Genealogy For Dummies

Introduction 1 About This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 3 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 4 Part 1: Getting Started with Genealogy 5 Chapter 1: Beginning Your Ancestral Journey 7 It's About Time(line) 7 Crafting an online timeline 9 Learning about Sources 13 Using Genealogical Applications 15 Entering Information into RootsMagic Essentials 17 Completing the Pedigree Page 20 Creating the Virtual You 21 Giving Your Ancestors Some Privacy 24 Beefing Up Your Profile 24 Citing Your Sources 26 Getting the Full Media Experience 28 Reaching Out to Others 29 Hinting Around about Your Ancestors 30 Giving Your Ancestors Some Mobility 31 Telling Your Story 34 Chapter 2: Hunting for Your Ancestral Treasures 35 A Brief Message about Research Steps 35 Selecting a Person to Begin Your Search 36 Trying a semi-unique name 36 Narrowing your starting point 36 Choosing someone you know about 38 Selecting a grandparent's name 39 Beginning to Put the Puzzle Together 39 Getting the 4-1-1 from Your Kinfolk 41 Dusting off old photo albums 43 Striking it rich in closets, in basements, and under beds 45 Adding Your Ancestors One by One 47 Using a bit of (Roots)Magic to keep track of your family 48 Logging your data into Ancestry Family Tree 53 Chapter 3: Searching Primary Resource Sites 55 Touring Ancestry.com 56 Trying Ancestry.com for free 56 Searching Ancestry.com's vast collection 58 Sifting through the results 62 RootsWeb.com at a Glance 68 Investigating FamilySearch 69 Creating a free account 69 FamilySearching records 70 Using FamilySearch results 71 Other FamilySearch search functions 75 Giving Back through FamilySearch Indexing 75 Saluting Fold3 76 Creating a trial account 76 Searching at Fold3 77 Finding Your Past 82 Exploring MyHeritage 84 Chapter 4: Using All of Your Censuses 87 Coming to Your Census 88 United States census schedules 88 State, territorial, and other census records 95 Finding Your Ancestors in U.S Census Records 97 Sifting through census record results 98 Digging into digitized census records 100 Consolidating your discoveries 104 Using census records to tell a story 106 Census Records from Afar 109 Africa 110 Asia 110 Europe 110 North America 113 Oceania 113 South America 113 Part 2: Bringing Your Ancestor to Life 115 Chapter 5: Digging Deeper into Your Ancestors' Lives 117 These Records Are Vital 117 Reading vital records 118 Gauging vitals online 120 Investigating Immigration and Naturalization Records 123 Passenger lists 125 Naturalization records 127 Land Ho! Researching Land Records 129 Surveying land lovers in the U.S. 130 Using HistoryGeo.com to map your ancestor's land 134 Marching to a Different Drummer: Searching for Military Records 135 Taxation with Notation 140 Trial and Error at the Courthouse 142 Getting the News on Your Ancestors 143 Chapter 6: Mapping the Past 147 Are We There Yet? Researching Where "There" Was to Your Ancestors 148 Using documents that you already possess 148 Where is Llandrindod, anyway? 149 There's No Place like Home: Using Local Resources 153 Geographic-specific websites 154 Libraries and archives 156 Pulling the obituary 157 Genealogical and historical societies 158 Looking at local directories 159 Professional researchers 161 Localizing your search 162 Gaining historical perspective 162 Mapping Your Ancestor's Way 164 Positioning your family: Using global positioning systems 171 Plotting against the family 172 Wrapping It Up (with a Surprise) 174 Chapter 7: Searching for That Elusive Ancestor 175 Letting Your Computer Do the Walking: Using Search Engines 176 Diving into general Internet search engines 176 Flying with Genealogy Vertical Search Engines 181 Finding the Site That's Best for You 183 Personal genealogical sites 183 One-name study sites 185 Family associations and organizations 186 Surnames connected to events or places 187 Family Trees Ripe for the Picking: Finding Compiled Resources 188 Narrative compiled genealogies 189 Compiled genealogical databases 189 Browsing Comprehensive Genealogical Indexes 191 Chapter 8: Going Beyond Borders: International and Ethnic Records 193 Fishing for International and Ethnic Sources 194 Wiki-ing for answers 194 Surveying sites with comprehensive genealogy indexes 195 Using search engines 195 WorldGenWeb 195 Translating sites 197 Records from the English-Speaking World 197 Gathering information from England and Wales 198 A lot more than haggis - finding Scottish records 201 Researching the north o' Ireland 201 Traversing the Emerald Isle 202 Other Irish genealogy resources 203 Heading north for Canadian records 204 Accessing Australian sources 207 Hispanic and Portuguese Roots 208 Within the United States 208 Exploring south of the border: Mexican sources 209 Continental resources 210 Central and South American research 211 Swimming through Caribbean genealogy 214 