Volunteer Researchers

We all are aware of sites such as Ancestry.com, WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilySearch.org, however one thing that many aren't aware of is all the volunteer researchers out there. Organizations such as Random Acts of Genealogy Kindness, Find a Grave, Names in Stone, are wonderful resources to find information that you don't have access to. Many can retrieve old land documents, marriage records, they will know where and who to talk to get the information for you if it is available. As a Volunteer, it is a great honor to help others solve the mystery, take one more brick down in their quest to complete their family tree.

One individual I took a request for wanted a photograph of a Grandma and her son. He couldn't locate the Grandfather. Turned out there were 3 Generations of the same name for the males, when I went to the cemetery on the back of the stone was a list of family, and next to the Grandmother's grave was that of the Grandfather. 

The back of this headstone helped clear up the confusion. It was set in between the two individuals and had a list of Father, Mother, children on the back. There is one name at the bottom that I will go and do a stone rubbing for, it was a child's name and different last name. At the time there was snow on the ground and limited the amount of time I could apply to photographing the details of the stones.

Organizing your research

First I sort everything by the family surnames into binder inside page protectors. 

Then I arrange all family documents into Location, it also helps break things down into a time line, using Ahnentafel numbering system.

The Ahnentafel is a list of all known ancestors of a specific individual. It charts use a strict numbering scheme to make it easy to see at a glance how they are related to the root individual.

Here are some photos I took tonight of my little system. Some are blurry, I will have to take better pictures when it's not so late at night and the little hands cant get curious.

 

sheet separators that are labeled by the name and generation link Ahnentafel numbering system.

I will look through more of my stuff to see if there are any other suggestions. My Grandma's cousin "Bubbles" Edna did most of the research on Ancestry.com. I am confirming with documentation, and linking photos with names. LOL one of my Grandma's Uncle Joseph Akin was quite the ladies man, he had 7 wives all together... Interesting when you are going through photos and try to figure out which wife is standing next to him. And my Grandma's  Grandmother, Mae Durbin out lived 7 husbands herself, so there is a lot of blended family names to be added. Her married name at death was not Durbin, so I needed to find out who she was her last husband. Through an obituary I was able to find that information. 

Try a new Ancestry.com Membership!

FREE Webinar Family Tree University

Researching your family history can be a great adventure. In this free Expert Webinars, Desmond Walls Allen, author of Family History Detective: A Step-by-Step Guide to Investigating Your Family Tree, will discuss research principles guaranteed to give you success.

Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Starting Time: 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific
Presenter: Desmond Walls Allen, author of Family History Detective: A Step-by-Step Guide to Investigating Your Family Tree


Duration: 60 minutes
Price: FREE!

REGISTRATION FOR THE LIVE SESSION INCLUDES:
Participation in the Live presentation and Q&A session
Access to the webinar recording to view again as many times as you like
A PDF of the presentation slides for future reference

WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Anyone who has an interest in family history
Genealogists looking for general guidance on conducting family history research

Ancestry.com 15th Anniversary Sweepstakes

Win Daily Prizes with Ancestry.com 15th Anniversary Sweepstakes 

Starting October 1st, Ancestry.com will celebrate its 15th Anniversary with 15 days of free databases and a sweepstakes giveaway with prizes awarded everyday!  The Sweepstakes Grand Prize will be a chance to go behind the scenes of an episode of Who Do You Think You Are, meet Executive Producer Lisa Kudrow,  the celebrity guest, and see how the show is made. PLUS, tons of prizes throughout the Anniversary!!!! 

20% off Family Tree Maker

Get 20% off Family Tree Maker 2012 at Ancestry.com ends in 2 days. It isn't to late to get this discount on the latest, improved software. You can still search for all the wonderful resources through Ancestry.com as before.Features will include


TreeSync — lets you easily synchronize your tree in Family Tree Maker with an online Ancestry.com tree.
Access and update your tree anywhere. Continue your research wherever you are whether it’s through your computer, Ancestry.com, even your iPhone or iPad.

Easily share your tree with your family, and even work on it together. Your family and friends can view the online version of your tree without any software or a subscription. They just login with their name and email and they can always see the latest version of your tree, and can even work on adding to it if you’d like them to.

