22 May 2013

Images at FamilySearch.org -- Here Today Gone Tomorrow?

Image courtesy of Victor Habbick at FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Just because we have access to digital images today via a database, doesn’t mean that those same images will remain available.  As more and more materials are digitized, remember that there are contractual agreements in place where access can either be withheld or eventually more widespread.


Earlier this year, some Cook County (IL records) were pulled from FamilySearch.  Read about this at The Ancestry Insider, Cook County Images Disappear From FamilySearch.org. Dick Eastman also discussed this in Why Was the Information Removed from Online?

On the other hand, NARA makes non-exclusive partnership arrangements with requirements for free access to those researching at NARA and sometimes to eventually being publicly available via the NARA website, etc.  You can learn about these agreements at [NARA] Digitization Partnerships.

I’ve also seen this with digitized newspapers.  At a certain point some were available via a subscription service encompassing many newspapers and then eventually a newspaper creates its own interface to which you can either subscribe or purchase articles via.

Do you know of other instances where a genealogy-related database was freely available and then not?

Or vice versa – a database where you used to have to subscribe that is now free?


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21 May 2013

Preserve the Pensions [War of 1812] -- Genealogy Road Trip Contest -- Enter NOW!




NGS encourages genealogists to partner with FGS, FamilySearch, and the National Archives to preserve the War of 1812 pensions.  Because of this, NGS wants you to know about The Genealogy Road Trip Contest!



Have you ever wanted to take a research trip to one of the top genealogical libraries in the United States and find out more about your ancestors? Are you all packed and ready to hit the road?

The Federation of Genealogical Societies is holding a contest to raise awareness about its Preserve the Pensions project to preserve and digitize War of 1812 pension files at the National Archives. To participate, simply complete the entry form below and add your name to our email list and then wait for your name to be selected for one of several prizes!

Prizes! Prizes! Prizes!

We’re undertaking a big project here trying to digitize 7.2 million pages of War of 1812 pension files and we believe in thinking BIG! This thinking carries over to our contest prizes which include:

Choice of a Genealogy Research Travel Package: Choose from one of the following research trips:
o       Salt Lake City Genealogy Research Package: A 7-night stay at the Salt Lake Plaza Hotel, a $200 meal gift card, and a $50 Family History Library photocopy card. Total value = $1,100.
o       Fort Wayne Genealogy Research Package: A 7-night stay at the Fort Wayne Hilton Hotel, a $200 meal gift card and a $50 Allen County Public Library photocopy card. Total value = $1,100.
o       Flip-Pal® mobile scanner: A genealogists’ best friend: mobile scanner for all your family photos and genealogy documents. Total value = $150.
o       findmypast.com 1-Year Membership: A one year membership to findmypast.com. Total value = $100.
o       And more! Prizes from Just a Joy, The Heirloom Registry, Maia’s Books, RootsMagic and more!
o       The total value of all the prizes for this contest is over $2,800!

Contest Format and Rules
We’ll begin drawing for prizes on Monday, May 20, 2013 and draw prizes each day leading up to Friday, May 24, 2013, when we’ll select the winner of the Genealogy Research Travel Package!  All winners will be notified by email.

In order to qualify for the contest, you must be a resident of the United States, over age 18 and provide your email address so we can contact you if you are a winner. After the contest, we’ll send you the latest information about the Preserve the Pensions project and you can unsubscribe from our mailing list at any time. Full contest rules can be found here.

Donate to Preserve the Pensions and Win a War of 1812 Quilt
Besides entering the contest, consider making a donation to the Preserve the Pensions project today. Not only will you help preserve and digitize War of 1812 pension files, but you’ll also be entered into a drawing to win a stunning War of 1812 commemorative quilt! Click here for more information and then look for the drawing in late August 2013.

Here’s How to Enter the Genealogy Road Trip Contest
Only one entry per email address please. There are two ways to enter:
o       Click here to enter via our Facebook page; OR
o       Click here to simply sign up for our e-newsletter and you’ll be automatically entered into the Contest!

Please spread the word about our contest on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media. And also visit the Preserve the Pensions website to learn more about this community effort to preserve an essential part of American history.










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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.
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Genealogy Writing -- Do you use the popular "Historical Present" tense? Should you?

Image courtesy of  Stuart Miles, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net


A post by Michael Hait, Historical writing and when to use present tense caught my eye.  In it, he refers to an article Ben Yagoda Gets Sick of the Historical Present (on the Chronicle for Higher Education website).

As genealogists, we do a lot of writing!  Much of it might be in the form of Facebook posts, e-mails, blog posts, entries into our genealogy software, etc, and it is still writing.  Whether we’ve written one sentence or a 10-page footnoted article, we need to be “clear” in our communication.

That said, I found both Michael’s post and that by Ben Yagoda fun reads and they make a lot of sense.  Stick to the present or past depending on the context of what you are writing.  That’s neat, clean, and very understandable.

What do you think of the Historical Present as a tense in genealogy writing? Can it be appropriate or should it be eliminated?



