Mastering Family History Blog

According to my wife I spend too much time on the computer, and while that may be true it is amazing to me what there is to find.

This brings me to tell you about one of my new discoveries.  I was looking to find information to help with the Sunday school class we are having on how to do family history, and I came across a really nifty site.  It is Titled "Mastering Family History".  Well that topic is all over the internet but what is unique here tis that this is someone that apparently is a member of the church that has been fairly involved in getting his stake to use the New Family Search  Well there is an entire series of Video Lessons there that show you in pretty good detail how to use the new church site.

Now, of course if I was going to do the instruction they would move a little faster and possibly change the presenter every so often but bless this guys heart he did a pretty good job of making a self help site.  Check it out!!   and book mark it.

Quick Video About FamilySearch

Here is a Quick Video for FamilySearch

Writing a Journal

LDS Journaling is a website that has the philosphy that journaling should be easy, convenient, and allow one to view their progress through life and reflect on the past. LDS Journaling is not just for LDS church members. It is open to anyone who would like to begin writing a life history and journal.

The mastermind behind the website, Nick Jones, resides in Nevada. LDS Journaling was launched March 3, 2008 and the site already has over 14,000 users. The users come from all walks of life including the international communities including Russia, Brazil and the United States. You might be concerned about the security of journal entries, especially since your online journal will include some personal information, why they needed my birth date, the difference between the free and Gold accounts, and many other questions. Here are some of those answers for you below.

1) Why do you need my birth date? The site features a section titled "All About Me" which includes questions in the following categories, person, family, spiritual, the world around me, accomplishments, growing up, marriage, education, challenges, and parenthood. The questions included in each of the categories will depend upon the age of the person journaling, for example, a question about marriage would not necessarily be appropriate for a teenager that is 13 years old.

2) What is the difference between the fee and Gold accounts? The difference between the two accounts includes the size of storage capabilities with the Gold account being larger of 2 Gigabytes. The standard account has 100 MB of storage. If you remain on the standard plan for LDSJournal, you will not be forced to upgrade to the Gold account, but if you want to continue journaling, you will need to remove some of the entries or footnotes. The Gold account will also include optional DVD Archival, optional printing and binding services, video journaling, journal stationery, and journal-To-PDF capabilities.

3) What is the difference between this site and a blog? A blog is generally viewable to anyone on the internet unless you have set up a the blog to be password protected. Most blogs do not to to the lengths to protect privacy like LDSJournals. The website is secure and uses encryption of the journal entries similar to many investment and bank accounts. You are required to select a security photo in addition to a username and password.

4) What will happen to my account if I don't journal everyday? The answer to that is nothing at the moment. LDSJournal encourages you to journal every day, recording your thoughts and experiences as it will provide a record of your life for your progenitors.

5) What is the advantage of journaling online versus journaling on ones own computer? Mr. Jones said that the site is more private and is backed up nightly, it is easily accessible from anywhere there is an internet connection, and you can also journal with your mobile telephone using the MMS technology. The ability to journal with your mobile phone will allow you to send pictures to your journal as well.

This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by the church in any way. The site does subscribe to the policies, procedures, and standards put forth by the church.

If you like to journal or have wanted to begin, you might want to check out LDSJournal. If you would like to read more about the site, click LDSJournal Help.

Mormon Pioneers from the United Kingdom and Europe

The British Mormon Historical Society has developed a website titled Mormon History - Dedicated to the British Latter-Day Saint History. This site is dedicated to providing historical information regarding the growth of The LDS Church in the United Kingdom. The information provided on this site includes historical accounts of some of the newly converted members, missionaries, and mission presidencies.

The website has several pages including information regarding Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and England. A few countries that are also included on this site and not readily apparent, are listed under the side tab(link) titled LDSEP Archive. The LDSEP Archive is an older version of this site titled the LDS European Project. I have used the LDSEP site prior to it's incorporation with the British Mormon Historical Society website. The countries included on the LDSEP Archive are Denmark, Sweden, England, Wales, Ireland, and Switzerland. Like the current Mormon history website, LDSEP has information regarding missionaries, members, and mission presidencies.

Both the LDSEP and Mormon History site contain biographies of various missionaries, members and mission presidencies. I you have LDS immigrant ancestors from the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, and Denmark, this site would be a great place to learn about the history of the church in the ancestral areas. If you would like to search the Mormon History - Dedicated to the British Latter-Day Saint History site click Mormon History in the UK. To research in the LDSEP site, click LDS European Project. If this link does not work properly you can also go to the site by clicking the LDSEP link (located on the lower left hand tool bar)on the home page of the Mormon History - Dedicated to the British Latter-Day Saint History site.

