More upcoming free genealogy events!

 

Whether you've got a spare hour, day, or month, there'll be something to suit you among these imminent free events:

Dublin Festival of History, 20 September – 10 October.  Over 70 free online and in-person events covering a huge range of historical topics.  Check out the programme, which is so extensive I couldn’t hope to do it justice in a summary like this.

Know Your Ancestors, 25 September.  A free online conference organised by the Register of Qualified Genealogists and open to everybody with an interest in family history.  The keynote speakers include Melanie Backe-Hansen, house historian on the BBC series A House Through Time.  She will address the topic of finding your ancestors at home.  The award for the most intriguing presentation title goes to Dave Annal, a professional genealogist and author, who will be speaking about "Lying Bastards".

AncestryHour  This is a weekly family history event which takes place every Tuesday on Twitter, 7-8pm UK time.  Find and follow along with tweets using the hashtag #AncestryHour - you don’t have to contribute, just sit back and watch.  Or you can ask a question; perhaps you have a research brick wall that you’d like some advice on, or you need some help understanding DNA results.  Waiting in the wings for that hour are genealogists of every level and interest, ready and willing to offer support and suggest solutions.

Coming Soon: RootsTech Connect

 

Update: Click here for the RootsTech Connect Class 

& Keynote Speaker Schedule

The global pandemic has caused untold disruption to our lives, and one of the less crucial aspects of that has meant that family history events have had to be postponed or changed.  As the world has embraced video conferencing for work, play, and family get-togethers, genealogy organisations large and small have realised that it means their reach can be extended beyond the normal attendance in person they’ve had in the past.

No less a major player in the genealogy community than FamilySearch has adopted this approach with enthusiasm.  Its RootsTech conference is an annual international event usually held in the USA, with a ticket price of over a hundred pounds to attend.  But this year, it’s been thrown open, free, to anyone with an internet connection and as many hours to spare as they like.

Reinvented as RootsTech Connect, it takes place from 25 to 27 February; however, all the presentations (over 800 of them) will be pre-recorded, to watch on demand not only over the days of the conference, but for at least a year afterwards. 

Taking part will be a dozen keynote speakers from the worlds of sport and the arts as well as family history, including well-known names like actress Sunetra Sarker and musicians Ladysmith Black Mambazo.  They’ll share what their family’s history has meant to them.

The RootsTech “classes” – shorter-than-usual presentations, on video – will cover dozens of topics (listed here) and you can build your own playlist of the ones you want to watch, or simply choose something at random.  No chance of a class being over-subscribed here!  

Many classes will be available in multiple languages thanks to online technology, and speakers from across the globe will be sharing their know-how about the records they use.  Experts on subjects like DNA and adoption will deliver presentations, and there will be cultural and heritage elements to the event, too.

As well as the classes, there will be areas on the event’s website where you can interact with the speakers and download their handouts.  And just like any genealogy conference, there will be exhibitors – in a “Virtual Marketplace”, where companies and groups can promote their products, be that books, technical innovations, or subscriptions, and you can ask them questions about their wares.

The conference traditionally features volunteer helpers in their distinctive “Ask Me Anything” t-shirts, and while this year the t-shirts may be absent, the helpers will still be there online to answer your queries about all aspects of RootsTech.

For younger genealogists aged 11-35, there will be a series of family history challenges starting on 25 February.  And for everyone participating there is Relatives@RootsTech  – an online app which will allow you to discover cousins you never knew, who are also registered.

So how can you take part?  Just go to https://www.rootstech.org and register, free of charge.  To take advantage of all the activities, you’ll need to have a free FamilySearch account, and if you’re interested in connecting with long-lost relatives, add your information to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree – an ambitious project aiming to build one universal genealogy of the human family.  Did I mention it's all free...?

And then sign onto the RootsTech website on February the 25th to check out everything that’s on offer!  At the last count, well over 200,000 people had registered.  Why not join them? This will be a unique opportunity to connect with relatives and fellow genealogists around the world, as well as increasing your family history knowledge and skills.  Hopefully it will also inspire you to use what you learn to build your family tree.

Postscript: If you’ve got Scots ancestors, you may want to watch one of my RootsTech classes, which are about using ScotlandsPeople, and the Kirk Session Records.

Got questions? Get answers!

This week I've rounded up a number of ways you can seek answers to your genealogical queries and potentially break down brick walls in your research.  All are totally free to use, including the ones that require you to register with them.

Recently the Who Do You Think You Are? magazine upgraded its website, losing its traditional message forum that had been so well-used over the years.  There are two alternatives now, though: their Facebook page, where you can post your questions, or the Who When Where Genealogy Forum, which has been set up by former users of the old WDYTYA? message boards.

Record provider FindMyPast also has its own Facebook page where you can ask experts' advice or watch how-to videos.  Meanwhile Ancestry's Message Boards cover a wide range of topics such as emigration, folklore, and even volunteer projects.  It's the kind of rabbit hole you could easily get lost in but well worth investigating.

