FREE Confederate Record Access in April

Thanks to Upfront With NGS, a publication by the National Genealogical Society, and its Diane Richard, for the reminder that Fold3.com is making all its Confederate military records free to access during the month of April.

Try RecordClick for Research Resources

I have visited your website and would like to suggest an additional link. Our website www.recordclick.com  is appropriate for your “Resource/Links” section on page http://woodtxgene.com/links/. If you would like to take a look at our website please visit www.recordclick.com and let us know your opinion.

“Record Click offers you all the basics to conduct a solid ancestor search, including state-of-the-art extras, such as DNA testing (including consultation and analysis), along with other forensic genealogy research methods, and of course comprehensive project reports.”

This for pay site offers a free initial consultation.

Thanks to the folks at RecordClick for sharing this site for our consideration. If you would like to comment after checking it out, let us know what you think. Also, you can contact RecordClick at recordclick.seo@gmail.com to let them know what you think of the site. We are adding this to our links page.

Websites For Genealogy

Blank Forms

http://www.wakefieldfhs.org.uk/Forms%20&%20Charts.htm

http://www.familytreemagazine.com/freeforms

https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Research_Forms

https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Research_Forms#Ancestry.com

 

Help Sites

            http://www.dearmyrtle.com       Great article “January 2009 Getting Organized”  Best article I have ever seen on the subject.

http://www.cyndislist.com/        This is the site recommended by everyone.

http://www.usgenweb.org/        Free can find state and county sites

http://www.txgenweb.org/

www.ancestry.com            Some things may be free.

http://www.findagrave.com/

http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/

http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp          Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) Closes LDS research library is in Gilmer.  Original records are added to this daily. They request help from you transcribing records.

www.ellisisland.org     Ellis Island offers Free Genealogy Search & tips for your Family Tree Know nothing about this site.

http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/               This is the National Archives, access to federal government records.  I spend hours look for and at things on this website.

Shirley Patrick

Documentation

I can’t say it often enough.  Document, Document, Document!!!!!!!!!

Ask yourself the question:  “How do I find this again?”

Website that will write citations:

www.easybib.com

www.citationmachine.net

www.correctclick.com/biblio

I found these by goggling citation, book citation, and How to cite a photograph.

 

Types of Citations:  MLA (Modern Lang. Assn), APA (Ame. Psy. Assn), Chicago/Turabian (Dissertation and Thesis).  MLA is what is used in public schools.

 

Definition of Terms:

Medium:  Print, website, online, e-book: online, URL or key words to search for the website and type of source found in database (there

What do I need to write a Citation?  The citations you will use most often are as follows”

URL:  this is the address line. Usually starts with www. or http:// you can high light it and copy to a word processing document.

 

BIBLE:  The full correct title.  Medium; chose entire source or specific book.  I would choose entire source since I am interested in the data pages.  Vol. &/or Edition.  Place of Publication , [New York, Boston, Winnsboro, Texas].  If private printing by author [I personally put in mailing address of which I already have the city.  Someone you run across may want to try to buy a copy of the book copyright date © [obtained by typing ( c ) without the spaces, this is different from @], Publisher.  If private printing by author [I personally put in mailing address of which I already have the city.  Someone you run across may want to try to buy a copy of the book].  When I am working with a Bible or Book I always copy the Title page and the reverse.  To eliminate handling the Bible any more than possible I copy or scan the pages containing the data. If handwriting in hard to read I type the information. 

You need to be sure to indicate where the book is kept (Repository).

BOOK:  Full correct title, Medium, Place of Publication, Copyright Date, Publisher, Author or Authors [If someone just gathers information they are a compiler an identified by COMP.]. Be sure to get the page number of each bit of information.  [I use a spiral notebook to record information verbatim.  I have also photographed the page or copy the pages.] I always record the repository and call number of the book.  If you have to pay someone to go back and look for information this will save time.

 

Newspapers and Journals (print):  (are similar) Title of Source, Title of article, Section, Volume, Issue, Series, Pages [3-5 is inclusive; 3,5 means page 3 & page 5], Publisher, place or city of publication, year (day and date if newspaper), Author or Authors.

            [If it is on the website of the newspaper or journal include the URL also include the day you copied the information.  Keywords would also help]  I tend to make copies of everything to scan in to may computer, Family Tree program and my Ancestry.com Tree.  If I find the newspaper or journal in a database I use the online Database citation.

 

Online Database:  [Check, most databases will print citation at the end of the article.  If the article will not print you may still be able to get a citation at the end of the article]  Title, type of source, Contributors (authors), Database, Publisher/ service provider, date published electronically, and date accessed, URL:.

