Plan Ahead-Research Trips

There is nothing worse than walking into a library or archive that is filled with possibilities and you don't have a clue what you are hoping to find. I have done this as have many others. But, now I make a plan. A shopping list, if you will. I first of all determine which family line is going to be best served by the resources at the repository that I am going to. Then I begin a list of what are the questions that I want to address. For example, next week I am going with a group from my genealogy society to the Minnesota Historical Society Library in St. Paul. This facility has an online presence and I am going to my group sheets, checking where I want to find specific information (such as a death date) then finding the certificate number online so that I can then find that certificate immediately. I also know that the MN facility has naturalization papers so will look for those that pertain to my husbands family, as they were all in Minnesota. Right now my shopping list has 11 naturalization papers I am searching for, 12 death certificates and 4 obituaries. This keeps me focused and my searches and not wandering around wondering what to do next. Bringing the printed version of the pedigree/family group sheets will also show me the blank spots in my research and if I have time I can work on any others that arise, if I have the time. But, with the shopping list I can prioritize my research and therefore get those items that are most important to me on this trip.

Talking About Genealogy Tools.

I guess we could say that today the greatest genealogy tool is the computer. It has provided access to more records and relatives than ever before. Like all things this is a blessing and a bummer sometimes. Learning how to use the computer is a non-ending experience. I learn new skills each time I want to accomplish some  new project. There is NO way that you can learn it all at once. The genealogy society that I belong to, Blue Hills Genealogical Society-Barron County, Inc. is relatively young (only 9 years old) and so we began without the old excuses of "but we've always done it this way...." No old habits or expectations. We also began with the VERY great good fortune of having some of our earliest members pretty darn proficient with a computer and as we continue to grow the size of our membership, we continue to pick up members with that knowledge and more.

Not all genealogy people are ONLY into their own research. Some like learning the history of an area, some like scrapbooking their family, some like to be involved in  preservation of their county materials, some like being with other people whatever their interests. Whatever it is, members will have a variety of goals so meeting them is the primary function of a society. Use of their computers, digital cameras and other new technology are some of the needs that come to mind.

We have found that most of us just simply do not know enough about our computers, so this past meeting, one of our very experienced computer guru's gave the monthly program called "Prescription for you PC" which covered the basic maintenance procedures that we should all be doing. It was great, he had power point presentation, with handouts and the members "ate it up".

Since our meetings are open to the public and advertised on local media, on our web site, in our newsletter and members reminded through our members only free mail list we do get the message out to the public.  But, we are now searching for a way that we can store and then make available to anyone, the handouts from our meetings. That way, even if someone is not a member or could not attend, but they see what our program was about a year ago, that they can go to a website or such and download and print the handout from a particular meeting. That does not of course provide the Q&A or discussion points, but it's better than nothing.

We still have not figured out which way is best to do this. Still talking about how to do it. But, it IS in our future.

Bare Bones Web Site.

Well I figured out the first step in creating a web site. I chose to use Google sites cause it was free and I have used other Google products and have been happy with them.

I chose the name for the each of two sites and a template for each. Wrote a quick intro for each. That was all the easy stuff. It took me a while to figure out how I could put my PAF file on the website but without any information on living persons or confidential notes. I figured that all out and then added a place on each website where I could add attachments, just like you do in email and voila` I have the basics out there.

I still will want to add photos and documents as I go along and I have some other family lines that I want to have their own websites. And, I thought I had registered these first two with Google so that the search engine can find them, but my understanding is that this could take a while, so not sure whether I did it correctly. I guess only time will tell.

I added a place on each website for comments but don't want anyone editing or deleting my information so they are not collaborative web sites.

The first is called MnJuhlinFamily about the descendants and ancestors of Lorentz Alfred Juhlin born Sweden and his wife, Mathiea Hansine Larsen born Bornholm, Denmark. They emigrated to the USA in 1905 with two young children and settled in Red Wing, Goodhue County, Minnesota. That web site can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/mnjuhlinfamily  and is my very first attempt.

