Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

The scanner that comes with your iPhone

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I recently learned on one of the many terrific Facebook genealogy groups I belong to (I apologize that I don’t remember which one), about a little gem hiding in the iPhone and iPad. I’ve been using an iPhone since I bought a 4S back in 2012 (the same year I started this blog!), but I had never heard about this feature. It’s the scanner feature on the native Notes app.

I don’t use the Notes app much, since I tend to use Evernote to actually keep notes, but I’ve used it off and on over the year. Since I learned about the scanner feature, I’ve using it every time I have a piece of paper I want to capture. I’ve found it easier than using a dedicated scanning app. And it’s handy sometimes that creates a pdf, rather than a jpg.

Here’s how it works:

Let’s say you’re in a library or repository and find a document you want to save.

  1. Open the Notes app on your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Press the icon to create a new note.
  3. Touch the icon that looks like a + sign inside a circle.
  4. Touch Scan Documents
  5. Position your phone above the document.

The app will try to locate the edges of the document and take the picture automatically. (It’s like my bank’s app when I’m doing a mobile deposit of a check.) If it can’t find the corners quickly, you can press the round shutter-release icon (like on the camera app) and take the picture and then adjust the corners as necessary. For books that aren’t lying flat, that’s more likely to happen.

For pieces of paper, the photo tends to get taken automatically. It’s really fast and easy–it feels like magic.

Once you have the scan, you can press Save, or you can press the little icon of the picture and then retake it. Once you press Save, you can keep it in your Notes app for processing later or use the Share icon to either email it to yourself or save it in Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive or other apps that might work for you.

On my next research trip, I will give it a try. I think it will save time over just using my phone’s camera, as I did on my Kentucky trip.

One caveat: I understand that in the latest iOS iteration from Apple, the iPad has its own operating system, rather than sharing the iPhone’s. I have not downloaded iOS 13 yet (I like to wait until the kinks are worked out before downloading) and I don’t use an iPad. I’m assuming this feature will exist in the new iOS for the iPhone and the iPad, but I haven’t tried it.

 

New genealogy TV show

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NBC is debuting a new genealogy TV show called A New Leaf, hosted by Daisy Fuentes. (Remember her from MTV back in the day?) Two things about it seem particularly interesting to me:

Personally, I don’t watch live TV (I stream it) but I love that it’s a Saturday-morning show because I’m thinking it might draw young people into the genealogy fold.

The show, which is sponsored by Ancestry, will debut on October 5. It is part of NBC’s Saturday morning “The More You Know” block of programming. I plan to stream it on Hulu, my streaming service of choice. (I pay extra for advertising-free Hulu and it’s fantastic!)

According to the show’s Facebook page, “Each week, A New Leaf will teach viewers the importance of appreciating and understanding their family history in order to make important decisions to enact positive changes in their lives.” That sounds promising!

How They Do It: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

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I am delighted to publish this How They Do It interview with novelist and genealogist Nathan Dylan Goodwin. I love Nathan’s genealogical crime mysteries books starring his protagonist Morton Farrier, a forensic genealogist. (If you haven’t read them and you enjoy reading fiction, you’re in for a treat.) Nathan has been doing genealogy research since he was quite young and I was very interested to hear how he organizes his research. Nathan lives in Kent, England (which you’ll notice in some of his responses).

Author Nathan Dylan GoodwinHow They Do It: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

How long have you been doing genealogy?

I started doing genealogy when I was twelve years old…I say started, but what I actually mean is spent an inordinate amount of time creating family trees and not really knowing what I was doing! I did have the presence of mind, though, to interview (on a basic level) several elderly relatives, including my great grandfather’s sister, who was born in 1895. At the wake after her funeral, I gathered up all of her unwanted photographs, which had been destined for the dustbin. It was around 1998 when my research became more serious and I began going to record offices, buying certificates, etc.

What’s your favorite thing about being a genealogist?

First of all, I love the puzzle-solving element of finding out about my relatives and discovering things about their lives, which nobody else knows. My second favourite thing is making contact with living relatives, something which has been really important to me since I started in genealogy. I’ve met so many wonderful distant cousins from all around the world and very often they are in possession of photos and documents, which I would never have come across from record offices or genealogy websites. One of my prized possessions is a family bible belonging to my great-, great-, great-grandparents, which was given to me by a 3rd cousin, about whom I knew nothing prior to tracing the siblings of my great-, great-grandparents down to living relatives. Seeing my interest, she very generously gave me the bible.

What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to organizing your genealogy?

Organising it! I’ve been the family genealogist for a long time now and so frequently get passed various family documents, which invariably need preserving as they are and also in some digital form, which can be shared with other interested family members. This process, as genealogists are aware, can be very time-consuming. So, I’m ashamed to admit that I have a lot of semi-sorted box files pertaining to each family name that I am researching.

What is your favorite technology tool for genealogy?

I’m a huge fan of anything DNA-related and am delighted with the development and release of analysis tools on Ancestry, GEDmatch and MyHeritage. My current favourite, though, is probably the tools available on the DNA Painter website. I’m very often using the ‘What are the Odds?’ tool, as well as Blaine Bettinger’s Shared cM tool. Love it!

If you were starting out new as a genealogist what would you do differently?

