• A free online course for members of the NGS on basic genealogy skills and techniques.
• Periodicals include the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, the NGS Magazine, and the “UpFront with NGS” online blog.
• The Members Only section of the NGS website has publication archives, the National Genealogical Society Quarterly searchable index, the NGS Magazine online, and special exclusive videos of interviews with leading genealogists.
• Members can also access databases such as The National Intelligencer, an abstracted database of marriage and death notices from 1800–1850; NGS Bible Records (indexed by names with PDF scans); and NGS Member Ancestry Charts (MACs).
• Members can also download research aids and forms to help you create an abstract for a census, learn how to file your finds, and more.
• Discounts from Boston University, Fold3, and FlipPal and, of course, on NGS courses, trips, and seminars.
Publications and Videos
Written and edited by leading experts in the genealogical field, NGS periodicals and books show you the best techniques to help you research and record your family history. The publications and videos cover the latest technology tools, case studies of how to solve a difficult research problem, and reference books on particular geographic areas. You can view for free the video Paths to Your Past in this section of the site.
Conferences and Events
Many people first learn about the NGS as an organization at the conferences and events held around the country every year.
The NGS Family History Conference is the biggest event of the year for the society. Everyone from neophytes to those who want to become Certified Professional Genealogists will find something interesting at this conference. The location changes yearly, and fee ranges from $100 for one day to $275 for nonmembers for the whole conference.
You can also sign up for a research trip where a professional genealogist leads a tour to help you research in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Two are held each year.
Family reunions and other genealogy groups also publicize their events on the NGS events calendar, so this is a place to bookmark for future reference.
Awards and Competitions
NGS awards are given each year at the annual conference. They are:
• Award of Honor To recognize an individual or organization for dedicated and sustained service in support of an NGS Family History Conference.
• Award of Merit To recognize exceptional contributions to the field of genealogy by an individual or nonprofit genealogical or historical organization over a period of five years or more.
• Certificate of Appreciation To recognize an individual or organization for service during an NGS conference. A nominee need not be a member of NGS. This award may be presented to an individual or institution more than once.
• Distinguished Service Award To recognize outstanding contributions to the work of NGS. A nominee must have been a member of NGS for at least one year.
• Fellow of the National Genealogical Society (FNGS) To recognize outstanding work in the field of genealogy or the related fields of history, biography, or heraldry, in addition to outstanding service to the National Genealogical Society.
Several competitions, such as the Family History Writing Contest and scholarships for students and adults, are also outlined in this section.
Calendar
You might want to bookmark the calendar at www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/event_calendar, where not only NGS events but also events from other genealogical organizations are listed.
My Account, My Orders, My Downloadable Products
Whenever you order from the website, whether a member or not, the transactions are stored here. This is one reason to fill out the registration when you first visit the site so that you can trace your activity later.
Store
The NGS has several excellent publications for sale. Members receive a discount, but nonmembers can also buy the research guides (available as PDFs and in hard copy) and the excellent book, Mastering Genealogical Proof (National Genealogical Society, Inc., 2013)—now available for the Kindle—among others. If you want to order, you need to create a profile with your e-mail and contact information. This does not sign you up as a member of the National Genealogical Society or give you access to the members-only section of the website; it just helps you keep track of your purchases and redownload your PDFs later.
Wrapping Up
• The NGS is a broad-based American institution for education and resources in genealogy.
• You can take online and at-home genealogy courses from NGS, take research trips, and attend NGS conferences to learn about genealogy.
• Certain databases can be searched online at the site by members; you can also pay a fee to have NGS staff do research for you.
Chapter 18
Ancestry.com and RootsWeb
The Ancestry.com family of sites and products is a collection of billions of historical records—digitized, indexed, and put online—available by subscription and through libraries around the world. The company developed their own systems for digitizing handwritten historical documents, and established relationships with national, state, and local government archives; historical societies; religious institutions; and private collectors of historical content around the world to build this collection. The records and documents, combined with their web-based online search technologies and software, let subscribers research family history, build family trees, and use the Ancestry.com sites for social networking.
Is a paid membership worthwhile? One friend of mine compared it to the premium movie channels. If you only watched one movie a month, a premium movie channel would not be a good buy. If you have a 60-inch screen and your own popcorn machine, however, because movies are your favorite thing to do, then a premium movie channel would save you money over going to the theater or buying individual pay-per-view movies. Ancestry.com is the same: If you have been seriously bitten by the genealogy bug, you will use it so much you will wonder how people ever found records without it. If you just wonder who your great-grandparents are, then don’t get your own subscription. Use it at the local library or your local Family History Center on those rare occasions when you feel like doing some research.
