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Table of Contents
Introduction 1
About This Book 2
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 4
Part 1: Getting Started with Genealogy 5
Chapter 1: Beginning Your Ancestral Journey 7
It’s About Time(line) 7
Crafting an online timeline 9
Learning about Sources 13
Using Genealogical Applications 15
Entering Information into RootsMagic Essentials 17
Completing the Pedigree Page 20
Creating the Virtual You 21
Giving Your Ancestors Some Privacy 24
Beefing Up Your Profile 24
Citing Your Sources 26
Getting the Full Media Experience 28
Reaching Out to Others 29
Hinting Around about Your Ancestors 30
Giving Your Ancestors Some Mobility 31
Telling Your Story 34
Chapter 2: Hunting for Your Ancestral Treasures 35
A Brief Message about Research Steps 35
Selecting a Person to Begin Your Search 36
Trying a semi-unique name 36
Narrowing your starting point 36
Choosing someone you know about 38
Selecting a grandparent’s name 39
Beginning to Put the Puzzle Together 39
Getting the 4-1-1 from Your Kinfolk 41
Dusting off old photo albums 43
Striking it rich in closets, in basements, and under beds 45
Adding Your Ancestors One by One 47
Using a bit of (Roots)Magic to keep track of your family 48
Logging your data into Ancestry Family Tree 53
Chapter 3: Searching Primary Resource Sites 55
Touring Ancestry.com 56
Trying Ancestry.com for free 56
Searching Ancestry.com’s vast collection 58
Sifting through the results 62
RootsWeb.com at a Glance 68
Investigating FamilySearch 69
Creating a free account 69
FamilySearching records 70
Using FamilySearch results 71
Other FamilySearch search functions 75
Giving Back through FamilySearch Indexing 75
Saluting Fold3 76
Creating a trial account 76
Searching at Fold3 77
Finding Your Past 82
Exploring MyHeritage 84
Chapter 4: Using All of Your Censuses 87
Coming to Your Census 88
United States census schedules 88
State, territorial, and other census records 95
Finding Your Ancestors in U.S Census Records 97
Sifting through census record results 98
Digging into digitized census records 100
Consolidating your discoveries 104
Using census records to tell a story 106
Census Records from Afar 109
Africa 110
Asia 110
Europe 110
North America 113
Oceania 113
South America 113
Part 2: Bringing Your Ancestor to Life 115
Chapter 5: Digging Deeper into Your Ancestors’ Lives 117
These Records Are Vital 117
Reading vital records 118
Gauging vitals online 120
Investigating Immigration and Naturalization Records 123
Passenger lists 125
Naturalization records 127
Land Ho! Researching Land Records 129
Surveying land lovers in the U.S. 130
Using HistoryGeo.com to map your ancestor’s land 134
Marching to a Different Drummer: Searching for Military Records 135
Taxation with Notation 140
Trial and Error at the Courthouse 142
Getting the News on Your Ancestors 143
Chapter 6: Mapping the Past 147
Are We There Yet? Researching Where “There” Was to Your Ancestors 148
Using documents that you already possess 148
Where is Llandrindod, anyway? 149
There’s No Place like Home: Using Local Resources 153
Geographic-specific websites 154
Libraries and archives 156
Pulling the obituary 157
Genealogical and historical societies 158
Looking at local directories 159
Professional researchers 161
Localizing your search 162
Gaining historical perspective 162
Mapping Your Ancestor’s Way 164
Positioning your family: Using global positioning systems 171
Plotting against the family 172
Wrapping It Up (with a Surprise) 174
Chapter 7: Searching for That Elusive Ancestor 175
Letting Your Computer Do the Walking: Using Search Engines 176
Diving into general Internet search engines 176
Flying with Genealogy Vertical Search Engines 181
Finding the Site That’s Best for You 183
Personal genealogical sites 183
One-name study sites 185
Family associations and organizations 186
Surnames connected to events or places 187
Family Trees Ripe for the Picking: Finding Compiled Resources 188
Narrative compiled genealogies 189
Compiled genealogical databases 189
Browsing Comprehensive Genealogical Indexes 191
Chapter 8: Going Beyond Borders: International and Ethnic Records 193
Fishing for International and Ethnic Sources 194
Wiki-ing for answers 194
Surveying sites with comprehensive genealogy indexes 195
Using search engines 195
WorldGenWeb 195
Translating sites 197
Records from the English-Speaking World 197
Gathering information from England and Wales 198
A lot more than haggis — finding Scottish records 201
Researching the north o’ Ireland 201
Traversing the Emerald Isle 202
Other Irish genealogy resources 203
Heading north for Canadian records 204
Accessing Australian sources 207
Hispanic and Portuguese Roots 208
Within the United States 208
Exploring south of the border: Mexican sources 209
Continental resources 210
Central and South American research 211
Swimming through Caribbean genealogy 214
