Stuck at home with the family?

Take advantage of every opportunity to talk to your relatives about their families, to record their recollections, to reminisce together, and you’re bound to learn something new about people you knew.  If you’ve never spoken with the senior members of your clan about their ancestry before, this is the perfect time to forge closer ties.  And it’s an ideal activity to involve the youngest members of your family in.

But where to start? If you’re not sure, there are plenty of ideas online.  Family Tree Magazine shares 10 tips and a six-page handout to download and use when interviewing family. 

And in these unusual times, you may have more time and technology at your disposal.  Video chats needn’t be just about what’s happening now.  Why not post or e-mail a few advance questions to a relative and set up a time to talk about them?  Even better, include a few photos of ancestors that you’d like identified, or some holiday snaps that will stir up fond memories.

All it will cost you is some of your time (and maybe a postage stamp).

Just a few other websites with ideas for you to plan and organise your interviews are

Geneosity  

Geni 

FamilySearch  

Free St George’s Day Online Seminar

FamilySearch are hosting four free English research classes on Thursday 23 April to celebrate the patron saint's day.  Note that MDT is 7 hours behind current UK time, so you won’t have to get up in the middle of the night to watch them.  The schedule is

• 9:00 a.m. MDT - A Researcher's View of Old English Life
• 10:30 a.m. MDT - England Non-Conformist Church Records
• 1:00 p.m. MDT - I Give and Bequeath: English Probate Records
• 2:30 p.m. MDT - Introduction to English Heraldry

To join any of these classes, click on the link below, then select the session you want to watch at the appropriate time.  You can sign in as a guest.

https://community.familysearch.org/s/feed/0D53A00004s2cEjSAI?language=en_US&fbclid=IwAR2Ke3qQNyGg7Mbc-Gp96uzACz94HzuKP1MAeovmMaiV2Um-o-9VPEY25Rg

FREE Family Tree Live virtual conference!

Originally planned to take place on 17th-18th April in London, the Family Tree Live event has been transformed into an online conference starting at 10 a.m. on the 17th, with some of the scheduled speakers now delivering their presentations via video tutorial – including yours truly, speaking on my favourite subject of researching family history for nothing.

For the full programme and to learn more about the topics that will be covered on both days, go to https://www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/family-tree-live-virtual-conference/

There’s also a free goody bag of downloadable worksheets and special offers to take advantage of.

All of this will be freely available for ONE WEEK so get there as soon as you can to take advantage of the talks and freebies.  Of course the organisers are using this opportunity to promote their magazine; they’re offering unlimited tutorial access to subscribers, so if you already take Family Tree Magazine you’re in luck.

The World's Largest Shared Family Tree

☙ In this, the latest in my series of posts about doing genealogy from home, I hope you'll find at least one new direction in which to take your family history research or skills. ☙

Opening a free FamilySearch account is a bit like opening up a box of different tools that will help you to be more productive in tracing, recording, sharing, and researching your family tree.  Even seasoned users of the website are constantly being surprised by the range of things they can use it for.

Once you’ve signed up, you can

☙  Add your relatives to the Family Tree. This aims to be one unified record of the human family.  You’ll probably have some ancestors already featured in it, because of the records FamilySearch have collected from around the world.  Build your part of the tree around those existing records

☙  Find more records for your family and attach them to your tree. Use the Catalog to identify resources to help build your research, as well as the suggestions that appear in your family’s entries in the Tree.

☙  Upload your family photographs, stories, memories, and sound clips

☙  Print off fan charts and decorative trees to display your research

☙  Read digitised books from many sources, available through the Digital Library.  Browse or search them for your family.

☙  Set up alerts to be notified when another FamilySearch user makes changes to an entry on the tree that you’re interested in

☙  Use the Activities section to engage young people in family history

☙  Improve your research skills using the resources found in the Research Wiki and Learning Centre – all available via the Help menu, where you'll also find how-to videos for using the website itself

☙  Join the FamilySearch Community and get answers to your research questions as well as collaborating with other genealogists

☙  Add to the available records by volunteering as an indexer 

☙  Download the Family Tree mobile app for those unexpected genealogy moments or research trips

And this is by no means a comprehensive list of what you can accomplish.  Explore the site and discover for yourself just how it can help your family tree to grow.

Watch and Learn

If you’re more of a visual learner – or even if you’re not – then online video classes and webinars may be perfect for brushing up your genealogy research skills, or getting started in a new area.

There is so much out there that I can’t possibly hope to cover it all in one post, so here are just a few FREE resources for you to browse.  They’re regularly updated, and you can sign up for notifications by e-mail.

The first one is Legacy, a webinar company owned by MyHeritage.  Although many of their presentations cost to view, they have a selection available at no charge.  Currently their recent 24-hour genealogy marathon webinars are free until 6 April.

Their special offer for the month of April will have one webinar unlocked each day following scheduled topics. 

FamilySearch Webinars and Online Classes has an extensive range of resources.  Many are already archived but there is also a list of what's coming up in the near future.  The page has a link (near the beginning) to a long list of other places that hold webinars.

Plus you can search or browse their FamilySearch Learning Centre by topic, such as research skills or software guides

OR

to access these FamilySearch resources by region or country, navigate to Search>Records, then click on the map for the region you’re interested in – New Zealand, for instance. The next screen displays any learning courses that will help you research your family in that part of the world; in this case, a 22-minute presentation on how to use NZ birth, death and marriage records online.

You can watch these online or download them for later use, which might be handy if you don’t have 24/7 wifi.

And then there’s the Genealogy TV YouTube channel and its huge selection of videos with lots of tips, tricks, and advice.  You’ll find similar videos by searching YouTube or using your preferred search engine.

STOP PRESS:  A LIVE free online conference on Scottish family history will be streamed on Thursday 9 April, starting at 7 am UK time.  It’s being hosted by research company Scottish Indexes.  Several speakers are donating their time to this event, plus the website owners will be promoting their resources with some presentations.  Check out the subjects on the programme to see if you fancy an early rise.