Take Your Relatives Online

With so many digitized copies of original source documents now available online, I've found one of the quickest ways to get my reticent relatives interested in discussing their family history is to take them online and start showing them what can be found. A 1930 census record of my paternal grandmother's family that I showed her online last year prompted at least an hour of stories about her siblings, the house they lived in, the neighbors, her Dad's job, and more!

Census records are obviously a good place to start with relatives, as they often end up fascinated besides themselves to see their name, or the names of their parents or grandparents listed along with details on occupation, children, etc. FamilySearch Record Search is a great place to check first as they have a large collection of free census images for viewing. Passenger lists are also popular for families with recent immigrant ancestors. Subscription Web site Ancestry.com offers an extensive collection of U.S. and U.K. passenger lists, as well as census records for the U.S., Canada and the U.K. A free trial offers you a chance to check out their offerings if you don't already have a subscription.

Newspaper articles, including marriage notices, obituaries, and a wealth of human interest stories, from school contests to trial proceedings, can also be a good way to spark the interest of people who "aren't into genealogy." You may want to do some initial searching for articles before you sit down in front of the computer with your relative, because full-text searching of newspapers can be a bit tedious at times and cause them to lose interest quickly... Many relatives find death certificates interesting as well...and they often include burial information so you can plan a road trip to the cemetery.

Take Your Relatives Online originally appeared on About.com Genealogy on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 08:38:49.

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Find Location-Based Photos at Panoramio

Whenever I discover ancestors living in a new city or town, one of the first things I like to do is dig up a few photos and some history of the place. While pictures of cities, towns and other places are easy to find on popular photo-sharing sites such as Flickr, the first place I usually turn to is Panoramio, a Web site that links millions of photos with the exact geographical location where they were taken. These photos are all uploaded by users, and I find it especially useful for locating photos of places near my chosen location which might not have otherwise turned up with a search for the city or town. Some of the uploaded photographs are even historical, such as this 1955 photo of my mother-in-law's home city of Berlichingen, Germany. You can also explore cemeteries in Panoramio, although the ones most often photographed are the famous ones like London's Highgate cemetery. I'll have to do something about uploading photos of some of those rural North Carolina cornfield cemeteries they are missing!

Photos from Panoramio can also be accessed from Google Maps. After typing in a place name in Google Maps, you will see a "More info about" button near the bottom of the left-hand navigation window. Click on the "more info about" button and you will be presented with a display of photos and videos that are geotagged for your chosen location, with images populated from the Panoramio Web site and videos from YouTube.

Happy exploring! Or maybe consider uploading a few photos of your own to help the next researcher to come along...

Find Location-Based Photos at Panoramio originally appeared on About.com Genealogy on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 10:19:45.

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RootsMagic Releases Free Genealogy and Family Tree Software

RootsMagic family tree software is one that I often recommend to readers, for its ease of use and wealth of features. Some, however, were reluctant to invest time trying out the limited trial version, or not yet ready to invest in such a comprehensive program. Thus, I was thrilled when Bruce Buzbee announced today that he has created a free version of his desktop genealogy software, titled RootsMagic Essentials.

RootsMagic Essentials contains many of the core features found in the full Roots Magic 4 version, including the ability to add unlimited people and events, pictures and media management, powerful merging and clean-up tools, dozens of reports and charts, integration with FamilySearch, the SourceWizard to format your source citations for you, and the ability to share data with other people and software programs.

The free version of RootsMagic Essentials can be downloaded directly at www.rootsmagic.com. If you're currently using another genealogy software package, RootsMagic and RootsMagic Essentials import directly from PAF, Family Tree Maker (through 2006), Family Origins and Legacy Family Tree. It can also import family trees in GEDCOM format.

RootsMagic Releases Free Genealogy and Family Tree Software originally appeared on About.com Genealogy on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 16:32:49.

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Honor the Veterans in Your Family

Earlier this year my father-in-law passed away at the age of 90 - the last living World War II veteran in my family. Luckily for us, we have many of his stories recorded, but for many veterans the stories and memories of their war experiences have died with them. Take time this week from your family history research to learn more about the veterans in your family tree - interview a living veteran, track down a military record, or read online accounts of other military veterans who served with your ancestors. Thank you for honoring our veterans.

Honor the Veterans in Your Family originally appeared on About.com Genealogy on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 10:02:05.

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Scan Those Slides!

If you're like many of us, you (or your parents or grandparents) probably have stacks of old slide carousels loaded up with family memories. Unfortunately, the precious images on those slides are deteriorating with each passing day. Here are several options for converting those pictures to digital format.

Once you've scanned your old family photos or slides into digital format, try these tips for digitally cleaning up those tears, stains, creases and faded images.

As a bonus for your hard work, the digital pictures you've created from those old family slides can now be used in all sorts of creative ways to make great holiday gifts for your family members -- from ornaments to calendars!

Scan Those Slides! originally appeared on About.com Genealogy on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 11:39:54.

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