Now that RootsTech is over, we are beginning to see a number of new features for the FamilySearch Family Tree. Up first is Where Am I From? It’s an interactive online activity for exploring your ancestral origins. You can use it to follow your ancestor’s emigration and immigration movements on a map. It doesn’t stop there. You will also find interesting facts about your ancestors homelands.
To learn more about this fascinating feature, you will find the details at
Ancestry also announced additional records and research tools to help their users. Their “ThruLines tool is used to show common ancestors who likely connect you to your DNA matches”. In the last year they have added 1.8 billion new records. These include the WWII Draft Cards and a number of new US and International records will be released this year.
In February MyHeritage added 815 million records to their database. This includes 545 million records from U.S. City Directories, 250 million inventors’ historical patents and 3.4 million added to the Minnesota Birth Index (1900-1934) and 4.5 million from the Minnesota Death Index (1904-2001).
All these goodies should make this a great year for those of us looking for our ancestors.
One of the best tools a family historian has to generate genealogy interest with your family is a blog. A blog is an online platform where you can post stories, photos and ephemera to share with others. Think of it as a digital scrapbook. Blogging is easy and affordable. The Tumblr platform is free and quite easy to use. It’s not just a blog platform, it is also a social network where you can follow other Tumblr blogs and add remarks if you wish.
This is a post in my Creekside Tales Tumblr. This blog is a digital version of a scrapbook. It’s full of photos – old and new, stories and digitized ephemera like the Cross and Sword brochure you see here. My focus is the younger members of our family and have generated an interest with several of them. The social side of Tumblr makes it easy to stay in touch with my young researchers – east coast and west coast.
Getting started with Tumblr is quite easy. Download the free Tumblr app (iOS and Android) and follow the instructions to create your account and get started.
Saturday is the North Florida Genealogy Conference. If you haven’t registered already, you can do it at the conference. There may be a shortage of lunch options, but there are a number of burger joints nearby. The St. Augustine Genealogy Society will have a table set up in the big room so stop by and say hello.
Final Notes
Each new post published at SAGS Support is automatically emailed to member subscribers and/or delivered to their newsreader. Research Notes is published every Monday morning and other articles are posted during the week. Subscribers have the option to control how often these updates are delivered. Look down at the bottom of this message and you will find a Manage Subscriptions link in the fine print as you see in this example. Click it and you will be taken to the WordPress.com Subscription Management page. Use the Delivery Frequency column to change your delivery options from “Immediate” to either “Daily” or “Weekly”.
Sample of the “fine print” at the bottom of each post.
Also down at the bottom of each delivered post is a Comment button. If you would like to comment on something discussed in a post or ask a question, just click the Comment button and you will be taken online to the comment section of the post where you can share your thoughts and read what others have shared.
To learn more, download a copy of the SAGS Support Guide.
Comments