Legacy News

Join the Legacy Family Tree Fans group on GenealogyWise.com

GenealogyWise.com is a brand new social networking site, similar to Facebook, but dedicated to genealogists. In fact, it was officially announced just hours ago.

GenealogyWise.com is a site with forums, blogs, videos, RSS feeds and more - again, all related to genealogy. Developed by WorldVitalRecords.com, it looks to be a great tool to help us stay and get connected with other researchers.

We hope you'll come join our Legacy Family Tree Fans group on GenealogyWise.com. Just visit http://www.genealogywise.com/group/legacyfamilytreefans to sign up. Since this is still so brand new, we'll have fun learning about it at the same time.

Genealogy-itis and family trees

I think I have genealogy-itis.

While hiking in Oregon's Columbia River gorge yesterday (day 2 of the family reunion), I could not take my eyes off the forest's tall trees. Although I was impressed with their height and beauty, all I could think of was how great they would look as a background of a wall chart.

The hike was beautiful, and the wall chart turned out pretty good. Using Legacy's charting program, I created an Ancestor Chart (upward style) and used the "Mug Shot" theme (Appearance tab > themes). Using the Sizing button (Appearance tab) I also adjusted the box size and spacing. Finally, using the Background button (also on the Appearance tab) I added my favorite tree picture from the hike and adjusted its transparency to 25%.

Tomorrow we're going to the beach - my favorite place on earth. Well, cemeteries are pretty fun too. Is there a cure for genealogy-itis? I hope not....

Family History Moments

Yesterday I had a real "family history moment."

During a casual conversation with my mother's parents at our family reunion, I learned that they both played the piano when they were younger. I had no idea about this part of my grandparents' lives. I can't say that I was shocked to learn this because my mother has always played and taught me to play when I was young. I now have my own baby grand and am trying to teach my kids.

My grandparents also told us about something they recently discovered about their childhoods. They learned that when they were ten years old they each performed at the same piano recital. They even shared the same piano teacher at one point. Seems they were destined for each other.

Music, and especially the piano, have always been a big part of my life. Now I know that it actually runs in our genes. Learning how it was a part of my grandparents' lives gives me a better sense of "me". A better sense of why I am the way I am. I guess that is what family history is all about.

And so for the next week I get to put my long-ago-ancestors on hold while I make some memories with my "living relatives."

What about you? I'd love to hear about your favorite family reunion story or a special "family history moment." Use the comments below to share your experience.

FamilySearch Expands Canadian Census Collection

from FamilySearch.org:

Four pre-1900 censuses available for free online

TORONTO—FamilySearch, in partnership with Ancestry.ca and the Libraries and Archives Canada (LAC), announced today the addition of the 1851, 1861, and 1871 Canada Census indexes to its online collection. The new indexes can be searched for free at FamilySearch.org (click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot). FamilySearch published the 1881 Canada Census previously online and plans to add the 1891 Canada Census shortly.

Over a fourth of all Canadians struggle to trace their roots past 100 years. Having the indexes to all of the pre-1900 Canadian censuses online will make it much easier for Canadians to extend their understanding of their family’s history.

These censuses are part of the FamilySearch records access program reported in May 2008 to provide public access to more records more quickly. In this project, Ancestry.ca provided the indexes to the 1851 and 1891 Canada Censuses, and FamilySearch created the indexes for the 1861, 1871, and 1881 Canada Censuses. It is a win-win for the public, who will have free access to all five of the pre-1900 census indexes online at FamilySearch.org.

FamilySearch used its growing community of online volunteers to index the 1861 and 1871 Census records. For the past year, volunteers have logged online to FamilySearch’s indexing application from all over the world, working seven days a week, 24 hours a day—literally—to accomplish the feat. Thousands of volunteer hours later, coupled with the added indexes from Ancestry.ca, the public now has free, easily searchable databases of millions of Canadian citizens from 1851 to 1891.

“The publication of free indexes to these major censuses gives a great boost to Canadian family history research. For the first time, genealogy enthusiasts and historians may search online databases containing some 17 million records of individuals who lived in Canada in the latter half of the 19th century. Indexers keyed many personal details—names, ages, birthplaces, religions, and residences—for individuals listed in these early Canadian censuses,” said FamilySearch chief genealogical officer, David Rencher.

Researchers will discover heads of households, their family members, and any lodgers residing with a family at the time. They can also see the street address where ancestors were living at the time the census was taken, along with their age, occupation, and perhaps their ethnicity.

Free access to the indexes for the 19th century collection of Canada Censuses is the first phase. Free access to the record images will also be available to qualified FamilySearch members as soon as an authentication process is implemented.

The 1881 Canada Census was published on FamilySearch.org in 2002. The 1916 Canada Census was also made available for free to the public earlier this year through FamilySearch’s 4,600 family history centers worldwide.

