Genealogy, Family History & Temple Work

Most genealogists have this in common - The excitement they feel from finding a new ancestor is so exhilarating and empowering that they want to share that feeling. Thus there are many genealogists doing volunteer work, hoping to help others find out more about their ancestors and to feel that same thrill of discovery. In the next little while we will be taking an in-depth look at some of the main volunteer resources on the web and how best to navigate and use them.

So far we have discussed RAOGK.org, Rootsweb Books We Own (BWO), Obituary Lookup Volunteers and Obituary Depot and The USGenWeb Project.

Today we'll be taking a look at DeadFred.com. The site was founded by Joe Bott, whose great-great grandfather lived during the reign of Frederick III, after whom the site is named. DeadFred.com is, simply put, "...a free, fun photo genealogy research web site devoted to helping you visualize your heritage!"

So, who submits the old photos on this site? You do. There are of course certain criteria that need to be followed when submitting a photo. These criteria are addressed on the FAQ Page. You can submit as many photos as you like.

Why would you want to submit old photos to this site? Firstly, if you know the name of the ancestor in the photo, why wouldn't you want to share that photo with other relatives who may not have even known a photo of that ancestor existed?

Secondly, if you have an old family photo in which the ancestor is not identified, perhaps an unknown relation visiting DeadFred.com will be able to tell you who it is. Or vice versa.

Registration is required but there are no fees to submit photographs or to search the site. The photos you submit will appear after 3 to 5 days. If you are submitting photographs that you hope will be identified, it is a good idea not to withhold your contact information. Why wouldn't you want to get in touch with the relation that identified the photo for you? Perhaps they have even more information about that ancestor for you.

DeadFred.com offers 6 easy ways to search the photos on their website. You can do a quick search by typing in a Surname, you can search for Surname alphabetically, you can use the detailed search and type in additional information about the person whose photo you are looking for, you can search through the Mystery (unidentified) photos, you can perform a Keyword search or you can search by Photographer. There is even a large list of Yearbooks (filed under Annuals) under which yearbook photos have been submitted!

This is a wonderful site that you should definitely check out. Keep in mind that the mystery photo section would not be necessary if someone had taken just a few minutes to record the information on the photograph.

Grab a pencil, dig out the family album, and do future members of your family tree a big favor. Record the facts about each photo on the back of your family’s precious photographs. It’s a simple project that will help enormously in the years to come." - FYI: For Your Information,” New Era, Dec 1981, 42–45

Most genealogists have this in common - The excitement they feel from finding a new ancestor is so exhilarating and empowering that they want to share that feeling. Thus there are many genealogists doing volunteer work, hoping to help others find out more about their ancestors and to feel that same thrill of discovery. In the next little while we will be taking an in-depth look at some of the main volunteer resources on the web and how best to navigate and use them.

So far we have discussed RAOGK.org, Rootsweb Books We Own (BWO), Obituary Lookup Volunteers and Obituary Depot.

The subject of today's volunteer manned resource is The USGenWeb Project. If you've never heard of or used this resource before, you've been missing out on a veritable Gold mine of genealogical information. The The USGenWeb was established in 1996 and is now one of the larger repositories of all volunteer genealogical and historical data on the internet. The information there is organized by State and then county. You can either choose a county of interest from an alphabetized list or a map.

Because different volunteers oversee the layout and information on each state and county website, it's impossible to know exactly what you will discover, but the search time almost always proves worthwhile. County websites may contain some of the following:

* Wills or other Probate Documents

* Birth, Death or Marriage Records

* Census Transcriptions

* Lookup Volunteers

* Town and County Histories

* Biographical Sketches of long time residents

* Cemetery Lists

* Headstone Transcriptions

* Addresses of local resources

Those are just some of the resources you may be able to find on your county page of interest.

The website is completely free to use and volunteer opportunities are always available. If you have information to submit to a particular county page (will, obituary, etc.), all that is needed is to email the county coordinator. Their email address is provided on the page.

In addition to the State and County pages, the USGenWeb has some wide spread projects going on, again all volunteer based. Perhaps the most well known of these is the USGenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project. In the website's own words:

We need to record these tombstone inscriptions now---before they are lost forever to the winds and the rains. Though many cemeteries have already been recorded by various Genealogical Societies, just as many have not. And, of those recorded, how accessible is that data to the world? If we join together and do this recording, we will guarantee that our ancestors an not forgotten----that their memorials will live on so that future generations may remember then as well as we do.

Volunteers are always needed to help transcribe tombstone data and submit it to the website for others to find. Other USGenWeb Project projects in progress can be found here

There is a wealth of information available on this site provided by the service of others. If you are able to add to that service by submitting your own family information for distant relatives who seek it, you will be doing a great thing indeed.