I then got very brave and created my second web site, again very bare bones and small file. It is called ErvastiTree and is the Finnish ancestry of my husband.  The Finnish lines include Ervasti, Nivala, Maki, Lampi and others. The first known of these people immigrated to the UP of Michigan around 1881 and worked for 15 years in the mines up there. Around 1897 the Ervasti family moved down to Wright County, Minnesota where they spent the remainder of their lives.  This website can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/ervastitree and was created in the same manner.

Both files use the PAF genealogy software from FamilySearch and is pretty easy to understand and navigate around in. I chose to use it years ago for very simple reasons. It is free, all upgrades are free, and the support for the product is great.

So maybe I have given someone else some courage about sharing your research by creating a web page with their genealogy. I hope so.

Putting it Out There.

I have over 30 years of genealogical research collected on numerous of my family lines. I pretty much self taught myself in the beginning and therefore I have done a lot of things wrong. But, I have learned from my mistakes and try to encourage others to learn from my mistakes.

My biggest mistake was in not accurately documenting my research and citing my sources. I am still going back on previously done research and finding the sources and placing them into my research. The one advantage to this mistake, is that it makes me go back and re-analyze the quality of my evidence. More is not better. Lots of sources do not "trump" good evidence.

I also need to think more about how I want to share my research.  And, I have come, finally, to the conclusion that creating a web page is not a bad idea. I just need to make sure that it is open to the public to view but NOT for the public to edit. My work, my credit and MY errors. This should keep it straight about how my work should be accepted or not.

So, I have begun with Google and am trying to create a website on my family line from Sweden and Denmark. The Juhlin line is one where I don't have a great number of names. So, I figure it is the best place to begin learning this web site creation thingy. I picked the site name, MNJuhlinFamily as this Juhlin line settled in Red Wing, MN and it separates my line from other Juhlin lines.  I got a page template and that is as far as I have gotten so far. I am still trying to figure out if I can import my Juhlin.paf file from my PAF software program and haven't figured out if it is possible or how to do it. I really would like to do it this way, since the work is already done there and easy to follow. But, maybe it is not possible...will have do do more searching around and see how I can do this.

If anyone else has created a website from Google and wants to offer some suggestions...I am all "ears".

Research Tool. the Digital Camera.

I have used my digital camera a lot for taking photos. I have used it a lot for taking tombstone photos. What I have not had a lot of experience in, is using my digital as a research tool in taking photo's of documents. I plan to try it out more this year.  I know that there are some tips for this type of usage, and I need to review those to make sure that I have the right equipment on my research trips this year. I also need to check at the locations I will be going to and see whether they will allow my camera usage. No sense in carrying it along if its use is not allowed.

Sometimes the copy machine at a repository is a researchers best friend. I find it is easier to simply make copies of all the things on my "shopping list" and then to extract the information and analyze it when I get home. This way I get a lot more collected in a short period of time. Of course if they are charging $1 a page copy fee, I have to rethink that. But in most cases, I have found the copy fees to be under 35 cents a page and although I can write out my notes cheaper, it still limits the amount I can accomplish in a given period of time. I also find that when it comes to documents that have hand written information, that a copy of this is best so that I can re-analyze the writing if something is questionable to me.

I have heard of buying a sheet of non-glare glass to place over a document before taking a photo. That is something that is on my list. Something black  to lay a document on is another good idea? Or maybe dark gray is a better idea?

Checking my batteries and deleting all photo's from in my camera's memory is a MUST before I leave. Don't want to get there and have no memory and a dead battery.

We had a speaker at one of our genealogy meetings about digital camera use for genealogists. I saved his outline notes and need to review them.

A Great LITTLE Tip.

You know how it gets cumbersome to carry so many notebooks, laptop, etc. to a repository for research? I generally plan my trip so that I know what line I am going to work on. I then print out the FGS and a Pedigree on that line so I can see where the blank lines are then I high-light those. This helps me to focus on what questions I want to answer and therefore can determine what records I want to look for. Then I make a specific "shopping list".

I know that some people take their laptop everywhere and enter all their research immediately. For whatever my reasons, it is not my favorite way to do things, cause I do not want to carry it AND I do not want the hassle of making sure that I can use it at a repository OR that it will work.