Note
Ancestry.com can be found on several social platforms, including Facebook (www.facebook.com/Ancestry.com) Livestream (www.livestream.com/ancestry) Pinterest (www.pinterest.com/ancestrycom/) Twitter (www.twitter.com/ancestry) YouTube (www.youtube.com/AncestryCom)
With 24,000 searchable databases and titles, Ancestry.com is a major online source for family history information. Since its launch in 1997, Ancestry.com has been the leading resource for family history and has worked hard at gathering diverse data with many easy-to-use tools and resources. The Ancestry.com part has the only complete online U.S. federal census collection (1790–1930), as well as the world’s largest online collection of U.S. ship passenger list records, featuring more than 100 million names (1820–1960). Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, it is a wide-ranging collection of genealogy resources. You can do some things for free, but fees apply for certain searches, some levels of disk space, and some other services.
Ancestry.com
Registering for Ancestry.com is free. That will allow you to build a family tree, connect with community members, and access all of the free content. A list of free records and a search box is at www.ancestry.com/freerecords. Just a few of the types of indexes of records you can search there include:
• Find a Grave, 1770–1790
• Census of the Cumberland Settlements, 1864
• Census for Re-Organizing the Georgia Militia, 1880
• United States Federal Census, 1881
• Channel Islands Census, 1881
• England Census, 1881
• Isle of Man Census, 1881
• Wales Census, 1891
• New South Wales, Australia Census, 1901
/> • New South Wales, Australia Census
The list includes hundreds more (see Figure 18-1).
FIGURE 18-1. Ancestry.com has many records and indexes you can search for free, as well as subscription-based databases.
To find out about all of Ancestry’s newest features, records, and more, follow the official Ancestry.com blog at http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry. Regular genealogy columns by writers such as George G. Morgan, Dick Eastman, Kip Sperry, Juliana Smith, Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, and Drew Smith are available free of charge, too. You can participate in the Ancestry.com Livestream hosted weekly with Crista Cowan at www.livestream.com/ancestry. Crista walks viewers through new topics and features, followed by a Twitter session where you can tweet more detailed questions and Crista will answer.
Family Tree Maker
As noted in Chapter 2, Family Tree Maker (FTM) syncs with your online Ancestry.com tree. FamilyView, a family group sheet with pictures, makes navigating easier, especially when you want to see extended family members, such as cousins. FTM lets you copy and paste facts and sources from one individual to another, and you can let family and friends view the online version of your tree without software or a subscription.
Within FTM, you can sort children automatically by birth order and view people by location, grouping them by country, state, county, and city. The charts and reports options and views let you display an individual’s ancestors, spouses, and children together. You can use the Index of Individuals Report to see anniversary, birthday, contact lists, and more. You can also export a single branch of your tree. It’s available for Windows and Mac, and the price ranges from $40 to $80, depending on how many features you want. Ancestry.com also has three apps for smart phones and tablets:
• Ancestry.com This is a great way to take Ancestry.com with you. The program will sync instantly with your online tree.
• Find A Grave This can help with your gravesite discovery and headstone indexing.
• ShoeBox Scan photos and documents and upload them to your Ancestry.com tree.
Using Ancestry.com
When first starting out with genealogy, it’s tempting to start researching your grandparents or further back. Start with what you know and build a tree. It can be difficult to keep all of the information straight, so the free tree feature on Ancestry.com will help you keep track of dates, stories, and relationships. Start with yourself and then move backward in time. Enter names, dates, places, and, if you have them, photographs and scanned comments. Right away, “shaking” leaves will show up on the names in your tree to help walk you through your family history (see Figure 18-2). This means that Ancestry.com has already done some searches for you, but you can do more detailed ones yourself later on, too. Talk to the oldest members of your family, and start building a family tree branch by branch.
FIGURE 18-2. “Shaking” leaves mean some records may have matched your ancestor.
Note
The average Ancestry.com member needn’t worry about copyright issues. You are able to use the images and documents to record your own family history, including creating family history books, printouts, posters, etc. If you want to use documents found on Ancestry.com for commercial use or mass publications, send an e-mail to [email protected].
Building Your Tree
Work on one generation at a time, and work backwards slowly. Look at each suggested record and thoroughly read and vet each one. If you decide one of them is right, you simply click Add, and the record (and image if available) can be attached to a specific person.
But, as great as those shaking leaves are, they won’t show you everything, so search for records from profiles of people in your family tree. Searching for data on an individual using the profile will allow you to use all of the data you already have on that person as search criteria to find more. Also, if another member has data that seems to match one of your individuals, you can connect with that person to collaborate.
Another interesting view: From an ancestor’s profile, click the green Story View button. This will pull all of the information you have on that individual into a storyboard format in a sort of executive summary. This will make sharing the family story with others simpler. A sample is in Figure 18-3.
