30 May 2014

Upfront Mini Bytes – Ashkenazic Jews, The Vault, Congregational Archive, British WWI Army Diaries, Google Newspaper Archive, Canadian Parliament, Durham (NC), American-Canadian Marriages

Welcome to our newest edition of our periodic feature Upfront Mini Bytes.  In Upfront Mini Bytes we provide eight tasty bits of genealogy news that will help give you a deeper byte into your family history research. Each item is short and sweet.  We encourage you to check out the links to articles, blog posts, resources, and anything genealogical!

We hope you found the past editions helpful.  Use your favorite search engine with “Upfront with NGS” “Mini Bytes” or use this Google search link.

Do you have questions, suggestions for future posts, or comments?  Please post a comment or send an e-mail to [email protected].

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Understanding of the origin of a surname can be very helpful as we research our ancestors.  If you are researching Ashkenazic Jewish ancestry, consider reading Here's The Fascinating Origin Of Almost Every Jewish Last Name (Business Insider). [1 June 2014, Editor's note: the hyperlink to this article has been disabled.  The article as originally written and as edited has been found to be filled with assertions which are non-referenced/sourced, myths, and contain untruths and inaccuracies. Rather than perpetuate this error-filled content, Upfront with NGS hopes to soon post an editorial about this article and the critical reaction it received from the community.]

If you don’t read The Vault on Slate.com with posts by Rebecca Onion, you might want to add it to your list.  It is a neat blog where interesting historic information is often posted – typically in the form of a visual graphic that tells a story.  Some examples are: Some Everyday Words That Meant Really Different Things to Early American Colonists, Chart Shows Occupations of Soldiers Most Likely to Be Rejected by the Union Army. (Sorry, Editors, Barkeeps, and Tailors.), and A Map of Hundreds of Noise Complaints in 1920s Manhattan, and Four Other Stupendous Digital History Projects. You can access the blog version here, which gives you a sense of the esoteric and interesting history tidbits shared.

Church archives and their records are fascinating.  For some ancestors, early mentions in church records may be the only documentation of their existence, especially if they were landless, female, or just generally “under the radar” of who was documented.  If you had practicing Congregationalist ancestors who lived in New England in the Colonial Era, check out the Congregational Library & Archives History Matters digital collection.
 
British Army war diaries (1914-1922) are online with more to be added. These are British Army unit war diaries for both Flanders and France. Note that these are not personal diaries.

Though the Google news archive of newspapers is no longer being added to, this doesn’t mean that you can’t access its really neat historic archives.  Go to this page and you will see a list of all newspapers (or you can search for a title). Select a newspaper of interest and then you can browse the available issues.  You can also search through the newspapers though I suggest you put the name of the newspaper in quotes along with your search term.  The absence of a result may not truly mean that there is no matching content. Between the vagaries of the search feature and OCR indexing technology, don’t completely trust the search feature!

If you want a view of the Canadian Parliament in action, the historical debates (in English and French) of both the Senate and the House of Commons from 1867-mid 1990s are now online. Who knows, maybe a member of your family was a topic of conversation either directly or as part of a group impacted by the outcome of a debated topic.

Community digitization projects are always fascinating.  Durham (NC) has a project, Digital Durham that includes Personal Papers, Business Records, Maps, Photographs, Printed Works, Miscellany, Public Records, and Audio all accessible online thanks to funding from Duke University and the North Carolina State Library.


The Maine Franco-American Genealogical Society has created a summary of American-Canadian Marriages 1599-1984 that reflects “Marriages from Canadian Parishes with American descendants.”







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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

29 May 2014

NGS 2014 Family History Conference – Session F303 – Newly Discovered Records of the Poor: Rich records of the indigent and downtrodden


Another in the series on sessions I attended at the NGS 2014 Family History Conference.

