Genealogy Online

by Elizabeth Crowe

  It’s quick and easy and gives good results.

  GenGateway

  Another version of a catalog of websites organized into categories for genealogists is www.gengateway.com by Steve Lacy. It has daily updates, so you can find newer genealogy sites and data online under the “New Genealogy” link. Another section is Genealogy Help, a collection to links to help when you hit a brick wall in your research. What I like about this site is that Lacy strives for uniqueness in content and presentation. Choose the category you want to search, such as surname or obituary, and you’ll get well-sorted results.

  To navigate the site, use one of the many useful gateways listed in the navigation bar on the left of the home page. If you’re new to the site, first try the Beginners Gateway or the Search Pages.

  RootsWeb Search Thingy

  This is one of the first genealogy search sites I ever used on the Web, and I still go to it often. Go to www.rootsweb.com, click Searches, and click Search Thingy. Then put in your search terms. The meta-search goes through all RootsWeb pages and databases. The disadvantage to Search Thingy is that OR is the only Boolean operator you can use, so a search for James Reason Powell will return any page with any one of those terms.

  Obituary Search Pages

  Several pages enable you to search recent and older obituaries:

  • Free Obituary Searches (http://www.obituary-searches.com) lists several different pages for death notice searches around the world, mostly contemporary, but some historical.

  • Legacy.com (http://www.legacy.com/Obituaries.asp) has a box on the home page to search contemporary obituaries.

  • Obituary Links (http://www.obitlinkspage.com) searches cemetery records, obituaries, and other pages from sites such as Ancestry.com, RootsWeb, and so on. This is a meta-search engine that focuses on death records.

  • Origins.net (http://www.origins.net) is a fee-based genealogy search site; you can try a sample search for free. Users pay a license fee for use of the Origin Search software at $5 for 24 hours or $15 for 14 days. Origins.net provides access to databases of genealogical data for online family history research in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

  White Page Directories

  So far, you’ve looked at search engines and directories for finding a website. But what if you need to find lost living relatives? Or what if you want to write to people with the same surnames you’re researching? In that case, you need people search engines, called White Page directories. Like the White Pages of your phone book, these directories specialize in finding people, not pages. In fact, all the search engine sites mentioned previously have White Page directories.

  The AT&T site (www.att.com/directory) has an excellent set of directories for people and businesses, with a reverse phone number lookup (put in the phone number; get the name). It’s basically a White Pages for the whole United States. AT&T now also owns Switchboard (www.switchboard.com). It’s free, and it lists the e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of millions of people and businesses, taken from public records. It’s also a website catalog. If you register as a user (it’s free), you can ensure that your listing is not only accurate, but also has only the information you want it to reveal.

  Wrapping Up

  • Learn to use Boolean search terms to target your web searches.

  • Use genealogy-specific sites to search for surnames and localities.

  • Use general search sites and catalogs that gather news and links about genealogy.

  • Use White Pages search sites to find living people.

  Chapter 6

  Talk to Me: Twitter, Skype, IM, and Google

  At times, you might want to talk to a fellow genealogist to resolve problems you’re encountering in your research. The online world can help you there too, with more ways than you can shake a stick at. Twitter, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video chat programs, and instant messaging can all help you make personal connections with other genealogists.

  When you send messages, pictures, and videos to a public online site such as Twitter, that has been called “microblogging”—a web blog in tiny snippets. When you exchange voice, video, or text messages with just one person, that comes under the blanket of instant messaging.

  Twitter

  Twitter has become a phenomenon as well as an Internet application. Twitter is free, and it combines social networking with blogging on a very small scale. With it, you can send and receive messages, links, and more.

  When you send something on Twitter, it is called a tweet. A tweet is a message of no more than 140 characters on your Twitter profile page delivered to your followers, who are people who have subscribed to your tweets. Tweets can also be links to pictures, sound files, or videos.

  You can choose who will see your tweets, or open it up to the world (the latter is the default). You can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) on your smart phone, or external applications.

  Note

  While Twitter itself costs nothing to use, accessing it through your smart phone’s SMS (text messages) could rack up fees from your phone service provider, as each tweet will be a text message.

  That 140-character limit also spurred usage of URL-shortening services such as tinyurl, bit.ly, and tr.im, where you can shorten a long address to just a few characters.

  Since Jack Dorsey created it in 2006, millions of people have started using Twitter. Alexa web traffic analysis ranks Twitter as one of the 50 most popular websites in the world. And of course, genealogists are among them (see Figure 6-1).

  FIGURE 6-1. Genealogy tweeting is very popular.

  An example:

  ACoffin @epcrowe I use Twitter to share #genealogy news, hi-lite blog posts and ask reference-type questions.

