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. 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.
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. 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.
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. Each class will be limited to the first 1000 people to sign up, but if you miss out or can’t make it, don’t worry because we will record the class for you to download and watch later. 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 Family Curator - Home 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.