I recently came across this "formula" for finding a birthdate*, when all you have is the death date and age, from say, a tombstone or obituary. If you don't have your date calculator handy (there's usually one built into most genealogy organization programs), you can use this "8870 formula":
Tombstone states date of death is April 11, 1866 and the person was 68 years, 8 months and 21 days old.
18660411 (year month day of death)
- 680821 (age in years, months, days)
____________
17979590
- 8870 (subtract the number 8870)
____________
17970720 (birthdate of abt. 1797 July 20)
I've played with it a couple of times, and if your month value is over 12, add one to the year and subtract 12 from the months. Same with the day value - if its over 30 or 31, add one to the month and subtract from the days. This isn't always 100% accurate to the day, but you can get a good idea of someone's birthdate at least!
*There are a few online sources for this formula, and it has been printed in a couple of society newsletters lately as well. I read it in my current issue of Berkshire Genealogist.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
"Why" Genealogy in Second Life?
I have been encouraging folks to join Second Life for genealogy lately, but maybe I haven’t been clear enough on exactly why you might want to do that, and what Second Life has to offer genealogist. As always, I’m just going to go at this based on my own experiences, and not on any particular expertise on the subject.
1. LEARN
One of the main reasons to spend time in Second Life as a genealogist, is to learn more about genealogy. In Second Life, there are specific areas (Live Roots Genealogy Zone, Just Genealogy and the Genealogy Research Center) where you can read informative displays on many different aspects of genealogy, from DNA research, to Danish research. These are things you can do all by yourself at your own pace.
2. DISCUSS
I absolutely love sitting around and 'talking genealogy' with other people who share my interests. (Anyone else's eyes just glaze over, don't they?) In Second Life you can participate in regularly scheduled group discussions or just stop by and talk with whoever is around. There is a regular calendar that includes scheduled chats and other events for the month happening in any of the genealogy areas. You can find a link to the calendar at any of the genealogy spots in second life, or here. The chats cover all sorts of different topics, and are generally very informal. A couple of these are hosted by Clarise Beaumont (also known as DearMYRTLE). She hosts discussions around the patio of the Second Life Family History Center, and others over at the Just Genealogy fire pit, where a white board shows slides during the presentation. For any of them, you don’t need to make a reservation of any kind, you just show up and take a seat.
Some people hold “Office Hours” - regularly scheduled times and places where you can go and discuss your research problems with professional genealogists, and anyone else who wants to join in the discussion. It’s always helpful to get another perspective on your problems, and the other genealogists in second life are always happy to help out.
There are also regularly scheduled “chill out” sessions over at the gazebo at Live Roots, where folks are invited to get together in specific areas, just to talk about whatever is on their mind - genealogy research strategies, brickwalls, or even just ‘aha’ moments. Its great to be able to share your successes with other genealogists who are just as interested and excited about it all as you are. Constantine Kyomoon is the Live Roots area’s non-stop genealogist, and is often around to greet visitors.
And anytime you care to stop by you might find a few other avid genealogists hanging around - not just when events are scheduled. They’re a friendly bunch, just like in Real Life. Most anyone you run into will be happy to help you with anything at all, from simple or complex genealogy questions to how to navigate around in Second Life.
3. HAVE FUN
Besides the fun events in the genealogy areas (dances, contests, displays) There are lots of things to do on Second Life (although I can’t imagine why you’d want to do anything other than discuss genealogical research). You can search for different interests you might have, and enjoy virtual museums of all kinds. Today my daughter took me to the International Space Station display, where we stood on a deck and looked at the earth below us from space. That was amazing. Or you can go on rides at a carnival, go line dancing at a western saloon, watch a Shakespearean play, or listen to live music! If you can imagine it, it’s probably already on Second Life.
If you’ve already signed up for Second Life, add me to your friend list - I’m Genie Weezles. And if you’re just finally ready to take the leap, be sure to follow the instructions at either http://www.liveroots.com/zone/welcome.html or http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/2009/07/interested-in-actually-joining-second.html
I've probably left out several other good reasons for getting a Second Life, but these are some of my favorites at the moment.
Hope to see you there!
