Using MET Public Domain Artwork

Recently, the Metropolitan Museum of Art made than 375,000 of its public-domain artworks available online. The Met’s images include those of items that are not currently on display, which gives you a chance to look behind the scenes.

This is a great resource for people who enjoy art and history, scholars, and genealogists!

You can find the search page at: http://metmuseum.org/art/collection.

 

 

To limit your search to return only those results in the public domain, in the Show Only group, click the box for “Public Domain Artworks”.

 

 

When you view the results, there may be some that do not seem to be related to your search terms. Be sure to scroll down through the results. To scan through the results more quickly, you can choose to display a larger number of results per page.

 

 

Since I have been doing a lot of World War I research, I used the keywords: World War 1. That returned 5,964 results. It appeared that many of the results had the terms separately, such as world or war.
Searching for keywords: world war i returned 1,699 results. A number of these results were relevant to the First World War. There were several commercial color lithographs published by groups involved in the war effort, like the Red Cross and the Connecticut State Council of Defense.

 

 

Searching using the keywords and quotes around them “world war i” returned 84 results. Some were not related to the First World War.

I experimented using a numeral 1 instead of the letter i. “world war 1” returned 0 results.

Searching for keywords: WWI returned 17 results. One was lace shawl handmade by a member of the Royal Family in England that was donated to the British War Relief Committee during WWI.

Next, I tried searching for keywords: St Mihiel. Two of the results were related to St. Mihiel in WWI. Other St. Mihiel results included engravings and etchings from the opera and ballet.

 

 

To learn more about the website, check out http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/policies-and-documents/image-resources

To see all Open Access items, go to http://metmuseum.org/art/collection#!?showOnly=openaccess

Visit this website, and try out some searches for a topic you are researching. Remember to vary your search terms and try different combinations of words relating to your topic. Look for artwork that you can use about:

• A state you are researching
• A country or place you are researching
• An event you are researching

Good luck!

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Family History Outing: Laws Railroad Museum

The Laws Railroad Museum is located outside of Bishop, CA. Certainly, the museum is of great genealogical interest to researchers who had family in the railroads in the early 1900s, and for those who had family in the area. There is much to learn for those who had family in the gold industry.

 

 

But the displays in the Pioneer Building are unexpected in a railroad museum. One of the displays held a well preserved, well displayed, interesting set of military uniforms, equipment and memorabilia.

 

 

There was a selection of uniforms, equipment and memorabilia from multiple wars.

 

 

There was a display of memorabilia from the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).

 

 

The WWI artifacts were from the 7th Regiment Michigan Calvary.

 

 

The WWI Soldier’s equipment was also included in the display.

 

 

The exhibit included a bag annotated with battle information and a victory medal.

 

 

Remember when you visit any regional museum to look for exhibits about the military.

 

Save

Save

National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair

Are you looking for an easy way to learn about using the National Archives? Would you like to know more about researching your genealogy at NARA?

The 2016 National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair has come and gone, but the videos have been posted on YouTube, and the handouts are still available. You can learn directly from NARA personnel in the videos and have the handouts for reference.

Check out the 2016 National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair webpage for the topics and links to the videos and handouts. You can follow the links on that page to watch presentations from both days on YouTube.

 

 

You can also download the handouts.

But wait…there’s more! You can access the videos and handouts for the 2015 Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair.

From that webpage you can follow the links to view the Sessions Videos and Handouts. This page also contains links to information about the 2013 and 2014 Virtual Genealogy Fairs.

So, check out the presentations and attend sessions from a NARA Virtual Genealogy Fair right in your own home!

Save

Save

Family History Outing: U.S.S. Midway

If you have a U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps ancestor, the chances are he or she may have spent some time on an aircraft carrier. They might have been stationed on, landed on, refueled, resupplied or protected a carrier.

 

 

Touring the U.S.S. Midway Museum in San Diego, CA, brought some of our family’s history to life.
Our family has some carrier history. In addition to having an uncle and cousin who served on carriers, my husband landed on one.

 

 

My husband was a Naval Aviator in the USMC, flying A-4s. His service included qualifying to land on carriers. My son had seen videos, pictures and models of the A-4. Seeing a real one on the deck of the Midway was much more real. It was a chance for my husband to show him around the plane and put context to the stories of getting into the airplane without a ladder.

 

 

The experience included standing on a flight deck and climbing up to stand on vulture’s row, and sitting in the chairs occupied by the air boss and commanding officer.

 

 

The launch officer signals when to fire the catapult to send an accelerating aircraft from the deck.

 

 

The hangar deck was full of airplanes; airplane cockpits and ejection seats to sit in; and exhibits to explore.

The carrier is a city at sea. In addition to the sleeping accommodations from the lowest ranked seaman to the captain, the walking tour takes you through the chapel, medical offices, laundry, galley, eating messes and gedunk (ship store).

My cousin died on July 29, 1967 in the fire on the U.S.S. Forrestal (CV-59). He was one of the fifty men who died in the berthing space immediately below the flight deck. They had participated in night operations and had been given permission to sleep in. He was assigned to VF-11. He died in the berthing spaces, while he slept. You can view a Virtual Wall: A Memorial to the men who died in the Forrestal fire .
As part of my systems engineer certificate training, the video of the fire on the carrier’s deck was required viewing.

 

 

This berthing can be contrasted with where the Captain sleeps.

 

 

 

Strategy to make the most of your trip:

• Research your U.S. Navy ancestors
• Know their ranks
• Learn their jobs on the carrier
• Visit all the locations, but be sure to identify and photograph typical berthing, where they ate and worked
• Share what you learned with your family in pictures, a pdf document or web page

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Sales on DNA Tests and Our Books

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you have been waiting to do your Autosomal DNA, now may be the time! The atDNA tests are on sale. (I have not seen a Black Friday price for 23andMe, and although the database is large, it may be that the other people in it may be more focused on the health aspect of the testing rather than genealogy.)

Family Tree DNA Holiday Sale

The annual Family Tree DNA Holiday Sale is offering the Family Finder/Ethnic Percentages for $59. They are also offering  bundles that combine Family Finder and Y-DNA and mitochondrial tests.
https://www.familytreedna.com/products.aspx

Ancestry.com Holiday Sale

The Ancestry Insider Blog (http://www.ancestryinsider.org/2016/11/ancestrydna-30-sale.html) gives details about the Ancestry.com test being on sale for $69 from 25 November to 28 November 2016. From 29 November to 14 December 2016 they are offering it for $89.
http://www.Ancestry.com/DNAgift

When Choosing A Company

Here are some things to consider when choosing a company for autosomal DNA testing

Testing at Ancestry.com:

• The database has over 2,000,000 people (23andMe has 1,000,000 and FTDNA has almost 830,000)
• You can attach your results to your tree
• You can see your matches, but you cannot examine the details of the individual matching chromosomes
• While you can transfer your results from Ancestry.com to FTDNA, there is a fee to see the matches

Testing at Family Tree DNA:

• The tools at FTDNA to see chromosomes are good
• You can upload your family tree to the website

No matter where you test:

• Consider transferring your results to GEDMatch.com to match with people who have tested elsewhere
• GEDMatch has good tools for chromosome data

Our Books are on Sale for Black Friday / Cyber Monday

Our books “A Week of Genealogy” and “A Weekend of Genealogy” are on sale for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. To receive a 25% discount, use the links at https://aweekofgenealogy.com/sale-on-books and remember to use code 44RZVNZD when you check out.

A Week of Genealogy on Facebook

To get more frequent updates, please like our Facebook Page. Check it out at: https://www.facebook.com/AWeekofGenealogy.