Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

A special gift for a genealogy lover

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I’m not a big gift giver and I when I do give gifts, I prefer to give experiences, rather than stuff. (I see how hard it is for my clients to let go of items that were gifts and I don’t want to burden anyone with that.)

But I dearly love one piece of jewelry that I bought myself as a gift. It’s the Original Family Tree Necklace from Lisa Leonard Designs. She creates custom, hand-stamped jewelry. This necklace is meant for moms, I think, to include the first names of their children. But I chose to have my grandparents’ surnames printed on the necklace.

I think it’s pretty and when I wear it, I feel connected to my family. If you ever see me at a genealogy conference, you’ll probably see it hanging around my neck.

As the gift-giving season approaches, I thought I’d mention it now in case you have a genealogy lover on your gift list. It also makes a good gift to give yourself!

When I bought mine (pictured here), it was being offered in pewter. Now it’s in sterling silver (and therefore more expensive). Lisa Leonard offers discounts all the time. In fact as I write this, there’s a 30 percent discount available, which brings the price down to $90 for the shorter chains. I love mine so much I just had to share!

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.

Are you taking advantage of your local library?

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I’m a huge fan of the St. Louis city and county public library systems (and, by extension, all public library systems). Even before I started doing serious genealogy research, I was a heavy library user. Before I got my first Kindle e-reader five years ago, they knew me by name at my local branch of the city library. (I still borrow books all the time but now they’re electronic, so I don’t get into my branch very often.)

St. Louis City and St. Louis County are separate government entities. (The city seceded from the county in 1876.) As a result there are two independent library systems, each with their collections. Residents of either entity, however, are welcome to use the other. So I’m fortunate to have access to two great library systems!

I’m so grateful for the genealogy resources the libraries. Both city and county headquarters here have genealogy collections. The St. Louis County library has two floors (Tiers 4 and 5) set aside for genealogy and history. Patrons can visit Tier 5 at any time the library is open and get the assistance of the very helpful employees. Tier 4 is closed to the public, though materials housed there can be requested. On the second weekend of each month (this month it’s July 14-15) Tier 4, is opened to the public. If you’re in St. Louis you might consider taking advantage of the opportunity to browse more than 130,000 family histories and other materials shelved in this area not usually open to the public.

I love using Tier 5 and try to get there at least once a quarter. One reason I go is that patrons of public libraries that are affiliated with the Family History Library (like the St. Louis County library) can access some of the documents online while at they’re library branch that they can’t access at home. It’s so much easier for me to travel fifteen minutes to the St. Louis County Library History & Genealogy Department than it is for me to travel to Salt Lake City!

In addition, my libraries offer free classes that help me build my genealogy skills. I bet yours does too.

My library card can help me do online research, without even having to go to the branch. The libraries I have access to allow me to search dozens of databases, simply by entering my card number and PIN. I have found information on newspaper databases and obituary indexes, for example, that I didn’t find elsewhere.

When I’m researching at my computer, I always start with Ancestry and Family Search. But sometimes need to remind myself to turn to the many digital library resources available to me!

The public library system throughout the country is such an amazing resource, for genealogy research and just general enrichment and education. If you don’t know already, I encourage you to reach out to your local library and see how it might help you in your family history research!

My first article in Family Tree Magazine!

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I’m excited to report that an article I wrote is published in the current (July/August 2018) edition of Family Tree Magazine! It’s called Genealogy Organization Secrets the Pros Know and it’s based on the interviews I did for the What the Pros Know: Genealogy Organizing Tips workshop I hosted for Family Tree University earlier this year.

The expert sources for the article are Thomas MacEntee, Joshua Taylor, Drew Smith, and Denise Levenick. I’m so grateful to them for talking with me.

For ten years before I started my organizing business in 2005, I was a freelance pet writer. I wrote primarily for newspapers and magazines, though in the latter years I wrote books. (You can check out my titles at Amazon.)

So magazine writing is not new for me, but I have to admit it was a thrill to have a genealogy article appear under my byline in a major national magazine. And note the optimism in this post’s title…I’m hoping there will be more!

I was able to read the article through this link, though it may be for premium members only. You can purchase and download the whole digital edition of the magazine here.

While it’s nice to see digital version on the website, I’m looking forward to holding the physical magazine in my hands. (Never mind that usually prefer digital documents to paper. This is different!)