1. LEARN
One of the main reasons to spend time in Second Life as a genealogist, is to learn more about genealogy. In Second Life, there are specific areas (Live Roots Genealogy Zone, Just Genealogy and the Genealogy Research Center) where you can read informative displays on many different aspects of genealogy, from DNA research, to Danish research. These are things you can do all by yourself at your own pace.
2. DISCUSS
I absolutely love sitting around and 'talking genealogy' with other people who share my interests. (Anyone else's eyes just glaze over, don't they?) In Second Life you can participate in regularly scheduled group discussions or just stop by and talk with whoever is around. There is a regular calendar that includes scheduled chats and other events for the month happening in any of the genealogy areas. You can find a link to the calendar at any of the genealogy spots in second life, or here. The chats cover all sorts of different topics, and are generally very informal. A couple of these are hosted by Clarise Beaumont (also known as DearMYRTLE). She hosts discussions around the patio of the Second Life Family History Center, and others over at the Just Genealogy fire pit, where a white board shows slides during the presentation. For any of them, you don’t need to make a reservation of any kind, you just show up and take a seat.
Some people hold “Office Hours” - regularly scheduled times and places where you can go and discuss your research problems with professional genealogists, and anyone else who wants to join in the discussion. It’s always helpful to get another perspective on your problems, and the other genealogists in second life are always happy to help out.
There are also regularly scheduled “chill out” sessions over at the gazebo at Live Roots, where folks are invited to get together in specific areas, just to talk about whatever is on their mind - genealogy research strategies, brickwalls, or even just ‘aha’ moments. Its great to be able to share your successes with other genealogists who are just as interested and excited about it all as you are. Constantine Kyomoon is the Live Roots area’s non-stop genealogist, and is often around to greet visitors.
And anytime you care to stop by you might find a few other avid genealogists hanging around - not just when events are scheduled. They’re a friendly bunch, just like in Real Life. Most anyone you run into will be happy to help you with anything at all, from simple or complex genealogy questions to how to navigate around in Second Life.
3. HAVE FUN
Besides the fun events in the genealogy areas (dances, contests, displays) There are lots of things to do on Second Life (although I can’t imagine why you’d want to do anything other than discuss genealogical research). You can search for different interests you might have, and enjoy virtual museums of all kinds. Today my daughter took me to the International Space Station display, where we stood on a deck and looked at the earth below us from space. That was amazing. Or you can go on rides at a carnival, go line dancing at a western saloon, watch a Shakespearean play, or listen to live music! If you can imagine it, it’s probably already on Second Life.
If you’ve already signed up for Second Life, add me to your friend list - I’m Genie Weezles. And if you’re just finally ready to take the leap, be sure to follow the instructions at either http://www.liveroots.com/zone/welcome.html or http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/2009/07/interested-in-actually-joining-second.html
I've probably left out several other good reasons for getting a Second Life, but these are some of my favorites at the moment.
Hope to see you there!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
All the websites from my handouts in one handy toolbar!
I just got through giving three different one-hour lectures having to do with genealogical research on the internet, with dozens of website address in the handouts. I forgot to mention, however, that I also have created a toolbar that contains EVERY website I mention in any of my presentations, plus more, and its all free - free for me to make, free for anyone to download and use. Just a good deal all around.
You can download it by clicking on the "My Toolbar" artwork at the top of this blog, or at http://RelativelyCurious.OurToolbar.com/ .
If you don't like it you can either turn it off (right click on your toolbar at the top, and uncheck the option for it), or even uninstall it completely. (But I hope you like it!)
You can download it by clicking on the "My Toolbar" artwork at the top of this blog, or at http://RelativelyCurious.OurToolbar.com/ .
If you don't like it you can either turn it off (right click on your toolbar at the top, and uncheck the option for it), or even uninstall it completely. (But I hope you like it!)
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Where to Find Obituaries Online
Obituaries can be a great place to find all sorts of information about folks - both the living and the dearly departed. Most obits usually include a person’s birth and (obviously) death date, as well as perhaps the location for each of those events. Some obits include the names of current and former spouses, and even perhaps a maiden name. Usually the names of children are enumerated, and their respective spouses. Sometimes the female children will be named as Mrs. John Smith, but that can still come in helpful at time. Of course the real ‘score’ in an obituary is a life history, including parents, places lived, jobs held, military service, and the entire list of descendants - but those obituaries are few and far between, and never seem to be written about “my guy”.
