Here is the link to a youtube video by the barefoot genealogist on how to prepare when you want to visit a cemetery. Very informative. Click HERE.
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I find that I go up and down on my enthusiasm to do genealogy research. When I am interested and excited to go looking for any new tidbits I generally subscribe to Ancestry.com for a while and see how much I can get done. Hopefully, I remember to cancel the subscription when I slack off... and I admit, I have paid for several months in the past with no research! The beginning of this year I decided to give it all a look-see again. I signed up for Ancestry and scoured records. I did find a few new items and some other trees that had photographs of some of my ancestors. Yay! I also went to a genealogy workshop with a friend at a different library. I knew quite a bit of the information already, but it did help motivate me to get going again. They had a special speaker from the LDS Family History Center. She spoke about what is available on FamilySearch.org and at the Family History Centers. I confess, I did not use FamilySearch very much, but that was because I didn't know what was really available. Since the workshop, I have been searching for records and found loads of goodies! I found proof of my children's Great Grandfather's REAL name - and he WASN'T born out of wedlock! I found death certificates that listed cause of death (one burned to death!, one died in childbirth, and others died of illnesses that can be passed down!) along with family members' names. It was bonus for me that I had signed up for Ancestry at this same time, because some of the records on FamilySearch would take you to Ancestry's site - so if you want to see the actual record and not just an index, it was great! Now, if I can work with other sites at the same time, I might find more! The Barrington Genealogy Club is going to have Patty Shorland from the LDS Family History Center at the July 1st meeting at 6pm at the Barrington Public Library, 105 Ramsdell Ln, Barrington, NH 03825. Everyone is welcome! We had a Genealogy for Beginners Workshop at the Barrington Library this month. Barrington Genealogy Club member Cyndi Twomby lead the workshop. There were about ten people in attendance who were new to genealogy and our club. We hope they continue to visit the library and try out the databases available, and attend the monthly Genealogy Club meetings on the first Wednesday of each month at 6pm.
Now that winter is on the way out I am ready to research!! How about you? Hi Everyone - I shared at our last meeting how rewarding and fairly easy it is to volunteer as an indexer for the 1940 Census. Indexing is done through the Family Search site. You have to download their software - which is pretty easy to do. The software is wonderful. It highlights the place on the page that you are typing and keeps you on track. At the end of the page it asks to double check any areas which seem questionable. Go through and double check, click OK and submit. Easy-Peasy! If anyone is interested I will help get you started if you like!
When you download a batch (and I suggest you start with one batch and as a 'beginner') you see the form. I take a quick look and compare some of the writing throughout to decipher certain letter strokes for that enumerator, make sure my highlight guide is lined up and start! It is not difficult and you feel great satisfaction knowing you took part in getting this information out there and available for easy look up. Even though these are not my ancestors I find it very interesting to see their names, family members, household help for the well-to-do, etc. Husbands, wives, daughters, sons, border, house maid, nurse maid, servants, etc. I love reading it all and just imagining what life might have been like for them all.... families on vacation with their household staff, veterans in the old soldier's home, two and three generations living together under one roof...etc. Wendy wanted to share ... Robert and I were able to attend the Visitor's Tour at the New England Historical Genealogical Society in Boston last month. The tour lasted about an hour and then we were left to explore and research for as long as we wanted. We were kicked out at 5pm when they closed! I barely made a dent! I can go down again and again and have plenty to explore. We ate a couple blocks away after we left. Burger King was out of food (!huh?!! - that's right) so we went next door to a two-story Wendy's and ate. We sat upstairs next to the window and had a great view. Robert watched girls go by!
There were a few options for parking – we ended up paying a discounted Saturday fee of $10 for the day at a garage a couple blocks away. For future trips on a Saturday we may find driving down, parking and splitting the costs for gas/parking etc. will work out better than having to pay to park somewhere and everyone pay for the T. During the week parking is more expensive downtown, so parking and taking the T in may be the better deal. The Green Line does stop a couple blocks over from NEHGS.
