Genealogy Do-Over

With the start of the new year, it's a good time to think about doing a Genealogy Do-Over. The concept is that you set aside all of your previous research and start over from scratch.

When most of us started compiling our family histories, we did't know or appreciate the importance of citing sources or fully analyzing evidence to prove facts. We gradually learn the process of how to properly conduct our genealogical research.

Perhaps your methods have improved and your current research is impeccable but what about all of your early work?  Instead of just reviewing all of your past research, why not start entirely over?

Blogger Thomas MacEntee created the Genealogy Do-Over in 2014. Last year, he blogged about the process and has written an ebook to help others start over. The Genealogy Do-Over blog also includes different research prompts for each month to help you get through a year of new research. And join the Facebook group for research help and to see how others are starting over.

TIPS FOR BREAKING DOWN BRICK WALLS

The Ask A Genealogist blog has great tips and advice for your genealogical challenges.  Send your questions to professional genealogist Michele Simmons Lewis at Questions for Michele .

Genealogy Roots Blog

Genealogy Roots is a blog about vital records.

It is designed to help you  find online genealogy databases, records and resources. The focus is on vital records (birth, marriage, divorce & death records), obituaries, census records, naturalization records, military records and ship passenger lists.

40 TOP INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGY BLOGS

From Family Tree Magazine Genealogy Insider, newsletter@familytreecommunity.com :

Family Tree Magazine's 40 top international genealogy blogs are like having your own local guide to unfamiliar customs in a foreign country.

GENEALOGY WISE

I came across a genealogy social networking site called Genealogy Wise, which is sponsored by the National Institute for Genealogical Studies.    It is quite interactive, offering groups, forums, classes, certification, etc.  The groups have a specific genealogical focus involving ethnic, geographical, or cultural background, and are very informative.  The whole site is designed to be as educational as possible.

Tony's Genealogy Blog

Tony Kierna is a Reference Librarian and Genealogy Coordinator at the Schaumburg Township District Library.

He publishes a Genealogy Blog that lists programs taking place in the area, which Glenview residents can attend; alonng with genealogy news, weblinks, etc.

Subscribe to RSS Notices, New Posts, and Comments on Tony's blog to be notified when something new is added..

Facebook For Genealogy

You know you can search for genealogy resources on the internet, using a search engine such as Google, or the Library's Genealogy Page, to help you locate helpful web sites.

But did you know you can do something similar using Facebook?

Setting up a Facebook account is like setting up an E-Mail account. Once your account is set up...and you are logged in... you can search Facebook by locations, such as your ancestral town; surnames, which will help you locate distant cousins or groups; genealogical societies; genealogy experts like Cyndi Howells or topics such as contacting a professional genealogist or learning more about your DNA Haplogroup. You will be able to easily communicate with other genealogists and groups.

Genealogy resources on Facebook include such popular features as The Genealogy Guys Podcast, and a news feed from The National Archives.

Various family tree applications enable you to locate and network with relatives around the world. Some examples include Family Link, Family Tree, and more.

Facebook helped me grow my family tree...it can help you, too!

GenealogyWise

FamilyLink has created a new genealogy social network named GenealogyWise.

It's like Facebook for genealogy, with member profiles, video sharing, forums, member blogs, chat, surname groups and more

You can add your genealogy information (which can be edited) to create your personal page.

On the home page, you can check on the Latest Activity, read Blog Posts, and deal with your account. The tabs across the top are Main, Invite, My Page, Members, Forum, Groups, Blogs, Video, Genealogy Search, Chat, Store, and More.

You can ask someone to be a Friend by going to the Members page, click on each person's image, and click on "Add As Friend." The person will have to approve you as a Friend. You can search for a specific Member also, and after becoming their Friend, you can ask their Friends to be your Friend too.

You can start a Group for your particular genealogical interest, so that you can have discussions and share information with people researching the same interest.

The more people sign up for GenealogyWise, the more useful it will become.

Genalogical Photos

Do you want to be able to easily share pictures with your new-found cousins?There are many ways to do this.One web site that combines genealogy with family photos is MyHeritage.

MyHeritage is a network of 32 million family members worldwide. It contains more than 350 million profiles, 7 million family Web sites and 50 million photos. People upload more than 2.5 million family photos to MyHeritage every month.

MyHeritage lets you share family photos from mobile devices or by email, which allows you to capture family moments and share them as they happen. You can tag your photos, or put them into a variety of slideshow formats, making it quick and easy for you to share your images in a beautiful way.

We Relate

WeRelate.org is a free public-service Wiki for genealogy sponsored by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy, Inc. in partnership with the Allen County Public Library.

WeRelate.org is the world's largest genealogy Wiki with pages for over 2,000,000 people and families and growing.

WeRelate lets you create Wiki pages for your ancestors, upload GEDCOM files, upload and annotate scanned documents and photos, include family stories and biographies, view maps of your ancestors' life events, view multi-generation pedigree and descendancy charts on the left side of the screen while displaying detailed person or family information on the right, and research over 400,000 place wiki pages.

WeRelate.org is about social networking, sharing research, and collaboration. Their goal is to be the #1 community website for genealogy. They have no copyright interest in posted material and their license guarantees that information freely shared remains free.

Volunteers and staff of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library assist with administration of the website. See the Allen County Public Library Homepage for more information about the library.

Genealogy Blog Finder

The Genealogy Blog Finder is produced by The Genealogue ("genealogy news you can't possibly use") which is an entertaining yet thought-provoking web site.

The Genealogy Blog Finder is for people who love and appreciate genealogy blogs.

I will help you find the most current discussions of issues and events in the world of genealogy. You can find out which blogs were most recently updated; the most recently added new blogs; and who is blogging where.

