Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Using the card catalog to find elusive documents on Family Search

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Using the card catalog at Family SearchI use both Ancestry and Family Search regularly for online research. I tend to start with Ancestry because I find it easier to find indexed documents there. But when I’m looking for a document that’s more elusive, the catalog at Family Search often comes through for me.

I will sometimes do a Records search on Family Search but most often I start with a card catalog search. And I frequently come up with some great results.

I’ll give you a real-life example. I was doing research yesterday at the Saint Louis County Library and found an index to a Will Book. I wanted to see if I could find the actual document it referenced (an 1843 will for my 5th great grandfather, Jacob S. Baker, 1766-1845). Here’s what I did:

  1. I went to www.familysearch.org and logged in, then clicked Search, then Catalog.
  2. Under Place, I filled in the location from biggest to smallest (i.e. United States, Kentucky, Muhlenberg) then clicked Search.
  3. In the search results, I clicked on the type of document I wanted, in this case Court Records.
  4. In those search results, I clicked on a collection called Court Orders, 1799-1912.
  5. When I scrolled down under Film Notes, I was delighted to see that of the 12 rolls of microfilm, two had been digitized. And the year I was interested in was on one of those two rolls. (It seems like that never happens!)
  6. I clicked on the little camera icon, which opened the images of the film reel. And just as though I were using a microfilm reader, I was able to find the document I was looking for, based on the information in the index. Hooray!

If I had simply done a Records search on Jacob S. Baker I would not have found this image. (This is another argument for getting away from my computer and going to a library or other repository.)

Here’s another way the a Catalog search can be helpful. Sometimes at Family Search, you can do a Records search and find an entry that doesn’t have an image. But that image may indeed be available, with a Catalog search.

For example, I was looking for the death certificate for the second wife of my 2nd great grandfather, George Washington Adams. Her name was Della or Idella Adams and she died in Olympia, Washington, in 1943. On Family Search, through a Records search, I found an entry for her death certificate in the collection Washington Death Certificates, 1907-1960. But there was the dreaded “No image available” message.

But I didn’t give up. Instead, I copied the GS Film Number (2024117) and started a new search, this time of the Catalog. I pasted the film number in the box that says Search For Film/Fiche Number. (When I entered location as well, it didn’t produce results, so I deleted the location and left just the film number.)

That gave me a link to the whole collection of Washington state death certificates. I clicked on film number 2024117, even though its description didn’t seem to fit the county I was looking for. Then I went to the index record I’d found in the Record search and looked for the image number, 2348. I simply entered that number at the top of the screen for microfilm roll number 2024117 and it took me right to an image of Della’s death certificate.

I love searching the catalog at Family Search. I know a catalog search is an option at Ancestry, too, but I find it less enjoyable and productive.

Next time you can’t find an image of a document you have some information for, I heartily suggest using the catalog!

Take newspaper information with a grain of salt

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Just under a month ago, I wrote a post called Using newspapers to fill in the blanks in which I was very enthusiastic about newspapers and the discoveries they might contain. I still am.

A week before that, I wrote a post called Those Eureka! moments, in which I described finding a newspaper article that confirmed that a family I’d been researching was indeed related to me.

Newspaper research can be so fun and rewarding. But here’s a friendly reminder: Just because it’s in the newspaper doesn’t make it true.

Case in point: The article I described in the Eureka post did indeed provide the link I needed, which I have verified. But it also had a wrong cause of death for Mrs. G. W. Adams (Elizabeth Major Adams, 1889-1929). The article says she died of “an attack of influenza…with resulting heart complications.” Her death certificate, by contrast, says she died in childbirth. And cemetery records listing a single grave with “Elizabeth and Baby Adams” substantiate that information.

Why the newspaper said she died of influenza, I don’t know. But it’s a reminder that double checking facts in newspaper articles (or at least taking those facts with a grain of salt) is a good idea.

LeVar Burton’s RootsTech 2017 talk now available for viewing

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I attended RootsTech in February and one of my favorite keynotes was the one given by LeVar Burton, the original Kunta Kinte in Roots, the 1977 landmark mini-series. Roots aired on eight consecutive nights when I was in junior high and it made a huge impression on me.

I was really excited to hear him speak and I was not disappointed. The keynote was funny and moving and profound. I am not a crier and he brought tears to my eyes. I planned to share a link to my blog readers so you all could enjoy it and was disappointed that a speech wasn’t available for later viewing.

So I was delighted today to get an email saying that speech has been made available for viewing!

You can watch it here on the RootsTech website. In the 25-minute talk,  “LeVar Burton shares powerful thoughts on equality, race, history, and self-perception.” During the talk he himself cried. It was really moving. I urge you to watch.

Creating a quickbar button in Reunion

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Creating a quickbar button shortcut in ReunionI use Reunion on my Mac to keep track of my family tree. It’s the only software I’ve used, so I don’t have a basis of comparison, but I really like it.

My default view is the Family View and when I open the program, it starts at the base of the tree, with the records for my husband and me. At a session at the Midwestern Roots conference last year, I learned about creating a shortcut so that I can easily click on a person from anywhere on my tree to access their record. Reunion calls the area at the top of the screen the quickbar and it calls the individual name you put there a quickbar button.

I created quickbar buttons for my three ancestors for whom I have Civil War pension files because I access them a lot. I also added one for my great grandfather’s half-brother, Wayne Horace Adams (1907-1976), because otherwise to get to him, I have to first click on the red arrow to access his mother (his father’s second wife), which is a tiny hassle. (This year I’ve been trying to figure out Horace’s late childhood/early adulthood, so I’ve been spending time with him.) Click on the picture at the top of this post to see a larger photo of my opening Family View screen with the quickbar buttons at the top. (To protect my husband’s privacy, I blurred out his info and our marriage date.)

It’s extremely easy to add a quickbar button. Within the Family View just click on the person in question and drag him/her to the quickbar at the top of the screen. Reunion will ask you to give the quickbar button a name. To remove it, just drag it to the trashcan icon on the Mac. You can also click the little pencil icon on the far left of the quickbar to edit the buttons on it. And if you click the question mark icon you see in that edit menu, you’ll get lots more information on the quickbar.

I have found this to be so helpful, especially since I’m focusing on one family line this year. My great great grandfather G.W. Adams is the nexus of my research this year, so I click on his name pretty much every session. It’s really nice not to have to click my way up my tree to him!