Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Using Family Search to find images referenced on Ancestry (screencast)

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Today I was doing some research on Ancestry. (I’ve finished my backlog project and have lifted my ban on searching–more on that in a future post.) I was looking for a death certificate for my grandmother’s sister whom I had just learned through Find A Grave had died at the age of six, in 1922.

A simple Birth/Marriage/Death records search produced a collection called Washington, Select Death Certificates, 1907-1960, but when I clicked on it, it said “No Image Text-only collection.” (A picture of that screen is at the top of this post.) I saw that there was a FHL film number, so I went to Family Search to try to track down the document.

I was successful in finding an image of the death certificate, though I had to jump through a few hoops. After I successfully downloaded and processed it, I decided to do a screencast of the process, in case it help someone here.

Here’s the screencast:

A quick summary is that I searched on the film number in the catalog at Family Search, then when I got another No Image Available message there, I drilled down further to the actual microfilm number mentioned on Ancestry and did another search. That brought up the image. If it hadn’t, I would have gone to the image number (listed in the initial search result at Family Search) in that digitized microfilm. Bottom line: don’t give up if you’re told an image isn’t available!

You can find more information on using Family Search’s card catalog in this post from a year ago: Using the card catalog to find elusive documents on Family Search. And if you’re interested in how I processed that death certificate after I downloaded it, check out the blog post How I process a downloaded document.

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!

There’s no perfect way to organize

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There's no one right way to organizeIf there’s one thing that I’ve learned in nine years helping people get organized in their homes, it’s that there’s no one right way to organize. Organizing systems that work beautifully for me (or another client) may be seriously flawed for you. That’s why professional organizers can’t take a cookie-cutter approach to organizing…we have to  customize everything for the client.

This is true in organizing a home. And it’s also true in organizing your genealogy research. There are many ways to  organize your family history–just take a look at the many and varied answers for any particular question in the popular The Organized Genealogist group on Facebook.

So that’s why I bristled a little as I read a document called Organize Your Files on the Family Search wiki about how to organize your genealogy research. I actually use the recommended one-couple-per-folder system for my paper records. (I learned about it more than a decade ago on FamilySearch.org.) But the absolutes in the article, the my-way-or-the-highway tone made it less useful to me.

For example:

Computer note keeping. Computers are great for genealogists—but they are not the final storage medium. Keep your research notes on computer if you like, but make a paper copy at the end of the day. Your descendants may not know how to boot your computer, but they will be able to read your paper printouts.

Make paper copies of electronic sources such as Internet sites, email, fax, or telephone interviews.

I don’t agree with making paper copies of everything. For some people, it will feel worth the effort. For others, not. And that’s okay.

The Family Search wiki has loads of good information. But this article served as a good reminder to me that gently guiding, rather than ordering people around,  can be more effective.

I think some people thrive on structure and probably really appreciate being told exactly what to do.  But for others, strict instructions can feel intimidating or overwhelming. Me, I prefer gentler language with options built in. I like to tell you what works for me, but I don’t pretend that it will necessarily work for you. After all, tweaking is a good thing.

Family Search seeking volunteer indexers

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Family Search needs indexersWhen I was at Roots Tech, I was struck by the generosity of genealogists.  One of the things I was inspired to do while there was to sign up as an indexer for FamilySearch.org. The patient staffer at their booth took me through the sign up process and I was on my way.

Indexes make records searchable. The reason that you’re able to do an online search on a name at Family Search or Ancestry or any other genealogy website is that humans have gone through documents, like Census records, and marriage and death records and entered the information on them into a database, which often requires deciphering handwriting. When we search, we’re searching the index. At Roots Tech, Family Search was recruiting volunteers to help index obituaries, but they’re needed for all sorts of records.

Family Search’s indexing is a project of mammoth proportions. In 2014 alone, over 111,000 volunteers have completed some 33 million records, with another 14 records awaiting arbitration. (Each record is indexed by two different volunteers and when their results don’t match, a trained arbitrator decides which is right.)

That’s a whole lot of work–and Family Search relies on volunteers to do that work. You can do it from the comfort of your home and know that you’re contributing to the research of others. You may learn further your own research while you’re at it! If you sign up, you’ll be required to download some software onto your computer and once that’s done and you’ve taken a tutorial or two, you can get started.

For more information and to sign up, go the the Family Search Indexing page.