Genealogy-Geneology.net - Family History Projects

Exciting Family History Projects to Spice Up Your Genealogy

– Jake Gehring

This is Part I of an article that originally appeared in the Spring 2001 issue of Genealogical Computing (Vol. 20, No. 4). You can purchase a subscription to GC today.

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Have you ever wished for the pencil-and-paper days of the past? Perhaps you've been through a computer virus infection or a crashed hard drive. Maybe you've been frustrated at the prospect of transferring a GEDCOM file from one software program to another. There comes a point when many genealogists wonder if digitizing their research has been worth it. For all their supposed convenience and high-tech appeal, computers certainly do introduce a lot of cost and overhead--and genealogy is hard enough as it is!

A few years ago, I opened a lecture with an overhead showing many of the confusing acronyms of our field (PERSI, FHC, NUCMC, ACPL, NGSQ, BCG, NEHGS, NARA, and ISBGFH to name a few). The next slide showed even more acronyms, this time from the world of computers (SCSI, GB, FTP, CD-ROM, RTF, GIGO, WPD, CPU, TCP/IP, and even WYSIWYG!). The point was that combining a very involved and detail-intensive pursuit with the unforgiving technical complexity of computers did not necessarily bring harmonious results.

At least theoretically, computers really do bring a unique value to family history. As an organizational tool, the computer can easily handle the thousands of pieces of information in a pedigree. Publishing is much easier when a faulty chart can be edited and reprinted cheaply. Searching large amounts of data for a very specific query is no problem. And as far as communication is concerned, the Internet has come to epitomize hyperconnectivity.

Don't let all that computing power go to waste. Below are a few projects that may help you take better advantage of your technology investment. Each project involves different digital skills, data manipulation, source materials, techniques, and creativity, but all are designed to take your research beyond the mere names and places that form a pedigree chart or family group sheet.

Project #1: Add Pictures to Your Pedigree Anyone who has tried to show off research by proudly circulating a pedigree chart to siblings or cousins knows that a pixel really is worth a thousand words. Somehow the arithmetic progression from generation to generation doesn't seem to convey to the uninitiated masses the proper mystique (not to mention the hundreds of man-hours of effort).

A friend of mine has been frustrated for years in trying to excite his family about their ancestry. He recently switched to old photographs of family members as his weapon of choice. The result, he says, has been amazing. "Some of my family members are not the least bit into genealogy, but they are certainly interested in their 'roots.' My photographs really got them interested in our family's history," he said.

The surest method to finding the perfect digital image is to scan it yourself. Scanners have become so inexpensive that many new computer systems offer them as a bonus peripheral. Even very impressive deluxe models, with high scan resolutions and add-on attachments, can be purchased for less than $500. Virtually all scanners come bundled with scanning software. Print and online publications regularly review scanners, too, so be sure to get up-to-date on the latest technology and prices before buying.

For more information, see Liz Kerstens' article "Lasting Images: Protecting Your Photographic Heritage" in the May/June 2000 issue of Ancestry Magazine. A number of online resources have appeared in the past few years to help find and manage ancestral photographs. MyFamily.com, the sister site to genealogical subscription site Ancestry.com, offers an online photo album and free Web space to upload and store photos. Web sites like Ancient Faces have begun to collect user-submitted photographs the same way other sites collect GEDCOM files. Remember, too, that your ancestor's image need not be photographic. Occasionally you'll find a sketch of a prominent ancestor in a county history or compiled biography.

Even if you possess a picture or sketch of an ancestor, you may spice up the historical record with an image of an ancestral hometown, the vessel your ancestors immigrated on, or some other meaningful object. PicturesNow!, an Internet repository of photos and video clips, offers hundreds of historical and genealogical illustrations, including many scanned postcards and drawings of towns and cities around the United States. The images can be downloaded for personal use at no charge. Visit KinShips online to browse hundreds of scanned images of passenger vessels. Once you find the proper ship, high-quality prints can be ordered as gifts or as future scanning projects.

All major genealogical software packages now offer multimedia options for pedigree charts, family group sheets, descendancy charts, etc. Some programs, like The Master Genealogist™, can export various reports to a word processor, where you can paste and manipulate images at any appropriate place in the text.

Project #2: Show Your Family's Past With Historical Maps Something about an old map awakens the cartographer in all of us. Aside from the bona fide genealogical value of understanding the locales where your ancestors lived, an old map can really bring a family history to life.

Until recently, it was difficult for genealogists to find a map or atlas that showed an ancestral location at the proper time period or at the proper detail. Let's face it: MapQuest™ or some other Internet place finder may help you find your way to a grocery store in an unfamiliar city, but it will not really give your genealogy a sense of nostalgia.

