Week 2

3/28/2012

Family Trees on the Web by D. K. Kovacs (2003)

The page you requested (http://www.familysearch.org/eng/hom/welcome/frameset_information.asp) has moved or no longer exists. Select one of the following options to find what you are looking for.

This seems to be the new format, which is several short lessons about getting started in family research, rather than "How to Start Your Family History"

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp?page=home/welcome/site_resources.asp%3FwhichResourcePage=fhlessonseries

While all the 10 web sites are very useful, 

Find a Grave

www.findagrave.com/

is outstanding if you know the person's name and have some idea when died to compare with the tombstone

Vintage Aerial is another great site of aerial photos (currently they've 41 states, and they keep adding daily) of rural America:

vintageaerial.com/

History Is Its Own Rewards Back Home in Indiana by J. Pierce (2003)

Allen County Public Library has amazing resources and amazing librarians/staff to help.  Located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I happened to visit there for a couple of hours while heading towards Indianapolis to pick up my mother at the airport.  We were planning to do research in Indianapolis and towns further south (the local county historical societies and county clerks of these towns have great resources too!), as we'd located family mention of living in Nebraska, Indiana and in Columbus, Indiana.

Heritage Online

I was able to discover that Philip Caspar Bowman was living in 1790 (Census data) Pennsylvania, Fayette County, German Township.

Census Tab/Browse Tab

1890 census was consumed by fire in D.C.  There are partials of information in states, but not totally, and not listed as a group of United States Census information.  So a broad search of the U.S. in 1890 will rarely come up with any names.  Alaska is first listed in the 1900 census

Theoretically, by digitizing the information,  records will be preserved Online, but hackers can ruin a website, and I really worry that much of the what is digitized may not also be kept.  One major problem with many census records is that the scanning/copying wasn't a quality job so you have a hard time reading it or can't read it.  But the records don't actually exist anymore.

Another issue I have is the transcribers; they read a G as a T, so the name is found as Tasaway, not Gasaway.  Can't get it corrected, which I think is ridiculous.  Soundex doesn't locate the record spelled correctly.  I just ran into this when looking at my mother's records.  She died in January of this year; the errors include who her husband was (not her brother!), her date of death (obituaries DON"T run before someone dies normally!), etc.  How this can happen is just sloppy work or a program that scans and adds - not good, in any case.

Locally, I've no idea how records are getting preserved except through the Fairbanks Genealogical Society.  They post to their website, and they create hard copy record indices, all through volunteer work. The Family History Center at the Church of Latter Day Saints has back up in SLC.  I keep all my records in one place in a huge old trunk - it's the first thing after all the people are safe that goes out in case of a fire and it's on the second floor in case of a flood.  And I'm hoping to put it up on GenArk as a 100 year old forward that others in the family can add to and look at.