F303 (R) Newly Discovered Records of the Poor: Rich records of the indigent and downtrodden, Eric Stroschein, Syllabus page 309

It’s been awhile since a presentation talked about a type of US record that I have never heard about – if even in passing.  After you do a lot of research and dig into just about any record you can find, it’s always pleasantly surprising to find out not only that there might be more records you can look into and how they might benefit your research.

I was completely unaware of Laws relating to “Mothers’ pensions” in the United States, Denmark and New Zealand (1914).  My take away is that these were a precursor to the welfare programs that we are more familiar with and they fascinate me since there are several “poor” families that have stymied me in 1920s & 1930s North Carolina.

And, I learned why I wasn’t familiar with these laws, apparently North Carolina, in 1914, was NOT one of the states listed in this collection, though 22 US states are listed.  Let me observe that the “south” as a whole is not represented in this list!  I also checked a 1919 version of the above publication (expanded to include Canada), which mentions 41 US states, including some southern ones like Virginia and Tennessee, though, alas, no North Carolina.  According to an article by The Legal Genealogist (Judy G Russell), North Carolina finally enacted such a law in 1923 (her information is based on an article no longer online).

Doing further research, I came across an article “The Evolution of the Institution of Mothers’ Pensions in the United States,” Ada J Davis, American Journal of Sociology Vol. 35, No. 4 (Jan., 1930), pp. 573-587 (available via JSTOR, see article JSTOR – A previously hidden treasure trove now has elements FREELY accessible to all! to learn how you can access journal articles via JSTOR).  This article tells me that in North Carolina the county commissioners handled the disbursement of funds.  I then visited the MARS catalog (State Archives of North Carolina) and learned that under the Social Services Record Group (97) it is stated ...
In 1920 the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare was organized into five bureaus and the commissioner's office. The Bureau of Child Welfare handled case work, supervised institutes for defective, delinquent, and dependent children, and gave general oversight to the Mothers' Aid Program, begun in 1923 to aid needy widowed, divorced, or deserted mothers of young children... 

There is also a reference to this public law, 1923, c[hapter]. 260. I then checked out Public laws and resolutions passed by the general Assembly at its session of 1923 (see page 631 of 722, actually page 483 in original publication) “Chapter 260 – An Act to Aid Needy Orphan Children in the Homes of Worthy Mothers”


For me to learn more, I will now need to physically visit the NC Archives, look at the appropriate “black binder,” learn how the records are organized, obtain the correct call number, pull the records and take a gander.  I’ll let you know what I find out.  If you decide to visit the NC archives and ask for these same records, let’s keep how you heard about them a secret .

The pages in the syllabus give you a rich history of these records, the pertinent laws, what you might learn from these records, suggestions on how you might find them and a list of reference links/resources that you will want to check out.


Editor’s Note: This series is not presented in any particular order.




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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. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.
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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 [email protected]. 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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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

28 May 2014

Getty Royalty-Free Images just might breathe some life into your non-commerical blog's visuals ...


Whether you write a genealogy blog, want to illustrate a family history or just have a need for FREE images to use, for a non-commercial endeavor, it can be challenging to figure out what you can use, when and how, what copyright and usage laws are applicable, etc.  Basically, it’s pretty complex to figure out appropriate image usage.

Back in March, Getty Images made headlines as it appeared to open much of its photo portfolio for free.  Read The world’s largest photo service just made its pictures free to use. We always like to hear FREE and when combined with PHOTO, we almost squeal with delight.

Though there are constraints (the free policy only applies to non-commercial usage), I suggest that you read The Legal Genealogist post Getty Images: not quite free to use for the nitty-gritty and I’ll just stick to how a genealogist blogger might take advantage of this new cornucopia of images!

First, not all Getty Images are FREE.  You need to look at the Royalty-Free (under Creative Stock Images collection).  You can access this collection versus the link provided, or when you do a search on age page, make sure that only Royalty-Free (RF) is clicked.

If you search on a basic term like “genealogy” you will not get many results.  Funnily (or not) if you search on geneology (note the misspelling) you get a lot more results!