Have fun searching!

FamilySearch. Org

FamilySearch.org - is the LDS church site for on line access to LDS databases It is really 6 huge online searchable data bases with each contains over 200 million names. They are as follows:
· Ancestral File – AF is a pedigree linked database that was started from the original 5 generation Project. Pedigree linking means the data is kept in the form of Family group sheets and pedigree charts. 5 generations at a time can be downloaded for importing into PAF or other genealogy programs and the information comes in as complete family group sheets.
· 1880 United Stated Census – The 1880 US Census contains information from the US government. The information was gathered and recorded by locations and lists information about households. The Standard vital information was collected along with Education, Occupation and the ancestry of parents. Since the information was recorded as it was gathered the information was in a certain order it is also easy to determine any neighbors or the identities of others in the neighborhood. Since Families still tended to congregate in areas, finding one family in a town or neighborhood will also point to homes of parents or married children. There is a link to view the actual page and these can be attached to your PAF files as source materials.
· 1881 British Isles Census – Gives household information for England, Scotland, Wales, and some parts or Ireland.
· 1881 Canadian Census – Gives household information for all Canadian Providences. Some close border areas have changed possession from the US and Canada since 1880.
· International Genealogical Index – IGI is the LDS Temple Index. Searching this file requires patience and care. It is divided into regions and information on a single person can be scatted between files. Much of the information in this file is of questionable accuracy since they were from submitted names that could have been submitted by patrons that might of submitted incomplete or poorly researched information. The information here is vital in one respect that it is here one will check to see if Temple work has been performed, in other respects it should never be used as a primary source for family history information. To see temple information you must provide your LDS church membership number and your confirmation date. You will be asked to choose a Logon and a password. (be prepared when you register and make sure you keep track of your password)
· The Pedigree Resource File – is a searchable database of family records that have been submitted by researchers. In 1980 Ancestral File was Started and the goal way to make one large pedigree chart by linking and combining information. By 1990 it was apparent that it had become an unmanageable task. One person would submit information, another would submit the same information will different details, it ensuing debate over which to include and which to not include became unmanageable, so information to be included to Ancestral file was stopped. The Pedigree Resource File was it’s replacement. These are Submitted files that are kept intact once they are submitted. If a person is included in more than one file this index will find both and allow the user to determine it’s value and completeness. The index is on line. The actual files are on CD’s (100 CD’s). If you want the detailed information it will require either the purchase of the CD or a trip the FHC where they can be downloaded.
· US Social Security Death Index – This index contains information about any person that collected death benefits and has since died. It gives the name of the person, where the original application was made, the dates of application & death and where the last benefits were sent.
· Vital Record Index – Indexes Civil and Church records from Mexico and Scandinavia. These would include Birth, Christening, Death and marriage records.
· Web Sites – If you have a family web site you can submit it for inclusion here. It is designed to find web resources that have information for family names.
· Research Guidance – is a link to research information. If you find your research takes you to Germany for example. There would be a guide here that would tell you what records were available and from where. How contact the archive, much it would cost, about how long it can be expected to take. There is also maps, a listing of historical events, and even a list of translated words to look for if the documents are not available in English.
· Family History Library Catalog – Is the “card catalogue” for the Family History Library. It can be searched by title, locality, author, subject, and key word. If you have a call number you can also check availability and request Photocopies. Most of the library content is also able to be used at any stake family history center for a nominal charge.

Family Search Labs and Standard Finder

FamilySearch Labs is the web site of developmental software for the church This site has a developmental record search viewer that will eventually be the one the researchers will use to access the digitized records of the family history department that are currently being indexed.

It also has a nifty little online program called Standard Finder. If you enter a place or a date it will give you the standard way to enter the information so it will inter face with FamilySearch and the church on line family history inter faces

Cyndi's List of Family History Sites

Cyndi’s List is a genealogy site that is the very best on the Internet at telling you 'where to go'. It is an up to date, live person checked, site that knows where anything Family History can be found. It sorts the resources into categories of what and where. Then gives links as click troughs to where to go to find information on the Internet. Links are indexed according to what type of research you are trying to do or where you are trying to find information about. There are over 250,000 linked sites at Cyndi’s List, but the good thing here is that they are all visited and looked over by a live person to make sure they are worthwhile and the information is legitimate. It is simple to us, just decide what you want to find, and look where you think it might be, and that is probably where Cyndi Howell has arranged it too. In fact, she started the site when she was a beginner at Internet research and her site still has this charm and ease of use.

Family History Archives

The Family History Archives is another site that has come out of the new focus on family History resources from the LDS Church. The Archive will combine the resources of the Allen County Public Library, the Family History Library and the Harold B Lee library with resources from all BYU campus'.

