Posts Tagged ‘Web page’

Thrifty Thursday ~ Historypin

Posted: July 11, 2012 in Family
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Pinterest

Pinterest (Photo credit: KEXINO)

Historypin! What is it? It’s like a Pinterest for history and genealogy buffs! Instead of pinning pictures from various web pages, you pin channels instead. The channels hold everything you pin within that channel category. The channels you create can be customized however you like. It differs from Pinterest in a way that absolutely surpasses anything Pinterest has done so far. There is a tab at the top of the page entitled, “Maps”; I was curious to see what it did when I went to it, thinking it’s just a map of users who happen to use the site right? No way! Yes, it is a map but it’s so much more than that, it displays images and pins on that map that are clickable where you can see what someone has pinned and from what location it was pinned. Vintage photos from all over the world can be seen, you can upload video and audio content and you can even search by keyword if you are looking for anything in particular.

Historypin also has collections and tours that can be viewed or you can make your own. The collections, tours and photos are by museums, National Archives, Universities, and people from just about anywhere in the U.S. and abroad. The part I love most about this web page is the fact that Historypin is all about connecting people by the millions, who have a history that they want to share. Be it stories passed down from generation to generation, old photos of family or places, or archival objects such as antique photo albums that probably sat up in a dilapidated box, in a dusty, dirty attic with rats scurrying around up there. Yuck! It’s time to pull all your forgotten memoirs from your past ancestors, out of the attic and share their history with other genealogy buffs and professionals. We consider stuff like this to be an actual gold mine of sorts. A true treasure to behold.

What I wouldn’t give to walk into an old, abandoned house that my ancestors may have owned at one point, go up in the attic and see if anything was left behind! What would you do if you find something that they owned before you were even thought of? To imagine them holding it in their hands or using the item. It could be furniture, a cedar chest full of treasures of their day, a cameo, a family Bible, a daily journal or even an old, yellowed newspaper.

In conclusion, Historypin has a channel that gives these items in your attic a home. Not only can it be used as an educational tool, but it can be shared, learned from, seen by hundreds of thousands of people and build a more thorough understanding of the history of your ancestors or even someone else’s! What are you waiting for? Go check out these channels and pin some of your history! If you love Pinterest, you’ll love Historypin even more!

Do you have a web site or blog? Historypin has an embed tool where you can add your channels to a map on your site! Cool yeah?

Link: http://www.historypin.com/

I almost forgot! There’s a mobile app too! Historypin works on your Android, iPhone, and Windows phone 7 🙂

Free Genealogy Resources

Posted: June 30, 2012 in Family
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English: An example of a Genealogy fan chart (...

English: An example of a Genealogy fan chart (or family tree fan chart) where paternal and maternal ancestors are shown as concentric rings of a fan. This family tree fan chart also includes family coats of arms. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With the economic crunch that so many of us are feeling these days, myself included, we have to find a way to do research on our past generations in a much more frugal fashion. Unemployed? Still trying to find a job after so many interviews and very little call backs? I feel your pain. I have been in the market for not just a job but a career for several months now. No matter where you go, it’s been hard for everyone. I happen to live in Honolulu, and it’s just as hard here as any other metropolitan area in the mainland. I want to do something I’ll love in years to come; this is part of the reason I started writing again. I love it! Do I get paid to do it? Not so far, but it’s something I like to do. Being a genealogy researcher and unemployed at the same time can be a little time consuming, if not hair raising. Since looking for work and doing research takes up my hours and days, and sometimes those unfruitful days turn into very long weeks, I have been seeking out low cost or FREE genealogy resources to help me along the way.

Free resources are the best sometimes because it allows you to continue your search of your unknown ancestors. There are hundreds, if not thousands of genealogy blogs online. Start reading them! They are very informational and we all appreciate the feedback on the articles or topics we have written. Contact them or start a conversation in regards to the article presented; it doesn’t have to be scholarly. This is how you learn. People make mistakes or just may not be educated in this particular topic, but this will eventually help you. How? Well for starters, you will introduce yourself to the researcher where you can ask questions you may have, or just get a feel of what a genealogist does on any particular day. Learn from them, it’s easy and doesn’t cost you a dime to do so. It just takes up a few precious moments of your time to shoot someone an email and ask a few questions that you may have been wondering about. Go ahead and give it a try! You will be glad you did.