Here is an example of an embedded code image,
I also did some searching on other terms, like census, DNA, newspapers and other terms a genealogist might need images for and there is quite a selection.  Though the use of such images might not suit your purposes, it's always nice to know what collections of images are available to us.

Though I frequently use images from Creative Commons for this blog, it does take a little more effort to make sure that proper attribution is attached to those images.


Do you have a favorite source of FREE images that you use for non-commercial genealogy or family history related blogs, etc?





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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. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.
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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 [email protected]. 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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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!
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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to [email protected]
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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

27 May 2014

NGS 2014 Family History Conference – Session T219 – Tech Tools That Catapult the Newspaper Research Process into the Twenty-First Century


Another in the series on sessions I attended at the NGS 2014 Family History Conference.

T219 Tech Tools That Catapult the Newspaper Research Process into the Twenty-First Century, Lisa Louise Cooke, Syllabus page 177

We love newspapers.  They are sometimes the only source of data, as well as color, about a person we are researching.

As someone who has done a lot of newspaper research, online and offline, my biggest (though not only) takeaways from this talk were:
2. Learned about www.NewspaperMap.com (check it out)
3. Encouraged to use the free Web clipper for Evernote (which strengthened my resolve about using Evernote; another in this series talks about a presentation on Evernote that I attended)

I had previously been introduced to the Stanford Newspaper Data Visualization website from the perspective of seeing the big picture of newspaper growth over time -- The Growth of Newspapers Across the U.S.: 1690-2011. I just hadn’t thought to use it as a visual means to identify where newspapers were located for a locale I was researching; imagine me slapping my forehead when I heard about this.  Even though the State Library of North Carolina has a neat newspaper locator tool, it doesn’t have a visual component and it doesn’t help me when dealing with border communities.  On this map, I can see newspapers at a certain time (say 1829 – see image above) and in the case of NC, I can also see what newspapers were published in VA, SC, TN and GA which may have relevance to the NC locales I am researching.

The associated syllabus pages provide lots of details about sources for information about extant newspapers and also Lisa’s Top 5 Newspaper Tips.


Editor’s Note: This session was NOT recorded.  Hopefully a friend attended the conference and you can learn more!
Editor’s Note: This series is not presented in any particular order.



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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. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.
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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 [email protected]. 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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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!
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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to [email protected]
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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

26 May 2014

NGS 2014 Family History Conference – Session T260 – Diving into Archives: Uncovering ArchiveFinder and ArchiveGrid


Another in the series on sessions I attended at the NGS 2014 Family History Conference.

T260 (R) Diving into Archives: Uncovering ArchiveFinder and ArchiveGrid, D. Joshua Taylor, MA, MLS, Syllabus page 283

The talk was great in reminding us how many archives there are in the world and also the enormous task that archives are faced with in terms of identifying what they have and making their materials accessible to the public.

Recently, an archivist had mentioned ArchiveGrid to me.  I did play around with it a bit though I didn’t appreciate using the “summary view” vs the “list view” mode as described by Joshua and that is the way I will look at results in the future.  A long list of results was tedious to go through and it lacked contextual information; not so when using the summary view mode.  Searching on “wake county” ledger brought up 14 results now characterized in a much easier-to-digest mode (see graphic above).  Finding aids, if available from the participating institutions, are included in the search.


Joshua also suggested subscribing to the ArchiveGrid blog, which I have just done, to keep current on new collections.  The most recent post was about 13 newly registered institutions from Australia and New Zealand.  Good news for anyone researching for ancestors “down under.”

I was unfamiliar with ArchiveFinder (Proquest) and that might be more explained by it being available only to institutional subscribers.  ArchiveFinder is a current directory which describes over 220,000 collections housed in repositories in the US, UK and Ireland.

I was also unfamiliar with the Library of Congress Authorities list.  Since many libraries, archives and other repositories use this system as the basis for their cataloguing.  Having an understanding of what headings/references have been catalogued can help you better search in any catalogs that you come across.

