TIP OF THE WEEK –
ANCESTRY’S DNA THRU LINES
(BETA VERSION)
Have
you explored Ancestry’s new tool called ThruLines? It’s intended to
replace the old tool, DNA Circles. It displays your and your DNA matches
common ancestor(s) and family lines in a more comprehensive format.
It
finds connections to your DNA matches by matching persons in each
other’s trees. Even if there are private trees involved, you will get
these ThruLines as long as the trees are set to searchable.
One
small quirk I noticed, it will falsely assume you are, for example, a ½
3nd cousin, if both your 2xgreat grandparents names do not match
identically to those on the other person’s tree. But all in all, it’s a
fun new tool. This is the beta version and it will improve.
TIP OF THE WEEK –
FOREIGN LANGUAGE TRANSLATION RESOURCES
If
you need help with translations while doing your genealogy, realize
there is help online beyond the popular utility Google Translate.
Currently
they have words list for 18 different languages. These lists contain
common words you are likely to encounter in genealogy records for that
country.
The FamilySearch Wiki also provides links to a half dozen popular online translation websites :
A
lesser known translation site recommended by Lisa Alzo of Internet
Genealgoy & Your Genealogy Today, especially for languages such as
Arabic, Greek, or Russian, is Yandex Translate. Yandex is a synchronized
translation for 95 languages, with predictive typing, dictionary with
transcription, pronunciation and usage examples, as well as many other
features.
Finally.
resources not to be ignored are your church or cultural organizations
such as “The Sons of Italy”. Maybe they can provide the translation help
you need.
TIP OF THE WEEK – USING CONTROL F
You
have a powerful function at your disposal when you’re in a web browser
and want to search for a word or phrase. It’s called Control F, and very
often you will see it written and referred to as CTRL+F.
This performs the same way as the search function in many of the applications you use.
While
holding down the Control key (labeled CTRL), hit the F key. A search
box will pop up on your screen. In this search, or find box, enter the
word or phrase you want to locate.
This
function comes in particularly handy when you want to search long web
pages, blogs, or online books for something specific. I find it useful
in searching through family history books that are online at
archive.org.
Here’s
a sample exercise for you to try out. Click on the link at the bottom
of this article to go to an online version of “War and Peace” in text
format.
While
holding down the CTRL key, hit the F key. Now enter the word Nicholas
in the search box that appears, and hit enter. Nicholas occurs 631 times
in “War and Peace”. See the 1/631 in the search box? See the up and
down arrows in the search box? Using the up and down arrows you can rapidly jump through “War and Peace” to each mention of Nicholas.
https://archive.org/stream/warandpeace030164mbp/warandpeace030164mbp_djvu.txt
The
instructions and descriptions above are using the Chrome browser and a
PC. If you have a PC and are using Internet Explorer or another
browser, the find box may look and behave a little differently. If you
have a Mac, not a problem. It’s just Command F, instead of Control F.
TIP OF THE WEEK – NOTICE FOR FTDNA CUSTOMERS
Listening to angry customers, FTDNA has provided a separate option
so one can now opt out of the new Law Enforcement Matching (LEM), but
still maintain matching with DNA Relatives. If you care to adjust your
Matching Preferences, visit the Privacy & Sharing section within
Account Settings as shown in the steps below:
1. Log in to your FTDNA account 2. Use the dropdown arrow in the upper right, to the right of name, to open the menu there and choose Account Settings 3. On the Account Settings page, open the Privacy & Sharing tab
4. Cursor down to the Law Enforcement Matching (LEM) section and slide
the marker from the right (where it’s blue) to the left (where it will
turn grey)
If you manage multiple accounts, you’ll have to log
into each account individually and repeat steps 1-4. Judy G Russell,
the Legal Genealogist, wrote an insightful blog on the Law Enforcement
Matching issue and what it might mean to you, as well as any other kits
you administer. It’s dated March 13th. If interested, you can read it
here:
TIP OF THE WEEK – LARGE GERMAN GENEALOGY CONFERENCE IN CALIFORNIA
The 2019 International German Genealogy Conference, to be held June
15-17 in downtown Sacramento at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, will offer
three days of German-centric presentations in multiple tracks
–Geographic, Technology, Advancing Your Research, and more. Attendees
will learn from genealogists, authors, historians, and archivists who
are top presenters with advanced proficiency in their fields of study.