However, no matter how much great information an obituary contains, it’s important to remember that very often they are full of mistakes. Obviously the person who knows the facts about his own life the best is the fellow who just passed away, and when its time to write his obituary, it’s a little too late to clarify any misinformation. But like any undocumented information, obituaries are at the very least, full of clues about your ancestors.
Still, its worth the effort to locate an obituary when you can, and, as always, my favorite place to start looking is online. Ancestry.com has quite an assortment of obituary indexes, as well as newspaper archives available, but not everyone is fortunate enough to have a subscription. So I’ve tried to dig up as many free sources as I can.
For more recent obituaries, one free index is hosted on RootsWeb - the Obituary Daily Times. Volunteers nationwide enter up to 2,500 obituaries per day, which are indexed and searchable, and hosted by Rootsweb.
Another couple of websites that I’ve been perusing a lot recently are ObitsArchive.com (NewsBank) and Legacy.com. You can search by name or by newspaper, and a snippet of the obituary will pop right up, if available. You can purchase a monthly subscription to ObitsArchive, or just pay $2.95 for each obituary. On Legacy.com, sometimes the entire obituary is available to view by clicking on “more”, and sometimes it will just link to information on how to purchase the obituary, but don’t go spending your money yet.
First off, you want to see which newspaper and date the obituary is for. With that information, you can go directly to that newspaper’s website to see if they have the obit available for free there. If that doesn’t work, you still have options. One is to contact the newspaper and ask them their policy for obtaining obituaries. It helps that you already have the person’s name and the date of publication of the obituary, and more than once, I’ve had an obituary show up the next day in my e-mail box.
Another site to try is Obituarieshelp.org. Its really a one-stop shopping type of website - everything you need to know about obituaries and where to find them. There is advice on how to word an obituary, how to write a eulogy, examples of death notices and even sample letters of condolence.
But of course what you’re looking for are the obits, and what they have in that regard is a state by state guide to newspapers’ online sites, that usually links directly to the obituaries section. These are often searchable, even without a subscription of any sort, and if you’re lucky, the obituary you’re looking for will pop right up.
Of course you can always search for newspapers with digital archives in the locale of your deceased. There are two website that I know of that list newspaper digitization projects: Icon and Ibiblio. Both are organized by country and then by state.
And of course, there are a few online subscription newspaper databases, such as Newspaper Archives, NewsBank, Small Town Papers, GenealogyBank, and probably another couple that I’ve forgotten (sorry ‘bout that). While all of these do require a subscription, most of them are available through World Vital Records, the Godfrey Memorial Library and/or Footnote.com. All three of these subscription websites are available free to patrons at any local LDS Family History Center.
Many particular groups (religious or ethnic) have obituary collections available online. For Quaker obituaries, Earlham University hosts the American Friend Obituary Index 1894-1960. The Odessa Collection includes obituaries of Germans from Russia (mostly from North and South Dakota newspapers). If there’s any chance your Methodist ancestors’ obituary may have appeared in the Southern Christian Advocate as early as 1837, or later in the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, an obituary index is available. Mennonite publications are indexed as early as 1864 at the Menn-Obits site.
One additional option for obtaining an obituary is through the kindness of strangers. If you have a complete name, a death date and location, and (if at all possible) the date the obit was published, you can often find a friendly volunteer at Obituary Lookups , or on the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness website (www.raogk.org). Volunteers are organized by state and county. Not all RAOGK volunteers do obituary lookups, but they will state in their description just what they are willing to do. Anytime you request services from a volunteer, please don’t forget to reply with a thank you.
(Just in case you were wondering, every one of these obituary links has been entered into my toolbar, under the Resources tab, Obituaries.)
However, no matter how much great information an obituary contains, it’s important to remember that very often they are full of mistakes. Obviously the person who knows the facts about his own life the best is the fellow who just passed away, and when its time to write his obituary, it’s a little too late to clarify any misinformation. But like any undocumented information, obituaries are at the very least, full of clues about your ancestors.
Still, its worth the effort to locate an obituary when you can, and, as always, my favorite place to start looking is online. Ancestry.com has quite an assortment of obituary indexes, as well as newspaper archives available, but not everyone is fortunate enough to have a subscription. So I’ve tried to dig up as many free sources as I can.
