Useful Quicksheets to Assist in Your Research

These Quicksheets are from acclaimed researcher Elizabeth Shown Mills.  They include lots of tips and hints that you can use to assist you in discovering and documenting your ancestry. Beginning ancestry searchers as well as experienced genealogists can always benefit from these handy reference aids.

(Click on the photo to discover more about the book)

Quicksheet Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images

Quicksheet Citing Online Historical Resources

Citing Online African-American Historical Resources Quicksheet: Evidence Style

The Historical Biographer's Guide to Individual Problem Analysis

The Historical Biographer's Guide to Cluster Research (The Fan Principle)

Use Newspaper Articles To Give Your Family Website "Color"

I've seen many family history websites that have hundreds of words strung together to tell a story of a person or a family.  I've even had posts like that myself.

But it is BORING! No one likes to read a blog post like they read a novel.  How about a photo or two - or better yet - if the story is mostly represented by a newspaper article - then include the article.

See how these headlines get your attention?

Don't these headlines INVITE you to read the article.  I think they do.

C'mon - give it a try.  You (and your readers) will like it!

Using Facebook To Find Relatives

I have been quite successful finding relatives using Facebook search.  It is a bit more difficult with common last names such as Smith or Jones (thankfully I don't have those names in my family tree).

It is also difficult trying to find female relatives because they often change their last name when they get married, but thankfully many women use their maiden name or a combination of their maiden name and married surname for Facebook.


These are the steps that I take:

1. Do a simple Facebook search for the name(s) that you have, and all combinations. 
2. If that doesn't yield the result, then do a Google search for all the name combinations. If they are on Facebook, it should show up in your search results.
3. If that doesn't work and you know the name of a close family member of theirs, then you can use one of the commonly available people finding sites, such as Veromi, to find the person that you know. Your target person might show up as living with that person, which might give you some clues as to more details about their name and location. IMPORTANT NOTE: As a rule for myself - I never will pay a fee to use these sites to obtain details about the person that it is not freely available.  I personally believe that it is an intrusion into their personal life and I will not do it.
4. If that still doesn't work, then I redo steps 1, 2 and 3, using either their parents names if you have them, or their siblings.
5. The most important step is to look at all of their Friends names.  If the person is on Facebook and they are pretty active, then they are likely to have some of their relatives as Friends.  Even if you aren't interested in all their relatives for your own tree, the last names might let you know that you have found the right person.  For a woman, this is critically important.  If you think you know their maiden name but not their married surname, then by looking at their Friends name, you are likely to find someone who have the target maiden name as their last name. This could clue you in that you have found your target person.

And the last step, after you have found your target, is to send them a private Facebook message.  This will go to both their Facebook inbox as well as the inbox for the email address that is connected to Facebook.

In this message I write gingerly and respectfully, since some people may not be interested.  I introduce myself, talk about connecting with relatives, that I am searching my family history, and then give them the hook.  Tell them something in a nice way about how they might be connected, as well as what you know about their ancestors, and then I give them my family website url, as well as my personal email address.  In this way they will see that I am likely a real person and not a scammer.

In all cases but one (in my experience), their interest has been piqued and they respond.  And then, depending on their response and how eager they are to find out more, I will give them my phone number and ask them if they would prefer to talk or converse via email.

You know what to do after you have made the connection.  Good luck!

Why You Should Source Your Research Immediately

This is an easy trap to fall into for all newbies (as well as those of us who are more experienced).

Because if you don't document where you found the information, you will do what I have done on more than one occasion:

Ask yourself - WHERE DID I GET THIS INFORMATION???.

And you will spend more time than you need to trying to find where you found the information in the first place.  And with busy lives and sometimes not as much time as we would like trying to spend it on family research - why waste time?
Now, even if I do not have time to write the specific citation the way it should be written, I at least document in my genealogy database the source of the material and if time is short - I write down the source and the word INCOMPLETE.

Then at the end of every month, I make time to go back to the INCOMPLETE citations and complete them. This is not ideal since it would be better to document the sources and citations at the time of "discovery", but it works for me.

Even More Genealogy Books

These books are very useful in helping family history researchers. They include lots of tips and hints that you can use to assist you in discovering your ancestry. Beginning genealogy searchers as well as experienced genealogists can always benefit from these new ideas.

(Click on the photo to discover more about the book)

Be Careful With Family Trees

For many years, family trees have been readily available on many genealogy websites, whether free or via subscription.  When using the information please heed the following warning:

IN MANY CASES THE INFORMATION IS WRONG!

Often the information has no source information or no citations.  Many inexperienced family history researchers will go ahead and add the names to their own tree and post it online.  This compounds the problem.

If one is serious about assuring that their own data is accurate, then they will not willy nilly add the newly found information to their own trees UNLESS they verify that the information is correct and adding sources and citations.

However, there are three big potential bonuses that can be achieved with these suspect family trees:

• You can connect with the author of the tree and find that even though the data is not verified, they might be a relative!

• You can at least help the person with the suspicious information get the facts straight, so that their tree can be updated with accurate information and reduce the number of faulty trees out there.

• Even if you can't connect with the author, you might discover some clues that will help you find names of relatives that you didn't know existed. Then using your own verifiable search techniques, you have the ability to source and cite the information that they provide, or it might lead you on a path to do so.

So as they used to say in the TV program Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there"

Another Reason To Create A Family History Website

In a previous post, I had written about the reasons for creating a family history website, custom tailored to the stories of your ancestors and relatives. In my case, it was a way to document these stories, as well as keep my "known" relatives up to speed with all the findings of my research.

In addition it has been extremely helpful in "attracting" unknown relatives, those individuals, who via a Google or other search had found my site and reached out to me with the suspicion that we indeed were related.  This has been the best benefit of the site, in my opinion.

Another reason, is that those who find the site may not be related, but can create a connection that might result in additional information that is not necessarily a new "named" ancestor or relative.

Let me share a recent example:

About a year ago, I had posted a story of "Four Generations of Bicycle Shops", which recalls the history of Carl Hart Bicycles.  In the story I had written that Carl Braunhart, my first cousin three times removed, had started a bicycle shop in Schubin,Germany (now Szubin, Poland) around 1913.  The history of that shop includes Carls' move of the shop to Berlin, and after he imnmigrated to New York City, he started the shop in Brooklyn.  He changed his last name to Hart and the shop was passed down to his son and later his grandson. The shop now resides in Middle Island, New York, having been sold to a non-family member.

Included in the post were photos of the Schubin shop, as well as the Berlin, Brooklyn and the current Middle Island shop.  Here is the photo of the original shop:

Schubin Bicycle Shop - 1913

I recently received an email from a man who lives in Szubui, Poland, who happened to be doing a search for Szubin and saw the photo on my website. This gentleman was interested in Szubin history and more importantly, photos from "old" Szubin. He shared with me a photo of that same building as it exists today:

Szubin Building - 2012

In addition, he contacted the local Szubin Historical Society and library, and I am working with them to see if their is any historical data that may still exist regarding Schubin in the late 1800's up to the 1920's.  That may be doubtful because of the war but its worth a try.

So simply posting seemingly innocuous photos may prove very fruitful to your search!

More Genealogy Books To Read

These books are very useful in helping family history researchers. They include lots of tips and hints that you can use to assist you in discovering your ancestry. Beginning genealogy searchers as well as experienced genealogists can always benefit from these new ideas.

(Click on the photo to discover more about the book)