Instead, try a Web site like Carto-graphic Associates. This fantastic online offering encompasses more than three thousand 18th- and 19th-century maps scanned at very high resolution. The collection focuses on North and South America and will generally allow users to choose between several different maps for the same topic; a search for Connecticut, for example, returned twelve maps of the state at various time periods between 1794 and 1846.

In addition to new map offerings from the Internet, a number of tried-and-true CD-ROM products are also available. GoldBug Software is perhaps best known for its AniMap County Boundary Historical Atlas. The company has also produced a number of CD-ROM map libraries for the British Isles, Europe, and the United States, each containing between one hundred and fifty and two hundred scanned maps. And as far as gazetteers are concerned, Quintin Publications has published a number of digitized works that provide historical context as well as interesting reading.

Links to Sites Mentioned Cartographic Associates www.davidrumsey.com

AniMap www.goldbug.com/AniMap.html

Quinton Publications www.quintinpublications.com/cdgaz.html

PicturesNow! www.picturesnow.com

KinShips www.kinshipsprints.com/

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Jake Gehring is a genealogical author and lecturer and a product manager for Ancestry.com. He is a former editor of Genealogical Computing. Jake graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in genealogy/family history and lives in Provo, Utah with his wife and children. He can be reached at: rootseekr@aol.com

Mailing Lists

Mailing lists can be a goldmine of information for genealogy researchers. In a mailing list, a single e-mail address is established as the administration address. Any e-mail messages sent to that address are forwarded to everyone who subscribes to the mailing list. On a popular list, you can receive hundreds of e-mails in a single day.

Key Points to Remember

Some mailing lists are administered by humans, others by computers.
To subscribe to a human maintained list, just e-mail your request to the list administrator and they will add you to the list. The administrator's address is typically made up of the list name, followed by -request, then the domain name (i.e. samplelist-request@sampledomain.com). To unsubscribe, send a message to that same address requesting your e-mail address be removed from the list.
Computer administered mailing lists are subscribed to in two different, yet similar, ways. Refer to the instructions that accompany each list description. However, in general, to subscribe, send an e-mail with the following information in the body of the message:
subscribe listname your e-mail address
(i.e. subscribe samplelist-request@sampledomain.com nwagner@wagner.com)
To unsubscribe to a computer maintained list, send the following:
unsubscribe listname
or with some lists
signoff listname

After subscribing to a mailing list you will most likely receive a welcome message from the list owner. This is an important email to read as it contains operating and contact information.

Most mailing lists have two email addresses which serve two separate functions. One will handle subscribe/unsubscribe requests, the other is for posting your messages to.

There are moderated and un-moderated lists
- a moderated list involves a human filtering the messages to make sure only appropriate messages are received by subscribers.
- an un-moderated list involves no intervention - all messages posted are sent to subscribers.

You can receive list messages in three different ways. These are mail mode, index mode and digest mode.
Mail Mode - you receive each message as a separate email.
Index Mode - an index is sent to you listing the subject and author of all messages. You can then specify which messages you would like to receive.
Digest Mode - separate emails are sent together as one large email. This cuts down the number of individual emails sent.

The "Netiquette" that applies to newsgroups also applies to mailing lists.

- Stay on-topic.
- If you have something to discuss that is only of interest to a particular person, then carry out this discussion using email rather than broadcasting it to the entire list.
- If you are hesitant about posting to a mailing list you can "lurk". By lurking your participation only involves watching how everything works. By observing what is acceptable and what is not, you can avoid making mistakes when the time comes for you to make a post.
- Each mailing list will have it's own rules, make sure you follow them.

If you would like to start your own mailing list visit Yahoo Groups. This is a free mailing list service that offers all the tools necessary to run a mailing list of your own. Click Here for more information.

The internet has thousands of FREE genealogy related mailing lists. There are location lists, surname lists, national lists, state and county lists, international lists, geneology software lists, and lists for different research techniques.

Mailing List Sources

RootsWeb provides an extensive index of over 22,000 geneology mailing lists. It also hosts the largest and oldest genealogy mailing list with over 10,000 subscribers (Click here to subscribe).

You will see on the home page an extensive index of surname, USA, and international mailing lists.

Those new to computers or genealogy can subscribe to the GEN-NEWBIE List.

SurnameGuide.com

SurnameGuide.com lists thousands of surname-related mailing lists.

You will see a link to "Surname Lists" on the top left-hand side of the homepage.

Genealogy Resources on the Internet

This website has one of the most extensive and well maintained mailing list indexes on the net.

The following is a list of mailing list categories you will find on this site (Follow the links to view the mailing lists in each category).

Make sure you visit the SURNAME section. If you subscribe to a mailing list that is dedicated to researching your surname, it is quite likely you will find someone who is researching the same person/persons as you. You could have information that person needs and vice-versa. This is how many people build there family tree through the internet.

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