Practical Archivist Genealogy Guys Do you have any genealogy documents hiding in your home? - Organize Your Family History In an extreme example of the perils of letting household filing pile up, I found my grandfather’s birth record over the weekend. Over the last few years, I’d put some effort into figuring where he was born. It was mysterious to me because the census records said he was born in Oregon, yet his residence was always Washington. Fast forward to October 2015. I set my timer for ten minutes and filed. Among them was a file marked with my parents’ address. In 2007, when I saved that document from being shredded with the rest of my parents’ old records, I was interested in genealogy. Needless to say, I was delighted, if a little chagrined, to find it. Are there any piles or files in your home that might reveal some genealogical treasures?
The Photo Detective Footnote GeneaPress How to Read Old Handwriting You can train yourself to read old handwriting. This is a necessary skill if you want to read handwritten census records or any type of record that was produced before the wide-spread use of the typewriter in the 1920s. This article lists the best free online resources and tutorials to help get you started. Palaeography is the study of old handwriting. At some point, every genealogist comes across an old handwritten record of their ancestor, looks at it and pronounces it totally illegible. It is not necessarily illegible; it just might seem illegible to the modern eye. Context There are two aspects to reading handwritten historic documents: • Understanding what letter of the alphabet the cursive script represents The resources below generally focus on the first aspect – understanding the letters in the cursive script. Resource List Here is the GenealogyInTime Magazine list of the five best free resources that will help you read old handwriting: 1. 2.
Italy Origins Blog » More Free RootsMagic Classes More Free RootsMagic Classes It seems like the more free RootsMagic classes we do, the more requests we get for additional topics. Here are 4 new classes scheduled for the next couple of months. To sign up for the free classes, or to view past recorded classes, visit us at: Here are upcoming classes for May and June: Creating a Website in RootsMagic Putting your data on your own website is a great way to share your research with family members and to make connections with unknown cousins and distant relatives. Here are the free archived webinars already available for you to view or download: Genealogy Tip of the Day | Grow Your Genealogy Skills-One Tip at a Time From Genealogist Michael John Neill