Best genealogy websites for you

The blog article is entitled "Which are the Best Genealogy Websites for YOU?" written by Lisa Louise Cooke. It's a quick and easy read and gives some good general advice.

She suggests using Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org for general depth of records. For its international user base try MyHeritage.com  and FindMyPast.com is a good choice for its British sources.

I'm including links to each website.

Auto-Biography - my first car

A few days ago my 16-year-old son and I collaborated on his end of the semester History Project. The teacher assigned an "Auto-Biography" in which the students had to search out and write about personal automobile stories that meant something important to them or their ancestors. The caveat was that the paper had to include a minimum of three generations and go back in time at least 50 years. Of course, this got me thinking about my own life and the stories I might want to tell.

Photo from http://www.barrett-jackson.com 

This is not my original car but a fairly close match.

The first car I ever had was a 1969 Chevelle Super Sport. My parents bought it "used" in the late 1970's and fixed it up for me when I was about 15 years old, just before my Sophomore year of High School. It was gold and had black racing stripes around the sides. It was special to me not only because it was my first car, but it was also one of the last fixer uppers that my dad worked on and finished before he died.

Interestingly, the Chevelle was a gas hog; not a problem when gas prices were still under a $1 per gallon back then. It had dual exhausts and was LOUD--very loud. Sneaking in late at night was out of the question because you could usually hear the Chevelle long before I drove into the driveway.

Sometimes I wonder, whatever happened to the "old Chevelle"? Eventually I bought a newer less flashy car and left for college, leaving the Chevelle for my two younger brothers to drive. At some point it was sold and our family never saw it again. The memory is somewhat bittersweet. If the "old Chevelle" is still alive somewhere, it might be worth a tiny fortune today. It was definitely a car worthy of remembrance.

FamilySearch Launches New App Gallery

The FamilySearch App Gallery can be found at www.familysearch.org/apps. The gallery links viewers to FamilySearch partner sites offering a number of family history applications.

 Currently in the gallery you can find:

• 11 Tree Analyzing apps
• 15 Chart and Tree viewer apps 
• 15 Photo and Story apps 
• 15 Family Tree Software apps 
• 8 apps to Find Ancestors

From the FamilySearch blog:
"FamilySearch is a great resource, yet FamilySearch alone can’t do everything. That’s why we work with partners to provide complementary tools and resources, and why the FamilySearch App Gallery is so important,” said Dennis Brimhall, FamilySearch CEO. “In addition to partners that are a great resource for historical records, we’ve had partners for many years that offer a variety of different experiences such as sharing with family, and looking at data in different, insightful ways, and now we want to make it easier for our patrons to know about them and to help them find the apps they need.”

HistoryLines announces their upcoming website

I just discovered the new website HistoryLines and am thrilled to see what will be unveiled within the next few weeks.  From what I've read, users provide their relatives' vital info then HistoryLines takes it from there, writing your ancestors' stories in context with what was happening where and when they lived.

Taken from the HistoryLines.com website:
"Read a carefully-crafted, instantly created, personal history of your ancestor...History Lines gets you started with a well-written story that provides all of the relevant historical and cultural background to describe your ancestor's life in surprising detail." 

Even more exciting is this statement,

"View your family in context of the impactful historical events that filled their thoughts and conversations. Explore where your ancestor lived in relation to local and national events of historic significance...Our ultimate goal is to provide a detailed and fascinating story for every person who has ever lived on planet Earth."

One of the most difficult tasks of Family History is the "History" part. A family historian needs to know more than how to discover and locate long lost relatives. A good genealogist puts that person and his life into proper perspective in history.

Time and patience are prerequisites to locating ancestors that you've never met. It takes even more time to adequately dig into the history of what was going on at the time they lived. What were the living conditions? Who and what were the political and religious influences? Were there any wars or conflicts? How about racial or religious tensions at the time? Sometimes we forget it takes more than finding a relative to truly discover them.

HistoryLines.com website promises: 

• historical accuracy
• academically trained researchers
• fact checking
• sources are cited using rigorous reference principles and format

If HistoryLines can deliver all that, they have my full support. Visit their site and see what you think.

Taking charge of your pedigree on FamilySearch Family Tree

James Tanner, the author of the Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad... blog, published an article about this exact topic. It is entitled, "Can I stop people from making changes to my ancestors on FamilySearch Family Tree?" He shares some vital steps that every family historian should try in order to eliminate arbitrary or mistaken changes made by new and inexperienced enthusiasts as well as old timers who may still be trying to figure out exactly how "merging" or "adding sources" work. Nothing is foolproof of course, but the following suggestions are a good start:

1. Add as many sources as you can to each individual
2. Correct existing entries
3. Watch all of the family members of a target ancestor
4. Communicate with anyone making an unreasonable or incorrect change
5. Be persistent    

It's a wonderful post. Please take a look at it and see if you can clean up your Family Tree pedigree.

Happy New Year

How to create an Ancestral Name Cloud

Here's an amazing app from TreeSeek.com .  Hundreds, even thousands, of names from your family tree can be put into an Ancestral Name Cloud, with the most common family names in larger fonts and less common names in smaller fonts.

FamilySearch.org  blog writes, "When displayed in your home, it becomes a great conversation piece as guests and visitors search your cloud for their names. Name clouds can be created with only first names, only last names or a combination of both."

Here's my family surname cloud that took less than a minute to create and download:

Simply go to TreeSeek.com to make your own Name Cloud or create one of the many other family pedigree, photo, or fan charts available to download for free. You might also consider taking your download to a photo center for a top notch quality print.