The blogs are classified into a huge number of categories, such as news, locations, technology, queries, obituaries, single surnames, and many more...so you can find a blog on any topic in genealogy.

Sirius Genealogy 2.0

Sirius Genealogy 2.0 is an online community for professional and amateur genealogists who want to learn more about using technology in the genealogy effort.

This is not a site where you can build your family tree, nor perform in depth research on your family, although they do have a few tools that can be used for that purpose.

Sirius Genealogy 2.0 is a place to learn, collaborate and teach fellow enthusiasts all about using technology in your genealogical quest.

They provide a newsletter for which you can sign up. and a way to consult an expert.

Useful tools conveniently gathered in one place include a calendar of events, cousin calculator, time capsule, google gadgets for genealogists. people finder, reviews, tips and tricks, and more.

The home page displays featured genealogical info that iseducational and informative.

You can also set up an account, and add your group or organization to the directory.

Footnote + Facebook = I Remember

At Footnote, original historical documents are combined with social networking.

Footnote has launched the I Remember application on Facebook to help people remember people who are important to them.

On January 10, 2007, the National Archives and Footnote launched a project to digitize historic documents that were previously available on microfilm..

Contributions using I Remember on Facebook will also be accessible on Footnote.

Members can upload their own pictures, stories, etc. to Footnote, and link them to entries in the Social Security Death Index andthe U.S. Census.

The digitized materials will also be available at no charge in National Archives research rooms in Washington D.C. and regional facilities across the country. In five years, all images digitized through this agreement will be available at no charge through the National Archives web site.

You need to subscribe to Footnote in order to vire the images, but not for limited access to text.

Social Networking For Genealogists

The Glenview Public Library has purchased the following book. I expect it to enhance your genealogical research, and help you find new ways to communicate and share with other family history researchers:

Social Networking for Genealogists by Drew Smith

Genealogical Pub. Co., c2009

R929.10285 SMI GENEALOGY

(A circulating copy is on order)

Contents: RSS -- Tags -- Message boards and mailing lists -- Blogs -- Wikis -- Collaborative editing -- Photo and video sharing -- Social bookmarking -- Sharing personal libraries -- Podcasts -- Social networking for its own sake -- Virtual worlds -- Genealogy-specific social networking.

This book describes the wide array of social networking services that are now available online and highlights how these services can be used by genealogists to share information, photos, and videos with family, friends, and other researchers.

Each chapter guides you through a unique category of social networking services using genealogy-related examples. From blogs and wikis to general social networking sites that have genealogy applications, such as Facebook, and virtual worlds such as Second Life, author Drew Smith shows you how to incorporate these powerful new tools into your family history research.

This book is about the type of social networking that has been made possible by the development of international computer networks, the availability of network access to most homes (especially broadband access), the creation of websites dedicated to particular kinds of networking (posting photos, viewing and commenting on videos, seeing what books friends have in their libraries, etc.), and the ease of participating in these sites without having to be a computer expert. It identifies those kinds of social networking sites and services that will be of the most interest to genealogists.

THE AUTHOR: Drew Smith, MLS, is an academic librarian with the University of South Florida in Tampa. An expert in digital genealogy, with a lifelong interest in family history research, he is Director of the Federation of Genealogical Societies and President of the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa. He is also a regular contributor to Digital Genealogist magazine and is co-host of the weekly Genealogy Guys Podcast.

We're Related

Did you receive an email on April Fool's Day telling you that President Barack Obama confirmed you as a cousin on the We're Related application on Facebook?


The April Fool's joke resulted in We're Related's biggest day ever, with five times more traffic than average.

FamilyLink.com, Inc. is the developer of We're Related.

We're Related is the fourth most popular application on Facebook, and the number one social application for families. We're Related helps individuals stay in touch with their families by connecting them to their possible relatives.

FamilyLink.com, Inc. is the leading social networking company for families globally. It was formed in 2006 by original founding executives of Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com.

Other genealogy applications for Facebook include Family Tree and One Family Tree.

Sign up for a Facebook account, and be sure to install these applications,,,they really can help you find your family!

Flickr Commons

Flickr Commons can be of great help to genealogists. You may find pictures here of your ancestors and relatives, the house or town where they lived, and more.

Your participation in The Commons on Flickr will make these photos valuable to everyone, everywhere.

Describe the photographs you discover in The Commons on Flickr, either by adding tags or leaving comments.

The Commons was launched on January 16, 2008, when the pilot project was launched in partnership with The Library of Congress. Both Flickr and the Library were overwhelmed by the positive response.

The program has two main objectives:

1--To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and

2--To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)

Sign in to The Commons at Flickr using your Yahoo email address and password.

Genealogy Tweets

Twitter can help your genealogy.

Learn which Genealogy Companies and People are on Twitter.

Geneabloggers recommends the Top Ten People, and Top Ten Genealogy Companies. that all genealogists should follow on Twitter.

Digital Past is on Twitter

Digital Past is now on Twitter as DigitalPast.

Be sure to follow DigitalPast for all the very very latest updates and changes.

In fact, today if you start following, you'll see a sneak peek of the new Digital Past page that's coming in April. NSLS and several staffers are also on Twitter - along with other library and genealogy celebrities you will want to follow.

Genealogy Podcasts

Make good use of your time...multi-task while listening to a genealogy podcast!

Download podcasts from the Internet, and listen at your leisure.

You can listen to podcasts on your computer, on an iPod or MP3 player, or on a CD that you can listen to anywhere.

Podcasts can contain interviews, lectures and lessons. Since you can listen to them any time you want, they are a flexible way to keep up with the latest genealogy news and tips.

Genealogy podcasts are available at Dear Myrtle, Family History Expos, The Genealogy Guys, Irish Roots Cafe, Genealogy Gems, Dick Eastman's EOGN Podcast, and elsewhere.