15 Habits Of Highly Frugal Genalogists

Yesterday, Copperleaf Genealogy posted a review of Thomas MacEntee's new e-book, 15 Habits of Highly Frugal Genealogists.  Thomas is always working to share his knowledge and experience with those of us who are still struggling to get our research done.  Through Saturday, his e-book is available for FREE at Amazon.com. Please take a look at Copperleaf's review and wander over to Amazon for your free copy. I got mine already!

Who doesn't like something for free?

Have a GREAT Labor Day weekend.

-- submitted by Denise Doyon

5 Steps to Organize Your Genealogy

Family Tree University is a wonderful source of information and education resources for family history researchers.  One of its publishers, Allison Dolan, recently posted five steps to organizing your genealogy.  She was promoting Family Tree University's five-week course, "Organize Your Genealogy". The course is given by Lisa Alzo and runs for four weeks starting on 7 Sept. If it's something you might be interested in, you can sign up here. The graphic below outlines what the course covers.

But if you are just looking for a quick list that gives you the basics, here is an extract from Allison's post:

... start with short-term goals that support your long-term goal of organization your genealogy.  To do that, following these five easy steps:

1. Make a list of short-term goals
2. From the list, pick your first short-term goal 
3. Decide what you need to do to accomplish this short-term goal
4. Once the short-term goal is complete, move on to your next short-term goal
5. Continue this process until all short-term goals are complete 

Using this method, you'll always know where you stand in regard to your list, and what you need to do next.

Sounds pretty simple!  But sometimes the simplest methods are the best!

-- submitted by Linda Mecchi

10 "Must Do" Genealogy Projects for September

Ancestry Findings recently published it's list of 10 Must Do Genealogy Projects for September.  A new month (day, week, year...) is always a good time to make a list and move forward.  This is a great way to revive your family history project and get some things done.  You can click on the link above to read the whole post, but here is the abbreviated list:


1. Organize Your Family Photos

With the kids back in school, this is a perfect time to get out those old family photos that have never been put into albums and/or labeled and organize them.


2. Review Your Family Tree for Sources

A good, professional family tree needs sources. You need to source every event to make sure there is proof it is correct. September is a perfect time to review your tree and add sources where you find them missing.


3. Send for New Vital Records

Chances are you’ve come across some new ancestors for whom you don’t have vital records yet, or have ancestors for whom you’ve never obtained vital records. See if any of them have birth, death, or marriage records online, and if they don’t, send away for them at the appropriate state or county vital records offices.


4. Interview Older Relatives

If your children are too young to take with you to interview older relatives without getting bored and interrupting you, this is the perfect time to do it, now that the kids are back in school.


5. Start Work on a New Line

Fall is the perfect time to begin research on a new line of your family tree, or give attention to a long neglected one. Chances are, you have plenty of choices in this regard, and it is always exciting to begin discovering new ancestors.


6. Go to the Cemeteries Where Your Ancestors are Located

Now that the weather is getting cooler, it is a perfect time to do some outdoor genealogy work. This means going to the cemeteries where your ancestors are buried and getting photos of their headstones. You can also write down transcriptions of what is inscribed on the stones. If some ancestors do not have headstones, use the local cemetery office or archives to get a map and find their location and get a photo of it to include in your family research files.


7. Clean Up Cemeteries

This is another good outdoor genealogical project that benefits everyone. If you know of any old cemeteries with no obvious entity keeping them up, September is a perfect time to go there and mow, pull up weeds, clear out litter of both natural and manmade things, and make notes of any stones that need to be repaired. Send these notes to the city hall to see if stone repair is something they do.


8. Work on Your Memoirs

Your own story is part of the genealogy of your family. You can start writing them even if you’re young. Adding to them every year ensures you keep them up to date. This is a perfect time of year to work on them.


9. Write Your Family History

September is also a good time to write a professional family history of one or more lines of your family, and either self-publish it or submit it for professional publication.


10. Organize Your Family Heirlooms

With the kids at school and out-of-the-way, this is a perfect time to organize, label, and store or display your family heirlooms, for yourself and for future generations.

-- submitted by Linda Mecchi

Rules of Genealogy Research

Family History Daily (http://familyhistorydaily.com/) is one of the blogs I follow.  Every once in a while they publish a post that just begs to be shared with my fellow dirt diggers.  Visit the blog and maybe add it to your own list of great resources and keep their list of "12 Genealogy Research Rules" handy.

New Agenda Available

A new agenda for September through December 2015 has been posted on the blog.  You can access it by going to the blog (if you are not already there), clicking on the "Agenda" tab and then clicking to connect to the document. This is a basic outline of the things we will be covering in our meetings going forward.  But if there is something you would like us to cover, or you have an idea for a presentation, field trip, speaker, etc. Linda and I would welcome your input! Please get in touch with us at diggingtogether@yahoo.com.

This genealogy group is for the benefit of all of us, and although Linda and I are more than happy to keep it organized and develop presentations and projects that we think will be fun and beneficial - we want to know what you want. So please feel free to send us your ideas.

-- submitted by Denise Doyon

September Tips and Tools

Don't forget to check out this month's "Tips & Tools" gadget on the right side-bar of the blog!  Just click on the box "Finding Your Immigrant Ancestors at Ancestry.com" and you will be rewarded with a link to one of Ancestry.com's tip sheets.

Are You Related To Somebody Famous?

Welcome to September!  It's a brand new month and a great time to take a fresh look at your family history project and come up with a plan to make some progress going forward.  Linda and I have some great educational programs coming up - as well as a few projects that will help you get organized. We also have a "Genealogy Social" planned for later in the month which we hope will bring in some new members, help us re-connect with our current members, have some fun and, hopefully, get us excited again about finding our roots.

So let's start out with something fun.  Randy Seaver recently posted about how he found out he was Hillary Rodham Clinton's 18th cousin.  I found our this past spring that Hillary and I are 9th cousins (sharing an 8th great-grandfather).  Let's face it, if we go back far enough and shake our tree hard enough, someone famous is bound to fall out.

If you have uploaded your GEDCOM to WikiTree (the world-wide family tree initiative) then you can wander around and see if you can find a connection to a famous, or maybe notorious, ancestor. If you have not as yet added  your tree to WikiTree, you can find out about it at www.wikitree.com and can learn how to upload your GEDCOM here.  This is not a difficult process, but once your tree has been uploaded, be prepared to spend some time sorting through the matches the upload will generate.

If you have already integrated your family tree into WikiTree, sign in, and look around for some famous people (using the search box).  Click on your find and then click on "Relationship To Me" (under the person's name, next to "My Wikitree").  If there is a connection, you will be rewarded with a detailed relationship chart.  I tested this out and discovered that Celine Dion and I are 8th cousins, sharing a 7th great-grandfather.

These connections are, of course, only as good as the information in the related trees, but it is a lot of fun, and might inspire you to explore the ancestors you share with your famous-person-of-choice. Who knows, you may discover some new and interesting details about your family.

All of us are busy people, engaged people.  It is easy to put our family history research on the back burner with the promise that, "I'll get to it later".  Make September a time to come up with a plan and start digging into your roots!

Happy Hunting!

-- submitted by Denise Doyon