For what it’s worth:
Wanting to teach myself more about genealogy and DNA, I ordered these
two (used) books from Amazon. I’m finding that blog posts and magazine articles
don’t spell it out clearly enough for me. Think these will help? They are
vintage 1999 and 2005.
**************************
Love learning something totally new. In a historical
fiction (genealogy) novel, I came across the term thumb piano. So I asked Grandma Google: “The mbira or thumb piano is an African
musical instrument consisting of a wooden board with attached staggered metal
times played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the times with
the thumbs.” So what’s my genealogy
point here? Whenever in your reading or your researching, if you come upon
a brand new term, stop right there and go ask Grandma Google. She always will have an answer.
*************************
Tip from Cyndi Ingle during the day she spent with
EWGS last October: “There are three ways
to dig deeper: (1) learn about the advanced features on search engines and genealogy
databases; (2) learn about the records
behind the technology; and (3) dig into
the records and then into the repository that contains those records. Cyndi’s point was that like with any tool, a
search engine is a tool and can be used to best advantage if you understand how
best to use the tool (duh).
Cyndi was speaking of having to really dig deeper
because, thinking of the iceberg, only 4% is sticking up………… only 4% of records
on the Internet are super easy to spot…… and 96% is below the water line………..
that means that 96% is hidden deeper into the many online repositories…. “but
the hidden web is 500 times more”
she said……………. I think she means that there is more information available to
you from any given repository (Family History Library or Library of Virginia or
Texas State Archives, etc) that you would ever guess.
***************************
Cyndi Ingle also said that a list of genealogy
groups on Facebook has been compiled by Katherine Wilson which you can download
as a pdf for free. Here’s the link:
Who would have thought that there were sooooo many
genealogy groups on Facebook! There were 23 links to genealogy-related organizations
in Washington. This list goes international too.
************************
Do
you have a Revolutionary Patriot in your family tree? If
you do, and are a woman 18 years or older, regardless
of race, religion or ethnic background, and can prove lineal descent from a
patriot of the American Revolution, you are eligible for membership in the DAR,
Daughters of the American Revolution. DAR volunteers are willing to provide
guidance and assistance each step of the way. Click to www.dar.org and then “membership.” There you‘ll
find Prospective Member information.
The DAR publishes American Spirit magazine; in the Sept-Oct 2015 issue there was a
great article about how the DAR is “Sharing a Wealth of Data With the World” by
simplifying genealogy research and expanding access to Revolutionary-era
documents.
The DAR recognizes 144,000 patriots and is eager to
provide help to prospective members. Do check it out if you have a
Revolutionary Patriot in your family tree.
**************************
On the subject of membership in societies, are you
eligible to join the First Families of
St.Louis? The purpose of this organization is “to identify, recognize and
archive the lineage of historical St. Louis families.” You are eligible to join
if you can prove a straight-line descent from an early St. Louis resident in
one of these three categories: Founding Fathers, 1765-1804; Pioneer
Families, 1805-1821; and Immigrant Families, 1822-1865. If this
organization is of interest to you, click to the St. Louis Genealogical Society
website, www.stlgs.org or call their office
at 314-647-8547. Brochure I have says application fee is $30.
*********************
Having just returned from a stupendous 2-week trip
to Egypt, and getting back into my real-life-world of genealogy, I really
wondered how much Egyptian genealogy helps are available. Not much, sad to
report. FamilySearch has a Wiki page that’s mostly empty. Ancestry offers nada.
The 4000-centuries listings of the ruling Kings and Pharaohs survives pretty
much intact, but nothing on the thousands of common folks who worked, lived, farmed,
raised families, worked on the pyramids, etc.
In my reading I did find reference to a cattle census…….. not very
helpful except to date the regnal years. Using Google I did find a query post
that went something like this: “My
parents were immigrants from Egypt in the 1950s……”
Doing a Google search for “Egyptian Vital Records,”
I came upon a paper published in 1981titled “Development of the Vital
Statistics System in Egypt.” I’ll quote one important statement here: “In the modern era, the registration of
births and deaths in rural as well as urban areas dates back to 1839; it was
made obligatory towards the end of the last century. However, in spite of the
early beginnings of compulsory registration of vital evens, the completeness of
registration was very poor, particularly in the rural areas. It took almost 70
years for the vital statistics system to reach the 91% coverage of
registration.” And we feel bad for those
with Irish ancestry!
*****************************
Have
Missouri heritage? Last May I heard a talk by John Dougan,
archivist at the Missouri Digital Heritage archives. Here are some of the
points he made: “Our archives gets
8,000,000 hits per month; we offer a basic and an advanced search (“a simple search yields too much of nothing”; we have 9,000,000 records on
the website so I do recommend using the advanced search” They have “digital
museum exhibits” for which he quipped, “Block out hours of time for this part
of our website!”
One statement Dougan made is parallel to the quotes
from Cyndi Ingle (above). He strongly encouraged users to browse by TOPIC and
then MEDIA TYPE…. “don’t search the entire barn for the horse, go look in the stall.”
One most interesting looking tidbit he gave about
the site was that they have the Missouri State Penitentiary records, 1836-1931.
“It’s an index mostly….only images back to the 1880s…but the photos we have can
include mug shots and tattoos!” His final quip on this subject was “don’t
assume your Missouri ancestor is not in this database until you go and look and
hope you don’t get surprised.”
****************************
Did lots of map reading on this trip; here are some
for-real Texas towns: Cut and
Shoot, Oatmeal, Dime Box,
Snook, Guy, Best,
Shine, Krum, Benjamin,
Cactus, Tool, Cash,
Sunray, Mule Shoe, Happy,
Draw, Quail, White Face,
Valentine, Orange, West Orange,
Energy, and (best of all) Tarzan, Texas. Your ancestor from any of these bitty places??
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