Mac Genealogy Software | Mac Genealogy News & Information 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. My father, his son, had no recollection of any family history in Oregon. Two years ago, I blogged about it when I discovered a birth announcement in a Portland paper. At that time I said I had written away to the state archives for a copy of the birth certificate. 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.
The Photo Detective GEDitCOM Genealogy Software Home Page 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. 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. These are historic examples of the capital letter A.
Italy Origins RootsWeb Genealogy Tip of the Day | Grow Your Genealogy Skills-One Tip at a Time From Genealogist Michael John Neill Genealogy Insider "Who Do You Think You Are?": Jesse Tyler Ferguson's Black Sheep Ancestor + Old Newspaper Research Tips Posted by Diane In last night's "Who Do You Think You Are?" Jesse Tyler Ferguson's great-grandfather Jess Uppercue—the father of Ferguson's paternal grandmother, Jessie, with whom he was close—seemed to get into trouble wherever he went. It started when he was arrested for the murder of an aunt he lived with at age 22. Although he had motive (he stood to gain a tidy sum when she died, having just insisted upon the rewriting of her will), the evidence was circumstantial. Uppercue later turns up in Evanston, Ill.; Fargo, ND; St. Then, as the promoter for an expedition to the Alaskan Klondike in 1898, he brought so many participants and provisions, and so much mining machinery, that the group couldn't use the rugged trail. As you could see in this episode (and as I've found in my own research), newspapers are a good source for tracing ne'er-do-well ancestors. "Who Do You Think You Are?"
Hot Tips on How to Use Google for Genealogy Searches Google is an ideal too for genealogists. In this article, we show you how to get the most out of Google when searching for your ancestors. Some General Principles Here are three basic principles to follow when searching online for your ancestors: 1. • The record has just been put on the internet. 2. Searching for ancestors is very much an exercise in overcoming brick walls. 3. • The Google search that you requested is not effective at extracting the correct result. Since new records are being added daily, a useful strategy is to repeat the same search pattern every couple of months to see if any new records are available. The rest of this article provides various tips and ideas to help you design Google searches for genealogy as efficiently as possible to maximize your chances of finding online that elusive ancestral record.