Achtung! Using Sites for the German-Speaking World 215
Along the beautiful Danube: Austrian roots 215
Consulting German resources 216
Focusing on French Resources 218
Scanning Scandinavian Countries 218
Denmark 218
Finland 219
Norway 220
Sweden 220
Iceland 221
Italian Cooking 221
Other European Sites 221
Asian Resources 223
Researching African Ancestry 224
Genealogical resource pages on the web 226
Transcribed records pertaining to ancestors with African roots 227
Special ethnic pages about African ancestry 228
Original records 229
American Indian Resources 229
Where to begin looking for information about American Indians 230
American Indian resource pages on the web 232
Transcribed American Indian records 233
Chapter 9: Specializing in Your Family History 235
Researching Religious Group Records 236
Finding Fraternal Orders and Service Clubs 240
A Photo Is Worth a Thousand Words 242
Accessing Adoption Records 245
Preparing to Be Schooled 246
Turning to Bible Records 248
Snooping through Great-Grandma’s Diary 248
Nosing through Newspaper Records 249
Part 3: Putting Your Family History to the Test 251
Chapter 10: Fitting into Your Genes: Genetic Genealogy 253
Ask What DNA Can Do for You 254
A Friendly Word of Caution 255
Delving into DNA 256
Getting down to bases 257
Variations in DNA 259
Family History: Documentation versus Genetics 261
Testing Companies 262
Selecting the Right Test for You 263
Finding Helpful DNA Sites 264
Chapter 11: Direct-Line Genetic Tests 265
Y chromosome (Y-DNA) testing 265
“Junk” DNA is worth something 266
The testing process 267
Comparing the results 268
Assessing the probability of a relationship 270
Haplogroups 271
Locating others with the same results 275
Mitochondrial (mtDNA) testing 276
Testing method 278
Making sense of the results 279
Finding others with the same results 280
Chapter 12: Autosomal DNA (atDNA) Testing 281
But First a Quick Review 281
Testing Process 283
What Can I Learn from Autosomal DNA Testing? 284
Ethnicity Estimation 285
Relationship Testing 288
Back to a familiar family 290
Objectives of the test 291
Playing the match game 292
Set your phasing to stun 293
We have something In Common With you 294
Sticking with tradition 296
Browsing through the chromosomes 296
Triangulating the data 298
Meeting the objectives 300
X-Chromosome DNA Testing 301
Utilities to the Rescue 303
Part 4: Casting Your Nets in the Genealogy Sea 305
Chapter 13: Finding Your Research Path 307
Introducing the Helm Online Family Tree Research Cycle 307
Planning your research 309
Collecting useful information 311
Researching: Through the brick wall and beyond 312
Consolidating information in a database 313
Validating your findings 313
Distilling the information that you gather 314
Too Many Ancestor Irons in the Research Fire 315
Verifying Your Information 315
Chapter 14: Share and Share Alike 317
Why Would Anyone Want Your Stuff? 318
Making Friends on Facebook 318
Jumping on the Facebook bandwagon 319
Making Facebook friends 320
Sorting your Facebook friends 321
Posting statuses on Facebook 322
Sharing photos via Facebook 322
Pinning Family History to Pinterest 324
Realizing Instant Gratification with Instagram 326
Networking Genealogy-Style 326
Sharing your history on Geni.com 327
Discovering contacts through Member Connect 331
Showing context in LifeStory 331
Blogging for Attention 334
Hunting blogs 334
Getting a blog of your own 335
Building Your Own Home 338
Free web-hosting services 338
Do you speak HTML? 340
Deciding which treasures to include 340
Including Your GEDCOM 340
Generating GEDCOM files 341
Checking a GEDCOM for possible errors 343
Creating traditional trees and reports 343
Earning a Good Citizenship Award 345
Mandatory lecture on privacy 345
Respecting copyrights 346
Citing your sources 347
Chapter 15: Help Wanted! 349
Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone 349
The Shotgun Approach 350
Making Friends (and Keeping Them) Online 351
Joining a Herd: Research Groups 353
Becoming a solid member of geographical societies 354
Rooting for family and surname associations 354
Joining the crowd — Crowd Sourced Indexing, that is 356
Gathering Kinfolk: Using the Family Reunion for Research 357
Rent-a-Researcher 357
DNA Consulting 361
Helping Yourself 361
Reading up on genealogical things 362
Getting educated online 362
Part 5: The Part of Tens 365
Chapter 16: Ten Sites Worth a Visit 367
rootsfinder 367
FamilySearch Help Center 368
WeRelate 368
kindex 368
One-Step Webpages by Stephen P Morse 369
Photogrammar 369
Story Corps 369
American Battle Monuments Commission 370
Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States 370
ArchiveGrid 371
Chapter 17: Ten Mobile Applications for Genealogy Research 373
Ancestry 373
FamilySearch Tree 375
RootsMagic 375
BillionGraves 376
Evernote 377
The Family Nexus 377
Saving Memories Forever 378
OldNews USA 379
QromaTag 379
Kindle 379
Index 381