It will include 100,000 published Family histories, thousands local histories, and thousands of images for the historical collections. Once a document has been digitized the collection will have the ability to search "every word" in any document in the collection. Currently the indexing project of the Church includes nearly 50,000 volunteer indexers and as material are indexed they will be included in the collection on an ongoing basis.

Here is a list of the participating Libraries:
Allen County Public Library
Harold B Lee Library
BYU Hawaii
BYU Idaho
Houston Public Library - Clayton Center For Genealogical Research
LDS Business College
LDS Family History Library
LDS Church History Library
Mid-Continent Public Library - Midwest Genealogy Center

The Utah State Archives & History Online Research Center

The Online Research Center of The Utah State Division of Archives and History is an index that has Utah vital records that are over 100 years old copies of birth and death records can be downloaded. It also has an ever enlarging index of pictures, maps and drawings. If your family has Utah roots there is a real chance that there are some photo’s or other items that could add depth and insight to your family records.

Cemetery Records, Birth & Death records, Marriages records, and Local Newspaper Articles can all be downloaded from a large collection of Scanned Original images.

RootsWeb

Rootsweb - was started in 1982 by volunteers and family history enthusiast and it has never stopped adding information that is posted by it’s over 70,000 volunteers. It is full of information about how to do and find things. Rootsweb will give you a free site to post your family history on a website. They have over 3000 surname mailing lists. If you were looking for information on a Thompson line for example, you could subscribe to Thompson-L@rootwsweb.com once you have subscribed to the list you post (email) a query or question. Currently there are 1325 other people that are subscribed to the list all over the world who are also interested in the line. Your email would be forwarded to everyone of them. If they had an answer to your question or wanted further information they would email you back, but a copy of their reply would be sent to every other member of the list. These chained letter are called threads, and before you know it you are in contact with others that are also working on your line and are more than happy to help and share and work on your query. It is completely free from spam and you can only type information in, no attachments are allowed to be sent and the Rootsweb servers block hackers and advertisers from using the list. Last month Rootsweb forwarded just over 700 million email messages, all of them went to someone interested and looking for more information or looking for other researchers to share their information with. If you don’t know if you want to subscribe to a list you can read the archived messages that have been sent in the past.

The World Connect Project

The WorldConnect Project. Where you can search a 480 million name index of volunteer submitted family histories. This is the second largest search able database of names on the Internet.

The GenWeb Projects

The USGenWeb Project. This is a collection of Local contacts. Each State has a page and in most case there will even be county experts. Here you can find information for each state, how and where to get vital information, is there a historical society, or local group you can contact. These sites are produced by the local volunteers, most will contain help directions that can be just like stopping for direction in a strange town.

The WorldGenWeb Project. This is patterned after USGenWeb but it is designed to bring volunteers together that are willing to help.

Ellis Island

Ellis Island This site is the result of resent revival of the Ellis Island site. The has been many press stories about saving and restoring the site and the work is ongoing. This site has a search able data base of passenger lists for persons that were processed through the port. This is the largest Passenger list site on line but still has limitations. The first passenger arrived at Ellis Island Jan 1 1892. Before that Passenger arrived at Castle Gardens and their arrival would have been recorded in the New York Times, maybe. After 1892 up until 1954 it was the arrival point for immigrants coming to New York.

Some 21 million people were processed through the port, depending on the political climate the flow of people varied from a high of 1,004,756 in 1907 to the port being almost closed during war years, in 1918 only 28,867 were processed. If you have ancestor that entered here the information that can be found here can vary for a blotted name on a passenger list to an absolutely wonderful capsule with pages of details. The search and most of the information is free, but be ready to see many offers to accept donations or buy photos of the ships that arrived or specially printed certificates and documents. Just a note here passenger lists are the least organized and hardest resource to find. Finding one can be the key the takes your research ‘across the ocean’ and will be the clue that tells you were to look once you get there. But don’t be disappointed if you can’t find a listing, these records were mostly considered local and the archiving is poor at best.

FamilySearch Gets a New Look and Tons of New Content

Well it is finally happening for us, after nearly a year of testing and adding temple districts to the LDS Patron options they have finally given the rest of us access to the new content and search capabilities.
Now you can get copies of Census pages, copies of vital records and electronic source material. The goal is to digitize all the microfilmed records and make them available of internet viewing and research. The new page is just the beginning, as records are indexed and catalogued they will become part of the site.

From now on FamilySearch Internet site will be constantly changing, and having new record added daily. So now more that ever it pays to keep looking for your family records to appear there.