Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Find your people on the 1940 census

By Leave a Comment

I’m a happy subscriber to Ancestry.com, so have used it primarily when searching the 1940 census. When it was released in April, the 1940 Census wasn’t indexed. In other words, you couldn’t just enter in a person’s name and find them. You needed to know their enumeration district, which you could get if you knew the address.  I was able to track my parents down by asking them their childhood addresses–I was so grateful they remembered where they lived in 1940.

Through the months, volunteers have been working hard to index the site (reading the hand-written entries and entering them into databases), and gradually states have been completed.

I just received an email from Archives.com, stating that the entire 1940 Census has been indexed and can be searched, free of charge, on  that website. (Archives is a paid service, so I suspect the free part is on a limited basis.) I clicked the link and searched for my father and, sure enough, there his nine-year-old self was. It took only a couple of links and I was looking at an image of the census form. I have an account (though I’m not a member) and I suspect that hastened the process.

According to the email from Archives, over one hundred thousand volunteers worked on indexing the census. That’s an amazing effort!

If you are just starting to dip your toe into family history research, here’s a chance to find a genealogical record for someone you might have known. Give it a try!

Help for your keepsakes

By 2 Comments

How to Archive Family Keepsakes coverI just received a book I’d pre-ordered, How to Archive Family Keepsakes, by Denise May Levenick, of the blog Family Curator. The book is published by Family Tree Books.

I’m very excited to read it. I’m looking forward to learning not only how to deal with the (few) family keepsakes I own but also how to help clients who have inherited such items. As an organizer, I see a lot of inherited items–furniture, keepsakes, photographs and information. In cluttered homes, storing and caring for these items can become a real challenge.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to inherit family photos, memorabilia and genealogical information, this book might help you, too.

After I’ve read it, I’ll post a review. It looks absolutely terrific.

Google is your friend

By Leave a Comment

Google logoI have a tendency to go straight to Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org or Fold3.com when I start to research a family member. But today, I went to Google and did a search the maiden name of one of my great grandmothers. Wow, I’m glad I did!

I found a link, on Scribd.com to a published family history of three lines of my family, one of which is headed by that great grandmother’s grandfather. The history was written in 1967 and it’s not heavily sourced. But it provide information that I had never heard before (like details of my great grandfather’s service in the Philippine Insurrection) and am itching to get to work verifying it.

Speaking of Google, I recently read an article in Discover Your Roots, a special magazine from Family Tree, called Your Guide to Google, by Allison Stacy. It offered ways to use Google, including search syntaxes, that I hadn’t been aware of. I consider myself quite a good Googler, but I’m anxious to learn new ways to use it in my family history research. I’ll report any Google a ha moments here!

Join the mailing list!

When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.