FIGURE 18-3. Reason Powell’s story view.
Search
The main use for Ancestry.com is to find data. Sure, it has many helpful tools for analyzing, comparing, and printing out what you find, but you will mainly use Ancestry.com for searching. New in 2014 is an integrated search with sliding filter feature. You can slide the control from broad to exact for spelling, dates, and places instead of typing in ranges or doing a separate search for different spellings. This is a great time-saving tool.
The new search will also know which of the hits in the search are already attached to someone in your trees. For example, if you already have a 1940 census attached to your grandfather, search results aren’t going to bring that up again since he should only be in the 1940 census once.
With more than 13 billion historical records on Ancestry.com, it’s easy to think that they have every record. The company works with archives, courthouses, and private entities to acquire records that will have the most significance for family historians. Sometimes, records are not on Ancestry.com due to time constraints, privacy laws in certain states, or unformed partnerships with archives. To make sure the site has the collection you need, use the Ancestry.com card catalog. Hover over the Search button at the top of the page. Click Card Catalog in the drop-down menu. Then you can select location, year, record type, and more. This will help you narrow your searches to specific databases or learn if the type of record you need has been digitized yet.
Those who have the world deluxe subscription can get records on all international sites. For example, you can search England for emigration records. Again, using the card catalog to see if the records exist can be a big help. However, remember that if a record is in Italian, for example, the record will not be translated into English—only the index fields such as date and location will.
Collaborate
The Collaborate menu in Ancestry.com includes messages boards and original articles on genealogy, all of which are accessible for free. Features include the following:
• Card Catalog is the last menu option here, but may be the most useful. Besides the records noted earlier, you can search other members’ trees for dates and names to find potential matches. If the tree is set to Public, then you can look at it and compare for common ancestors. If it is set to Private, you can send a message to the owner explaining why you think you should connect.
• Recent Member Connect Activity shows you a list of the people in your Connect list. When these members save records, upload photos, or add persons to their trees, the activity shows up on your recent list.
• Online Support Community is a message board about software, research techniques, and all the services offered by Ancestry.com. If you have a question or problem with Ancestry.com products, the answer is probably here.
• Message Boards includes surnames, geography, and many other topics.
• World Archives Project is Ancestry.com’s volunteer indexing program. It works much like FamilySearch’s volunteer indexing program.
• Member Directory allows you to search for others in Ancestry.com’s membership who may be searching the same families as you are or who may live nearby. You fill out your Public Profile so that others can find you with this feature and with the Card Catalog.
Learning Center
Do not forget to check out the Learning Center tab on the menu bar. As mentioned, the What’s New option shows you the latest blogs and articles. First Steps has links to several good beginners’ guides, as does Family History 101. You can watch online archived webinars under one option. Another one will take you to the Ancestry.com wiki, where members and employees post answers to questions, definitions, and other useful information. Finally, of course, there’s Help.
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p; DNA
Also, take a look at Ancestry.com DNA. Your DNA can tell you some surprising things about your heritage. You swab your cheek and mail the swab in. The resulting report from Ancestry.com DNA tells you about your ancient ancestry. Your DNA could also connect you with genetic cousins you never knew you had. Using this service, you can trace mothers with mDNA and your father’s with YDNA. The maternal line of DNA can go back 50,000 years, but these results are not as useful for beginners. The paternal report can trace 33 markers on the DNA or 45 markers. How many times the markers repeat will tell you who has the same number of repetitive sequences at the same location, meaning those who are more closely related to you.
Success Story: Smashing a Brick Wall
I smashed a brick wall recently using Ancestry.com. I have a basic subscription. There has been a story in my husband’s family for as long as anyone can remember that the name Flynt isn’t really the family surname, that it is really Damon. No one knew any more than that. Ancestry.com put an index to Maine court records online. I did a search for the great-great-grandfather Daniel Flint/Flynt. I was rewarded with “Daniel Flint (Alias).” I copied down the book and page numbers and contacted the State of Maine Archives for copies of the court records. The records showed a conviction for bigamy and included marriage records for the first marriage as Delafayette Damon to Esther Damon in Reading, Massachusetts, in 1805 and his second unlawful marriage as Daniel Flint to Lydia Anne Williams in Farmington, Maine, in 1812. He appealed the conviction on the grounds that the first marriage took place in Massachusetts and Maine didn’t have jurisdiction. He was granted a new trial, but the attorney general didn’t pursue the matter, and Daniel Flint went home to Abbot, Maine, to raise his second family, from which my husband was descended. With this information, I was able to find his ancestors through his mother back to Thomas Flint, one of the early settlers of Reading, Massachusetts, and his first wife’s family, as well as their three children. This has all been from secondary sources and not yet proved, but at least now I know where to look for proof.
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