Google Books, FamilySearch, and The Internet Archive.

Google Books
Go to https://www.google.com/  click on “More” and then click on “Books”.

There is a YouTube video (of course!) on what Google Books is and a bit on how to use it at http://youtu.be/9DGQO5Kp2og

Quick Search Tip—On Google the use of the tilde “~” (it’s on the top of the upper left key on my keyboard) means that the search will include synonyms of the word you’re searching for. For instance “~genealogy” will include the words “family history”, “family tree” “vital records” “genealogical” “surname” and probably many more in your search.

But I digress:

What kind of genealogical books can you find on Google Search?

There are vital records--

and individual genealogies,

family genealogies--

classic genealogical studies--

county histories--

historical works that may give you more insight into your ancestor’s lives—

and

And even genealogy themed novels!

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FamilySearch Books

The last time I was at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City I went to look for a family history book on one of my family lines. When I got to the place where it should have been I found rows and rows of shelves that were empty! When I asked the staff what was going on they said that the books had been taken to be digitized, so that is why this site is so important for online users. I may be wrong but I think they said that the books would not be coming back for public display but would be kept in some underground or offsite storage.

Here’s how to read them: 

Go to https://familysearch.org click on “Books” (near the top), then click on the “Family History Books” link.

Below the search form there is a good description of this site:

Family History Books is a collection of more than 40,000 digitized genealogy and family history publications from the archives of some of the most important family history libraries in the world. The collection includes family histories, county and local histories, genealogy magazines and how-to books, gazetteers, and medieval histories and pedigrees. The valuable resources included in Family History Books come from the following partner institutions:

§ Allen County Public Library

§  Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library 

§  Brigham Young University Hawaii Joseph F. Smith Library

§  Church History Library 

§  Family History Library  

§  Houston Public Library - Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research

§  Mid-Continent Public Library - Midwest Genealogy Center 

There’s not much more that needs to be said about this wonderful jewel of genealogy knowledge. There is, however, one warning you need to know—when you do a search for a title or subject the site will download the entire book as a PDF file before you can begin to read it. This is sometimes a lengthy process with large books. But worth it.

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The Internet Archive

Go to http://archive.org/, and click on the word “Texts” at the top.

You can search for pretty much the same kinds of books as I listed in the Google Books description.

In addition they have the [non-indexed] entire run of the U. S. Census. But again a warning—the interface is really ugly and often confusing but worth it when you find something that isn’t anywhere else on the Internet.

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There are many other sites that offer books. You might consider using Heritage Quest and Ancestry.com at your local library if you don’t have a subscription.

Sidenote: Here are two descriptions of the difference between the home subscription of Ancestry.com and the Library Edition:

http://proquest.com/assets/downloads/products/ale_ancestcom_comparison.pdf
http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider/2009/03/23/WhatsNOTInAncestryLibraryEdition.aspx

Check out Cyndi’s list at http://www.cyndislist.com/books/ebooks/.

Dick Eastman discusses an interesting new web site called “Genealogy Book Links” in his July 12, 1012 blog post at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2012/07/genealogy-book-links.html/.

And finally there is a useful web site called “Your Personal Genealogy Library: Family History Books Online” at  http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-fhbooksonline.html.

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Remember, as Legacy Family Tree’s Geoff Rasmussen says,

“Life is short; do genealogy first!”