Wales - 1911 census goes online today

Good news today for those with Welsh ancestry. The following announcement was written by FindMyPast.com:

2.4 million people were recorded living in Wales in the census taken on the night of Sunday, 2 April, 1911. Today, after nearly 100 years, the Welsh census records are available to the public at www.1911census.co.uk.

Due to public demand for access to the 1911 census, the records have been released as soon as each region's records have been digitised. Following the initial release of 1911 records in January 2009, the records of people living in Wales in 1911 are being made available today for the first time.

The 1911 census records contain details about the lives of the ancestors of many of Wales' famous sons and daughters, such as Richard Burton, Dylan Thomas, Kylie Minogue and Tom Jones.

The census covered Wales, England, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, as well as recording those aboard Royal Naval and Merchant vessels at sea and in foreign ports and, for the first time in a British census, full details of British Army personnel and their families in military establishments overseas. It is the most detailed census since UK records began and the first for which the original census schedules have been preserved - complete with our ancestors' own handwriting - providing a fascinating insight into British society nearly a century ago.

www.1911census.co.uk is easy to access and enables the public to view high quality colour images of their ancestors' original handwritten census returns. Transcribed text versions of the records ensure they are fully searchable by name or address.

Public demand for the 1911 census, which will be a key resource for family historians, has resulted in the records being released earlier than the scheduled 2012 date. To make this early online release to the public possible, the 1911 census team worked around the clock for two years - scanning on average one census page per second. In line with data protection legislation, certain sensitive information relating to infirmity and to children of women prisoners will be held back until 2012.

Comprehensive and rigorously tested, www.1911census.co.uk has been developed by UK-based family history website findmypast.com, owned by brightsolid, in association with The National Archives.

Debra Chatfield, Marketing Manager at findmypast.com, said: "This latest release from the 1911 census offers a crucial new entry point to Welsh family history research for a wide range of people, from novice family historians to seasoned genealogists who have hit a 'wall' in their family tree research. As well as helping people trace their Welsh ancestors, these records shed more light on our predecessors' day-to-day lifestyles, providing a snapshot of a day in their lives, with details of their occupations, housing arrangements and social status."

The 1911 census is huge - occupying over two kilometres of shelving - an incredible eight million paper census returns have been transcribed to create over 16 million digital images. This makes the 1911 census one of the biggest digitisation projects ever undertaken by The National Archives in association with a commercial partner.

Oliver Morley, Director of Customer and Business Development at The National Archives, commented: "This is a major achievement. By teaming up with findmypast.com, we are bringing history to life for millions. This remarkable record is available online to researchers and family historians all over the world for future generations. The 1911 census is a poignant reflection of how different life was in early 20 century Wales, before the Great War."

Handwritten records
Completed by all householders in Wales and England on Sunday, 2 April 1911, the census records show the name, age, place of birth, marital status and occupation of every resident in every home, as well as their relationship to the head of the household.

People will also have unique access to their ancestors' handwriting as the original householders' schedules were preserved and used as working documents rather than copying the details in to summary books as was the case in previous census years. The launch of the records also creates a starting point for people to trace their own family tree by looking up their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents who were alive in the year 1911.

'Fertility Census'
The 1911 census was the first to ask questions relating to fertility in marriage. Married women were asked to state how long they had been married and how many children had been born from that marriage. The census also provides a fascinating snapshot of the population of the country just a few years before a whole generation of young men perished in the Great War of 1914-1918.

How to use the 1911 Census records

• Log on to www.1911census.co.uk and register for free
• Search for an ancestor in 1911 by entering their name
• If the name is common you can enter their approximate year of birth, which will help to narrow down the results
• Search for an address to look up the history of your house or an ancestor's address in 1911
• Pay as you go to view each record. You will be charged 10 credits per transcript and 30 credits for each original household page. Visitors to the website can buy 60 credits for £6.95.
• Findmypast.com vouchers are also valid on 1911census.co.uk. Vouchers can be purchased from The National Archives bookshop and redeemed on findmypast.com. Credits can then be spent on both findmypast.com and 1911census.co.uk.
• or more information about using the 1911 census for family history research, 'Census: The Expert Guide' by Peter Christian and David Annal is available from The National Archives online bookshop at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

"Family Tree" music video

You won't find family history music videos on cable television, but you will find them online thanks to the Crisptones Band and RootsTelevision.

Mark and Robin Crisp of the Crisptones Band are the ones behind this wonderful video, entitled Family Tree. Watch the music video below:

Genealogy discovery behind the wallpaper

Here's a brick wall solution that you may not have tried. Tear down your wallpaper and look for genealogical clues. This is what a Lafayette, Indiana resident did recently. But she wasn't hunting for ancestors - she was renovating her dining room. She found a marriage inscription for a possible relative of mine.