5 FREE RESOURCES I LIKE

https://familysearch.org/ ~ This web page has many free documents such as indexed records of the 1940 census, they also have other years available to aid in your search, birth, death, marriage records, probate records, military records and many more. You can search for free! There are learning centers on the site along with videos to watch and free genealogy courses that you can take online to help you discover your family tree. Discussion forums are a nice way to get involved also.

http://usgenweb.org/ ~ This web page is searchable by states, time is donated by dedicated volunteers to aid in keeping genealogy web sites free for us. For example, some of my family is from the beautiful state of Virginia. I click on the link for Virginia and I have a page of other links to go to that will further my research and increase my desire to find out more. I hope you enjoy this site as much as I have.

http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/index.shtml ~ This web page has over 1900 pages of free genealogy records to help you and your search for your ancestral roots. Just to name a few different features of the site, there are too many to list otherwise. The Olive Tree Genealogy site has ship passenger lists, a gazillion other resource links, orphan records, photo albums, and even tutorial and help files along with blog articles. How could you not go to this site? It’s absolutely rewarding! I love it 🙂

http://www.geneabloggers.com/ ~ I utilize this site almost every day. It keeps me in touch with genealogists and their own blogs, which I have learned a great deal about. Not only is there a listing of blogs, but the site displays ones I never knew existed. I read the articles, the tips and tricks, and I try to stay up to date in the news of genealogy on a day to day basis. This site even lists events such as upcoming conferences and the like. Read up on what they have in their blog resources, and if you are thinking about writing a blog on your family history, you can submit your blog to this site. This, in turn, publicizes your site and helps you gain readers who may have never known of your site, or you, of theirs. It’s definitely worth checking out!

http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/ ~ Another resource I like to use is actually a blog by Pat Richley- Erickson called Dear Myrtle. On this site there is just loads of information to help you achieve the results you are looking for. So many articles, a calendar for webinars, you name it she has written about it. It’s a wonderful resource that you really shouldn’t miss!

 

I have only shared five links but there are thousands of others related to this topic. New blogs are popping up every day and why not even utilize the social networks? I utilize these every chance I get! There are Facebook pages on genealogy, some personal and some not, such as mine called Fans of Genealogy where you can access here : http://www.facebook.com/MyBlogMyLifeMyAncestry

Try Twitter! Connect with other users interested in the same topics- connect with them, talk to them. You never know what friendships you will make here unless you just get yourself out there and DO IT! You can follow my tweets on my twitter page at: https://twitter.com/KellyVial1 follow the people or pages that I do or you can just search for new ones on your own.

One option for doing a genealogy search is utilizing the search engines! Google Chrome is great and has many other features and apps that you can use. Try this link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/home?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon

Another search engine I would like to mention, but do not use regularly is Mocavo; this search engine is new and dedicated to genealogy but it hasn’t reached it’s full potential just yet. Yes they are off to a great start and you are welcome to try it, I think you have to sign up though. http://www.mocavo.com/

I hope you find these links useful and wish you all the luck in finding the roots to your family tree 🙂

Have you found any interesting resources? Care to share? Reply below, I look forward to checking them out!

Now Where Did I See That Surname?

Posted: July 8, 2011 in access, Evernote, projects, research, software programs, surnames. database
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Evernote for iOS icon

Evernote for iOS icon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Have you ever thought about how much genealogy research you accumulate over time? I have papers, personal notes, photos, and other documents that just keep piling up and thrown into a folder, then filed away into my filing cabinet. How will I ever stay organized and find what I need without having to search each paper individually for a particular surname or date? I found it! A program called Evernote; I’ll only have one account and can use it on a multitude of devices! 


