Become a Better Genealogist

Last evening, at the monthly meeting of the Tri-City Genealogical Society, the members learned about the Genealogical Proof Standard as well as how to improve their research methods through education. Here are some of the websites that can be accessed to enhance what was presented last evening.

Examples of Case studies and proof arguments which model the Genealogical Proof Standard
http://www.bcgcertification.org/skillbuilders/worksamples.html
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Choosing the Best Continuing Education Opportunities
http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/FHD/Community/en/APG/Choosing_the_Best_Continuing_Education_Opportunities/Player.html

The presentation was actually a prelude to one coming in May that will explain how to implement the Genealogical Proof Standard by creating a work plan based on the Research Process, write Research Notes and complete the project by writing a Research Report.

Part 2 of last night’s presentation will be given on May 8th.

Scanning Tip

I just read my Internet Genealogy/Family Chronicle Newsletter Vol 2 #1 (29 Nov 2012: Moorshead Magazines Ltd.) online and found this wonderful scanning tip:

Scanning Tip

Scanning lots of documents for your family history project? If so, scan them in gray scale, not color, and use a low-resolution of 72 dots per inch. This will save space and make your scans go faster.

However, if you are scanning images for the purpose of creating a report, or publishing a family history, then scanning in color or gray scale at 300 dots per inch resolution, will give you the best quality.

Scanning has become so popular for saving documents that we find in books and online. We save them to our genealogy programs but, the question is always, what scale should I use? For reprints, as suggested above, we need to use a higher resolution, but that also takes up hard drive space. Copies of censuses, city directories, maps, pension records, etc. can be rescanned later if needed for publication, so save that space on your hard drive and start scanning smaller.

History of Vital Records

Ever wonder why we have birth, marriage and death records? Last night we found out when Susan Faulkner gave her presentation for the monthly TCGS meeting. It has been said, that to truly understand the information we learn from records, we need to know why they were created. The answer to that was loud and clear last night when Susan explained why and how vital records were started.

While I have always understood why church records were recorded, I had never thought about the origin of vital records – Statistics! Surprising? for me it was. It was purely because things were happening to the population that could not be explained. By statistically studying the effects on the whole population, patterns emerged which allowed the government to help solve or at least be aware of problems, such as health trends. Death records especially provided excellent information on why people were dying when the causes of the death were compared to others nearby as well as nationwide.

Sadly, vital record collection, in spite of knowing the reasons for collecting the information, was not begun throughout the United States successfully until 1933. Today both genealogists, statisticians, and many others know the value of recording vital events in our society, but this is definitely a 20th century accomplishment.

Susan quoted, “National statistics of death and birth were achieved only within the present generation, after two centuries [200 years!] of intermittent struggle and building. [emphasis added]”¹

So the next time you find a vital record for your ancestor, thank those who championed the collecting of this information, such as John of Gaunt, Edmund Halley (of Halley’s Comet fame), Oliver Cromwell and the English, Lemuel Shattuck of Massachusetts and many others who brought modern record keeping to the United States.

If you missed Susan’s excellent presentation, some of her information can be found in Val D. Greenwood’s book, A Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2000), 203-232.

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¹ Oveta Culp Hobby and Leonard A Scheele in their report titled “Vital Statistics of the United States, Volume 1” dated 1950.

Getting the BEST from Ancestry.com

Thank you LostCousins!

Tonight I attended the TriCity Genealogical Society presentation with a rather ho-hum attitude about the promised topic, “Getting the BEST from Ancestry.com”. I have been an Ancestry.com user for years. I know my way around that website like no one’s business, or so I thought. I was just sure that this was going to be one of those topics geared for beginners, but I’ve always been able to walk away with some new treat or tool from a beginner’s lecture, so what the heck. More than anything I was looking forward to supporting Margie Beldin by my attendance. I won’t list all of the hats Margie has worn for TCGS because I just know I’ll miss one or two. For me Margie has always been a part of the glue that keeps the Society going.

If I was disappointed in anything tonight it was in my initial attitude toward the topic.  Margie Beldin gave a wonderful presentation with poise and grace that captivated her audience. She spoke well, displaying that she had an expert level understanding of Ancestry.com.

Margie dissected Ancestry.com to show so many hidden treasures that I was never aware were available. While she did this she explained that it was not necessary to have a subscription in order to take advantage of what Ancestry.com has to offer. Not only did she walk her audience through how to get the most out of the Search Tab, but she also helped us explore the Learning Center of Ancestry.com.

