I'm getting ready to teach a class to the Relief Society Sisters [women in my church] this coming Wednesday. Always before I teach I need to thoroughly poke around on familysearch.org and their blog in order to make sure that I am on top of what is new and current. I've been caught off guard SO MANY TIMES. The technology is plowing ahead at an amazing speed and sometimes I have a hard time keeping up.
Not only do I need to be aware of what is new, but I have made handouts for my classes and I have a hard time keeping up with them and all the changes that are taking place. Tonight I came across a gold mine though!
There is a Familysearch Library located in Riverton, Utah (South of the "Mecca library"- aka THE Family History Library in Salt Lake). Personally I have yet to go there, but I have heard great things about it. I have even more reason to love it... it looks like they do regular classes (another reason I would love to visit) but they are kind enough to post their handouts ONLINE!
If you are doing anything from using familysearch, to adding sources, to doing google searches, check out their handouts. [As of today] many of them are current including familysearch and I personally found them helpful so you are sure to as well. I just printed out the Search tools handout and I'm heading back to print off the general familysearch one.
Now the question is what to include in my class this week and how to keep the number of pages down? :)
I've included a link to their guides on my blog on the left for future reference.
Happy Tree Climbing!
Showing posts with label Family History Websites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family History Websites. Show all posts
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Monday, September 1, 2014
Illinois Railroad Maps
These come from the Illinois Digital Archives. They are particularly interesting to me because I had multiple grandfather's that were engineers for the C&EI railroad including Charles Everett Condon and Henry Dodd Bigelow.
Illinois Railroad Maps
Blog: The Ancestor Hunt
I came across this website, The Ancestor Hunt, through Pinterest (which is a great place to find family history related information). I've poked around there a little bit and there are a few treasure troves to be found.
Particularly for newspapers and photos.
The photos for Illinois specifically lead me on a wonderful tangent that resulted in me locating a photo of my 4th great-grandfather that I have never seen before! Gold mine! (more to come from that story)
Particularly for newspapers and photos.
The photos for Illinois specifically lead me on a wonderful tangent that resulted in me locating a photo of my 4th great-grandfather that I have never seen before! Gold mine! (more to come from that story)
Lesson: Never hesitate to poke around on random websites, you never know what you will unearth!
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Historical US Newspapers Onilne
Penn Libraries has a compiliation of newspapers available online on their website . You can see a list with a brief description of all the newspapers organized by state. They also have a nice map feature that helps you visually see what newspapers were published where throughout the country.
If you narrow it by state you can see what newspapers are available online for specific locations. Sadly there is nothing for Marion or Clay county Illinois.
The website seems to be well done and I'm excited to keep checking back in looking for updates on my family locations.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Familysearch.org and Family Tree
My ward (congregation) has sure put me to work. Since my assignment as family history consultant I have given a presentation about small and simple things you can do in family history for a women's class, started teaching a seven lesson class once a week, given a brief presentation to about 100 people about familysearch, and I am now preparing to teach two more classes to youth groups in the next couple weeks. Oh and I'm working in our local family history center a few hours this week.
I'm feeling BUSY!
It's a good busy and it is exciting to be a part of it all!
Amid all these assignments I have had to quickly become very familiar with Familysearch.org. And lucky me it had recently gone through a complete overhaul shortly before I was called. I have worked with new.familysearch.org and I have searched records on labs.familysearch.org but both of those are old hat to this new system.
There are so many wonderful features on familysearch.org now. Be sure to check them out!
Family Tree:
This is where you can keep track of your pedigree. It is similar to new.familysearch.org but so much smoother and user friendly. The ability to add sources is greatly improved over the new system. Especially with sources that are coming directly off of familysearch.org. I've been spending a lot of time just adding sources to the information that is already on my tree. It makes me feel so much better when information can be supported and verified by sources!
Photos and Stories:
This new feature is AWESOME! You can find and/or share heritage photos on the website and link them to your family lines. This is a great way to preserve and share important photos that you have inherited. I have been slowly working on adding the photos I digitized at my grandma's a few years ago. My husband has benefited from other family members uploading photos and stories onto his family line. He has a second cousin that is transcribing a personal history and we have been able to read the stories and share them with our children. It is amazing to read about Josh's pioneer heritage and the sacrifices they made for their families and the gospel.
Search:
This is where you can gain access to all the millions of records being indexed by thousands of volunteers worldwide. It is an amazing collection that is FREE and growing daily.
Familysearch.org has also made it really easy to find, prepare, request and manage the temple work for our ancestors. So much better that when I started doing family history and you had to go to a FHC and work on a dos program. :P
Another thing I am really impressed with is familysearch's helpcenter. They have dozens of videos to help you with familysearch, teach you how to do family history research, online research help, etc...
This has been particularly helpful as I have been learning about familysearch.
The ease and accessibility of this website and many more popping up all over the internet is a testimony to me of the importance of family work. It is a blessing to be a part of this work that is accelerating a such an exciting speed.
I'm feeling BUSY!
It's a good busy and it is exciting to be a part of it all!
Amid all these assignments I have had to quickly become very familiar with Familysearch.org. And lucky me it had recently gone through a complete overhaul shortly before I was called. I have worked with new.familysearch.org and I have searched records on labs.familysearch.org but both of those are old hat to this new system.
Family Tree:
This is where you can keep track of your pedigree. It is similar to new.familysearch.org but so much smoother and user friendly. The ability to add sources is greatly improved over the new system. Especially with sources that are coming directly off of familysearch.org. I've been spending a lot of time just adding sources to the information that is already on my tree. It makes me feel so much better when information can be supported and verified by sources!
Photos and Stories:
This new feature is AWESOME! You can find and/or share heritage photos on the website and link them to your family lines. This is a great way to preserve and share important photos that you have inherited. I have been slowly working on adding the photos I digitized at my grandma's a few years ago. My husband has benefited from other family members uploading photos and stories onto his family line. He has a second cousin that is transcribing a personal history and we have been able to read the stories and share them with our children. It is amazing to read about Josh's pioneer heritage and the sacrifices they made for their families and the gospel.
Search:
This is where you can gain access to all the millions of records being indexed by thousands of volunteers worldwide. It is an amazing collection that is FREE and growing daily.
Familysearch.org has also made it really easy to find, prepare, request and manage the temple work for our ancestors. So much better that when I started doing family history and you had to go to a FHC and work on a dos program. :P
Another thing I am really impressed with is familysearch's helpcenter. They have dozens of videos to help you with familysearch, teach you how to do family history research, online research help, etc...This has been particularly helpful as I have been learning about familysearch.
The ease and accessibility of this website and many more popping up all over the internet is a testimony to me of the importance of family work. It is a blessing to be a part of this work that is accelerating a such an exciting speed.
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