Achtung! Using Sites for the German-Speaking World 215 Along the beautiful Danube: Austrian roots 215 Consulting German resources 216 Focusing on French Resources 218 Scanning Scandinavian Countries 218 Denmark 218 Finland 219 Norway 220 Sweden 220 Iceland 221 Italian Cooking 221 Other European Sites 221 Asian Resources 223 Researching African Ancestry 224 Genealogical resource pages on the web 226 Transcribed records pertaining to ancestors with African roots 227 Special ethnic pages about African ancestry 228 Original records 229 American Indian Resources 229 Where to begin looking for information about American Indians 230 American Indian resource pages on the web 232 Transcribed American Indian records 233 Chapter 9: Specializing in Your Family History 235 Researching Religious Group Records 236 Finding Fraternal Orders and Service Clubs 240 A Photo Is Worth a Thousand Words 242 Accessing Adoption Records 245 Preparing to Be Schooled 246 Turning to Bible Records 248 Snooping through Great-Grandma's Diary 248 Nosing through Newspaper Records 249 Part 3: Putting Your Family History to the Test 251 Chapter 10: Fitting into Your Genes: Genetic Genealogy 253 Ask What DNA Can Do for You 254 A Friendly Word of Caution 255 Delving into DNA 256 Getting down to bases 257 Variations in DNA 259 Family History: Documentation versus Genetics 261 Testing Companies 262 Selecting the Right Test for You 263 Finding Helpful DNA Sites 264 Chapter 11: Direct-Line Genetic Tests 265 Y chromosome (Y-DNA) testing 265 "Junk" DNA is worth something 266 The testing process 267 Comparing the results 268 Assessing the probability of a relationship 270 Haplogroups 271 Locating others with the same results 275 Mitochondrial (mtDNA) testing 276 Testing method 278 Making sense of the results 279 Finding others with the same results 280 Chapter 12: Autosomal DNA (atDNA) Testing 281 But First a Quick Review 281 Testing Process 283 What Can I Learn from Autosomal DNA Testing? 284 Ethnicity Estimation 285 Relationship Testing 288 Back to a familiar family 290 Objectives of the test 291 Playing the match game 292 Set your phasing to stun 293 We have something In Common With you 294 Sticking with tradition 296 Browsing through the chromosomes 296 Triangulating the data 298 Meeting the objectives 300 X-Chromosome DNA Testing 301 Utilities to the Rescue 303 Part 4: Casting Your Nets in the Genealogy Sea 305 Chapter 13: Finding Your Research Path 307 Introducing the Helm Online Family Tree Research Cycle 307 Planning your research 309 Collecting useful information 311 Researching: Through the brick wall and beyond 312 Consolidating information in a database 313 Validating your findings 313 Distilling the information that you gather 314 Too Many Ancestor Irons in the Research Fire 315 Verifying Your Information 315 Chapter 14: Share and Share Alike 317 Why Would Anyone Want Your Stuff? 318 Making Friends on Facebook 318 Jumping on the Facebook bandwagon 319 Making Facebook friends 320 Sorting your Facebook friends 321 Posting statuses on Facebook 322 Sharing photos via Facebook 322 Pinning Family History to Pinterest 324 Realizing Instant Gratification with Instagram 326 Networking Genealogy-Style 326 Sharing your history on Geni.com 327 Discovering contacts through Member Connect 331 Showing context in LifeStory 331 Blogging for Attention 334 Hunting blogs 334 Getting a blog of your own 335 Building Your Own Home 338 Free web-hosting services 338 Do you speak HTML? 340 Deciding which treasures to include 340 Including Your GEDCOM 340 Generating GEDCOM files 341 Checking a GEDCOM for possible errors 343 Creating traditional trees and reports 343 Earning a Good Citizenship Award 345 Mandatory lecture on privacy 345 Respecting copyrights 346 Citing your sources 347 Chapter 15: Help Wanted! 349 Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone 349 The Shotgun Approach 350 Making Friends (and Keeping Them) Online 351 Joining a Herd: Research Groups 353 Becoming a solid member of geographical societies 354 Rooting for family and surname associations 354 Joining the crowd - Crowd Sourced Indexing, that is 356 Gathering Kinfolk: Using the Family Reunion for Research 357 Rent-a-Researcher 357 DNA Consulting 361 Helping Yourself 361 Reading up on genealogical things 362 Getting educated online 362 Part 5: The Part of Tens 365 Chapter 16: Ten Sites Worth a Visit 367 rootsfinder 367 FamilySearch Help Center 368 WeRelate 368 kindex 368 One-Step Webpages by Stephen P Morse 369 Photogrammar 369 Story Corps 369 American Battle Monuments Commission 370 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States 370 ArchiveGrid 371 Chapter 17: Ten Mobile Applications for Genealogy Research 373 Ancestry 373 FamilySearch Tree 375 RootsMagic 375 BillionGraves 376 Evernote 377 The Family Nexus 377 Saving Memories Forever 378 OldNews USA 379 QromaTag 379 Kindle 379 Index 381