Researching: How do I do it?

Here is another in the series of YouTube.com videos from the Family History Library at Brigham Young University. I guess from the shot above, it doesn't look too interesting but you still might want to check it out. There are about 78 additional videos on various family history subjects on the BYU Family History Library Channel. Check it out.

FamilySearch Memories -- Size limits and file types change

The FamilySearch.org Memories section has been updated to add additional file types and an increase to the allowable file sizes. Here is a screenshot the the Photos section showing the increases;

The file types now supported for photos include:

• .jpg
• .tif
• .bmp
• .png

The size of the files that can be uploaded has increased to 15MB. This change should allow higher quality TIFF images to be uploaded. In looking at the size of most of my photos, I see that the size of my original files can be much larger than the allowable limit, but I usually process and store my photos as RAW images. The JPEG images I use for online viewing are usually much smaller. 

Stories are still text based. That means that a story or narrative needs to be copied to the Stories section as a text file. You can create a text file by entering the information, story or narrative into the Stories section directly or by saving a word processing document as a .txt file.

There has also been an increase in the file formats and size requirements for the Documents section of FamilySearch.org. Here is a screenshot showing the additional file types and size requirements:

The screen for the Photos is now the same as the one for Document, however, the file types are slightly different. The documents sections allows the addition of pdf files. The size of acceptable files is now also 15 MB. 

There has been no substantial changes in the file types or file sizes for Audio files. 

In many cases, depending on the digital file size, this should allow more photos and documents to be uploaded without worrying about the size of the filea.

How MyHeritage.com helped to find a missionary

Last night at the Brigham Young University Family History Library I helped a patron with an interesting family history challenge. I will refrain from using any names, but the methodology is what is important anyway.

The patron's family had a traditional story that back in the 1800s his Great-great-grandfather and family had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while in the Southern part of the United States. They had been converted by a missionary who then invited them to move to Utah. Ultimately, the missionary ended up marrying one of the daughters in the family and the missionary's sister ended up marrying one of the sons in the family. The patron was interested in finding the missionary's family and history to verify the story. The patron's question was whether or not there were records that could verify the details of the story and particularly to find out about the missionary.

We began the search by looking at the FamilySearch.org Family Tree program to get some basic information about the ancestral family. His ancestors had settled in the Salt Lake Valley. In fact, he knew exactly where the house had been located. We found a U.S. Census record for the ancestral family that showed they lived in the Midvale area, but the question was whether or not there was way to tell what LDS Ward they lived in. The idea was to search the Church records for information about the missionary and his family to see if we could find a record of his mission and verify the marriage to the daughter and other facts from the story.

I suggested that we needed to find a source that mentioned their Ward. The first one that came to my mind would be an obituary telling where the funeral was to be held. This is a very common part of any Utah or other LDS members' obituaries. We searched the Utah Digital Newspapers, but had no success in finding the information or any reference to an obituary. I asked him if he had an account with MyHeritage.com. He said he had signed up but hadn't looked at it. I suggested that with all the records in MyHeritage.com the fastest way to find the families' Ward was to use MyHeritage.com.

In a very few minutes, the patron signed in and we had entered the pertinent information into MyHeritage.com to start the search. Almost instantly MyHeritage.com started supplying Record Matches for the ancestral family. After adding a few records to the family, up popped a reference to his Great-grandmother's obituary. It was more of a death notice than a full blown obituary, but it told the Ward where the funeral was to be held - a Ward in Sandy, Utah.

This is an important point. When you are doing family history research, you need to be aware of the contents of records and think outside of the box. I knew two things. Obituaries in Utah often contain information about the Ward where the funeral is to be held and that MyHeritage.com had a huge collection of newspapers. Putting those two together helped to find the Ward.

We subsequently found that the BYU Family History Library had extensive microfilm copies of the Ward records and after spending an hour or so searching the microfilm, we found a record of the missionary's family and Church activity including the fact that he served as Bishop of the Ward. The records confirmed many of the details of the family story. We ran out of time and I left the patron still looking for the mission record. But we found how to do that on a page in the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki entitled, "LDS Missionaries."

Thanks to MyHeritage.com for finding a valuable record so quickly.

Big News About MyHeritage and FamilySearch

You may wish to read my other blog, Genealogy's Star, for some information about an announcement from MyHeritage.com and FamilySearch.org. The two posts so far are:

MyHeritage SuperSearch now searches FamilySearch Family TreeAnswers to some questions about linking MyHeritage and FamilySearch Family Tree

You might be as surprised as I was.

FamilySearch Family Tree Record Hints adds links to other websites

In checking out some of the Record Hints from the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, I found that the hints now include links to websites other than FamilySearch.org. In the example I found, the link went directly to a FindAGrave.com entry for a relative.

