Cyber-Age Genealogy

Kathy PetlewskiGenealogy & Local History Librarian

Plymouth District Library2011

Starting with the basics ~ Define our terms! Let’s take a look at fee-based commercial

databases. Sampling the best of the free sites… Age of digital publishing – books and blogs Role of social networking in genealogy. Genealogy on mobile devices.

Topics for Today Include:

Cyber-Age Terms Defined Blog: a web site containing

the writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other Web sites. (Random House Dictionary)

Database: A collection of data arranged for ease and speed of search and retrieval by a computer. (American Heritage Science Dictionary)

Digitize: To convert data or signals, such as images, text, or sound, to digital form. (American Heritage Science Dictionary)

Social Network: a website where one connects with those sharing personal or professional interests, place of origin, education at a particular school, etc. (Facebook, MySpace) (dictionary.com)

Ancestry Library Edition (available only in library)

Commercial Databases

Largest commercial genealogy product on the market today.

Over 7,000 databases and 200 billion images

This includes censuses, vital records, immigration records, family histories, military records, court and legal documents, directories, photos, maps, and more.

Footnote.com (Remote access with Plymouth Library Card)

Commercial Databases

More than 50 million pages of historical documents

Documents relating to the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, and U.S. Presidents

Some city directories & historical newspapers

Matthew Brady photographs

HeritageQuest Online (remote access with PDL card)

Commercial Databases

28,000 digitized book titles, including early family histories and local histories.

PERSI index of over 2 million genealogy & local history articles.

Census images 1790-1930, but not all fully indexed.

Revolutionary War Pension files & Bounty-Land Warrant application files

American Ancestors (available only in library)

Commercial Databases

Formerly New England Ancestors Online.

Primary focus is on New England area and New York state.

Personal histories, town histories, vital records & digitized books such as The Great Migration set.

New York Times Historic ◦ – dates include from 1851 through 2004.◦ - full images, keyword searchable.

Detroit Free Press Historic◦ - dates include 1831 through 1922.◦ - full images, keyword searchable.

Access in library or remotely with PDL card.

Historic Newspapers Online

FamilySearch.org (LDS site)◦ FamilySearch (new):

https://www.familysearch.org/

◦ Original FamilySearch: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp

◦ Both are international in scope and have volunteer-created indexes based on vital records & original source documents. Library Catalog is included on both sites as well as research aids.

Sampling Some of the Best…

Castle Garden - information on 11 million immigrants from 1820 through 1892 http://www.castlegarden.org/

Ellis Island – Search by passenger’s name or by name of ship.

http://www.ellisisland.org/

Sampling Some of the Best…

Chronicling America – from Library of Congress & Nat’l Endowment for Humanities

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Family History Archive – 17,777 digitized items from a variety of libraries

http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/index.php

Sampling Some of the Best…

Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet - 291,330+ links for family history!

http://www.cyndislist.com/

U.S. GenWeb Project - http://usgenweb.org/“Keeping Internet Genealogy Free”Organized by state and then by county.

Content quality varies significantly!

Sampling Some of the Best…

Digitized Books & Manuscripts

Digitized Books & Manuscripts

Digitized Books & Manuscripts

Mocavo – world’s largest free genealogy search engine.

http://www.mocavo.com/

Searching the Web

RootsWeb – part of Ancestry.com http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ The world's largest online genealogy community with over 17

Million posts on more than 161,000 boards. GenForum - part of Genealogy.com

http://genforum.genealogy.com/index.html

◦ Search by locality, by topic or by surname

Post queries or answers to other’s queries. Free services, but may lead to fee-based areas.

Online Communities

Genealogy Blogs & WikisFamilySearch Research Wiki - https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Main_Page

Genealogy Blogs & WikisEastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter-http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/

Genealogy Blogs & WikisGenealogy Blog ~ http://www.genealogyblog.com/

Re-connect with distant relatives or those who share common interests.

Find Facebook versions of popular databases/publishers

◦ Facebook | Ancestry.com  ◦ Facebook | Cyndi's List  ◦ Facebook | Family Tree Magazine  ◦ Facebook | Footnote.com  ◦ Facebook | GenealogyBank  ◦ Facebook | Genealogy Group 

Genealogy on Facebook

GeneaBloggers on Facebook

Keeping Up on Twittergeneabloggers

A passion for blogging about genealogy and family history

2,799 followers

megansmolenyak genealogical adventurer who loves to solve

mysteries 3,391 followers

footnoteMaven A Photo Whisperer. Solving the mysteries of

genealogy, old photos .. 2,375 followers

FamilyTreeMag We're a how-to genealogy magazine and online

community. 3,441 followers

genseek GenSeek.com will soon be launching the

FamilySearch Catalog 2.0, 9,631 followers

rjseaver Genealogy evangelist, husband, father,

grandfather, Christian, Chargers... 1,199 followers

marktucker Software Architect. Silverlight, Windows Phone 7

developer. UX. Scouter.... 1,666 followers

worldvrecords We help you succeed with your genealogy and

family history by providing... 3,080 followers

michaelhait Pro genealogist - writer and lecturer 1,422 followers

footnote Footnote.com helps you find and share historic

documents, photos and rec...

Geneabloggers on Twitter

Join a Discussion on Linked in

Reunion for iPad - $14.99 – must already have Reunion 9.0c on your Mac.

Ancestry for iPad – free – connect to your Ancestry.com account

Shrubs for iPhone - $7.99 – GEDCOM viewer FamViewer for iPhone - $14.99 – GEDCOM viewer GedView for iPhone - $3.99 – GEDCOM viewer Family Bee for Android - $10 (free trial) MobileGenealogy.com -

http://www.mobilegenealogy.com/ Look here for news, reviews & info on

genealogy on mobile devices.

Apps for Mobile Devices

Digital Collections will continue to be released online.

FamilySearch volunteers make more vital records available.

Portable devices replace desktops so better genealogy apps will appear on market.

Online publishing of family history books makes it easy for everyone to put info out there – some good…some not!

Where Do We Go From Here?