  ACoffin @epcrowe I also use Twitter as a #genealogy news feed of sorts. If it happens, someone will post it here, asap.

  Your eyes are glazing over. I can see it. Okay, let’s unpack this.

  Note

  A really good explanation of how Twitter works is at www.momthisishowtwitterworks.com/. I highly recommend it.

  Replies and Mentions

  Once you sign up for Twitter (a simple process, but it requires a valid e-mail address), you can have the program search your AOL, Google, or Yahoo! address books under “Find People.” Everyone has a “handle,” or user name, often some short version of a real name or a company.

  An @reply is a message sent from one person to another, although everyone who follows them can see it. You should put the “@username” at the beginning of the message. When a message begins with @username, the Twitter software considers it a public reply. You do not have to be following someone to reply to that person, and all your replies and mentions are shown in the @username tab in your home page sidebar.

  Note

  A tweet that begins with @username is a reply, and a tweet with @username anywhere else in the message is considered a mention. Both kinds of messages will be collected to your sidebar and are public. A tweet that starts with the single letter D will be sent directly and privately. A tweet that starts with @someone will be public and show up as a mention. Also, you can send a private reply by starting the message with a D and a space, then the username to whom you are replying, then you are sending a private message. You can only send a direct message to a person who follows you. When you receive a direct message, it goes to your direct message inbox, which you access through the Direct Message tab in the sidebar in your home page. You can set your e-mail preferences to get an e-mail from Twitter when you get a direct message.

  Hashtags

  With all those millions of users tweeting 24 hours a day, seven days a week, how on earth do you find the messages that might interest you? Hashtags: using an octothorpe (#) to tag a message’s topic.

  The Twitter community created hashtags because the Twitter software had no easy way to sort out the tweets by category or add extra data with that 140-character
limit. Hashtags have the octothorpe “hash” or “pound” symbol (#) preceding the tag—for example, #genealogy, #FamilyHistory, #DNA, or #ancestry. While the hashtags can occur anywhere in the tweet, often, you will find them at the end.

  Success Story: Amy Coffin Uses Twitter for Genealogy

  Amy Coffin, MLIS, is a genealogy and records research librarian, blogger, and researcher (http://amycoffin.com) who uses Twitter daily.

  “I use Twitter mainly as a news aggregator,” she said. “I seek out the genealogy-related people and vendors I want to follow, and they are the only ones who show up in my Twitter stream. Twitter gets a bad rap from those who have never used it or don’t see its value. I tell people Twitter is like television. There’s a lot of junk on Twitter, just like there’s a lot of junk on television. The key is finding what you want to see and blocking out everything else. There is useful genealogy information to be had on Twitter—you just need to set your account up so it comes to you.”

  She also uses it for live reporting just as people in many fields do. For example, conference attendees send live tweets right from the conference, allowing discussion about the event between those who are attending and those who are not.

  “Usually before a conference, a dedicated ‘hashtag’ is established and everyone attending or talking about the conference uses that hashtag in their tweets. This makes them more searchable and distributes the information better. For example, I’m attending the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree where the hashtag will be #scgs14. If you search Twitter using “#scgs14” during that time, you will see all the tweets about the conference,” she said.

  It also serves as her “mini-reference desk,” she said. She uses her Twitter account to ask questions of other genealogists and librarians that she follows.

  “Once, I had a distant cousin tell me that our great-great-grandfather was given acknowledgement in a book of an award-winning author. Could this be true? I sent a request to all my librarian Twitter followers and had my answer in minutes,” Amy said.

  Other uses Amy has found: publicity for her blog entries and friendship.

  “I’ve become friends with many of my Twitter followers. It’s always exciting to meet them for the first time at genealogy events,” she said.

  These hashtags are not an official element of Twitter, but they have become standard practice. You can see in Twitter Search that hashtag terms are often in trending topics.

  Using Hashtags

  If you add a hashtag to your tweet and you have a public account, anyone who does a search for that hashtag can find your tweet. There are no formal rules for hashtags, except never use one for spamming. Nevertheless, even though any word with a # in front could be considered a hashtag keyword, some are more commonly used.

  It is a good idea to use them sparingly and always relevantly. A maximum of three hashtags to a message is considered good form.

  As they have become accepted, you can now search for hashtags not only in Twitter, but also in Google and other search engines. If you search for #FamilyHistory and come up with good results, you can click “Save This Search” and have a link to all recent tweets with that hashtag. You can also create an RSS feed of your favorite searches, again with a single click.

  But notice above the “any other keyword.” If you search on anything—your surname, a noun, even a verb—you’re likely to find tweets that match. The hashtag will help you filter out messages from someone named Powell from messages about a Powell.

  You can also create lists of Twitter users to follow, which is another way to quickly categorize the tweet feed. Twitter lists are groups of people whose tweets you want to stay current on. If want to see the tweets of someone without adding that person to your follow inventory, lists let you to do that.