For more recent obituaries, one free index is hosted on RootsWeb - the Obituary Daily Times. Volunteers nationwide enter up to 2,500 obituaries per day, which are indexed and searchable, and hosted by Rootsweb.
Another couple of websites that I’ve been perusing a lot recently are ObitsArchive.com (NewsBank) and Legacy.com. You can search by name or by newspaper, and a snippet of the obituary will pop right up, if available. You can purchase a monthly subscription to ObitsArchive, or just pay $2.95 for each obituary. On Legacy.com, sometimes the entire obituary is available to view by clicking on “more”, and sometimes it will just link to information on how to purchase the obituary, but don’t go spending your money yet.
First off, you want to see which newspaper and date the obituary is for. With that information, you can go directly to that newspaper’s website to see if they have the obit available for free there. If that doesn’t work, you still have options. One is to contact the newspaper and ask them their policy for obtaining obituaries. It helps that you already have the person’s name and the date of publication of the obituary, and more than once, I’ve had an obituary show up the next day in my e-mail box.
Another site to try is Obituarieshelp.org. Its really a one-stop shopping type of website - everything you need to know about obituaries and where to find them. There is advice on how to word an obituary, how to write a eulogy, examples of death notices and even sample letters of condolence.
But of course what you’re looking for are the obits, and what they have in that regard is a state by state guide to newspapers’ online sites, that usually links directly to the obituaries section. These are often searchable, even without a subscription of any sort, and if you’re lucky, the obituary you’re looking for will pop right up.
Of course you can always search for newspapers with digital archives in the locale of your deceased. There are two website that I know of that list newspaper digitization projects: Icon and Ibiblio. Both are organized by country and then by state.
And of course, there are a few online subscription newspaper databases, such as Newspaper Archives, NewsBank, Small Town Papers, GenealogyBank, and probably another couple that I’ve forgotten (sorry ‘bout that). While all of these do require a subscription, most of them are available through World Vital Records, the Godfrey Memorial Library and/or Footnote.com. All three of these subscription websites are available free to patrons at any local LDS Family History Center.
Many particular groups (religious or ethnic) have obituary collections available online. For Quaker obituaries, Earlham University hosts the American Friend Obituary Index 1894-1960. The Odessa Collection includes obituaries of Germans from Russia (mostly from North and South Dakota newspapers). If there’s any chance your Methodist ancestors’ obituary may have appeared in the Southern Christian Advocate as early as 1837, or later in the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, an obituary index is available. Mennonite publications are indexed as early as 1864 at the Menn-Obits site.
One additional option for obtaining an obituary is through the kindness of strangers. If you have a complete name, a death date and location, and (if at all possible) the date the obit was published, you can often find a friendly volunteer at Obituary Lookups , or on the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness website (www.raogk.org). Volunteers are organized by state and county. Not all RAOGK volunteers do obituary lookups, but they will state in their description just what they are willing to do. Anytime you request services from a volunteer, please don’t forget to reply with a thank you.
(Just in case you were wondering, every one of these obituary links has been entered into my toolbar, under the Resources tab, Obituaries.)
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Look out world - here comes the iceberg!
Its been pointed out lately that only 5-10% of all genealogical records are available online, at best. This is so true, and reinforces the idea that genealogists need to get off their computers, and head to the courthouses, the cemeteries and to Aunt Mable's house for a history lesson. Those are valuable and generally really fun things to do anyway, but can be time, energy, and finance consuming. So the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is working to bring all those records to your own personal computer. Look out world - here comes the whole iceberg!
Just yesterday Paul Nauta was interviewed in an article in "Mormon Times", and said that the 2.5 million rolls of microfilm in the Granite Mountain Vaults are being digitized and could be completed as early as next year. Do you realize what that could mean? It could mean that it may not longer take three weeks for that microfilm of the parish register from that tiny town in Germany to show up at the FHC after you ordered it - In digital form, it could be delivered overnight... maybe even in less time than it takes to locate the place on a map! Or perhaps (dare I hope it) the digitized images could be delivered right to your own home computer. Wouldn't that be incredible? Imagine stumbling across a name at 2 am, and realizing you desperately need to check the original birth or death records, and you can!
