Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Genalogy Online For Dummies

The learning process for genealogists is a continuous challenge. Thus, information have started to explode over the internet. These brought family historians in the world of high technology. Everybody is acquainted with personal computers, websites, and emails. What makes this endeavor rewarding and fascinating is the passion for exploring new things.

The problem is that if you failed to track information then the problem comes. Say for instance, you cannot distinguish which materials are good for your genealogy research. Keep your patience. There is always a solution to it.

One of the most popular sources of information which have started to dominate genealogy research is dummy books. Genealogy Online for Dummies authored by April Leigh Helm and Matthew L. Helm is the latest addition. This book has five parts which is very helpful on guiding you to find your family history.

Beginners as well as those who are starting to research on the internet can find the tips on Part 1 and Part 2 of this book useful for conducting genealogy research. Valuable pointers regarding surnames, ethnic research, government records, and geographical locations are provided.

The most important part of this book is found in Part 4. You can learn about the ten internet genealogical publications, ten guidelines on how to design genealogy webpage, ten genealogy beginner's sites, and ten guidelines for a smooth sailing genealogical research. Yellow pages containing various sites listings and descriptions are also included. This will enable dummies to have a definite guide when searching the internet.

Exploring websites can be more fun using this directory. Every section on the search engines enables you to obtain the most significant information provided by robots known as spiders. One common mistake done by first timer online genealogists is to go directly on a search engine and type the surname which they are looking. Then they are surprised by the results. Following these tips can prevent these conflicts.

One amazing feature of this book is that it is also available on CDs. Various shareware and commercial programs (Mac and Windows versions), utilities, and multimedia tools are found useful by genealogists.

Keep in mind that not everything is provided by websites or computers. You cannot carry your laptop everywhere even though it is already portable. But books are simply amazing.

Beginner genealogists have rated this book as really cool and informational. Successful genealogy research must start with a plan and orientation about the computer equipment to use. Chronological procedures are provided using certain websites.

Another point of interest in this book is the database of land patent from the previous GLO (General Land Office) provided through the BLMESO (Bureau of Land Management's Eastern State Office). People have the chance to download copies of their early ancestor's land patents. Some considered this book a good source for every genealogist. It covers not only what is found on websites but also amazing tips on acquiring important genealogical skills.

As your research progresses, you can also discover ways on preserving photos and notes and organizing records. You will also be acquainted on planning trips for genealogical research as well as useful strategies. Numerous resources developed on websites are offered to help you find your family history including foreign archives and sources.

Beginners are dummies no more. Genealogy Online for Dummies has made a big difference.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Create Your Own Free Genealoby Website

The internet is such a vast resource of important and needed information. It has a lot of uses that many individuals find very useful in their everyday life. Now, even genealogy has a place in this great and infinite resource.

Genealogy research involves extensive research and verifications. For those who are clueless what genealogy is, it is the study of a family tree or family trees. If you're interested in knowing your past and want to know how your life ended that way it is now, then you'd better come up with your own genealogy tree or family tree.

Once you find out several generations included in your family tree, then perhaps you might want to share it to the whole world for free. Yes, that is truly possible. This can happen if you create your very own free genealogy site. But how will you do it?

Even if you haven't completed your family tree, and is still looking for some pieces of the puzzle, having your own genealogy site is such an advantage. This can generate interest that can lead you to discovering new information. The software programs offered for genealogy research are much better now because they provide this special opportunity to the people. By submitting alternately your GEDCOM file to the many genealogy sites, you can have your history and name present on the web for all people to see. There are also other alternatives in store for you like using a hosting service. You can make your very own site at Yahoo GeoCities and other hosting websites. If you're a first time user, you may find it quite difficult to opt for this alternative because they have a lot of restrictions.

So you are left with the only alternative of creating, developing, and publishing your personalized genealogy site. This involves purchasing your domain name, as well as web hosting. You can use HTML editors that offer free service or you can use your own HTML editor like that of Microsoft's FrontPage.

If you opt for the last alternative, then you can make use of these tips:

1. Your web page must contain a title that is catchy and easy to remember. This is a very critical decision that your family should decide together. 2. Your header, or first paragraph, must contain all the surnames of principal families that were researched. Try to incorporate certain words like family tree, ancestors, family history, and genealogy. 3. Search engines and visitors look for content quality especially on your home page. It would be best to compose several paragraphs about your family history, and don't forget to provide links to detailed pages. Try to limit the pictures contained on your home page; instead, provide links to other family photographs. 4. Make sure that your site has a good navigation system, like text links and navigation buttons. 5. Meta tags are very important because it improves your tanking in search engines. 6. To improve traffic in your site, be sure to provide other genealogy sites. Links are very essential. 7. Prominently display your email address so that you can be contacted easily.