You can join any number of FamilySearch Groups, with the option to sign up for emails alerting you to questions and answers that have been posted.  And Rootschat is a popular British genealogy forum offering answers and advice; use it to get help with hard-to-read handwriting, or identifying the background in an old photograph.

If you want live help, Ancestry Hour happens on Twitter every Tuesday at 7pm UK time.  Genealogists from around the world converge to discuss their recent successes (or lack thereof!) and ask for ideas and inspiration.  If you can't join in live, just use the hashtag #AncestryHour and click on the "Latest" tab to find the most recent tweets.  It's a fast-moving chat with a good sense of humour, so dive in and ask a question, and you may get some great suggestions for solving your knotty tree problem.  A few weeks ago I posted a photo of two of my uncles in their WW2 uniforms, asking if anyone could identify their regimental insignia - and within minutes I had the answer, from a military history specialist.

These are just a few suggestions - you'll find extensive lists of forums and help communities in the Cyndi's List: Queries & Message Boards section.

When asking for help online, it's vital to make your query stand out and be easily understood.  You'll find tips on posting the perfect enquiry at my previous blog post Help! Where Do I Look Now?

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.

Free Apps for Family History On The Go!

Who Do You Think You Are? magazine's forum app

There seems to be a mobile app for just about anything these days, including family history.  The ones I’ve listed below are, naturally, all free to download and use, although companies like Ancestry and FindMyPast charge for the full use of their main websites. 

Free apps are, in effect, a method of attracting new customers for the commercial organisations.  They can be extremely useful when you are away from home and don’t have access to your records, especially when the opportunity arises for some unexpected research!

Some apps allow you to organise, access, and investigate your family tree while on the go, in different ways.  Others are specifically aimed at graveyard research, either remotely or on-site.  This blog post is not meant to be a comprehensive listing by any means, and of course there are other apps which you can buy for your phone or tablet.  I've just chosen a few with which I'm familiar.

BillionGraves App

BillionGraves in particular is aimed at encouraging users to photograph cemetery headstones and upload pictures to its website.  It uses GPS technology to help you locate a gravesite when you’re out and about, and to share what you find with other users.

Similarly, FindAGrave has introduced this function with their app, powered by Ancestry, and you can learn how to use it by clicking on the “Tutorials” button on the website.

Most (if not all) of these apps are available for Android and Apple devices.  There is no charge for any of them.  Some of those that enable you to access your online tree are

☙  Ancestry

☙  FamilySearch Family Tree

☙  FindMyPast

☙  Heredis

If you’ve ever tried to photograph a page of a book or document, only to find your picture is unreadable, consider using an app such as CamScanner which acts more like a scanning device than a camera, producing sharper images.  Just make sure you download the free basic account.

Finally, Who Do You Think You Are? magazine has an app to connect you to its user forum, where you can ask and answer genealogy questions - very handy if you're visiting a new ancestral area and the archives are closed for the day!

Frugal Family History Tip  Remember to read an app’s customer reviews as well as all the product information in your online store before deciding to download it.  Frequent updates can mean changes in the way an app functions, and users are normally quick to point out any glitches or faults that may have developed. 

Help! Where do I look now?

Where do you go when you need help with your family tree?  Maybe there’s a designated genealogist among your relatives, or in the tradition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, you phone a friend.  Or you might write to a family history magazine with your query and hope it gets published.  But as those avenues don’t always provide the solution you’re seeking, or in your timeframe, what should you try next? 

The ideal is to ask an expert, or someone with at least some more experience in the field you’re researching.  Perhaps surprisingly, you can find people like that who are willing to help without charging you.  This post will explore some of the options that you can try.

First of all, however, it’s worth looking at how to describe your problem to others who know nothing of your family.  Great-uncle Jimmy’s merchant navy career may be legendary among your immediate relatives, but your potential helpers are meeting him for the first time, so be precise in what you ask, and give enough information that will allow them to identify a possible source.  Rather than say “Looking for navy records for Jimmy Black who died in 1951”, try “Looking for merchant seaman’s records of any kind for James Alfred Black, born 1918, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, died 1951, Liverpool”. 

Many of the online help sources you can use are organised like notice boards, so use a brief subject line such as “Merchant Navy records” to highlight the likely source of information you’re looking for.

And now, where are these sources you can turn to with your queries?

Most archives and record offices will have general help sections on their websites.  These will have information about the records they hold and the kind of details these may provide about your ancestors.  If your question is simply a matter of understanding what records they have, or the nature of their contents, this is a good place to start.

If your query is more detailed, try one of these:

#AncestryHour  Every Tuesday at 7pm UK standard time, Twitter hosts an hour of discussion, questions and answers purely about family history.  Anyone can join in and ask a question, and you may even get an answer during the hour from another genealogist!  If not, you’re likely to get some solid suggestions of where to turn for advice.  Use the hashtag #AncestryHour to see the posts and comments.