Collaborate with the largest, most active family history community in the world. You can keep your online tree private or make it public so that others researching your family can always find the latest version of your research. You may connect with others who have insight on your ancestors or even rare photos to share with you. And you may even find relatives you didn’t know you had.


Blended family view — shows combined families, including stepfamilies and adoptees at a glance.


Improved Smart Stories — give you new tools for adding and editing details.


Chart personalization — lets you personalize charts by adding text and displaying generation labels such as parents, grandparents and great–grandparents.


Index of individuals report — lists every individual in your tree, plus their birth, marriage and death dates.


Customized fact sentences — let you change wording and choose what data is included in sentences that Family Tree Maker generates for certain reports and Smart Stories.
Descendent charts between two people — make it easy to choose two individuals in your tree and create a descendant chart that shows their relationship.

Get 20% Off of Family Tree Maker 2012

Get 20% off Family Tree Maker 2012 at Ancestry.com

There are 12 more days til the offical release of the newest software which will allow you to sync your trees with distant relatives. I am still waiting, not so patiently for my copy of FTM 2012. Am really excited to see the enhancements of the new software. This 20% offer ends in 12 days on September 28, 2011.

Cyndi's List

Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet


I talked about Cyndi's List the other day and how much I enjoy visiting her site. There is so much information on Genealogy on her site. Everything from researching old adoption records to state records. She has it all listed, ready to research or find where to access thse documents.

Using Google Books

This was part of the Google for Genealogists package that Family Tree University is offering this month. The instructors there are really helpful in finding ways to solve brick walls or other area's to search. This video is by Allison Stacey an Instructor at Family Tree University. Right now they are having a special on the Google for Genealogists package.

Sharing Memories, Solving Mysteries

It's been a few days since I had the chance to post more on Genealogy.  I had the chance to visit my Aunt and Cousins that live in another State. My Aunt has all the photographs, letters, post cards, and documents that Grandma had saved through the years. My Aunt had found report cards from grade school that were Grandma's. They were in wonderful condition, and Great Grandma Ula's signature was still on the back. These were report cards from Grade 3rd to Grade 6th, at St. Mary's School.

There didn't seem to be enough time to go through all the wonderful photographs, read all the letters, and post cards that had been collected through the years. We had found letter from Nancy Ola Akin that she had wrote to my Grandma when she was just starting out as a young mom. I can hardly wait until the scanner is working and we can scan more than I was able to during my visit. They live 10 hours away, so getting there is a challenge at times. Here are a few boxes that we were going through.

.

At 1 AM as we were putting everything away I noticed an envelope from Bubbles- Edna. She has worked very hard on the family tree from the Durbin side and has shared with everyone the same information. Or we thought. We opened it and right away there was the Obituary and copies of old photographs of Fredrick Augustus Durbin. My Grandma's Grandfather who passed away when she was a couple months old. I had never seen nor was able to find much about Fredrick Augustus Durbin other than he was a Wire Carrier during the turn of the Century. And here was his obituary, photographs, more than I could have hoped to find. 

 

Fredrick A. Durbin Obituary. I will transcribed and add this later so that everyone can see his story. 

Photo of Fredrick A. Durbin, with Wife  Mae Augustas Williams Durbin, and son Fredrick R. Durbin. Scrapping these are going to be a lot of fun. Don't forget My Memory Digital Scrapbooking Giveaway ends on Saturday. I have been using My Memories this week for quick pages.

 

My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Giveaway!!!!!- Closed

I am SO EXCITED to be hosting a giveaway for

        My Memories Digital Scrapbooking!!!!

I have used My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking in the past, long before I got my current laptop. Still use it occasionally on my Dinosaur desk top that runs Windows 2000, yes OLD! Between my desk top, Laptop, external hard drive, I have over 

43, 000 photos and still counting. 

Digital Cameras have added such value to our lives, the instant access to our memories. We can share them everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, Flikr, e-mail instantly with loved ones. Now even our cell phones carry these cute photo moments. What to do with all these photos? They are already in your computer and you don't have to spend hours cutting, cropping, finding the space to store the photos safe.  My Memories Digital Scrapbooking allows convenience, and has many designs to play with.

With My Memories Digital Scrapbooking you can make Invitations, Cards, Scrapbooking Pages, Announcements and SO MUCH more!

