Sometimes Wild Cards Get Awesome Results

Wild Horses - Not Wild Card

Many of us have names our ancestors couldn't spell. Yep, Cragun has 100 + spellings in Ireland, not C R A G U N. How nice that is or isn't, right?

Most search engines are structured to accept wild card searches. This is the wild card symbol * (the asterisk).

I was in a situation to use this today as I was training a new missionary. We found a child in a census that was new information to my trainee. The child was 2 years old in the 1880 census. She has done a lot of genealogy research never before to see an indication that there was this child.

The problem we had was the spelling of the name made no sense. The handwriting in the census was partly illegible. In trying to cypher what the name was we were only sure of the first 3 letters; CLA. It looked like there were a total of eight or nine letters in this name. Hummm, we wanted to add this child to his family, but what really was his name. What more can we find about him?

In came the wild card search. We went to familysearch.org and did a wild card search: cla*. SUCCESS - up rolled out our boy Claudius locating his birth certificate. Right parents, right age, right town the family lived in. 

Learn Genealogy From Webinars

One thing that makes Genealogy and Family History so interesting is that once you have the basics down, there is always more to learn. The Easiest Way To Learn At Home is by watching webinars on  your computer.

As I have written before, there is a great website that tracks many webinars. Most webinars you attend on line are recorded and available to review for at least a few days.

You can easily pick from the menu to find the ones most relevant to where you are in your own genealogy growth.

The photo below is of those listed for the first week of November. The site is continully updating the schedule.

Click here to go to the site:

Do You Have A Genealogy Fan Chart Yet?

One of the popular genealogy charts available is a

Fan Chart.

 

If you have a FamilySearch Family Tree or new.familysearch.org account you can easily create one by going to the site: https://createfan.com/

 

I like the fact that it is so easy to see your dead ends.

Some printing companies have expanded the concept to printing a fan chart as a poster, even with a fancy backdrop or frame.

Something Cool On Sunday

Sundays Post Went up Early, so click here to go to it. It's already one of the 10 most popular postings.

How Do You Get A Document You Possess Attached To Family Tree?

Ahah, good question my friends.

You have a document in your file and want it attached to the tree.

No Problem!

 

 

 

I am going to share with  you 3 different ways to attach a document you have in your possesion to the Tree.

 

1- Wait until later. In a few months we expect that you will be able to scan a document to your desktop and then upload it to http://familysearch.org/ That is the easiest way. But there will be those of you who are like me, impatient. I now introduce you to two sites for impatient folks.

 

2- The first is http://photobucket.com/ Photobucket is one of those photo sharing sites. It has been around for a long time. I use photobucket for one pagers. It's free for your use if you only have one album. That is fine with me. From your desktop upload the scanned document to photobucket. Then go to my albums. Click on the picture, find the share button, and select the direct link from a website option. Paste that link into the Tree (Create a new source). Complete the information asked for and you are done.

 

3- Is similar to #2. It is http://slideshare.net/ Slideshare is one of the website LinkedIn recent acquistions. It works a lot like photobucket. The benefit here is that you can post multiple paged documents, like stories. It's finished posting looks a little different: click here to see how it looks, but it works great. Save it as a PDF then upload it.

 

 

PS: Some of these sites are blocked by FamilySearch, temporarily because it is possible for others to upload porn to them. Big no no, right? Someone will review your link. To have it moderated just click the get approval button and in a few days it is automatically live.

 

 

Day 10 - Sharpen The Saw

I first read the statement about the man who was too busy sawing wood, to sharpen the saw in a book by Steven Covey.

Your 10 days will have exposed you to a lot of concepts, websites, and ideas.

They may seem overwhelming. Or, to some of you, you got it.

I said in the beginning this was to make you a "Pretty Good Genealogist". Do these 10 days and it will do that for you.

However, the magic is in day 10. Day 10 continues beyond day 10. It's the concept of sharpening the saw. Sharpening the saw is fun. It is to look for every opportunity to learn more:

It's attending family history conferences such as RootsTech. These types of events happen often and all over the place.

It's finding and watching webinars that will help you.

It's reading blogs with ideas.

It's following other genealogists online.

It's liking Facebook pages of the focus that will help you.

It's recognizing you have more how to knowledge than most, you are off to a great start, and that you now are an asset to others. How easy that was. Now keep on keeping on.

Day 9

Day 8

Before You Attend The Library, Know What You Are Looking For

It's time to use the Family History Library, They are now called Family Search Centers. There is likely one near you. They aren't always open all day or every day. Click here to find the nearest one and their hours. If you are lucky enough, close enough, head for the downtown Salt Lake History Library.

Day 6 - Research - Attach - Write The Story

Hopefully you have been inspired about a particular ancestor. It is now time to execute a plan to find things about him or her, attach those items to the tree, and extract information into a story to share. You might have followed day 1 advice in gathering information you might already have and from relatives. Additionally, we will use the web and the FamilySearch family history library resources.

It turns out this is not Elisha, but his nephew from St George

 

To help illustrate the process we will use my 3rd great grandfather Patrick Cragun

 

In the previous 5 days you likely found information on your selected ancestor. It is important that you attached those findings to your ancestor on Family Tree, thus you made it possible for others to see your work and move on to finding different information. You began the process of collaboration. You now made it possible for your children to not have to duplicate your work. Very noble of you.

 

I found this photo of Elisha by doing a Google Image Search. Did you find anything by searching Google or Google Images?

 

 

I made up a simple form in Microsoft Word so that I could copy and paste from the internet to a new document. After copying from 9 sources I then edited it from 4 pages with some duplicates down to 2 pages that I am anxious for my children to read. What I have collected already means a lot to me.

 

This word document that I use is simple and likely to be expanded upon as I go. The format is just an outline of the types of information I am looking for. I am sure there are better ones to be found. This does work however.

  

Also on a Google Search I found a story on Ben Cragun's site and a civil war index card.

 

On Family Search.org I found him in 3 census.

 

On FindAGrave.com I found a memorial and information about his death.

 

I found birth and death information on Ancestry.com  

By the way - your day 7 assignment will be to go to your nearest FamilySearch Family History Library. Be thinking about that. 

 In ancestry.com I found more information on  his civil war duty.

 

Best of all, in the Source Box in the Tree someone else had placed a link to a book that told many things about Elisha, His wife, and his wifes family.

 

Here is a link to the story. I will likely update it. click here