Family History

I’ve started a series of articles on building a genealogy and family history blog on one of my other blogs, Lorelle on WordPress. In this series, I discuss how a genealogy blog differs from a normal blog and how to incorporate those differences into a blog. I also discuss the planning and structural process of building a blog and website from the ground up. The focus is mostly on using WordPress as the blogging program and platform, but the techniques apply to any blogging service.

If you have a genealogy or family history blog or want to start one, and you have questions, please ask. There are a lot of topics to cover on this subject, from figuring out how much this costs to choosing website tools to publish your family history information and resources. There are a lot of things you can include related to your family history research on your blog, but what do you include, what should you include, and how to include it are often overwhelming questions. Ones that I’m still dealing with. No topic is off base. I’ve even written about how to include dead relatives as authors on your posts. Not your typical blogging issue, is it?

This is an ongoing series with articles from this blog and from Lorelle on WordPress, my blog dedicated to helping people blog and use WordPress. Let me help you develop and design your family history and genealogy blog, helping to preserve your family history research and your family’s story for everyone to enjoy.

Genealogy Blog: Building a Blog Series

• Starting With a Purpose and a Plan
• What’s the Difference Between a Genealogy Blog and a Normal Blog?
• Who, What, Where, and How Questions for the Plan
• Determining What Features I Want in My Blog
• The Blog Budget – How Much Does a Blog Cost?
• Building a Genealogy Blog: The Fast Method
• Choosing a Blog Title and Domain Name and URL
• Blog Contributors – Wanted Dead or Alive
• What Do You Put Into Your Family History Blog?
• Move Your Genealogy Blog Into the 21st Century With Site Feeds
• Why a Genealogical Society Should Blog
• Random Genealogy: Online Genealogy Collaboration
• Does Your Library Have a Genealogy Department? Do They Have a Genealogy Blog?
• Collaborative Genealogy: Programs to Help Families Work on Websites Together

Genealogy Today has a review of several online US Federal Census resources including Census Online, Census Finder, Ancestry.com, and Genealogy.com.

There are two types of online census sites, free and paid. First, let’s look at a couple of free sites: Census Finder and Census Online. Both provide links to census records, as well as links to other types of documents, such as birth, death, land, and historical records. Yet, each of these sites has a unique look to it.

Census Online has a very clean interface- easy to use- making it a good place to start your online census surfing. The home page has clear links to useful tools. A very helpful set of tools is the census form downloads. When you find the online census record you were looking for, a couple of quick clicks of the mouse will get you the form you need to transcribe this information.

Census Finder has a more cluttered look, but does provide more links to other records. Very helpful is a short state and census history at each state level page. These extras make spending some time at this site well worth your while.

The free census sites are transcribed records. That is, someone copied the census information from the original microfilm. Because the handwriting on census records is often difficult to read there will be errors, as well as the common human errors when any document is transcribed.

I’d also like to recommend HeritageQuest for census record research, available through subscription or free through your local library, genealogy society, or other family history membership organizations. With Heritage Quest, you can research both the transcriptions and originals, by individual name and location.

Genealogy Today has an interesting article on “Finding and Using Church Records” that had a few surprises in it for me.

During the 1930s, the Works Projects Administration (WPA) planned an inventory of all U.S. church records. Because too many churches wouldn’t cooperate and because the amount of material was too voluminous, it never finished. The WPA did manage to publish many volumes, listing churches of the same denomination, giving the name, location, brief notes concerning the history of the congregation, its dates of founding and of combining with other churches, and the location of the records as of the 1930s. Usually, these can be found in libraries. Naturally, the data giving the location of the church records may now be inaccurate. Some denominations, realizing the genealogical and historical value of keeping church records, have set up central depositories where local churches can send their records for preservation and research.

In determining what churches existed at the time and place being researched, a genealogist should consult the county, state, and local histories that proliferated in the 1870s and 1880s, which often included at least one chapter on church history. Local historians gave a surprising amount of information about the churches and in some cases were foresighted enough to include a transcript of at least part, and sometimes all, of the vital records of the leading or earliest church in their town.

…One of the best sources for locating records today is E. Kay Kirkham’s A Survey of American Church Records, published by Everton Publishers, Inc., Logan, Utah. Included are most of the church records accumulated by the Genealogical Society in Salt Lake City covering the major denominations before 1860. This basic reference covers all the states east of the Mississippi before 1860.

I’ve just started digging into some church records for the Anderson Family research and this will really help.

I’m still learning a lot about how to best research ancestors and family members and I was very intrigued by this detailed story of researching a mystery family member by Craig Manson of GeneaBlogie.

Our task is to track a relative throughout her life using available records. We are interested in Velma Mitchell, who’s a cousin on the Bryant side of the family. Here’s what we know about her to start with: she was born in either Nueces County or Aransas County, Texas, probably before 1920. We also know that she had two brothers, Pat, and J.B.

From that little bit of information, Manson begins the search, taking him through census records, marriage records, social security death indexes, and more. There is a lot of information found, but most of it based upon assumption.

Working through the assumptions, Manson leads us through self-doubt and fact checking trying to figure out if the persons found are his Velma Mitchell.

Having been in this situation many times, feeling hopeless and frustrated with where to turn next, his article gave me confidence to know that there are step-by-step procedures and processes-of-elimination which will help break the mystery barriers.

His conclusion? Searching for an individual might get you nowhere, but searching through their relatives might get you to the individual. Good idea.