Evernote works by connecting all the computers and phones you use daily, which in turn, enables you to capture something in one place and then access it from another. What a genius idea! Imagine creating a folder for each project, surname, location, or however you see fit. You can capture everything, every bright idea, every little post-it you may have attached to one of your documents, so if you can see it or think of it, Evernote can help you remember it. “Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and made searchable. If you like, you can even add tags or organize specific notes into different notebooks.”
 Evernote Download






Using Evernote will help me remember tons of things! I will be able to clip text from different web pages on topics of interest, I can then tag them for easy reference later. What’s even greater? The fact that I can use my smart phone to automatically sync my account with the program I have installed on my laptop! I could be in town and see something that sparks an interest that relates to genealogy in some way- snap the pic and off I go! I love this program because I can also use it in my library research. If you decide to use Evernote, let me know what you think of it. You can download a free version, the link to the website is above. 



Email notes from anywhere and they end up in your Evernote account to access later. A scribble from your iPad, a voice memo from your phone, a typed memo from your desktop, a clip from a website, a snippet form a blog, a photo, a link – absolutely anything! The world is your oyster…











My Experience With the Family History Quick Start Mini-Course (Series)

Posted: June 19, 2011 in citations, course, Family History Quick Start, paperwork, records, sources
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Rizinus

Rizinus (Photo credit: flöschen)

Today, I registered for a free mini-course that was offered by Family History Quick Start. I want to share a little about this course and my experience with the course itself. This post will be the beginning of a series of posts in relation to the course offerings. This site helps you by giving you tips and step by step guidance that will aid in your research. Organizing all the data you have found on your family is a great start; something that sometimes I lack in doing properly. I only say this because there is so much information that I have in my possession already, that having to re-organize the paperwork can be a somewhat painful process. I have absolutely no problem organizing my digital files, thanks to my Graphic Design background.


 Being able to locate the correct documents and images is very important. I am hoping to gain oodles of knowledge from this course to help me organize the findings I have so far, into something that will be easy to read. Not like some of the family tree websites I have visited, which only seem to confuse the viewer even more. The hierarchy of the set up on some of these web pages is a little hard on your eyes. If it’s not a busy, color clash of graphics and font usage then it’s how the tree is displayed and sometimes that just takes away from what you are trying to understand as far as the hierarchy of the family tree itself is concerned.


I’ve been to a lot of different sites on genealogy and family history and the only one I have found so far that breaks things down for you into manageable bites, is the Family History Quick Start web page. The first course in the series is all about getting organized; organizing your computers file folders, tips on creating digital files from paper records, how to’s on saving, naming and backing up these files for easy access later on, and last but not least, is the correct way to cite your sources! When writing, whether it’s a blog like this one or a term paper for a college class, you have to give credit where it’s due. The people that write the many different articles have already completed their research, so don’t steal it and try to pass it off as your own work. It’s very easy to cite a source and only takes a few seconds! Don’t believe me? Then you haven’t seen this website yet! Here’s the link for you to try it out yourself.
Citations Quick and Easy


Tomorrow I will be completing Day 1 of the mini course, I will then post my experiences and thoughts on the subject matter. Until then..good luck in your own search!

Google Archives- A Great Resource

Posted: June 12, 2011 in archive, Google, keywords, newspaper, time period
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English: Google Logo officially released on Ma...

English: Google Logo officially released on May 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While researching my family, I was looking for old newspaper articles that may have had the Cornett surname  included. I found Google Archives; you can search a time period specifically related to your particular search criteria. Very interesting! 


Google News Archive


Once you have entered your search criteria, a list of web pages comes up for you to explore. How great is that? I have included a sample based on my own search for Cornett, you can see the link for it below. I hope Google doesn’t get rid of this archive service. There are more people than I know of that are in search of their family roots. Many are searching the Cornett surname, as I have seen on many forums across the web. This is a great tool that will give you a peek into history as it was back in the day. For my search, I included the search from the year 1800-1900 and this is just one of the pages that came up.


Sample Archive


Will Google abandon their newspaper archive? I have seen some websites that say they will. It’s a good idea to take advantage of this service just in case they do abandon it. There aren’t many web pages that I know of that offers a free service like this. Mostly, from what I have seen are paid subscriptions. I don’t feel that I should have to pay for a subscription, that I wouldn’t use much except in my genealogy research. Do you think we should have to pay for something like this? Would a paid subscription really be worth the money? What if you don’t find what you are looking for? It would be money wasted.  What are your thoughts on paid subscriptions such as these?Â