So, two news tools in my genealogical research arsenal.

The associated syllabus pages provide a lot of detail about what you might find in each of these resources and how to best search the contents to identify possibly relevant archival material.



Editor’s Note: This series is not presented in any particular order.



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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. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
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 [email protected]. 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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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!
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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to [email protected]
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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

23 May 2014

Upfront Mini Bytes – Passenger List Annotations, London (UK), Gesher Galicia, Meharry Medical College, Historic Maps, Victorian Photos, Irish Ancestry, Historical Newspapers Online

Welcome to our newest edition of our periodic feature Upfront Mini Bytes.  In Upfront Mini Bytes we provide eight tasty bits of genealogy news that will help give you a deeper byte into your family history research. Each item is short and sweet.  We encourage you to check out the links to articles, blog posts, resources, and anything genealogical!

We hope you found the past editions helpful.  Use your favorite search engine with “Upfront with NGS” “Mini Bytes” or use this Google search link.

Do you have questions, suggestions for future posts, or comments?  Please post a comment or send an e-mail to [email protected].

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Have you ever looked at a passenger list and noticed scribbles and writing on it?  Most are actually significant and are not the result of a sloppy clerk or enthusiastic archivist.  Learn more about these in A Guide to Interpreting Passenger List Annotations.

Did an ancestor have a business in London?  Have you looked to see if there might be an extant archive of its records?  If not, check out the London Metropolitan Archives Collections Guide – A-Z business listing.

I’m always looking for Galician/Ruthenian resources on the Internet.  My father’s family emigrated (1900-1910) from Finland and Galicia. Because of that, and even though they weren’t Jewish, I pay close attention to what the Gesher Galicia: The Bridge to Galicia website posts because some of the mentioned resources could also benefit my research into my non-Jewish ancestry.

Meharry Medical College (Nashville TN) has a neat online archive.  Included are historical student matriculation records (1878-197), catalogues, newsletters, yearbooks, graduation ceremony booklets, historical images, and more!

Just like looking at historic photos overlaid on modern images is neat, the same goes for overlaying historic maps on modern maps.  Check out The Quaint Plans for American Cities, as We Envisioned Them 200 Years Ago.  This project is based on the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States (1832), which the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab is bringing entirely online and geo-rectifying the maps so they can be viewed atop modern digital maps.

Speaking of historic photos, how often have you found yourself making faces or hamming it up so that those you are taking a photo of would stay still (hopefully mesmerized with a pleasant expression on their face)?  Given the length of exposure time in the late 1800s (about 30 seconds), the task to keep an infant still required great creativity.  Check out Victorian parents hiding in pictures to keep their babies still long enough for a portrait [20 pics] to see how parents were camouflaged just to get a photo taken.

Many people have Irish Ancestors.  Irish ancestral research just gets easier and easier as more online resources become available.  IrishCentral published its list of Your Irish roots online, a guide to some of the best genealogy sites. It lists a lot of neat resources.


We love historical newspapers.  You just never know when a family member will be mentioned and we get a glimpse into their life.  Penn Libraries is making it easier for us to identify what historical newspapers are online via their Historical Newspapers Online page. The information is grouped by state.







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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. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
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 [email protected]. 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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Follow NGS via Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter
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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!
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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to [email protected]
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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

22 May 2014

NGS 2014 Family History Conference – Session T242 – Finding Relatives Like a Private Eye


Another in the series on sessions I attended at the NGS 2014 Family History Conference.

T242 (R) Finding Relatives Like a Private Eye, Lisa Louise Cooke, Syllabus page 219

A key element of doing this is recognizing that “Unless a person is actively making an effort not to be found, they leave a paper trail!”

I could identify with what she called Principle #4: Few People are Free from Bureaucracy.  There was someone I was tracking who didn’t want to be found (absconded with church money, abandoned his family, was a bigamist, etc) and it was his desire to receive a pension for national guard service that ultimately unraveled his death (and life) – read more about how I discovered much about this person’s life and death in Looking For A Man Who Didn’t Want to Be Found!