Following the tips mentioned above can help you in coming up with a good and free genealogy site that your entire family can be proud of.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Using Free Genealogy Website Effectively

If you are looking for the missing puzzles of your life, it is best to understand your roots. This could be done by studying and researching on your genealogy. And the best way to start your quest to know your ancestry is by collecting reliable sources of information by which you can trace them. One of the cheapest and abundant sources is a free genealogy web site.

The internet had modified the face of ancestry tracking. Sometime ago, genealogy relegated a bushel of challenging tasks to library works and long distance travels. But now, there is already the powerful tool that could be accessed in an instant for free. Genealogy web sites are potent components of research, however, proper care must be considered in order to optimize its advantages. What you need in genealogy are reliable and accurate information. For beginners, a tutorial resource on genealogy will serve as a guide so that your research efforts will not be wasted. The different techniques and types of document sources are the basic things to know in order to start quickly with genealogy.

In using the free genealogy web site, it is important to remember and document the sources properly. The web site address, abbreviations and significant notes should be indicated as foot notes or at an index page. This will be advantageous when verifying or rechecking your data gathered. Documentation often takes the place of a failing memory of the researcher. For another thing, these documents can be the key to resolve the conflicting facts that you may encounter in the process of research.

Your living relatives can help you verify the facts that you have gathered from free genealogy web sites. Interviews with these people bring about good stories about your ancestry. These stories should be recorded together with the names of storytellers. Then you can check the data you have gathered if they fit in to each other.

Other resources that can be found in the internet are census records, death indexes and obituaries. Though not all newspaper publish their obituaries online and not all deaths were submitted to obituaries or death indexes, these sources can lead you to clues and relative information.

After taking into accounts all the possible resources, it's time to organize these data. You need to highlight the documents that value most. Nevertheless, none of the documents that you find insignificant should be disposed. They could still serve as reference in the future.

Assembling the facts is another laborious chore. But when you get to this stage, it just means that you are almost done with that set. You can share with other researchers the facts that you have gathered. Who knows, it takes a few of you to assemble the puzzles of your heritage. There is the saying that two heads are better than one, surely too, more heads are better than two. After all, you are not the sole person in your clan who would like to find out the bloodline of your ancestry.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Find Your Canadian Ancestors - Canadian Genealogy

Today, there are a lot of people who don't know about their family's past for many reasons. Some have been separated, some have personal family issues, and others were affected by historical events that changed their family's lives forever.

Canada is a country rich in culture and history. You have to consider that a lot of people have migrated and lived in Canada and started a family. If you have Canadian ancestry in your blood and you want to find out more about your family and what happened to them, you can hire a genealogist to help you with your quest.

There are Canadian genealogists today who offer their services for a fee. You have to consider that researching for your ancestry alone can be very difficult. With a genealogist, you can be sure that you will be able to trace your genealogy at the fastest time possible and with little effort in your part. A genealogist will know what documents to look for and where to look for it. They will also organize all the documents and provide you with a copy of it or in some cases, some genealogists even provides you with the original copy of the documents.

You can even take it a step further by getting information about what happened to your extended relatives. For many reasons, people try and find out about their family's past. Some say that they do it to find out more about themselves, and there are also others who do this to put up a family tree. There are also people who want to know about their family's medical past to know about a mysterious medical condition that has been plaguing their family for years.

However, you have to admit the fact that finding out about your family's past can be fun and exciting. For instance, you may even find out that you are a relative of someone famous. Or, you may even find out that you have a different race and not entirely of Hispanic blood. For example, in the United States, an African American man began researching his family's history and found out that he was a relative of a wealthy Hispanic plantation owner back in the days where plantations and slavery existed.

As you can see, there are quite a lot of surprises that you can come across with if you research about your Canadian ancestry. However, you have to consider that it will take quite a while to search all the document archives. You have to realize that depending on how long you are willing to look back in your family, you have to expect that it will take a long time to retrace your roots if you are willing to look back on a lot of years.

Although it will take quite a long time and you will encounter a lot of dead ends, you have to consider that with patience and determination, you will be able to know about your Canadian ancestry. Always remember that you have to be patient as genealogy is a complex process where there will be lost or misplaced documents among thousands of other documents available.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Is Ancestry.com The Best Place To Find Our About Your Genealogical History?

Many people try and trace their ancestry for a lot of reasons. Some do it for medical reasons to find out about a mysterious disease that their family is suffering from, others do it for honoring their dead relatives, and there are people who find it as an interesting hobby and find it fun to do so. It is a fact that it's always interesting to know about facts about your family's past. You never know, maybe your great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a famous person back in the old days.

These are some of the reasons why you should learn about your genealogy. Maybe if you find out enough about your family, there might be an illegitimate child that gave birth to the great-great-great grandfather of the President of the United States which makes you and the president very distant relatives. It is always fun and also a bit surprising finding out about your past.