I have read some of Ancestry.com’s wiki postings from time to time, but I was not aware of the many webinars, blogs and other professionally written articles that were just sitting there waiting for me to be educationally entertained. I was amused, yet my curiosity was spiked, to discover Ancestry.com has a YouTube channel. Imagine that! With my smartphone by my side, I will never again have to ponder what to do with that unplanned 10 minutes of waiting.

Throughout her presentation, Margie was sensitive to the cost of an Ancestry.com subscription. She shared ways to enjoy all aspects of what Ancestry.com has to offer by mixing registering (not subscribing) with Ancestry.com from home and taking freely given hints to the Family History Center to explore the actual digitized documents.

At the end of the evening I spoke with many of the genealogists that have been researching their family history for years. The tone in the room was a mixture of “That Margie. She sure is a class act. She gave another awesome presentation” with “Shoot. I’ve been a member of Ancestry.com and I never knew half the stuff that was revealed tonight.”

Curious about the picture and caption above? Margie's finale was information on how to get a great discount on an Ancestry.com subscription. Go to http:\\goo.gl/tBgkt to learn what she shared. Sign up for LostCousin's newsletters to stay on top of breaking news and various discounts.

~Susan

New Indexing Project

The TCGS meeting for the Washington State Archives Cemetery project will take place at 7pm  Thursday, 23 August 2012, at the Richland Family History Center.

Now that the 1940 U.S. Census indexing project has finished, John Covey, TCGS President, has found another wonderful indexing project for us. This one closer to home, we are indexing local cemeteries. Washington State Digital Archives, at the request of the Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, is asking societies to index their local cemeteries for preservation in the digital archives.

Over the years, members of the society have been indexing the cemeteries but there is still plenty of indexing to do. If you are interested, please attend this meeting tomorrow evening.  If we all pitch in, we can get our cemeteries online and hope that others are indexing the cemeteries in the areas we are interested in researching. Let’s not let the enthusiasm from indexing the 1940 census die.

TCGS Helps Index 1940 Census

The figures are in: TCGS did an amazing job of contributing to the 1940 US Census Community Indexing Project.

At the last TCGS Board Meeting, John Covey, TCGS President, announced that we had indexed 83,754 names and arbitrated 154,116. This makes a grand total of 237,870 names.

Surprisingly, of all the societies indexing, our society came in 16th in the Large Society Group (16 or more members)! That is very impressive considering the size of our society and the number of people doing indexing.

There are some who outdid themselves with indexing, but no matter how many or few you may have indexed, your contribution has been counted and allows us to post the 1940 Community Indexing Project logo.

Many thanks to all!

 

16th in the Large Society Group (16 or more members)

WSGS 2012 Recognition Awards

It is with great pleasure that we introduce the TCGS recipients of the WSGS 2012 Recognition Awards. Janet McKinnon and Susan Faulkner were both recognized for their “exceptional and consistent support of the goals and operation of”¹ the Tri-City Genealogical Society; Gary Miller has been recognized “for outstanding efforts in the identification, preservation, dissemination or publication of information of genealogical importance and value to researchers interested in the families of Washington state.”²

Janet, as most of you know, has served as TCGS’ Vice-President and Program Chair since 2010. In addition, she was instrumental in organizing the annual Washington State Genealogical Society State Conference held in Richland in September 2011. Janet also serves regularly in the Richland Family History Center helping others learn more about doing genealogical research. And, at the end of 2011, when no one came forward to run for TCGS Vice-President, Janet agreed to continue for a second term.

Susan received recognition for serving as TCGS President from 2010-2011. It was she who enthusiastically accepted the opportunity for TCGS to host the 2011 WSGS State Conference and worked hard to see its successful fruition. In addition to serving in these capacities, she also made several presentations both to our society members and other members of the community and still found time to contribute articles to our TCGS Bulletin.

Gary Miller was nominated for his efforts in record preservation for TCGS. He helped with the photo indexing project for CREHST Museum in Richland, Washington.  After retirement, he contributed time indexing the Benton and Franklin County school censuses covering 1910 to 1933. In an effort to resolve some issues with the school census indexing project, Gary drove to Ellensburg to obtain better images of the census pages. At the end of that project, he created a document explaining what was done and where there might be some problems with the index. With the school census project finished, Gary turned his efforts to helping with the 1940 US Census indexing 20,000 names since April 2012.

We congratulate all three WSGS Recognition Award recipients and thank them for their efforts to sustain TCGS. These recognitions will be formally awarded at the 2012 WSGS Annual State Conference September 8th in Port Angeles, Washington.

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1 Washington State Genealogical Society. Annual Outstanding Volunteer Awards Program: Introduction to Outstanding Volunteer Awards. Union Gap: WSGS, date unknown. Web. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wasgs/volawardintro.pdf.

2 Ibid.