Here are seventeen articles that I liked this week. Enjoy!
Preservation Week
During Preservation Week, libraries all over the country encourage us to carefully preserve the unique items in our family’s holdings.
Tips for preserving valuable family history collections, items by Twila Van Leer at Deseret News
I have pictures and letters and mementos and a whole bunch of this and that. I have it in boxes, in bags, in bins, in drawers, in my cedar chest (which is a bit of memorabilia in itself, having been a gift to my mother from my dad on the day I was born)….I invited Christopher McAfee of Brigham Young University to share tips on how to take care of things that matter, and he responded with a “primer” on how to care for your collections at home.
How to Preserve Your Genealogy Research by Amy Johnson Crow at Amy Johnson Crow
You’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and money tracing your family tree. Not to be morbid, but have you thought about what happens to all of that when you’re gone? Don’t leave things to chance. Here are 5 ways to preserve your genealogy research.
For Photos’ Sake, Stop Scanning Every Picture by Denise Levenick at The Family Curator
I was fortunate to inherit boxes filled with family photos. And I’ve filled more boxes with my own prints and digital images. But I don’t want to scan each and every photo. I know it’s unlikely my descendants will want to preserve and peruse thousands of original family photos, so I am becoming more selective in what I choose to digitize and archive.
How to Date Old Photos by Susan Saunders at Family Line Video
Before 1900, there were five types of photographic formats: Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Carte-de-Visite and Cabinet Cards.
Research Tips
Have a long lost Cherokee ancestor? Yeah, probably not, Ancestry.com CEO says by Jennifer Larino at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Sullivan told an audience gathered Thursday (April 28) at the Collision technology conference in New Orleans that the results of genetic testing often reveal an ethnic makeup that differs from the stories people hear from their families about their origin.
Why Do Mexicans Like to Deny Parts of Their Ancestry? by Gustavo Arellano at OC Weekly
We have a saying in Mexican Spanish: “Tiene un nopal en la frente” (“He has a cactus on his forehead”), which is used to mock people who say they’re not Mexican but totally are. That’s how a lot of Mexicans are when it comes to certain parts of their ancestry—we practice the opposite of the Cherokee princess blood myth claimed by so many gabachos.
This Smart New Tool from Google is the Perfect Genealogy Research Assistant! at Family History Daily
Whether you’re on a research site perusing possible record matches, taking a family history course or reading helpful articles, it helps to have a program that can aid you in remembering and storing it all. Luckily, an improvement to one of Google’s best tools just made it one of the simplest solutions for this purpose. The tool is Keep and it’s Google’s answer to Evernote or Trello, which are both free and well-respected organizational programs that many family historians use to aid them in their research.
“I Have My Family Tree Back to Adam and Eve” by Dick Eastman at Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter
This is another bit of fiction that needs to be wiped out. I have often heard people (I won’t call them “genealogists”) at various times make the claim they have traced their family tree back to Adam and Eve. Of course, the “documentation” is always sketchy.
Genlighten.com by Amberly at the Genealogy Girl
The website is pretty cool. You set up a free account. You can browse providers to find someone who will do something you need, then you can either message them or submit a research request through their submission form. They accept the request. Then you submit payment which is held by genlighten until the research is completed. The researcher does their work and then submits their files to you through the website.
LDS
21 Day Temple Challenge Testimonials by Mandy at The Mama Birds
I was really excited to learn more about how to do research on the Family Search web page. I feel much more comfortable moving around on it. I am so thankful for all the millions of people who are indexing government documents from around the world so that I can more easily find information about my ancestors. I am totally hooked. I am also finding that because I know my way around the site better that I can really accomplish good work in a very short amount of time.
Newly Uploaded Leader Resources for Family History by James Tanner at Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad
LDS.org has a wealth of resources for every service opportunity in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Just recently, a new section was added providing “Leader Resources for Family History.”
Families and Children
Learning about the Census by Emily Schroeder at Growing Little Leaves
I made two worksheets for kids who want to ‘play census.’ One is geared towards older children who can read and write independently, but it is still a simplified version of a census form. … I played census with my 5yo daughter on our front porch. She was the census-taker. We dressed her up in old-time ‘fancy’ clothes and I gave her a clipboard and a pencil. She took her job very seriously.
7 Way to Encourage Family Connection on the Road by Rebecca Cooper at Simple As That
With the kids strapped into the car, you have their undivided attention. Make it a point to have some meaningful family conversations. Even just taking a few minutes to share a story from your childhood or a grandparent’s life will bolster your intergenerational family identity. …You may also consider encouraging your kids to journal about their experience on the road when you get home or even give the kids a journal while ON the trip to record their memories as you go.
Make Road Trips More Memorable With Kids’ Vacation Journals by Lara at Overstuffed Life
I’ve seen lots of great road trip games and ideas, but the one that we really love to do is to have the girls keep vacation journals. They really love them, especially at the beginning of road trips, and enjoy keeping a personal record of the things that they see and do. Their interest wanes a bit—usually on the way back home—but I’m thankful for any time that it keeps them occupied! But I’m most thankful for the record of the vacation through the eyes of my children.
School+Genealogy: Our Civil War Ancestors by Melissa Finlay at Finlay Family
The children made a spreadsheet with the information categorized by branch of the family tree, and by Union and Confederate. They also created a map with dots to visualize where each ancestor was from and which side they fought for. This study brought the Civil War from a far-past war waged by thousands of faceless, nameless soldiers, to a struggle waged by men and young men with names, lives, and families; our family.
Stories
Ancestry.com Commercial Star Discovers His Family Story Was All Wrong, interview with Kyle Merker at Parade
I learned all about Uncle Philip who lived in Texas. He was a geologist. I found out that he lost his passport at one point, and his good friend wrote a letter and signed a document saying that he was an American. … Then I started researching the friend that signed the documents and it turns out he was indicted in the Teapot Dome scandal, and I was fascinated that one of my relatives – who I’d never heard of – was actually hanging out with the wrong people. So now I’m hooked on ancestry. I’m really interested in it at this point.
The Sad Demise of Frances Stevens c1863-1916 by Tiphanee Athans at Branches of Time
Reading the rest of the newspaper reports, I wondered whether it was post-natal depression that she was suffering or if there was a more sinister reason that her husband contributed to her being committed. Sadly his days also ended in an Asylum. Perhaps together we could have sought the treatment that Frances needed and she would have had a different life.
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