Trace My Family Tree

A fantastic free resource that has helped thousands of genealogists is about to stop being updated. I speak of the Google Newspaper Archive. Google has been scanning old newspaper from microfilm and even running them through an OCR so that they are searchable. And I’m not talking about the big papers. I am talking about the little towns and areas with local papers all the way back to the 19th century. This has been an incredible resource for finding obituaries and stories about ancestors that appeared in the papers. It was a great way to avoid paying for NewspaperArchive.com or other sources.

The archives of several hundred newspapers will continue to be available at news.google.com/archivesearch, but Google is “no longer accepting new microfilm or digital files for processing,” a Google spokesperson confirmed in an email to Mashable.

I know that I found a lot of great information in these archives. It might not be the easiest way to search and sometimes the OCR process doesn’t catch everything, but it sure beats having to go across country to a library and dig through microfilm. Have you used Google’s newspaper archive with any success?

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To celebrate St. Patrick’s day, I found a free Kindle book on Amazon titled “101 Things You Didn’t Know About Irish History” and thought it would be something some of you would enjoy. And yes, it’s free. As in costs nothing. Well, some might say you need to buy a Kindle to view it, but the answer to that is no, not really. You can use any of the free Kindle apps for your iPod, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, PC, Mac, etc. to read Kindle books. You can of course buy a Kindle Wi-Fi, Kindle 3G or a Kindle DX, but you don’t have to. And once you download it you can read it on any device. By the way, the 3G and DX come with free global 3G service.

One more thing before I go. You can use your Kindle apps to download and read all the free books from Google Books and every other repository that houses free files, like the Internet Archive.

Happy Saint Paddy!

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I ran across this cartoon today that deals more with evolution than with tracing your family tree, but I figured my readers would enjoy it as well:

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Yes! They are and actually, they are all over the place!

One of the reasons genealogy has become such a popular hobby is that so much information is now available online. In fact, when I began to trace my family tree I did most of the initial research online. Eventually you will need to get your lazy butt to a county courthouse or a cemetery, but the internet will probably be your best source for information and collaboration opportunities with other researchers.

While there are some commercial ventures out there that make a tidy profit from all this web traffic, there are also a lot of free sites with fantastic information. They might not have the best search engines (if at all) and it might take a little longer to get to what you were looking for, but most of the time you will find what you need. The obvious first place to go to is FamilySearch.org which is run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or also knwon as the Mormons). One place to start is the pedigree resource file. Another great resource is RootsWeb (which is owned by Ancestry.com but is free to use). By the way, you can always get a free trial of Ancestry.com US Deluxe Membership and then cancel it before your subscription goes into effect.

Another great place to start (and once again, totally free) are message boards. You can find a lot of information as well as connect with other researchers who are working on the same surnames. One of the best boards is GenForum – it is very easy to navigate and you can easily find your surname and search within that board. Some of the posts tend to be on the ancient side and getting in touch with the researchers might be tough at times, but there is too much good information to pass it up. You should also check out the Ancestry.com message boards.

Keep a log of your searches and boards you have visited so that you don’t waste your time on redundant work. It’s also a wise idea to bookmark your favorite places or even sign up to an RSS feed if one is available for your board (if this is too technical for you right now, don’t worry about it, I’ll try to expand on this later). Don’t forget to save everything you find!

And of course there’s Google. But that’s a topic for a different time.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more step by step instructions to using online resources. Good luck!

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In my last post I wrote about working on one surname at a time. But what if your last name is Jackson (the 20′s most common surname in the US)? Buzzy Jackson published a book about this exact question.

Update: I just got my copy in the mail yesterday! Can’t wait to read it! I have to admit I haven’t read this book yet, but I am buying it from Amazon right now! I read a few reviews and I think it is exactly what every beginning family historian needs to read to get inspired. When I began to trace my family tree I read a lot of books. I will review some of them here shortly. but in the meantime, get this book and leave a comment if you already read it and tell us what you think?

Buy Shaking the Family Tree: Blue Bloods, Black Sheep, and Other Obsessions of an Accidental Genealogist today!

Here’s a video Buzzy made about her journey:

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So now that you’re busy filling out pedigree charts, you might come across a problem. You have too many ancestors! Don’t worry we all have the same issue. Since every person has two parents and not taking into consideration that there are several ancestors with the same surname, this means that in a 9 generation family tree (as you can see on the image on the left) you will have 256 surnames and 511 people, including yourself. And this doesn’t take into account spelling variations or people who’ve had name changes. Yikes!

So the tip for today is to stay focused and start with a single surname. When I began to trace my family tree I was pretty much all over the map (or tree). That caused a lot of holes and missed information, lots of to-do lists and so on. Avoid that headache and stay focused. Don’t  work on too many parts of your family tree at once. Resist the urge to wander down (or up) other branches. Everyone will get a turn. I promise.

The easiest surnames to start with are the ones on your paternal side. In the fan chart they are the one shaded in blue. “Why?” I hear you asking. Because those surnames tend to stay in the family and don’t change due to marriage like the maternal side.

So there you have it. Let’s set this plan in motion.

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Download Pedigree Chart

Now that you’ve collected everything you can about your family and interviewed family members, it’s time to make some sense of all the information you have. That means you’re going to start filling out genealogical forms. Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it sounds!

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