Editor's Note:  Harold Henderson, Midwestern Microhistory: A genealogy blog recently post a related piece, "I" and "We" in genealogy writing.  He focuses on perspective vs verb tenses.


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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.
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Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!
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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.
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20 May 2013

A 10 Step Plan: Getting Sources & Citations Under Control

Created by Lynn Palermo, used with her permission


Citing sources – we talk about this often.  Why?  Because it is so important!

Lynn Palermo (The Armchair Genealogist), recently wrote A 10 Step Plan: Getting Sources & Citations Under Control and created a really neat graphic to go with it!  She states ...

We all were pulled into the excitement of the research, the thrill of the hunt and discovery of our family history. Eventually we all come to realize the importance of knowing where our information came from, and what sources we have to support our history as fact. However, more often then you realize, this knowledge arrives after we've been researching for some time.

So true.  It is easy to want to only do the exciting part.  Ask any genealogist if they like to write reports or similar and that booming sound was probably most of them saying “NO!”  Well, citing sources ranks right there with report writing.

I like how Lynn views source citing as part of a bigger process and not an end unto itself.  It’s part of an organic process that we can use regularly as we do our research.  Whenever we can make some element of our research part of a bigger habit, the more likely we are to stick with it.  Putting my floss next to my daily medicines has sure helped my dental health!

Do you agree with her 10 steps? Would you want to add 1 or 2 more and if so, what?



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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.
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Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!
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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.
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17 May 2013

Upfront Mini Bytes







Upfront Mini Bytes


We hope you found the past editions helpful:



Do you have questions, suggestions for future posts, or comments?  Please post a comment or send an e-mail to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Buncombe County (NC) is bringing the slavery era to light by making many documents available online.  Read this informative article, Bought & Sold: Forgotten documents highlight local slave history.  The list of slave deeds (and a video about the project) can be found at Slave Deeds.

When Dick Eastman reported 1000+ Jasper County, Missouri Family Biographies added to My Genealogy Hound I just had to check out the website.  Currently included are resources for Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.
 
As more and more documents are generated, archives, courthouses, libraries and other, repositories are running into space issues.  Or, really, lack of space issues.  This article, York County Archives running out of room, talks about the issues for this Pennsylvania county.

Neat video from the Library of Congress: Library of Congress: Preserving past and present for the future.  Carol Highsmith is working on a decades-long project photographing all 50 states and the District of Columbia and these images are free to be used by anyone.

Loved this article at The DNA Discussion, And Bob’s Your Uncle: A Guide To Defining Great Aunts, Great-Great Grandparents, First Cousins Once-Removed, and Other Kinfolk.  It can be so challenging to help people “visualize” how they are related to the people they research.  For most of us, once we get to great-grandparents and start going down the various branches of the tree, it’s easy to lose “how” we are connected.  The chart and accompanying discussion don’t cover every possible relationship, but it’s a great start.

Genealogy is an endeavor marked by persistance and thoroughness. If you want to know the wrong way to delve into your family’s history, read this article at Archives.com, 5 Guaranteed Ways to Mess Up Your Genealogy.  I will confess that #1 plagued me in the beginning and I quickly became much more methodical about documenting sources!

If your family had any connections to the Port of Los Angeles you will be interested to know that a New archivist [is] putting Port of Los Angeles history online as reported in dailybreeze.com. As stated in the article ... “From handwritten employee ledgers to black-and-white photographs, the Port of Los Angeles' past is being revived for public consumption, thanks to an archivist and a port director whose passion is history.”



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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.
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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.
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16 May 2013

Summary of NGS 2013 Family History Conference Blog Posts!



Guest Blogger Julie Miller, Vice President NGS ...

A big thank you to Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings for putting together a list of blog posts about the conference. There are some very informative posts from many different perspectives.

Since we all can be in only one place at a time (which is definitely a disadvantage during the conference), the posts are a good way to hear about the sessions we had to miss. Also, they are very helpful for making a list of CDs to buy from Jamb, Inc., http://www.jamb-inc.com/genealogy. The 2013 conference list will be available for purchase in a few weeks.




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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.
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Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!
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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog.
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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.
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15 May 2013

Genealogy: Learning begins with a question

used via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en


We have to ask questions to get answers.  We have to ask the right questions to get useful answers. Our questions are not always about who, what, where, when and why.  Sometimes they are about how?  How were records collected? How are they organized?

Such a simple idea and yet so complex. 

I was reminded of this when I read Barry Ewell’s post, Genealogy: Learning begins with a question (Deseret News, SLC, UT) ...

Questions and answers are the foundation for exchanging genealogical information. We have many ways to learn, but by simply asking questions, we set the stage for learning and also for sharing what we know.

Nobody gets into family research unless they are curious.  Without curiosity we would not be good researchers.  Without questions, there would be no answers. 

How often have I been at the archives, asked a colleague a question, received an answer, asked more questions, thought-out-loud about other questions and eventually either received an answer or have constructed a game plan to get an answer. 


What other questions might we ask as we do our research?


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copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.
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Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!
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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.
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