My Memories Digital Scrapbooking is giving one of my lucky readers their complete My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Suite for FREE!!!! This software retails for $40! The My Memories Suite Software can use on a PC or Mac. The software has design tools that help you build entire albums effortlessly using one of the many installed templates or designing your own pages from scratch.

Even though only one of you will win the software for free, all of my other wonderful readers will get a $10 Discount on the software using our promo code STMMMS36408. That is a fantastic deal for the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Suite!

Here's how to Enter


To Enter the Giveaway you MUST follow THIS blog via Google Friend Connect(GFC) on the right. Click the “blue follow” tab on the sidebar. Then share how many family photos you want to preserve. If you’re like me and have a digital camera- there probably are thousands of precious memories. :)


Want Extra Chances to Win?


Extra Entry 1: Visit My Memories then come back and share with me which digital paper pack was your favorite.


Extra Entry 2: Share this post on with your friends on Twitter, or Facebook, or Blog- share link here. (3 possible entries)


Extra Entry 3: Like Dawns Delights on Network Blogs


Extra Entry 4: Follow My Memories on Twitter.


Extra Entry 5: "Like" My Memories on Facebook




It's all in the Details!


~Leave a separate comment for each entry.


~Winner will be drawn August 20, 2011 @ 9:00pm MST

~ Winner will be drawn through Random.org.


~Winner will be announced on August 21, 2011


~If I can't reach you through your GFC email, check back here on Sunday, August 21, 2011. You'll have 72 hours to claim your prize.




My Memories is also offering my readers a $10 Discount on their purchase of My Memories Suite v2 Software! Copy and paste the promo code STMMMS36408 in the promotional code field on the shopping cart page. The software also comes with another $10 coupon for Downloads. That’s $20 in Discounts!!!

Versatile Blog Award

A Thank you to Terri from Mom's Point of View for awarding me "The Versatile Blogger Award." This is my first blog award and am honored to be selected. Thank you Terri!!!

I'm very happy that Terri has been a reader of my blog. I have enjoyed reading her blog, so please check her's out.

The rules after accepting the Versatile Blogger Award are:

1. Thank the person who gave the award and link back to them in your post.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Pass this award along to 15 recently discovered blogs.

7 things about me:

1. I love my family and friends, they inspire me daily :)

2. I love all Crafts, but can't sew, knit, or crochet.

3. I love the sound of rain.

4. I created a porcelain doll that looks like my oldest son. Won at the NM State Fair 2 ribbons for the doll. Beginner's Doll Guild- 1st place and 2nd Place

5. I love Couponing and saving money.

6. I am a Cafemom.com Frugalista Moderator

7. I love traveling...



15 blogs I am passing this award to that really rock the web are:

1. KathyBs Little Corner

2. Kathy's Crafts

3. Karber's Blog

4. Randomosity

5. Tennessee Honey

6. The Queen of Swag

7. Under A Cherry Tree

8. Scraptastical Kreations

9. Blogging Biz Mom

10. Getting Cricky with K Andrews

11. A day in my Life

12. Dazzling Daily Deals

13. Granite in My Blood

14. Crazy for Paper Crafts

15. Mom's Online Garage Sale

These are only a few of the fabulous blogs that I follow, please check them and my following list out for more creative ladies.

Digital Family History Pages

My Grandma left behind many different photographs that she had collected through the years. It has been fun adding new digital enhancements to these memories. I wanted to share a couple that I have added to Daisy Trail scrapbooking. It is a software I use for my current photos, and was curious if older photo's would look just as great. They have so many different formats, so many different designs to work with. I decided on the Swirling Memories Template. Here are the 2 pages I have done and exported to JPG for sharing online. I can change the colors, the font, the layout, everything, and print out later on.

Joy, Ula, and Roy Akin- Children of Gip and Nancy Akin

Coffee Sisters, Nancy Coffee Akin, Mattie Coffee Randell, and Mattie Coffee.... Seeing women in pants, truly women before their time.


I used Serif - Software with Imagination and CraftArtist Platinum Edition - Get the ultimate creativity for all your print projects to create these layouts.

Editing your Photographs.