 

Website:  Web address (URL) or Keyword search, Medium, Source type,

Article title, Author or Authors, Online Publication info, Website title, Publisher/source, URL, electronically published, date Accessed. [I personally save the website to a word processing document.]

 

I do not have to cite the website because I just summarized what was needed for each type of citation.  Facts do not have to be cited, but you want to cite where you located you information, so someone else may want to recheck because they have different information that you can recheck or someone may want to check themselves.

Shirley Patrick                                  shp1945@gmail.com

Problems in Census Records

Do you sometimes have trouble reading census records? Census records are invaluable for genealogy research but sometimes they can be difficult to read, especially we the census taker had bad hand writing.  But we should remember the difficulties met by census takers.  I ran across the following and thought I’d share:

Census takers have a lot of trouble obtaining information – The Texas 1850 Federal Census schedule, Volume 3, written by H. Swaringen, Asst. Marshall, 23 October 1850 contains this note written by the census taker.
“I certify these to be sixty-four pages and a piece of the inhabitants and done as near in accordance with my oath as I could do it. The people was hard to get along with!”

Ever wonder why the census never makes sense??
Ocupayshun, cencus taker:
” I am a cencus taker for the city of Bufflow. our city has groan very fast in recent yeers & now in 1865, it has become a hard & time consuming job to count all the peephill. There are not many that con do this werk, as it is nesessaree to have an ejucation, wich a lot of pursons don not hav. Anuther atribeart needed for this job is gud speling, for meny of the peephill to be counted can hardle speek Inglish, let alon spel there names!”

Submitted by member Mark Reid

Brick Walls From A-Z Courtesy of Micheal John Neill

Michael John Neill is a well-known genealogist who gives away information and advice on Genealogy. He also sells information (reasonably priced, I might add) and advice about genealogy. It’s likely he gives it away as a marketing strategy to get our attention to his services (or, no doubt, as many do, to give some of his expertise away as a public service in response to others who have done the same before him). I like his approaches to genealogical research, and I am a consumer of both his free and  paid content. He has a regular weblog which has a variety of tips and his own family research from which we can take ideas to apply to our own at http://rootdig.blogspot.com/. It would be worth your time to go there and take a look.

One of his free offerings is some of his previous materials which were carried in the Ancestry Daily news. I enjoy these lists such as this because they make me think about things I might have missed in my own research.

Read these below, and, perhaps, you will find some new strategies to advance your own family tree. dh

From the Ancestry Daily News 
Michael John Neill — 1/11/2006

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Brick Walls from A to Z

This week we discuss the alphabet looking for clues to ancestral brick walls. The list is meant to get you thinking about your own genealogy problems.

A is for Alphabetize 
Have you created an alphabetical list of all the names in your database and all the locations your families lived? Typographical errors and spelling variants can easily be seen using this approach. Sometimes lists that are alphabetical (such as the occasional tax or census) can hide significant clues.

B is for Biography
Creating an ancestor’s biography might help you determine where there are gaps in your research. Determining possible motivations for his actions (based upon reasonable expectations) may provide you with new areas to research.

C is for Chronology
Putting in chronological order all the events in your ancestor’s life and all the documents on which his name appears is an excellent way to organize the information you have. This is a favorite analytical tool of several Ancestry Daily News columnists.

D is for Deeds
A land transaction will not provide extended generations of your ancestry, but it could help you connect a person to a location or show that two people with the same last name engaged in a transaction.

E is for Extended Family
If you are only researching your direct line there is a good chance you are overlooking records and information. Siblings, cousins, and in-laws of your ancestor may give enough clues to extend your direct family line into earlier generations.

F is for Finances
Did your ancestor’s financial situation impact the records he left behind? Typically the less money your ancestor had the fewer records he created. Or did a financial crisis cause him to move quickly and leave little evidence of where he settled?

G is for Guardianships 
A guardianship record might have been created whenever a minor owned property, usually through an inheritance. Even with a living parent, a guardian could be appointed, particularly if the surviving parent was a female during that time when women’s legal rights were extremely limited (read nonexistent).

H is for Hearing
Think of how your ancestor heard the questions he was being asked by the records clerk. Think of how the census taker heard what your ancestor said. How we hear affects how we answer or how we record an answer.

I is for Incorrect
Is it possible that an “official” record contains incorrect information? While most records are reasonably correct, there is always the chance that a name, place, or date listed on a record is not quite exact. Ask yourself how it would change your research if one “fact” suddenly was not true?

