Serendipity Friday

James Tanner, GenealogyStar blog, back on 26 August, posed this question:  “Where are all the photos?”  He explains that “millions of digitized photos go online every day. How many of these photos are of your ancestors?” Or I might add, your family?  Tanner, in this blog post, goes on to trumpet the virtue of attaching photos to your Family Tree in FamilySearch:  “All the tagged and captioned photos on FamilySearch.org are searchable by Google.” What does that say to you? Tanner tells you:  “The best way to find these photos is to search by your ancestor’s name in the Google Images program.” Now you know. And, by the by, I do recommend that you sign up for Tanner’s blog at www.GenealogyStar.blogspot.com.

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Next trip to Bellevue you might want to stop for a visit to a brand new research facility. A recent announcement by FamilySearch explained that the new Seattle Family Discovery Center is open for business!! I’ll quote from the announcement:  “High-tech “Museum of You” concept for center guides visitors to discover, share and preserve their histories and memories…… visitors to the center are provided with a tablet computer as a personal guide to interface with large touch screens where they learn more about themselves, view family origins, and discover how ancestors may have lied and even dressed. Data used for the interactive experiences is drawn from online data at FamilySearch.org and select partners.” Check it out for yourself at www.FamilySearch.org/discoverycenter/seattle   And by the by, this is totally FREE and is located just behind the LDS temple, seen on the northside of I-90 approaching Bellevue.

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The Northeast Washington Genealogical Society (Colville) was treated to a great program recently by president, Karen Struve. Her topic was “Understanding & Using Pinterest.” Karen explained how to create an account, create your boards and pin items of interest to your boards. “Boards can be for recipes, craft ideas, gardening ideas, dogs, or genealogy! Think of Pinterest as another place to post, store and share the documents and/or photos of your ancestors.  I was lucky enough to be at that meeting and it was explained that the under-30 crowd is using Pinterest every day (most likely) and if you want to connect with your grandchildren, and no matter how old you are, you better learn how to use these social media…like Pinterest.

On a parallel note, an article in the Daughters of the American Revolution, Sep-Oct 2014, article by Maureen Taylor titled, “5 Ways to Use Pinterest for Genealogy” listed these reasons: (1) Follow your favorites…like Ancestry, FamilySearch, FamilyTree Magazine, etc.  (2) Keep track of sources for research; you can create and keep your To-Do list there with images of books and/or documents that are on your To-Do list;  (3) Create boards for ancestors; post biographies and images to grab your grandkids’ attention;  (4) Document local history..take and post pictures of cemeteries and places where your ancestors lived…this ultimately will reach dozens of cousins potentially;  (5) Compile a virtual family history cookbook. All good ideas.

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“Have you bookmarked JSTOR Daily yet?” So began a post from Judy Russell on her blog, The Legal Genealogist, on July 17, 2015. Judy explained that since she discovered this resource she has found it “irresistible” and “packed with great information.” So what is JSTOR Daily? She explains:  “JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization, founded to help academic libraries and publishers; is a shared digital library created in 1995 to help university and college libraries free up space on their shelves, save costs, and provide greater levels of access to more content than eve before…………. JSTOR currently includes more than 2000 academic journals, 50 million digitized pages and continue adding at the rate of three million pages annually.

“JSTOR is cool but it can be overwhelming,” Judy advises. That’s where the JSTOR Daily comes in. Anybody can sign up for this free newsletter/guide to the JSTOR collection at www.daily.jstor.org.  Both Judy Russell and I recommend this to you!

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Your Genealogy Today is the new incarnation of the Family Chronicle Magazine, published out of Toronto but applicable to all genealogist’s needs. The July-Aug 2015 issue featured these articles:  (1) Panama Canal employee records;  (2) Beginning World War II Research;  (3) DNA & Genealogy;  (4) “What the Widow Got,” an article looking at how your female ancestor may have been affected by property laws.

You can subscribe to this dandy publication in a paper/print form or a digital form by either calling 1-888-326-2476 or clicking to their website, www.internet-genealogy.com.  Cost is $19.95 for the digital edition.

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I’ll sign off today with a quote found in a 1935 newsletter about the building of Grand Coulee Dam encouraging worker safety:  “A ladder is no stronger than any one rung.”  In our genealogy arena, we could say, “A genealogy society is no stronger than any one member.”