Here is a screenshot of the Record Hint for Martin Ray Tanner with an arrow pointing to the link to the FindAGrave.com entry:

I found this particular link by clicking on the brown search icon in the Descendancy View. Clicking on the link, brings up the entry on FindAGrave.com for Martin Ray Tanner.

Notice the fact that the FindAGrave.com entry gives me 19 additional links to other relatives' FindAGrave.com memorial pages. The automation of these searches is regularly growing more extensive.

Researching Early LDS Records

Those with ancestry in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may find that they have a lot of names in their pedigree, but how much of that research has been well documented? This question is asked in the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki article entitled, "Tracing LDS Ancestors." Here is the entire question in context:

If your LDS ancestors have been researched before, are they well-documented? Do your family group records show one or more sources of information for each event? Don't just settle for copying someone else's research, cite the evidence that proves it! Careful documentation reduces errors, unwanted duplication, and may help uncover an overlooked ordinance.

If your LDS ancestors were done in the way I did my own research years ago, you will find a majority of the source references are to "family group records" or "personal knowledge." Very, very few of the events in the lives of early LDS members have been documented at all but this is rapidly changing. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of valid source entries are pouring into the FamilySearch.org Family Tree program. This is especially true since the introduction of the Record Hints feature of the program.

If you go to the Family Tree to review your LDS heritage and you find that few of your ancestors have been documented, I suggest that you begin with the Research Wiki article cited above. Here are several quick references to LDS sources for information about your ancestors:

• LDS Online Genealogy Records
• Mormon Migration
• Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel 1846-1868
• Pioneer Ancestors Search
• Early Latter-day Saints 
• Tracing Mormon Pioneers
• FamilySearch Historical Record Collections
• Mormons and Their Neighbors
• The Winter Quarters Project
• Trails of Hope: Overland Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869
• Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, Part 1, FamilySearch Books Online; Part 2,
• FamilySearch Books Online
• Encyclopedia of Mormonism
• Mormon Missionary Diaries
• Ancestry.com LDS Databases
• Utah Territorial Case Files
• Mormon Battalion Pension Files

Remember to add these sources to the appropriate ancestors in Family Tree. 

Using FamilySearch's Community Trees Program

Very few family historians know about the FamilySearch Community Trees website and it is seldom mentioned or promoted by FamilySearch. The Community Trees website has two sections of family history information the community trees themselves and oral genealogies. Here is the description of the Community Trees project from the website:

Community Trees are genealogies from specific periods and localities that have been linked according to family lineages. Many trees include associated documents and images. Each community tree is a searchable database that allows views of individuals, families, ancestors, and descendants and gives various options for printing. 

The scope of projects may involve members of a small villages or townships who work together to form a family tree of all known residents of the community for a given time period. Some are projects involve genealogical and historical societies that work with FamilySearch to index several sources of data to link them to common, lineage-linked genealogies of a targeted geographic area. 

The scope could also be focused on a particular record set and locality. The goal may be to identify and reconstitute all families of a particular place from a village, county, or even a country. Many of the current projects were produced by FamilySearch's Family Reconstitution team and are for communities from medieval times. 

GEDCOM downloads of the community trees may be available, depending on restrictions that have been set for access to the records. No information for living people is usually available in the public views of these community trees. Edits and corrections to the databases are usually restricted by project partners; please contact these partners to offer suggestions, corrections, and new information. Some partners may have additional information or enhanced versions of the genealogies on their own websites. These databases will be updated if they are a work in progress.

These files are comprehensive, but very focused and therefore limited in scope. They are helpful if the community trees cover the time and place where your ancestors lived, otherwise, they are only interesting. This is essentially a grab bag. If you happen to have ancestors in these studies, then you will find a lot of information. If not, then nothing. Some of these files are updated regularly but some are completed and no more information is being added.

For some areas, Community Trees contains the definitive information on a subject. For example, the oral histories pages may contain the only recorded information about the genealogy of the area where the histories were recorded. Here is a partial list of the places covered in the oral histories:

• Austral Islands
• Cook Islands
• Fiji Islands
• Ghana
• Leeward Islands
• Marquesas Islands
• Nigeria
• Samoa
• Tahiti Islands
• Tonga
• Tuamotu Islands
• Tuvalu Islands

In the Community Trees portion of the website, here are some of the more interesting and comprehensive genealogies:

• Paget's Heraldic Baronage
• British Isles Families with Peerage, Gentry, and Colonial American Connections
• Royal and Noble Houses of Europe
• Iceland Historical Family Trees
• Early Irish Families
• Jewish Families (Knowles Collection)
• Peruvian lineage-linked families

You need to look carefully at the lists of studies on this website.