TNG has recently released a major upgrade to the website database software. I just finished installing it so if you come across any access errors, please let me know. I’m also still looking at changing the site layout, combining the blog with the database… but it’s slow process at the moment as my focus is on part-time college courses + full-time work. No time to create trouble, no rest for the wicked… 
Suzy
Dec 242011
Just wanted to take a moment to wish my site visitors a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! My semester of college courses finished last week, freeing up some time to increase to full-time hours at work, and in the evenings enjoy a little of the holidays. Got another semester of courses starting the last week of January.
I’ll be spending my Christmas here at home with my parents and brother. So far our winter has been wet, hovering close to the freezing mark so we’re definitely having a white Christmas, although we’ve been above 3 or 4 degrees above freezing this week so the snowbanks have receded a fair amount and are looking a bit dirty.
Wishing you a peaceful, loving Christmas. All the best for 2012!
Cousins, I’m planning on sitting down and writing my xmas letter next week. I’ll be emailing it to those of you I have email addresses for…
Jul 142011
How’s it going? Well it’s been awhile since I’ve updated this site. I had a busy spring with a full slate of business courses at the college while job hunting. The courses are done until fall and I’ve started a new job which is full-time during the summer, then 4 days a week starting sometime in September, in time for another batch of college courses.
I haven’t done much research, but I’m starting to get the itch again. I’m debating about ordering some birth/death records from Wisconsin related to the Judas tree.
I’m also scratching my head trying to figure out a way to better merge my database software with the WordPress software that runs the site/blog. So you’ll see some strange things happening around here and not all menu links are going to work properly while I tinker with coding…
i was reading an interesting article in the April/May 2011 issue of Internet Genealogy magazine.
“Five ways to use social media to find your family”There’s several good tips, here’s my favorites:
- use Twitter to ask short questions about people/items your looking for. Add a hashtag like #surnames or #SurnameSaturday to help tag your tweet for the public search engine.
- got online, public photo galleries (Flickr, Picassa) of ancestral photos? Tag your photos with surnames so search engines like Google can pick them up.
Happy spring everyone!
I’ve been busy with college courses, web design clients & job hunting. The little bit of genealogy research I’ve collected is Estacaille, maybe a tiny bit of Braniff and Judas.I’ve been fortunate the last couple of months to have received a CD of old Judas/Baker photos collected by a researching cousin who has since passed on. I’ve also received an old photo album from an aunt in the same branch. I’m working towards scanning in the photos, but it’s taking a bit of work as the album pages are usually bigger than the scanning bed of my multi-function printer/scanner/fax.
I’ve just finished uploading my latest GEDCOM. As far as I can see, the links from the media/photos/histories still works without any errors. Let me know if you come across any errors, including any errors in the “living” flag. I’m constantly on the watch for this in the site and my offline database.
I updated the database software about a month ago. No big surprises there, just minor adjustments. I want to work on the actual database site design, but don’t look for it too soon as I’ll need to put on my thinking cap and learn how to customize the design coding.
S.
I wish I had started doing this properly from the start, but better late than never. I think I have about 5000 individuals in my database – not sure how many families that is. I used to organize my documents by surname until I came across an article on the internet that explained how to organize by family unit. I use The Master Genealogist software for my research, so I have to create the family units needed to organize this way, but here is the link that explains how to do it using Legacy, PAF, Ancestral Quest.
The idea is that each family unit has an ID – I designate this ID starting with an F to separate it from the individual IDs which start with an I. Example my individual ID would be I1 as I am the first individual in my database, but my family unit ID is F1 until I get married/have kids. Then my spouse/children & I will be assigned a new family ID. I can also use this family ID to index transcribed documents in my Clooz electronic filing cabinet.
Unfortunately not all genealogy software assigns a family ID. So I was using my website genealogy database family IDs. Problem with that is when I upload a major update, the family IDs may change. I then code the original document with the family unit ID and file them in 3-ring binders with numbered indexes 1-100. Depending on how many families you have in your database, this could run into several binders. Each binder is also numbered so the first binder holds families 1-100, the second binder holds families 101-200… I also make sure in my computer database to record the family ID I’ve used in each individual.
Oct 082010
I haven’t used this site in a long while, but when I first started out in this adventure this site helped me a lot with discovering the genealogy treasures on the ‘net. www.cyndislist.com is an organized directory of genealogy websites around the world. It links to databases, forms, software, libraries, societies, government sources, how-tos – pretty much every genealogy topic under the sun.
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Cyndi’s List - Search It! Enter a keyword: surname, place name, type of record, etc., then click the Find button: |
Oct 082010
I’ve started to use Clooz software to help transcribe/organize the source data I’ve been collecting. I love the fact that this software comes with pre-built templates for US/Canada census records.
The database records can be indexed for multiple individuals. These individuals can be sorted/viewed by last name, first name, ID #…
You can also link to these records digital images of source documentation or website links (I prefer to make digital PDFs of website data so if the website in question permanently disappears, I still have a copy of the data in storage)
Oct 082010
One of my favorite sites for trying to find new possible records in Canada & the US. It’s been years since I’ve had any paid subscription to this site. But that’s mainly because I haven’t found new records that I need to see, or I can find the record for less cost once I know where to look.
I also use their free online family tree to post some of my older brick walls, hoping to find that little flashing leaf leading me to that elusive record that will give the breakthrough I’ve been searching for.
Check it out at www.ancestry.com or www.ancestry.ca. They are both the same site, but the site will try to direct you to either the US or Canada site depending on where your computer IP geographically maps you.
Oct 082010
The Mormon church is very much into genealogy, tracing/recording families from around the world, not just their members. While this fact has not been popular with some people/religions it has proven to be a valuable resource for genealogists. It’s been a few years but I’ve used the tiny local family centre to order/view microfilms from France & found records taking my ancestors back to the late 1600s. And the cost – I think it cost in the range of $8 – 10 per film rental including shipping.
The FamilySearch.org website is also valuable with an online catalog of sources that can be rented from Salt Lake City, downloadable forms, indexed transcribed records. And growing more valuable as they undertake the huge project of transcribing all the records they possess – microfilm, microfiche, books… I’ve used the new pilot project to view census records that I would usually have to pay a fee to view on sites like Ancestry.com