After removing the third layer of wallpaper, she uncovered this inscription on the underlying plaster:

 

H E and D B Goaz
July 1th 1905

My Goaz family (step-children of Asa Clark Brown) lived in Lafayette, and although I have not yet made a connection of H E or D B Goaz to the family, I'm anxious to pursue this.

Although not a genealogist, the resident clearly knew this was an important discovery, and should be preserved before she painted over it. She first looked in the local telephone book, and not finding anyone with the Goaz surname, she did a search online. She located a Surname List page for Tippecanoe County, Indiana where apparently I registered the Goaz surname some time ago.

The wall has now been repainted, but the information has been preserved. Adding a source in Legacy for this will be interesting....

How about you? What unique discoveries have you uncovered?

Video interview with Legacy's Ken McGinnis

Ken McGinnis, vice-president of Millennia Corporation (that's us!), was interviewed at the recent St. George Family History Expo. His interview is now published online as a video for you to view. Ken talks about some of the differences between the free, Standard Edition of Legacy and the Deluxe edition. He also talks a bit about Legacy's Research Guidance and SourceWriter features.

Ken is one of the main reasons we have Legacy Family Tree. Meet him online by watching the video below.

FamilySearch Publishes its First Portuguese Collection Online

from FamilySearch.org:

SALT LAKE CITY—FamilySearch added the Brazil, Rio de Janeiro Civil Registration to its online collection—about 4.5 million new digital images. The free collection contains searchable digital images of the original birth, marriage, and death records from all of the municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro from 1889 to 2006. The new digital images can be searched for free at FamilySearch.org (click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot).

The published records cover births up to 1930, marriages to 1950, and deaths up to 2006. There are an estimated 18 million names in the free online digital collection. FamilySearch continues to film civil registration records in Rio de Janeiro and will update the collection as applicable.

Prior to now, the Rio de Janeiro Civil Registration records were only available in archive offices in Brazil or on microfilm through one of FamilySearch’s family history centers worldwide. FamilySearch digitized the collection—over 2,500 microfilms, spanning 117 years of vital records—and published them online for free public access.

“Now instead of ordering some of the films and traveling to a local family history center to use it, researchers worldwide can search any of the 2,500 films digitally and freely online from the comfort of their home,” said Paul Nauta, FamilySearch public affairs manager. “Family history enthusiasts with Rio de Janeiro ancestors have just been handed a big-time free gift,” added Nauta.

FamilySearch’s online digital image viewer makes it easy to search the historical documents. Patrons can quickly navigate from a Rio de Janeiro municipality down to individual towns. Simply click on a town, and the images are typically divided up by birth, marriage, death, and a year range—making it very convenient to comb through the original records for that town during a specific period in search of a Brazilian ancestor from Rio de Janeiro. Digital images can also be printed or saved electronically.

“Civil registrations (Registros Civis) are the vital records made by the Brazilian government and are an excellent source of accurate information on names, dates, and vital events,” said Lynn Turner, FamilySearch collection manager records specialist for Latin America. “The new digital image collection online is extremely important for those doing genealogical research in Rio de Janeiro because they document critical events in a person’s life and cover such a large percentage of the population—and they are freely accessible to anyone with Internet access,” concluded Turner.

Civil records were kept for all the population, including the Catholics and the non-Catholics. There was a large infusion of non-Catholics in Brazil after the 1880s. The civil registration records are an important public record of this section of the population as well.

FamilySearch has the largest collection of Brazilian vital records outside of Brazil. Currently these records are available to the public on microfilm through FamilySearch’s 4,500 family history centers worldwide or affiliate public libraries. FamilySearch plans to continue expanding online access to its Brazil collections. Pernambuco and Paranã will be the next state civil registrations added to the collection.

Genealogy Mailbox Blues

I admit it. I have the Genealogy Mailbox Blues.

Eleven days ago I ordered a marriage certificate from England. (I wrote about this here.) I know it's still a little soon for the certificate to arrive in my mailbox...but...I just can't wait! I find myself imagining what the certificate will report, and then planning my next research strategies based on what I hope will appear in the envelope. Although I'm now in my 16th year of researching my ancestors, I still have the same excitement and anticipation for what I may or may not find. And so as each day passes without the envelope from the General Register Office in my mailbox, I look for other things to do to take my mind off of this.

Have you experienced similar Genealogy Mailbox Blues?

As I wait, I've noticed my FamilySearch Indexing statistics increase, and I'm actually getting more of my old photos digitized. I've even got a little time to finish my Blogging lecture for this weekend's seminar in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The mail doesn't arrive for another six hours. Guess I'll get back to work...