New England Historic Genealogical Society, 99 Newbury St., Boston, MA. NEHGS is located in a beautiful building (an old bank) in a beautiful area – Copely Square. When you enter the building you need to sign in at the counter to the left. After walking through a metal detector you are in the Rotunda. Note the beautiful woodwork and old teller windows in the attached picture. There is a fantastic marble staircase through the door on the left. Luckily they have an elevator also...there are eight floors.
4th Floor – Microtext Center. Microfilm readers- you sign in and are assigned a machine....so many records on microfilm – it is an LDS History Center and all their scanned images are on film and housed right at NEHGS. I could have researched land records for one solid day – saw how my ancestor first purchased land in NH, sold it, purchased more, sold that, etc. I came away with copies of several Land Deeds from the 18th and 19th century (only for Alexander Hodge – didn't even get to check other names yet!). Copies are .25/page. I skimmed through several books...was able to rule out quite a bit. :) They have several public access computers to access their databases.Robert found 6-7 certificates from VT that show birth/death/marriage records and about 3 new names in his line - all from VT. He found more there than he did when he went to VT achieves
The 5th floor houses millions of old manuscripts. The 6th Floor at has research space and a huge amount of family genealogies (I found 8 books for Hodge/Hodges alone...Robert several books on some relatives).
It would be well worth the trip down on a Visitor Tour day. They usually conduct one each month alternating between a week day and a Saturday. Please discuss this at our next meeting to see if it will work out. I definitely want to go down again! Lisa, Robert, Ellen, Noel, Wendy and Cal in front of the Massachusetts Archives. (Missing are Prudence and Alex). We enjoyed a workshop at the archives and a tour of the reading room and all materials. Some members were able to find quite a bit of information. Even if we did not find a lot of information on our ancestors it was a very informative trip. Thank you to Auntumn and staff for all your help. This year the New England Regional Genealogy Conference is in Manchester, NH April 22-25. We are enjoying hearing from a wide range of speakers. These well-known experts have so much to share - I am frantically taking notes. I will remember next time to get the paper version of the speaker's outlines. I have the CD but it would be nice to have the outline in front of me at the meetings. It's great to be around hundreds of people who are excited about digging up the past! It has been early mornings to get over there for the first meeting and long days of note taking and information overload! Hitting the pillow early tonight to recharge for tomorrow! The Exhibit hall gives us a chance to meet people from other genealogical societies and commercial vendors - some merchandise too hard to resist. (It is nice when you find a vendor that is selling books at a discount.) Four members from our group were able to attend this year. I hope to be able to make the next conference in Springfield, MA in 2011! It is definitely worth it! On a recent trip to my "last living aunt's" home the time flew by with stories she told of growing up. She has many more stories in her and I intend to schedule more visits! We both enjoyed the telling and the hearing of how my Great Grandfather Ida was a drinker, and someone in town said "..if they were married to his wife they'd drink too!" We found pictures of my father's aunts and uncle. Everyone said "Ole Uncle Mose had the largest hands anyone had ever seen". Both Aunt Liz and Aunt Rose were tall slender women who lived to ripe old ages. I heard stories of love lost, ornery great grandmothers and growing up on a rural farm where you went out back and brought in that night's supper...so Mother could wring it's neck, pluck it clean and fry it! I scanned photos of my grandmother butchering a small bear my uncle had shot. Boy did she look happy to be doing it! (Eew!) I even came home with photos of my Great Great Grandfather Damon Franklin Hodge and his wife, Great Great Grandmother Abigail Huntly Carr. I must say, they were not very flattering! The “Field Trip” to Springvale Public Library on January 24th was attended by 9 people. We enjoyed the tour of the Genealogy/History rooms by volunteer Pauline. After the tour she assisted us in research, and many club members found interesting information. Time flew by. Thank you to the Springvale Public library for having us. Now we know what materials are available there along with the fact they recently became an LDS Family History Center! I have been e-mailed from people in Montana, Florida and England trying to see if our family trees connect. They got my e-mail address through forums where I have posted a question or request for help about an ancestor. Names have been recognized and they contacted me. It has helped my research and has been very interesting communicating with them. I periodically check genforum.com to see if anyone else is looking for something I have. You can register for free to pos |
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