This is the 2nd international conference of the International German
Genealogy Partnership, a federation of German genealogy organizations
whose mission is to facilitate German genealogy research globally. The
first was in Minnesota in 2017.
The local sponsor for this
2019 conference is the Sacramento German Genealogy Society. This is
billed as the largest worldwide gathering on the specific topic of
German genealogy this calendar year; 700+ attendees are expected.
Use either organization’s website for more information or registration:
Between the years 1820 and 1920, thirty five million immigrants arrived at US ports and 82% of them came through the port of New York. Before Ellis Island was opened in 1892, Castle Garden was the official immigrant reception area. Combined, the three collections cited below have over 66 million searchable passenger records that cover the port from 1820-1957. Access is available to you through your account on the free genealogy website, FamilySearch.org
TIP OF THE WEEK –NOW WITH CLOSED CAPTIONING Legacy
Family Tree Webinars has announced they will add the option of closed
captioning to all their new webinars going forward. Also, the most
popular 50 webinars on their platform, as well as the
MyHeritage-specific webinars, have been captioned.
Geoff
Rasmussen, founder and host of Legacy Family Tree Webinars says,
“Captioning is an excellent way to make online education more
accessible, and is also a benefit to non-native English speakers who
struggle with spoken English, but have an easier time with written
English”.
Beginning this year, they also have plans to host
webinars in non-English languages, as well as translate English closed
captions into select foreign languages.
Legacy Family Tree
Webinars makes each new live webinar, and its recording, free to watch
for the first 7 days. With a paid subscription, you get additional
benefits, plus access to the library of past webinars, containing over
1,000 hours of quality genealogy education.
To try out the
newly implemented Closed Caption option, just click on the blue CC icon
displayed in the right hand, bottom corner of the screen of the
webinar.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS FOR GENEALOGY Review your resolutions from last year. If you didn’t accomplish many of them, ask yourself why not. Try again. Be realistic and set reasonable goals. Stay on top of the basics.
Visit and interview your older relatives, carefully recording their memories.
Backup the genealogy data you keep on your computer – family tree, photos, documents. Set a schedule for this. Create a gedcom of your family tree. Back up to the cloud or to an external drive.
Review your sources and documents
Start writing your family history. Make a list of stories to tell. Commit to writing one story monthly, or every other month, or even just quarterly – whatever frequency suits you. Have fun with it.
TIP OF THE WEEK – 13,200+ GENEALOGY LINKS ON FACEBOOK Katherine
R Willson, professional genealogist, has done for genealogy related
pages and groups on Facebook what Cyndi Ingle, of the renowned Cyndi’s List,
has done for genealogy resources on the Internet. She compiled them
into a searchable, clickable, comprehensive, very useful list.
Last
updated in November 2018, Katherine’s list, “Genealogy on Facebook”, is
351 pages, contains 13,200+ Facebook genealogy links. The first 11
pages is a Table of Contents organized by geographical categories
(states, countries, regions) and non-geographical categories (adoption,
lineage societies, ethnicity, military conflicts, etc). One group named
“Associated Daughters of Early American Witches”, in the category of
lineage societies, certainly piqued my interest.
Why join a Facebook genealogy related group?
A
Facebook group is a place where people with common interests (for
example-genealogy research in Allegan County, MI) can go to communicate,
share ideas, and ask questions. You are more likely to solve your
Allegan County brick wall by networking with genealogists actually in
Allegan County.
Our Seattle Genealogical Society Networking Group
recently accepted a new member from Norway. He was trying to find
descendants of his great-grandfather who immigrated to Seattle from
Norway. The family in Norway lost contact with the Seattle family more
than 30 years ago. Within the day, several group members came up with
data, including obituaries, to help him, and he was able to establish
contact with his US cousins.
Here’s the link to Katherine’s
list, “Genealogy on Facebook”. See what groups might be of interest and
help to you. Also, which groups might you help? As genealogists we love
to dig in to help a fellow genealogist solve their mystery; it’s just
in our DNA.
There
is a wonderful on-line resource for people researching in Lewis County,
Washington: the website for the Lewis County Historical Museum: http://www.lewiscountymuseum.org/research-library/
Their web page includes links to a
searchable index of their obituary collection, with obits from 1880 to
2016; and a biographical and family history database for Lewis County as
well. The links to the latter database are currently not working, but
one can email the library, and they’ll provide a search for free: director@lewiscountymuseum.org
You are free to copy articles to any non-commercial web site or message board or printed publication you wish. Don’t bother to ask permission, just do it.