WalkMyPast  Imagine you’ve discovered a long-lost branch of your family, and now you know why they’ve been lost for so long – they emigrated to the other side of the world!  You would love to visit the quayside where they arrived, see the house they built, or the farm they worked, but it’s just not feasible.  Fear not, help is at hand in the form of “genies” – volunteer genealogists who live in or near your family’s new home overseas.  With WalkMyPast, you can identify a genie who is willing to transcribe headstones, take photos, or look up records on your behalf.  Search the site by place to find out who you might contact to ask for assistance.  Genies are located around the world including places in Europe, North America, the British Isles, and the Antipodes.

Who Do You Think You Are? magazine offers both traditional and digital forms of help with your brick walls.  Its online forum is divided into different areas of focus where you can share problems and queries in fields such as military history and photo identification.  You can also swap your unwanted certificates with others who have similar interests, and join in discussions about various genealogical topics, or the latest episode of the magazine’s associated TV programme.

A perhaps lesser-known part of FamilySearch.org’s offering is its research groups.  These cover countries ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe, and specialised topics like genetic genealogy and Jewish research.  Joining one or more of these groups can connect you with like-minded family historians and give you opportunities to ask your questions.

Each of the above online resources is free to register with and use, and they allow you to not only receive help but to give it in return.  Being part of a virtual genealogy community can open up avenues of research and inspire you to try different methods to solve those family history mysteries that have baffled you for too long!

Ask Not What The Internet Can Do For Your Ancestors...

In family history, everyone wants to gain something, whether it’s a new piece of information, a new ancestor, or a new skill.  What about giving something back in return?  There are many ways that you can do this, whether you have lots of time to spare or hardly any.  And it won't cost you anything but time.

Pushed For Time?

Consider signing a petition or, if you’re on social media, sharing a plea for help in tracing a relative.  For example, the Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations recently launched a petition encouraging the Irish government to release the 1926 Irish Census for public use earlier than the statutory 100-year waiting period.  All it takes is the click of a button.

By signing up to an online genealogy community, you’ll not only receive lots of tips, ideas and answers, but you can in return help other forum users by sharing your know-how and replying to their queries. You may be a member of such a community already without realising it; many of the major family history websites host free online forums where members can get help and discuss topics such as military history or surname interests – Genes Reunited is one of them.  RootsChat is an independent and free UK family history forum, with lots of reference resources to draw on.  And most popular genealogy magazines have a reader discussion board or Facebook group that fills the same role.

Can You Spare Just A Few Minutes?

Indexing is a very flexible and practical way to “pay it forward” in the genealogy community.  Participation is completely free and only requires you to give as much of your time as you choose.  What’s involved?  You view a page of a document, such as a census or parish register, and copy key pieces of information into the indexing program.  Lots of help is available at all times, and projects are usually graded on their level of difficulty – a bit like hill climbing, but a lot less strenuous.  Your version of the document goes to make up an index to these particular records.  It's more than likely that you've already used indexed resources in researching your ancestors.  They make finding family so much easier for everyone! 

Two of the main operators in this area are

• Ancestry’s World Archives Project (your work is made available as part of Ancestry’s free collections, so they’re not making any cash directly from your input) 
• FamilySearch Indexing, all of whose records are free to view, mostly at home, but others through a FamilySearch Family History Centre

More suggestions for indexing projects can be found at Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine’s Transcription Tuesday website.

Perhaps a local family history society or heritage group is looking for contributions to its website, like this one for Petrolia, Ontario.  Your photographs, newspaper clippings, and family memorabilia can not only help others, they may also help you connect with long-lost relatives!  In most cases you can share your contributions by post or electronically.

Free To Do What You Want Any Old Time?*

If you’re interested in a specific parish, you can offer to maintain its online presence on sites like GENUKI or the English Online Parish Clerks. Click on the county you’re interested in to see information about the parishes that need someone to look after their pages. 

If graveyards are your thing, you can add to the growing collections of online headstone inscriptions by submitting photos and/or transcriptions to BillionGraves, FindaGrave, or your local family history group’s project.  You don’t need to transcribe or photograph whole cemeteries – one gravestone at a time will do!  This is something you can fit in to your own research trips.

Volunteering with a family history society can also be very rewarding. Through organisations like these, you can pick up lots of tips and learn as much as (if not more than) the people you help.  Or contact your local archive and find out if they have a “Friends of” society that you can join and support.

Finally, if you're familiar with the idea of "random acts of kindness", you may be interested to know that there's a version of that just for you.  RAOGK or Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness was set up so that family historians around the world could help others by photographing gravestones, getting copies of documents, and doing anything else for people who lived far from their ancestors' homelands.  This site allows you to offer a service to family historians by doing something for them that they can't do for themselves.  Read RAOGK's Guide for becoming a volunteer to learn how it works.

And there you are – lots of ideas for you to help other people feel the excitement of finding a relative ... in no time at all.

*with apologies to The Soup Dragons