Had it been available at the time, I would have DNA-tested everyone in the family! I’m lucky to have my mum and maternal grandmother tested, but don’t have much on my paternal side. Other than that, I would ask far better questions of my elderly relatives. When I started out, I would ask questions about family members – names, birth dates, children, etc. – information I can now find within a few seconds online. I should have asked what life was like for them growing up, the personalities of their families, what pastimes they enjoyed, and any other questions, which cannot be found in other sources.

Do you keep a research log? If so, what format?

I do keep a written journal when I begin a complex genealogy problem, such as helping an adoptee find their biological family; something I have done several times, now. Owing to the complexities of such a challenge, it is easy to overlook something or forget areas of research which have been already explored. I usually note the date, what research I undertook and any next steps I need to take.

How do you go about sharing your personal research with cousins or other interested parties?

The main way in which I share my research is via my (private) Ancestry tree. I find this isn’t too overwhelming and is easily navigated. The line of my family, which I started working on at the age of twelve, was my grandmother’s maiden name, Dengate, and since 2002 I have maintained a website, www.dengates.com dedicated to the family name. It is also my one-name study. The website is currently undergoing a major overhaul, but once up and running it’s a great way to share information, stories, videos and photographs. Having the website also encourages others to share their information with me and other interested parties.

What’s the most important thing you do to prepare for a research trip?

Before any research trip, I always make sure the records that I want to see are actually going to be available to me and pre-order them, if I can, to save time. I have an on-going Notes file on my mobile phone and so add document references to it until I’ve built up a big enough list for a particular repository to justify a visit.

What’s your biggest piece of advice to genealogists in terms of organizing their research?

Nathan Dylan Goodwin in front of his writing spaceI think everyone organises their research differently, so my advice would be to choose a way, which means that you can access something at a later date when you’ve built up a lot of material. Personally, I have (per family surname) a file for birth, marriage and death certificates (in chronological order), a file for wills, several for photographs, one for correspondence and one for artefacts. I must admit that my photographs files are slightly haphazard and need organising in a better way!

Do you have a dedicated space in your home for doing genealogy research? What’s it like?

I have a cabin at the bottom of my garden, which I use predominantly for writing my genealogical crime mystery stories, but I do also undertake some genealogy down there, too. Otherwise, I’m sat at the dining-room table on my laptop!

A cabin at the bottom of a garden sounds like a delightful place to write and do research! You can read a short prequel to Nathan’s genealogical crime series at his website, www.nathandylangoodwin.com and the whole series can be purchased at Amazon and other retailers. Thank you, Nathan, for this peek at how you organize your research!

How accurate is Ancestry?

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When I was at the Kentucky Historical Society research room in June, I overheard a conversation between a librarian and a patron. The patron, who displayed a certain amount of naiveté about genealogy research when he asked the librarian whether there was an index to everything in the library, proudly told the librarian that he’d been researching on Ancestry.com for years. The librarian’s response made me raise my eyebrows. He said, with a disapproving tone of voice, “A lot of stuff is wrong there; you can’t really trust those online sites.” I was so surprised by that statement that I wrote it down.

This felt all kinds of wrong to me for a couple of reasons. One is that, in one sentence, he invalidated this man’s genealogy experience. The other is that it’s just not true. I probably should have spoken up and argued the point, but I was in a library…it didn’t feel the place for a debate.

But it got me thinking about the notion that online sites like Ancestry or Family Search are inaccurate. I think that the librarian was referring to the family trees that can be found on the sites. Sure, trees are only as good as the practices of the genealogist who created them (or, in the case of Family Search, added to them). Many are not accurate. That’s why I ignore them.

Ancestry is typically the first place I go for source documents when I’m doing online research. It has millions of documents that provide evidence to prove facts in my genealogy research. I usually find them via search, either on a person or in the card catalog. I almost never even look at hints. And I carefully evaluate the suggested records that come up when I’ve clicked on a document in a search. (Usually, they are for the person I’m researching and are hugely helpful.)

Ancestry, along with Family Search, are fundamental to growing my research when I’m researching online (and I’m usually researching online). I was shocked to hear this authority figure completely dismiss online sites.

I was recently talking with a genealogy friend about her quest to solve a mystery. It became apparent that she was using online trees (in combination with DNA matches) as a main avenue for trying to solve the mystery. The conflicts among the trees were frustrating her. I suggested she back away from the trees and look for documents that could prove her suppositions. For me, the documents in Ancestry, not the trees, are where the value lies.

Of course, we must evaluate the documents and the evidence found in them. Good genealogists question everything. Is there inaccurate information on Ancestry? Of course–the family trees are full of them. Do the hints or suggested records sometimes apply to the wrong person? Yes!

But to describe Ancestry as inaccurate is, well, inaccurate. Everything you find in any repository (online or otherwise) must be evaluated. If you use Ancestry as tool to find documents that you then analyze, you’re on the path to success, in my opinion. However, if your starting point at Ancestry is looking at family trees, you may find yourself in the weeds.

My annual subscription to Ancestry is up for renewal this month. I always give it some thought and I always renew. I’m fortunate to be able to afford it; if I were looking to economize, though, Ancestry would probably be the last subscription I’d drop.

What about you? Do you think that the online sites get a bad rap? How do you make sure you’re getting good information from them?