Of course what this also means is that the indexing program will want to try to catch up as well. Currently about 100,000 volunteer indexers around the world are indexing nearly a million names a day, from the microfilm collections that are being digitized. So not only are those great images available, but they are searchable as well. Anyone can volunteer - anyone with a free five minutes here or there. It doesn't take any special talent or anything. Just go to FamilySearch.org, and click on the "Indexing" tab to volunteer.
Its staggering to think of the amount of genealogical information that the LDS church is making accessible to the world - and its FREE!
Just yesterday Paul Nauta was interviewed in an article in "Mormon Times", and said that the 2.5 million rolls of microfilm in the Granite Mountain Vaults are being digitized and could be completed as early as next year. Do you realize what that could mean? It could mean that it may not longer take three weeks for that microfilm of the parish register from that tiny town in Germany to show up at the FHC after you ordered it - In digital form, it could be delivered overnight... maybe even in less time than it takes to locate the place on a map! Or perhaps (dare I hope it) the digitized images could be delivered right to your own home computer. Wouldn't that be incredible? Imagine stumbling across a name at 2 am, and realizing you desperately need to check the original birth or death records, and you can!
Of course what this also means is that the indexing program will want to try to catch up as well. Currently about 100,000 volunteer indexers around the world are indexing nearly a million names a day, from the microfilm collections that are being digitized. So not only are those great images available, but they are searchable as well. Anyone can volunteer - anyone with a free five minutes here or there. It doesn't take any special talent or anything. Just go to FamilySearch.org, and click on the "Indexing" tab to volunteer.
Its staggering to think of the amount of genealogical information that the LDS church is making accessible to the world - and its FREE!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Family Tree Magazine looking for blog favorites
Wouldn't you know it, that Family Tree Magazine is taking nominations for the 40 best genealogy blogs, and here I am on vacation, without adequate time to craft intelligent and witty posts, to impress the heck out of the genealogical community so that I might make the cut. But I promise that whether or not y'all nominate me, I'll be back online in a couple weeks with erudite and informative ramblings - I mean blog postings - that will open up new avenues in your genealogical research and suddenly you'll have your line back to Adam. Oh wait. Maybe I've gone a bit overboard there. Let's just say I'll be back in a couple of weeks, and writing with a fervor stirred by last week's FGS conference. And here's the link to nominate your favorites - no matter who they are... http://www.familytreemagazine.com/article/40bestnominations.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Will you be heard?
What if you went to your local research library and it was closed. Empty. Gone.
What if the records they had in there were scattered to other repositories. A piece here, a piece there.
What if that really is happening right now.
And what if YOUR voice could make a difference. Would you take a minute and speak up? Would you take thirty seconds to click on a link and add your name to the list of those who don't want this to happen?
"The governor of Michigan has used the executive order to close the Library of Michigan and divide the contents to other libraries. The Records Preservation Committee, a joint organization of the National Genealogical Society and Federation of Genealogical Societies has started an online petition in an effort to stop this action. Please go to the following site: http://www.fgs.org/rpac/index.php to read and join the efforts to stop the loss of their organized history.
"The US did this over 100 years ago with the non-population censuses. Now those important documents are hard to find as they are scattered across the country in state, university and organization libraries." (quoted text from a friend)
Be heard.
And please feel free to repost and pass the information in this particular blog posting around to anyone you know that might care about records access.
What if the records they had in there were scattered to other repositories. A piece here, a piece there.
What if that really is happening right now.
And what if YOUR voice could make a difference. Would you take a minute and speak up? Would you take thirty seconds to click on a link and add your name to the list of those who don't want this to happen?
"The governor of Michigan has used the executive order to close the Library of Michigan and divide the contents to other libraries. The Records Preservation Committee, a joint organization of the National Genealogical Society and Federation of Genealogical Societies has started an online petition in an effort to stop this action. Please go to the following site: http://www.fgs.org/rpac/index.php to read and join the efforts to stop the loss of their organized history.
"The US did this over 100 years ago with the non-population censuses. Now those important documents are hard to find as they are scattered across the country in state, university and organization libraries." (quoted text from a friend)
Be heard.
And please feel free to repost and pass the information in this particular blog posting around to anyone you know that might care about records access.
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