"Carry on! We’ve got a lot of work to do, a tremendous responsibility. We’ve barely scratched the surface...I hope we can be increasingly recognized as men and women of goodwill who want to make of the world a better place” -Gordon B. Hinckley, interview with Deseret News, Feb. 25, 2000

LostCousins is a relatively new resource on the web. In the website's own words:

"LostCousins is the only family history site able to match you with cousins researching the same ancestors automatically, accurately & confidentially. Simply enter the relatives on your family tree who were recorded on the US, Canadian, or British Census - then click the Search button!"

Lost Cousins currently allows you to enter ancestors on the 1841 England & Wales Census, the 1880 US Census, the 1881 Canadian Census, the 1881 Census of Scotland, and the 1881 Census of England & Wales. After you have entered any ancestors whom you know are located on any of those censuses, LostCousins will perform a search to see if any other registered users have entered any of those same ancestors on their account. You can then choose to contact the person researching those same ancestors. And hopefully they'll accept your invitation to make contact with you.

Registration is easy and free. The web site is very easy to navigate and if you run into any problems or have any questions LostCousins has a very thorough Frequently Asked Questions page to help you out. I haven't found any lost cousins yet through this site, but hopefully in time I will. I have been pleased with the sites easy navigation and clear instruction on how to enter census information.

You may be wondering what the benefits are of getting in touch with a distant relative in the first place. I've listed some of the reasons for this in a previous post, Collateral Lines in Family History, which may answer that question.

Even if distant relatives aren't able to provide you with much help genealogically it certainly doesn't hurt to try to get to know your lesser known or previously unknown living relations as well as you might know your deceased ones.

President Spencer W. Kimball, 12th Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said: "It is important for us...to cultivate in our own family a sense that we belong together eternally...We ought to encourage our children to know their relatives. We need to talk of them, make effort to correspond with them, visit them, join family organizations, etc."

It has been a blessing in my genealogical research to have found several "lost cousins" (through other means thus far) who have added to my genealogical research and enriched my life in general. LostCousins is an another great resource that might help you reap the blessings of new found family relationships.

On today's date, November 12 in the year 1954 Ellis Island closed it's doors after 62 years of operation. In that period of time, over 12 million immigrants had been processed. Today, it is estimated that 40% of all Americans can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island. It is no wonder then, that genealogists we're thrilled when the Ellis Island Records became available to search online, for free.

It is important to note that not all immigrants who sailed into New York went through Ellis Island. Wealthy immigrants that traveled first and second class disembarked elsewhere around New York or New Jersey and went through customs. But third class passengers were always transported to Ellis Island for the purpose of close medical examination and legal inspection. Those with disease or other health problems were either sent home or detained at the island's hospitals. Only 2% of these immigrants were denied entrance into the United States.

Thirty years after the last immigrant was processed at Ellis Island, renovation began, and in September of 1990 the Ellis Island Immigration Museum opened.

The aforementioned Ellis Island Records website provides information about the history of Ellis Island, Genealogy helps and various Passenger searches. It is free to search the database but you must be registered first.

To register, click on the SIGN IN button on the top right of the main page. You will see a box asking if you are ALREADY REGISTERED and below that is a smaller box which says, ARE YOU NEW TO THIS SITE? Click on the YES, I AM NEW TO THIS SITE, button below that.

Fill in all of the forms on the page you are taken to and click on SUBMIT. Once you do, you will automatically be signed in and ready to start your search. Your user name and password will be sent to your email account in case you forget it.

To start your search run your mouse over the PASSENGER SEARCH tab in the upper left of the page. A drop down menu will appear, click on New Search or Advanced Search. Fill in whichever fields you desire (though a surname is required) and click on the START SEARCH button. The next page will be a list of matching Passenger Records.

Clicking on the name of a Passenger or the Passenger Record link will take you to a record for that passenger with personal information about them including first name, last name, ethnicity, last place of residence, date of arrival, age at arrival, ship of travel and more. You can even purchase the certificate if you'd like.

By clicking VIEW under the Ship Manifest category you can view the original ships manifest with your ancestors name on it. By clicking VIEW under Ship Image you can see some sort of sketch, or photograph of the ship on which your ancestor sailed. You can also order copies of these for your own records.

This website is a wonderful resource, so if you think any of your ancestors may have arrived through Ellis Island, go register and search now.

Most genealogists have this in common - The excitement they feel from finding a new ancestor is so exhilarating and empowering that they want to share that feeling. Thus there are many genealogists doing volunteer work, hoping to help others find out more about their ancestors and to feel that same thrill of discovery. In the next little while we will be taking an in-depth look at some of the main volunteer resources on the web and how best to navigate and use them.

So far we have discussed RAOGK.org and Rootsweb Books We Own (BWO).

Today we'll be looking at two obituary look up resources that can be used hand in hand. The first is Obituary Lookup Volunteers. This site is "...an all-volunteer web site and mailing list dedicated to providing obituary lookups all over the world. "

It is important to read their guidelines for making a request. The volunteers who search for these obituaries can only do so with a decent amount of information. You must provide at least the name of the individual, the date of death and the general location.

