Tips from the Pros: Analyze Old Data, by George G. Morgan

Take the time to reexamine information you have collected before. An analysis of the various pieces of genealogical information you have acquired for a subject before can reveal a great deal. Since we so often gather information from various places at different times and in different formats, sometimes it isn’t until we look at it again and arrange it in chronological sequence that patterns emerge. Look at your ancestors’ facts in context of a sequence of events that form a life story. By doing so, you may see details that point you on a path where you will uncover other facts.

A printer-friendly version of this article can be found in the Ancestry.com Library.

 

Your Quick Tips

Google Earth Before a Cemetery Trip
Although its fun to play with on its own, I’ve recently discovered how useful Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/) can be in cemetery research, and in preparing for visits. Aside from just finding how to get to a cemetery, the satellite photos are great for zooming in to maximum detail. Images can be printed to bring with and use as a guide map when traversing confusing cemetery grounds. I mark the locations of found ancestors and make notes of locations where I’ve seen related surnames that need more investigation later. It’s the next best thing to a plot layout when the cemetery doesn’t have one available.

Joe Mann Continue reading

The Year Was 1910

Raymond Francis Dyer, ca. 1910The year was 1910 and in the United States, it was a census year. As the enumerators went door to door, the U.S. population stood at 92,228,496. Urban residents represented 45.6 percent of the total and 54.4 percent of the population lived in rural areas. Twenty years prior, in 1890, only 35.1 percent of the population lived in urban areas and 64.9 percent lived in rural areas, and fifty years prior, in 1860, only 19.8 percent of the population lived in urban areas as opposed to 80.2 percent living in rural areas.
(Source: U.S. Census Bureau.)

The growth of cities and industrialization was changing society and there was a feeling of inequality. William Howard Taft was President of the United States, which was in the midst of what is commonly referred to as the “Progressive Era.” Continuing what his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt began, Taft began eighty anti-trust suits, aimed at breaking up large monopolies. Continue reading

Photo Corner: Dewey D. Andrews and Mary Rose Herbert (Rosie)

Dewey D. Andrews, ca. 1867 in Minnesota

 

Contributed by Bill Scott
Bill’s great-great-grandfather, Dewey D. Andrews, ca. 1867 in Minnesota

 Mary Rose Herbert (Rosie), ten years old and her two brothers Orion and Joseph

 

Contributed by Donna Tougas, Warwick, Rhode Island
Donna’s grandmother, Mary Rose Herbert (Rosie), ten years old and her two brothers–Orion on the left is eight years old and Joseph on the right is eleven years old, ca. 1897.

 

Click on the photograph to enlarge it.  

 

 

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Free Three-Day Access to the 1930 U.S. Federal Census (Offer expires 05 July 2006)

The launch of the every-name index marks the completion of the U.S. Federal Census Collection at Ancestry.com. The massive project took over 6.6 million hours of labor and 21.9 billion keystrokes to manually enter the census names into the database.  15,000 rolls of microfilm–thirteen million original census images–were scanned and transcribed to complete the project.

To celebrate this milestone, Ancestry.com is offering free access to the 1930 U.S. Federal Census for three days. Just visit Ancestry.com and click through the census tour or click on one of the Census is Complete banners on the site.

*Act fast. Free access to the 1930 U.S. Census will expire soon.

6/23/06 NOTE: I’ve heard from a few people with questions as to how to access the free search. Here’s a bit more information:

The free period starts when you first access it. If you go to the Ancestry.com homepage, you should see a window open up announcing the free three-day access and allows you to Start Here. If you bypassed the page and went straight to Ancestry.com, you can still access the free 1930 census through the homepage.

In the upper right corner of the homepage, you should see a brown and orange ad with a green button that says “Dive In.”  Click on that and it will take you through a presentation that you can click through by hitting “Continue.” On that next page there is a green link to “Search Now.”  That will open a search box where you can search. When you find someone, click on that name and on the next screen you will see include the index entry and an option (to the right) to view the actual image.

Good luck with your searches!
Juliana

6/26/06 NOTE:  I’ve heard from a few more readers regarding the free access to the 1930 census and need to clarify a few more issues.

To access the free three day trial, you need to allow Flash presentations. For those of you who weren’t able to access it through the homepage, try this link: http://census.ancestry.com/microsite/censuscomplete.aspx

To navigate the census image, click on a portion of the image, and then, holding the button down, drag the image opposite the direction you’d like to view. (i.e., If you’d like to view further down the page, click on the lower portion of the image, hold the button down and drag the cursor up to the top of your screen.)

Please let me know if there are any other problems with the free access and I’ll post other solutions on this message as well.

6/29/06 NOTE: This free access is only available until 05 July 2006.

Ancestry.com Adds Every-Name Index to 1910 U.S. Federal Census

Ancestry.com Decennial Census Collection is Complete!Ancestry.com has added an every-name index to the 1910 U.S. Federal Census.  With this addition, Ancestry.com is the only place online where you can search every name in the fourteen publicly available decennial U.S. Federal Censuses. 
 
The every-name index will provide some distinct advantages over the old head-of-household index, the most obvious of which may be the ability to search for children, even when the head-of-household index (typically the father or mother) is unknown. In these instances, locating the child can take your research back an entire generation.
 
It also opens up the possibility of searching for other family members, perhaps one with a more unusual given name. With surnames that have been misspelled in either the census itself, or the index, being able to search on any family member can make it easier to perform “given name only” searches. You can try using different family members, rotating in and out other information that can be used to narrow your search. Given name searches can also be helpful in locating women whose married names are unknown.
 
Search the 1910 U.S. Federal Census online at Ancestry.com.

Search all decennial U.S. Federal Censuses online at Ancestry.com.

 

ABCNews.com Story Features Ancestry.com

Ancestry.comYesterday ABCNews.com posted a story featuring Ancestry.com highlighting the upcoming completion of the decennial U.S. Census Collection, which will culminate with the posting of an every-name index to the 1910 U.S. Federal Census. The article features several stories of celebrity roots and is available online at ABCNews.com.

Printer-Friendly Articles and Other Blog Stuff

You asked for it, and I’ve finally been able to make it happen! Articles now have a link following them that leads to a printer-friendly version in the Ancestry.com Library. We actually started posting a few weeks ago, but it took a while to work out the kinks and of course, once we did the tool went down for a while so we weren’t able to post last week’s issue. But at any rate, the current newsletter is out there.

Blog Extras

When I post the newsletter each week, the items that had been posted through the week, typically get pushed off the main page. You can page backward in time by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page, that says, Next Page, or to see only those items that are not included in the newsletter, click on Blog Extras in the right sidebar. This section contains all of the posts that were made outside of the newsletter.

Feeds

If you’d like to receive notification when a post goes live, there are several free feedreaders you can use to pull in feeds when something is posted to the blog. A list of feedreaders is available at: http://www.addtoany.com/lists/feedreaders/.

Once downloaded, most feedreaders make it simple to “Add a Feed.” Just provide the location of the 24/7 Family History Circle blog, which is:

feed:https://blogs.ancestry.com/circle/?feed=rss2

Google Feeds

For those of you who use Google frequently, or who have it as their homepage, you can easily add a feed to to a personalized Google page. Doing so will allow you to see the most recent headlines of posts to this blog. You can find step-by-step instructions here.

Hope all of the dads out there (and everyone, for that matter) had an enjoyable Father’s Day weekend!

Juliana