It is so important to select the right photo editing software program to preserve your most treasured family memories. Rather you are editing photographs, old family videos on those VHS tapes. That are in the back of the closet waiting to be watched, memories of get together, reunions. With Serif you can work with a user friendly software to preserve those precious memories.

This past Christmas I got the Serif PhotoPlus X3, I was a little intimidated at first. I have tons of software programs, and get lost with complicated features.

Here is the first photograph I worked with, it wasn't of family but of a road I travel down. The trees along that road are amazing and there was a deep fog that morning. With the editing I removed the street light and brightened it. There is another not so good fuzzy photo on the same day. Taking photos of fog is a challenging task, so I was happy with the second picture. Especially after I had edited it through Serif.

Serif doesn't limited to photo editing software, but has a variety of software available for every need.

They offer WebPlus-Professional Quality Websites Made Easy, Movie Plus-High Definition Video editing, PagePlus-Professional Desktop Publishing, PhotoPlus-Powerful Digital Photo Editing, DrawPlus-powerful Drawing and Graphics, Webplue Essentials-the fun, fast & easy website builder, and many more to meet your everyday need. You could build a family sharing website, share documents from other family far away. Design those amazing family reunion invitations. The creativity is limitless.

I am sharing the Youtube.com video from Serif, I am really glad that my family thought of this wonderful gift for me last Christmas.

101 Brick Wall Busters Part 2

Grandma Ola, Aunt Lovella, and AJ at Aunt Lovella's home in Corona, NM

This was a common sight when visiting my Aunt Lovella. Many a day we sat around this table sharing photos, stories, documents. I was always amazed by all the documents she had. She had dedicated all her life in being the Family Historian, listening to stories, gathering documents and keeping photographs. 

Nancy Ola and Gip Akin with their two eldest children Joy and Roy Akin

Returning to the Brick Wall Busters, the next three steps will really help you. 

4. Identify your Sources, make a list of sources that you could find the information you need. Not only is family a great source for records, especially if family was born prior to record keeping, but Churches are wonderful places to search. Long before states started collecting data and information, Churches were the record keepers of births and deaths. Local Newspapers, censuses, naturalization papers, are great places to look. The Family History Library Catalog is a wonderful tool.

5. When you cant find the information needed online, and there are lots of records still being digitized. Expand your search, try different spellings of your ancestors names. On one census my Great Grandma was listed as Carla, instead of Ula. The location, parents, siblings all matched except her name. On the same census report her Mom was listed as Old N. Akin instead of Nancy Ola. Names got reversed, comparing with other information on these reports will help confirm the lineage. 

6. Research those who lived and were part of your family. Many multiple families lived together during those times and may have served as witnesses to their lives. Land deeds, tax records, the paper trails in communities can also help verify family members. 

Maggie Coffee Randell sister to Nancy Ola Akin

101 Brick Wall Busters

A few months back I took a wonderful course through Family Tree University, called 101 Brick Wall Busters. It is something that happens when researching our family. Records are lost, destroyed in fires, or never even existed. Record keeping wasn't as wide spread in the early days of our Nation, many areas never kept records until the past century, less in some areas.

In the age of Technology and instant information, it is shocking to many that there isn't a data base somewhere with every article of information on our ancestors. The LDS Church has done a wonderful job of gathering many records, but there are still gaps in the research.

In the course 101 Brick Wall Busters it discusses several ways to find this information or at least find information that can lead you in the right direction.
I will be touching on a few points each post.

1. You have to access the problem, what records do you have, what is it that you are trying to find out. Birthplace? Maybe the Date of Birth was left off or the common brick wall of a mothers lineage. For some reason the woman's line is always incomplete.

Ask family first, see if a relative ended up with a box of photographs, documents, letters between family, or land deeds. Recently while researching the death of my Grandma's little brother, I couldn't find any state records for 1929 of his death. My Great Grandma had given a trunk of paperwork, birth records, love letters between her and Great Grandpa to my Grandma's sister and now her Daughter has all the information. It was a real break through on proving his death and burial area. The photograph we believed was Grandma with her father and brother standing by a grave was not the grave of her brother, but her Grandfather who passed away in 1926.

2. Don't skip any steps, check all records here in the US before venturing overseas. If there are not State or County records, see if the papers of the time have any articles on your ancestors. I recently found a wonderful article written by the Senior Center that my Grandma was active in, honoring her crafts and involvement at the Center. County Fairs, Senior Centers, newspapers are a few places you can look for more information.