Volunteers can be found by clicking the link inside the table at the bottom of the main page which reads, LIST OF VOLUNTEERS. Volunteers are indexed by states within the U.S. and then counties. There is also a list of international volunteers on the List of Volunteers page. This site is free to use and volunteer for.

The second resource we'll take a look at today is the Obituary Depot. In the web site's own words: "Obituaries are a wonderful source for genealogical clues by revealing highlights of your ancestor's life. Several years ago we launched the Regional Obituary Indexing Project and our database now contains over 460,000 citations from newspapers around the world."

Once you are on the main page of the Obituary Depot you will see three links listed under Online Directories. These links are: United States Obituaries, Canadian Obituaries and Australian Obituaries. Clicking on each link will take you to a page indexed by state/province/territory. I will use the United States page as an example.

Once you have clicked on the state of your choice you will be taken to a page with a search bar. You will type the surname of the ancestor in question into that search bar and click the GO button. You will then be taken to a results page, where you will see names that you can click on. Clicking on one of these names will take you to an obituary citation for that person. Using the citation information you can then visit a site like Obituary Lookup Volunteers discussed above, to request a copy of the actual obituary.

Most genealogists have this in common - The excitement they feel from finding a new ancestor is so exhilarating and empowering that they want to share that feeling. Thus there are many genealogists doing volunteer work, hoping to help others find out more about their ancestors and to feel that same thrill of discovery. In the next little while we will be taking an in-depth look at some of the main volunteer resources on the web and how best to navigate and use them.

Last week we discussed RAOGK.org

Today we will be discussing another great volunteer resource called the Rootsweb Books We Own List (BWO). In the website's own words:

"Books We Own is a list of resources owned/accessed by individuals who are willing to look up genealogical information and e-mail or snail mail it to others who request it. This is a free service - volunteers may ask for reimbursement of copies and postage if information is provided via snail-mail."

The site currently has over 1500 volunteers and new volunteers are added every week.

The website portal provides several search options. You may search the site using a search bar or you can search using the Master Index. The Master Index includes United States Resources, Family Genealogies, Resources by Country and General Resources.

Also included on the main page is a table titled, Other BWO Links. This table includes two important sections titled BOok's We'd like to Own and Copyright Policy. If you feel you would like to volunteer on BWO, please read the Copyright Policy very carefully first.

If you browse the site with a particular book in mind to have a lookup done in and cannot find it, you can then visit the BOok's We'd like to Own link and fill out a form stating the book you are interested in. Hopefully someone who owns or has access to that book will then contact you.

If you request a look up from a book and do not hear back from the volunteer within a reasonable amount of time it may be due to an incorrectly typed email address. A nice feature that Books We Own has implemented is an Undeliverable Replies page that you can check to see if a message was not returned to you because of an incorrect email address. If you find that is not the case you can then contact the BWO Webmaster about finding out if the volunteer is still active.

Most genealogists have this in common - The excitement they feel from finding a new ancestor is so exhilarating and empowering that they want to share that feeling. Thus there are many genealogists doing volunteer work, hoping to help others find out more about their ancestors and to feel that same thrill of discovery. Over the next little while we will be taking an in-depth look at some of the main volunteer resources on the web and how best to navigate and use them.

The first website we will be discussing is Raogk.org. RAOGK stands for Random Acts Of Genealogical Kindness. In the website's own words:

"Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) was established in 1999 as a resource for networking among researchers. RAOGK links researchers who need documents from a distant location with others able to obtain them."

It is a wonderful concept, especially for young mothers like myself. I am not able to travel much at this stage in my life and I have frequently turned to the volunteers at Raogk.org to secure documents or copies of things I could not obtain at this point otherwise.

The website portal has confused some people I know so I'll explain briefly how it works. There is no button on the front page that takes you directly to the volunteer pages. Instead there is a paragraph titled, Looking for a volunteer? and within that paragraph is a link that says, Frequently Asked Questions. You must click on this link, and at the bottom of the page you are taken to you will see a button that says Let's go find a Volunteer! Click on that button.

The main volunteer page is indexed by states within the U.S. and below that, Countries. After you have clicked on a Country or one of the U.S. States you will find volunteers indexed by county, region or area. Next to that will be a volunteer's name along with the Act of Kindness they are willing to perform. Be sure to read carefully about what they are volunteering to do. You may not get a response if you ask someone who has only specified they will take headstone pictures, to look up an obituary for you. Once you have chosen which volunteer to contact, you will click on their name which will then take you to a form to fill out and send. If you haven't received a response within two weeks you can try again and if a response still hasn't been given you can contact the RAOGK administrators to let them know the person you tried to reach may no longer have a valid email address.

The website is free of charge and is still growing. New volunteers are added every day so check your places of interest often. It is also free to volunteer yourself. I am able to do a small amount of volunteer work on the Maryland page and it has been a positive, enjoyable experience. I have also had great success with volunteers who have gotten obituaries, probate records and headstone photos for me. It has proven to be an invaluable resource and I hope it will be for you too.