  The Twitter software allows you to build lists several ways. Usually, you start one by clicking Lists and then New. You can also make the list public (everyone can see it) or private (only you can see it). At this writing, you are limited to 1,000 lists per account, which should do. However, some public lists are very useful, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Check out these lists:

  twitter.com/TamuraJones/lists/geneawavers

  twitter.com/AncestryDetect/lists/genealogy

  twitter.com/BBPetura/lists/genealogy-family-history3

  twitter.com/EnduringLifecom/lists/genealogist

  twitter.com/OnlineGenGuy/lists/genealogy-tweets

  twitter.com/TamuraJones/lists/genealogists@hikari17/

  genealogysocieties

  With public lists like these, you can start following several genealogists with a click and avoid building a list of 166 different accounts all by yourself. On the other hand, you can add people who tweet (including yourself!) to a list from most screens on Twitter. Just look for the “Lists” button.

  On your Twitter home page, find the Lists link, which will bring up your lists page. On this lists page, you can do list maintenance, such as editing the list name and deleting the list from your profile. Following a list looks just like following any other Twitter user. Go to the list page and click Follow underneath the name of the list you want to read. You can quickly view your subscribed lists, as well as lists that you created yourself, on the sidebar. You can always remove yourself from a list by blocking its creator.

  As of this writing, some 30 applications are available in various smart phone and tablet platforms for using Twitter, including the one from Twitter itself. These programs range in price from free to about $20, but my favorite at the moment is the free application called Twitterrific.

  VoIP and Video Chat

  When you use your web camera, a microphone, and maybe even earphones to communicate with others, you are probably using VoIP to video chat. There are many ways to do this: Google Plus, Facebook, Microsoft Cloud, and Skype just to name a few. How can a genealogist use these programs? Well, talking to distant relatives for free is one way. Recording video journals of your research is another. Most often, they are used to conduct online meetings, seminars (webinars), and chats. DearMYRTLE’s Mondays with Myrt are an example of a way to use Google Hangouts, as in Figure 6-2.

  FIGURE 6-2. Mondays with Myrt is one way to learn about genealogy using video, in this case Google Hangouts On Air.

  An additional use: instant messaging. Most of these programs can communicate in text messages, send files, and do all the other tasks an instant messaging program such as AIM or Windows Messenger can do. And many of them have versions for laptops, tablets, and smart phones as well.

  Google

  Google+ gets a lot of snarky putdowns online, but there is no doubt that Google Hangouts and On Air are growing in popularity. Google products you can use include audio/video/text programs for communication over the Internet using VoIP. Google Hangouts and On Air can be saved and posted to YouTube, so it has proven very popular with online genealogists like DearMYRTLE. It is also high definition, which many other programs such as Skype are not.

  Skype

  Skype is available for systems running Linux, Linux-based Maemo, Mac OS X (Intel and PC), iPhone OS (iPhone and iPod Touch), Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Vista, Windows Mobile), and even gaming systems from Sony and Xbox. There is a pay version that lets you call any phone number, whether on Skype or not, but most people use the free version, even though you can only use it to communicate with other Skype users. With some helper programs like Wiretap Studio and Pamela, you can also record and post Skype calls. However, on some platforms, Skype is not as high definition as is Google Hangouts.

  Facebook, Yahoo! et al

  Instant messaging programs such as AOL Instant Message (AIM), Yahoo!, and so on now integrate with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others. Furthermore, Facebook itself now has a video message function as well as the IM function.

  Similarly, Windows Live Messenger is now integrated with Skype as well as with the Windows cloud apps such as mail and document storage.

  All of these can be
used to chat live or delayed delivery, both with text and with audio/visual messages. Again, the main use for a genealogist for these is to connect with relatives, share research and lookups, and attend virtual gatherings of different groups.

  Instant Messaging

  IM has been around for 20 years, thanks in large part to America Online’s Instant Messenger program, known to users as AIM, and MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Chat, and other similar programs. In this form of messaging, a select list of people (from two to a whole “room”) exchange typed messages in real time.

  The other most common chat program is a Java-based chat that shows in your web browser. As long as you have the latest version of Java on your computer, nothing else is needed to participate. Different programs enable you to have one-on-one or multiperson conversations with people. Some require you to sign on to a chat server, where the program you use doesn’t matter. Others only let you chat with people using the same program and who have allowed you to put them on their “buddy list.” The former lets you connect with more people; the latter gives you more security. A few will let you do both.

  Success Story: GenPals Solves a Mystery

  Charlene Hazzard and Mary Martha Von Ville McGrath solved a mystery through GenPals. Though the group disappeared when GeoCities died, the example is still a good one of online collaboration.