Blog
Sending A Spouse to Rootstech
What if you can’t make it to Rootstech? What if your spouse is in Salt Lake City on business that week? Send the spouse! I put together a binder for him to bring. It included: His electronic receipt for the keynote / vendor hall ticket A list of the vendors, with notes about which ones to visit His pedigree chart His line of descendancy from Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins My guidance for him was to check out the new products, take pictures and check out the product offerings and special sales. While he walked around the vendor...
read more5 Questions with the DC Metro Rootsmagic User Group Leader, Dr. Margaret Ezell
Recently I asked Dr. Ezell to answer a few questions about her favorite genealogy software program, Rootsmagic. 1. Why should a genealogist use a genealogy software program? My biggest reasons for using a genealogy software program are: Good software programs like RootsMagic make it easy to share information. Some also have iPad, or Smartphone versions. The mistakes in my database are my own, and all changes are mine. I decide when something is proven, when I have enough sources, and who is related to whom. There are two types of...
read moreGoogle is shutting down Picasa
Google is shutting down Picasa in favor of Google Photos Yesterday Google announced that it is shutting down Picasa in favor of Google Photos. Standby, the changes will begin starting May 1, 2016. Here are your options: 1) Login to Google Photos and your pictures will be there. 2) If you do not want to use Google Photos, there will be a new place created for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data. You can view/delete/download your albums from this new place, but you will not be able to create/organize/edit your albums. That means you will...
read moreGet Children Involved: Revolutionary War
My son had to do a PowerPoint presentation for his social studies class about the Battles of Lexington and Concord. His Father’s family has been involved in many of the military conflicts throughout the history of the United States. I recalled one ancestor in Massachusetts, so I dug out the details. I looked at the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) Membership Applications on Ancestry.com. The application I found included both John Fife and his Father-in-Law, Return Strong. Sure enough, John Fyfe (Fife) had been a minute man in Groton,...
read moreReprieve of Family Tree Maker and More
Ancestry.com made an exciting announcement of interest to Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic alike. 1) Family Tree Make will live on! Software MacKiev, the six-year developer of Family Tree Maker, will be taking the software line into the future on both Mac and PC platforms. 2) By the end of 2016, Rootsmagic will be able to connect Ancestry.com for hints and searches. You will also be able to sync your tree on Ancestry.com with your desktop RootsMagic program. To read more: New Family Tree Maker Options RootsMagic and Ancestry: Working Together...
read more5 NARA Resources for WWI Research
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has many resources for you to research context for your WWI ancestors. Some of them are online. This is the place for you to begin researching NARA’s World War I Records. This page also includes links to the digitized versions of some of the most requested historical documents. Read an article in NARA’s Prologue magazine about finding your WWI Army ancestors. They Answered the Call, Military Service in the United States Army During World War I, 1917-1919 by Mitchell...
read moreThe 51st Pioneer Infantry from a NY Guard History
There is a chapter in “Three Quarters of a Century with the Tenth Infantry New York National Guard 1860-1935” that discusses the Tenth Infantry in World War I. The Tenth Infantry became the 1st and 51st Pioneer Infantries. I read the chapter once for context, then again to identify the actions of the 51st Pioneer Infantry. The chapter contained some details for specific Companies. This details in this chapter outlined the experience that my Grandfather had while he was in the service. I knew about the 51st Pioneer Infantry’s...
read moreLearning about WWI Medals
As I continue to research my Grandfather’s military service, I decided to look into which medals he was eligible to wear. One of them would be the WWI Victory Medal. I have seen several on ebay, and decided to learn more about them. (These images were taken by the author from medals in her collection.) On the US Militia Forum I found a very informative thread about WWI Victory Medals. This thread contains detailed information for WWI researchers about World War I Victory Medals. There are answers about the bars that are...
read moreGrand Army of the Republic (GAR) – 10
The previous posts about the Grand Army of the Republic were intended to give you a starting place to get you acquainted with the GAR and to begin looking for your Union Soldier and Sailor ancestors in these records. One area that was not covered was newspapers. When you are searching for information about your ancestors in newspapers, remember to also look for announcements about the GAR and its members. Remember to look at the listings of records compiled by the SUVCW, but do not stop there! The blog posts can be found at: Grand Army of...
read moreGrand Army of the Republic (GAR) – 9 – The Library of Congress
This post is the ninth in a series of posts is about how to locate record the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The first post contains information about the GAR. The past blog posts have used New York State for examples. This post will go national and discuss the Library of Congress has The Grand Army of the Republic and Kindred Societies: A Guide to Resources in the General Collections of the Library of Congress. On this page you can click on your state to find a listing of each state’s local posts. These are the posts at the community...
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