J is for Job
What was your ancestor’s likely occupation? Is there evidence of that occupation in census or probate records? Would that occupation have made it relatively easy for your ancestor to move from one place to another? Or did technology make your ancestor’s job obsolete before he was ready for retirement?

K is for Kook
Was your ancestor just a little bit different from his neighbors? Did he live life outside cultural norms for his area. If he did, interpreting and understanding the records of his actions may be difficult. Not all of our ancestors were straight-laced and like their neighbors. That is what makes them interesting (and difficult to trace).

L is for Lines
Do you know where all the lines are on the map of your ancestor’s neighborhood? Property lines, county lines, state lines, they all play a role in your family history research. These lines change over time as new territories are created, county lines are debated and finalized, and as your ancestor buys and sells property. Getting your ancestor’s maps all “lined” up may help solve your problem.

M is for Money
Have you followed the money in an estate settlement to see how it is disbursed? Clues as to relationships may abound. These records of the accountings of how a deceased person’s property is allocated to their heirs may help you to pinpoint the exact relationships involved.

N is for Neighbors
Have you looked at your ancestor’s neighbors? Were they acquaintances from an earlier area of residence? Were they neighbors? Were they both? Which neighbors appeared on documents with your ancestor?

O is for Outhouse
Most of us don’t use them any more, but outhouses are mentioned to remind us of how much life has changed in the past one hundred years. Are you making an assumption about your ancestor’s behavior based upon life in the twenty-first century? If so, that may be your brick wall right there.

P is for Patience
Many genealogical problems cannot be solved instantly, even with access to every database known to man. Some families are difficult to research and require exhaustive searches of all available records and a detailed analysis of those materials. That takes time. Some of us have been working on the same problem for years. It can be frustrating but fulfilling when the answer finally arrives.

Q is for Questions
Post queries on message boards and mailing lists. Ask questions of other genealogists at monthly meetings, seminars, conferences and workshops. The answer to your question might not contain the name of that elusive ancestor, but unasked questions can leave us floundering for a very long time.

R is for Read 
Read about research methods and sources in your problem area. Learning about what materials are available and how other solved similar problems may help you get over your own hump.

S is for Sneaky
Was your ancestor sneaking away to avoid the law, a wife, or an extremely mad neighbor? If so, he may have intentionally left behind little tracks. There were times when our ancestor did not want to be found and consequently may have left behind few clues as to his origins.

T is for Think
Think about your conclusions. Do they make sense? Think about that document you located? What caused it to be created? Think about where your ancestor lived? Why was he there? Think outside the box; most of our brick wall ancestors thought outside the box. That’s what makes them brick walls in the first place.

U is for Unimportant
That detail you think is unimportant could be crucial. That word whose legal meaning you are not quite certain of could be the key to understanding the entire document. Make certain that what you have assumed is trivial is actually trivial.

V is for Verification
Have you verified all those assumptions you hold? Have you verified what the typed transcription of a record actually says? Verifying by viewing the original may reveal errors in the transcription or additional information.

W is for Watch
Keep on the watch for new databases and finding aids as they are being developed. Perhaps the solution to your brick wall just has not been created yet.

X is for X-Amine
With the letter “x” we pay homage to all those clerks and census takers who made the occasional spelling error (it should be “examine” instead of “x-amine.”) and also make an important genealogical point. Examine closely all the material you have already located. Is there an unrecognized clue lurking in your files?

Y is for Yawning
Are you getting tired of one specific family or ancestor? Perhaps it is time to take a break and work on another family. Too much focus on one problem can cause you to lose your perspective. The other tired is when you are researching at four in the morning with little sleep. You are not at your most productive then either and likely are going in circles or making careless mistakes.

Z is for Zipping
Are you zipping through your research, trying to complete it as quickly as possible as if it were a timed test in school? Slow down, take your time and make certain you aren’t being too hasty in your research and in your conclusions.

The “tricks” to breaking brick walls could go on and on. In general though, the family historian is well served if he or she “reads and thinks in an honest attempt to learn.” That attitude will solve many problems, not all of them family history related.

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Michael John Neill is the Course I Coordinator at the Genealogical Institute of Mid America (GIMA) held annually in Springfield, Illinois, and is also on the faculty of CarlSandburgCollege in Galesburg, Illinois. Michael is currently a member of the board of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS). He conducts seminars and lectures nationally on a wide variety of genealogical and computer topics and contributes to several genealogical publications, including Ancestry Magazine andGenealogical Computing. You can e-mail him at mjnrootdig@myfamily.com or visit his website, but he regrets that he is unable to assist with personal research.

Copyright 2006, MyFamily.com.