And Tip #8: Check Campaign Contributions was not on my radar at all.  I had never heard of Open Secrets and its Donor Lookup service. On this site, you can check contributions back to 1990.  This site was fascinating.  I had no idea that such information was public.  Another site mentioned was CQ Moneyline donor search which goes back to 1980 (only showing donations for each 4 year election cycle).


Based on my own experience, I will say that with people increasingly using cell phones (versus land lines) and being fairly mobile in where they live it seems like it has become harder to track living people than it once was.  Whether it’s cousins to share notes with or individuals you would like to ask to participate in a DNA study, finding the living sometimes takes priority over documenting the dead.  I now have a few new resources to consider and tactics to employ.  Hopefully some of these living individuals will not be as elusive as they once were based on using Lisa Louise Cooke’s suggestions!

The associated syllabus pages provide an overview of the 8 research tactics suggested by Lisa Louise along with many internet references for where you might search.



Editor’s Note: This series is not presented in any particular order.



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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. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
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 [email protected]. 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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Follow NGS via Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter
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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!
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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to [email protected]

21 May 2014

Blogtrottr -- a means to get those valuable genealogy blog posts to your inbox!


Like many of you, in addition to monitoring genealogy and family history research news via FB, Google+, etc, I also receive a lot of genealogy newsletters via email.

In fact, my preferred method for receiving family history research news is via e-mail.  The reason for this is that I have “rules” set in my e-mail software that automatically “file” genealogy newsletters in a folder called “Genealogy Newsletters.”  I do this for the following reasons: 1. I don’t have to read or deal with them in real-time, 2. They are off my “to do” list until I want them to be on it, 3. Though I may glance at some newsletters in real-time, most I put aside and read bi-weekly, 4. News is often repeated in several of the newsletters that I receive and from the headlines I figure out quickly what is redundant news and skip those posts, and 5. I then “archive” all of these newsletters, by title, so that if I do an across-computer search on a topic I will see these newsletters.

That said, not all blogs have an option for you to receive their newsletters as an e-mail feed. I know myself well enough to know that I will NOT use an online reader to access blog content.  It’s just not going to happen!  I figure that I spend enough time on Facebook gathering news, of course to share with all of you (wink, wink), that spending more time browsing the internet for news is not what I need/should be doing!

This issue of receiving blogs as e-mail has challenged me for years.  That is because, every time I get used to such a service, it disappears.  The most recent one to disappear was Yahoo Alerts!  So, I’ve actually gone back to a service that I had used previously.  I have my fingers crossed that it will be more enduring than all the ones I’ve used so far.

It is called Blogtrottr and it is incredibly easy to use.  Look at the graphic above – essentially you enter the URL of the feed, provide your email address and indicate the frequency with which you want to receive e-mails (realtime, 2/4/6/8/12 hour digests, or as a daily digest - my preferred mode).  You will then receive an e-mail and are asked to click a link to verify the feed.  That’s it.  You will receive emails, if a blog post has been published, with the frequency you selected.

Do make sure when you enter the URL that you are entering it for the “feed” from that blog. For example, I just recently wanted to get a feed for the ArchiveGrid Blog, http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/blog/ -- the URL you want though is actually that for the RSS Feed, which for this blog is http://feedpress.me/ArchiveGrid.

At the bottom of every e-mail you receive, you will see this box which allows you to unsubscribe from any feed at any time.


I always use the FREE version of this service as it does what I need.  There are subscription plans with added features which appear to be geared to those who have their own blog and wish to allow readers to subscribe to email feeds from that blog.

I currently don’t use this for many blogs since more and more blogs seem to offer an e-mail delivery option.  And, if you come across one that doesn’t, this gives you a method to get the news e-mailed right to your inbox!

In our world of so much news, I really enjoy having some “control” over how, when and what I read when combined with the ability to “not” have to see news feeds until I want to.  This may appeal to you also.



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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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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.