So, a member of my society has this neat little trick. She buys one of those Coupon accordion files (from a dollar store)  that holds index cards and fills it with blank index cards. Then whenever she looks at a source, she puts down the source and all information on one card. On the top of my cards, I put the surname that it pertains to then all source citation and repository information. Finally, what ever the specific information found I place it on the card...or I write nothing found.  When all are filed in my little coupon file, I have something small, lightweight and readily organized and carried.

Neat, huh?

To Society or Not To Society?

You are going to find throughout my blogs that I strongly recommend membership in your local genealogical Society. Granted, there are societies and then there are Societies.  I look for a society whose membership fee I can afford. I want it close by so that I can participate in their meetings and activities. And, I look for one who is interested in obtaining me as a member. Not just so that they can get work out of me to accomplish their society goals. But also are interested in what my goals are and what I hope to obtain through membership.

Societies need to have a financial basis so that they can provide the benefits that members want. That means so that they can provide a newsletter, email list or some sort of communications with their members. They also may maintain a collection of research materials and need to house them somewhere. This all costs money. So you must expect that you will be asked to volunteer to help with some fund raising.

Society membership and volunteerism has encountered strong competition from the Internet. While my society does have a web presence it is limited. We do not have all our research materials online, as we simply do not have the amount of space online or the volunteers to enter it and keep it updated.  All that information that researchers find online is placed there by someone who found it and then entered it. While the Internet has greatly increased the amount of materials and the speed with which we can find it, it is not all that is out there. There is still the need for on site research for most genealogy. That means we need to get out to those courthouses, libraries and talk face-to-face with family members and other researchers.

My Society does offer our members research advantages that we do not provide for anyone else. For the $12 a year that has been our membership fee for 9 years, we feel that it is the best benefit that we can offer. We have limited research volunteers so conducting research for anyone who contacts us has got to be prioritized and we have determined that our members will always come first. Our research room is open to the public once a week for only a couple of hours, which we hope to expand this year, if we get the appropriate number of volunteers needed. We also have our bi-monthly newsletters, free email list, and members only day trips for research etc.  We try to provide entertainment AND educational opportunities for our genealogy and history buffs.

As an example of our activities we have our monthly meetings. Our next one will have our computer guru giving a presentation titled "Prescription for your PC" about basic maintenance and things we should all do at home to keep our computers working at their optimum. We advertise each meeting on our website, in an email list reminder to members,  in the local newspapers and on local radio. We also have our programs advertised on the Calendar of Events at the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society website. We make sure that each news release reminds all that the meetings are free and open to the public.

We know that there are many people in our county doing genealogy and are not members of our Society. We hear "but I don't have any research in ___county" as an excuse often. So, we try to construct our programs for anyone doing genealogy. While we collect materials for our county to be housed in our research room more than 80% of our meetings have to do with general genealogy, not local. However, when we have a local expert talking about their area of the county or a local author talking about their book, we tend to get the greatest turnout at our meetings.

For our members, we are planning at home viewing of some webinars and then hope to schedule one at our Research Room for members who have never tried these online seminars and need some leadership. We have a day trip for research planned to the UW Stout Area Research Center on April 4th and another to the Minnesota Historical Society Library on May 3rd.  We are waiting to see when the movie Conspirator will be coming to the local area, and then have a Movie Night planned with coffee and discussion afterwards.

We plan for local presence at the Pioneer Village and Museum's Heritage Days in July and once the weather is nice we get out in the local cemeteries to transcribe and photograph the tombstones. [This major project is designed to create a photographic and written record of all the tombstones in the 65 cemeteries in our county.] We are, individually, experimenting with Skype, as we have at least one member who may be housebound for a while with colon cancer treatments. She may enjoy being able to view our meetings from home.

I guess my point is, as a Society we WORK at being inclusive (no cliques), communicating all events through our email list and newsletter (and a phone call if necessary), and activity. Driving all of this through our news releases and personal invitations and contacts, we present a positive approach of enthusiasm that we WANT people to become members of our great group because we are having fun. I strongly believe that no one would want to be part of a group that does nothing much and isn't having much fun doing it.  And nobody wants to be part of a group where they are not enthusiastically wanted and greeted.