The following article is from the Ancestry Daily News and is (c) MyFamily.Com.  It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the Ancestry Daily News is available at http://www.ancestry.com.

Do You Read The Comments?

Do you come back here and read the comments posted later on this page? If not, you are missing some good follow-up information.

Here are some recent comments pulled from their posted positions and presented here to show how people are responding to requests:

Comment on Query: Hood by Dorothy Harbin
from Comments for Wood County, Texas Genealogical Society by Dorothy Harbin
Hello: I will try to check on this on a Tuesday, whenever the library opens, I have been out of town.

Comment on Query: Sams by Dorothy Harbin
from Comments for Wood County, Texas Genealogical Society by Dorothy Harbin
We have OBITS starting 1983 in the Quitman Public Library, and will look for it on a Tuesday and also check micro film for the other date.

Comment on Query: Sams by Kathy Richey
from Comments for Wood County, Texas Genealogical Society by Kathy Richey
There are old copies of the Wood County Democrat online. Go to news.google.com. Look at the February 2, 1978 and it has C.O. Sams obit. Hope this helps.

Comment on Query (2nd Request): Stout by Francie Stout Easley
from Comments for Wood County, Texas Genealogical Society by Francie Stout Easley
I, too, am a descendant of Capt. Henry Stout! My father, Forrest Hilton Stout (passed last November) went to the cemetery in Quitman with my cousin, Edward Stout (also deceased) several years ago. I have not been there myself, but it is on my bucket list!
Francie Stout Easley

Hooton,Rouse
from Comments for Wood County, Texas Genealogical Society by Sandy Hooton (Rouse)
Will notes or a tape (CD) be available from this Oct 2012 meeting? I am out of state (CA) and unable to attend and very interested. I have a brickwall from this County and still hoping to break

Wood County Courthouse Contact Information

Information on how to order documents from the Wood County, Texas courthouse is contained in a page link shared by Requisitions and Acquisitions Co-chair, Dorothy Harbin, in an email submission to the bulletin.

Dorothy wrote:  “found this website while lookin’ for the election returns.  Rather than having to type the whole thing, you may pass this on to our members and any one looking for this info from out of town.  Here it is: http://www.mywoodcounty.com/default.aspx?name=countyclerk. This is from the county clerk’s office.  Very valuable info, especially if anyone is traveling or wishes to come to courthouse to research. It gives individuals working on certain subjects.”

Any member can submit link or other research ideas or information or genealogy related matters they think of interest or importance to others by emailing it to wcgstx@gmail.com or by postal mail to Bulletin Editor, 402 Evening Shadows Trail, Hawkins, Texas 75765.

Keeping Up-to-date Keeps Us From Falling Behind

Keeping up with the world of online genealogy sometimes pays off with gems of common sense such as this by Genealogy and technology blogger James Tanner:

What I am saying is that genealogy, as it is today, is a technologically sophisticated pursuit that requires some pretty technological tools. If you are going to survive in the genealogy world today, you need a set of computer skills and part of that set of skills is the ability to keep your tools (computers and software) up-to-date.

Writing on his blog, Genealogy’s Star, Tanner was talking in general about when to upgrade and buy new computer hardware, but his observation on the skills and tools has certainly become more and more true. You can read his entire blog article at this link: http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2012/05/anticipating-market-when-do-i-buy-new.html.

Indeed, as he suggests, we have to be prudent in spending on this hobby (avocation, addiction?), but it costs little or nothing to bring our computer skills up to date.

1940 Census Helps From April Meeting

Genealogy award-winning writer, professional researcher and experienced lecturer, Lisa McKinney, of Edgewood enlightened members of the Wood County Genealogical Society with background, hints, and tips about the 1940 census at the April society meeting.

The census gives us a look at conditions resulting from the Great Depression of the 20th Century by providing more data on American life ever collected before that time. One of the most useful features is the question of where the family was living in 1935 indicating migrations of the 1930s, the dark years of the world’s economy. Another unique feature was that of Hobo Night in which transients were censused in places like hotels, hospitals, etc.

Also unique was the fact that this is the first census which will be all digital and not searched on long rolls of microfilm.

The biggest downside is that the census was released without an index. Numerous online outlets are working to index the all the states and data, but estimates are that it could take at least until the end of the year 2012. In the meantime, people will have to search page by page to find their relatives unless they use finding aids such as those at stevemorse.org.

Once in the census, researchers are urged to look at all data which includes such items as street and house numbers, residence, and occupation. Sometimes margin notes also give additional information. Also, skip pages at the end of an enumeration district include those missed on the main walks up and own streets and the transient individuals.