3. Create a time line of their life. Do you know when they lived, who else in your family was around during that time. My Aunt Lovella was my Grandma's Mother's youngest sister of seven children. I always referred to her as Aunt, when really she was my Great Great Aunt. Knowing the time line of the family helped when filling out the lineage chart. Other things to know is what sort of things were going on in the world during the time of their life. Was it during War time, there are a lot of War records that can help bridge the gaps.

 Gip and Nancy Akin, with their children.

Storing your Family Treasures

I have been very fortunate that my family has kept all the photos and different documents from our past relatives. My Grandma and her Aunt Lovella, who as 3 years older than my Grandma were the families record keepers. Our photos were kept in boxes in dark, dry closets which wasn't all that bad. I often wondered why these weren't on display. But actually their technique was what kept those memories safe from fading.

Great Aunt Lovella Akin and Ola Mae Durbin c. 1930's

To truly preserve your families precious moments locked in time, you have to keep them from bright light. Sitting in a closet does protect them, but I love sharing these beautiful photos with my kids. Some of the methods I have done is to scan many of them and share them digitally with family far away. This has given myself a copy of them and had the opportunity to share precious treasures with my family. You can scan these photos with just any scanner. I love my Kodak scanner, and have tried a Flip-pal, which is a portable scanner. Really hoping to receive that as a Christmas gift. then you can upload them into any software program you already have to edit if need be, I use Photoscape which is a free program.

Nancy Ola and Dora Coffee c. 1880's

You can add the digital copies to any photo printing company, I personally like Heritage Makers because you work with someone and they can help you scan it to the proper size, and you wont end up with a book full of fuzzy photos.

What I have done with the originals is use Archival Mist, you can get this at any hobby store, such as JoAnn's. Place them in an acid free scrapbook to help keep harmful light from fading them. Here is a video from youtube on how to use Archival Mist.

I'll post more on how to safely remove photos that were glued to scrapbooks pages and how to remove safely the photos from the scrapbooks of the 80's that used non archival acid free sticky glue. 

Using the net for Genealogy

The internet has made the process of networking with distant relatives a great adventure without leaving the comforts of your home. Don't get me wrong exploring the places that your dear relatives lived their lives is fun. But time and money doesn't always afford those luxuries. So here comes the net, with millions of people connecting everyday. Recently I got a wonderful opportunity to visit a distant cousin in Las Vegas, while visiting the Titanic Exhibit.

The visit was wonderful, she is the niece of my grandfather whom I had never met. The visit was wonderful, it wasn't awkward as some would think. I kept things basic, as I would with any new stranger. Got to know her, hear about her family. Listening skills are very important when learning about a side of the family you never knew. I was lucky to have met and forged this new friendship. It was family through Facebook that lead me to this relative, but that isn't always the case. Sometimes you can meet family through sites such as Ancestry.com and ProGenealogists. It's worth the time to learn more from those who are still around, you never know if that information the personal experiences will be available to share later. I learned much more about my Grandfather than I had ever known.

 

Facebook bridging the gaps in Genealogy?

When Facebook came out I really didn’t have any interest in the latest craze. Then as more and more family were joining, I found it actually very beneficial. I could chat with family who are in other areas of the world, and share photos. Facebook has completely replaced the old school emails and forget snail mail that could get damaged or lost. I have found lost relatives who have helped fill in gaps in my research, relatives that have done years of genealogy work and shared their findings with me.

Finding people on Facebook isn’t hard, at the top in the search button type in a name of someone you know is still alive. No matter the age, unless they are under 13 yrs old they are most likely on Facebook. Send them a friend request, not a blind request, but one with a message explaining who you are and why you want to be friends. Sometimes you will already have a friend(relative) in common and Facebook will suggest you may know them.

Originally from my Tracing Our Roots WordPress Blog.

Genealogy research

As a Genealogist I understand how challenging it can be when you run into that Brick wall that we all eventually find. Little to no information on the relative, records destroyed in fires, or there were no records kept. One thing I have found to be a great help is ProGenealogists, this way you can work with someone in that area to find that information. Sometimes a local trip to a Cemetery or call to the state historian will help close those gaps.