However, you have to consider that as time progresses, some pasts are forgotten in the mists of time. It is very important that you should consider that finding out about one's past is very difficult especially if you don't know about your great grandfather for some reasons. You also have to consider past historical events, such as war, the Great Depression and migration. In the United States, you have to consider that this country is composed of different races. There are people living here who have different traces of ancestry. There are Germans, Africans, Russians, Latin, and others. Some people don't even know that they had foreign ancestry and you also have to consider that some last names have been Americanized.

These are some of the reasons why it can be difficult to trace your genealogy or your ancestry. However, technology can make it easier for you to find out about your past. There are available websites today that specializes in genealogy. One of these websites that are considered to be reputable and can definitely help you find long lost relatives is the Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com is a genealogy website that can help you find out about your family's past.

There are professionals here that can help you gather documents, such as birth, immigration, death, marriage documents, medical records, and other vital documents about your family. You need to realize that these documents are very hard to find and will require you to pay a fee for the professionals working with Ancestry.com to find it for you. Today, there are more than four billion names in Ancestry.com database. If you know the complete name of your grandparents or great-great grandparents, you can start your search for your ancestors from here.

Ancestry.com offers the best services at a very reasonable cost. You have to consider that knowing about your family's past is priceless. Who knows, maybe you are the great-great-great-great-great grandchild of a famous Native American or a famous European who migrated in the United States.

So, if you want to know about your genealogy the easy way, you should get the services of Ancestry.com. Here, you can start your very own family tree and show it to the members of your family and friends about your proud past.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Categories of DNA Genealogy

There are many ways to find your family heritage through genealogy. Relative genetics is the most common way. This performs a series of tests on DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) in different categories.

1. Paternal Line or Ycs Testing. The Y chromosomal DNA (Ycs) is utilized in establishing the haplotype (genetic profile) of the ancestors who are already dead. The father passed the Ycs through his son largely unchanged. The inheritance pattern of Ycs is similar to passing the surnames common to most cultures. Discovering clues within the paternal lineage becomes quiet easy using the Ycs. This is an incredible tool powerful in helping genealogists to trace the paternal lines.

Relative genetics have reported that between eighteen and forty three years old, different alleles (values) on specific loci (regions) of the Y chromosomal DNA are present. Every locus has undergone validation and standardization in a way that it can provide people with the greatest chances of specifying their paternal lineage. The information becomes very important to genealogist in identifying the closest relatives as well as establishing approximate time or distance to the latest common ancestor.

2. Maternal Line of mtDNA testing. This is used for disproving or supporting a relationship in the same immediate maternal line using mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA). The mother passed this type of DNA to her children but only the female children pass this down continuously from generation to generation.

The mtDNA testing is taking the benefits of a specialized DNA form passed by mothers to her biological children. So, each child virtually carries an exact mtDNA copy of their mother. Therefore, all siblings have identical sequences of mtDNA. Thus, mtDNA became an important investigative tool to research direct maternal lineage ancestry and exploring ethnic origins.

3. Ancestral Origin Testing (mtDNA, Ycs, or autosomal testing). This is useful for people who are adopted and simply curious about their ancestral heritage. It also provides prediction about the anthropological haplogroup which originates from either the maternal or paternal lines. Haplogroups refer to wide ancestral groupings which originated a thousand years ago. They also correspond to an early migration of humans having connections on the different geographic locations all over the world. Therefore, information about haplogroups can reveal a deep ancestral origin.

- Y chromosomal DNA Haplogroups. Once this is identified, you can take a glimpse on the deep paternal line ancestry. Every indigenous race of people in this world is an affiliate of a certain haplogroup.

- The mtDNA Haplogroups are subdivided in different sub-lineages, more often population or regionally specific.

4. Extended Family Testings utilize autosomal DNA. The twenty two pairs of chromosomes considered as non sex located within the cell nucleus is known as autosomal DNA. One half of the autosomal DNA comes from the father; the other one half comes from the mother. The purpose of this test is to authenticate relationships beyond simple maternity or paternity lineage.

Finally, you will never have any difficulty is tracing your family heritage. Choose one among the different genealogy testing categories that suits you best. Enjoy your research.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Free Resources For Genealogical Resarch

Isn't it interesting to know more about your ancestral timeline several generations ago? If you are on the search for reliable sources that will serve as your reference documents, the internet is a good resource material. It has always contained the vast data that can help in your research. The great advantage when using the internet is that the genealogist can save both money and effort.

Aside from the ancestral timeline, some people also would want to know the details about their recent generations. In the quest of finding this out, genealogy becomes a serious study that takes an investment.

There are some helpful pointers that can give ease to your research. Whether you are new or a professional genealogist, you must know that there could be other researchers that work on your genealogy. One way to find out is to check on the published works of the surnames involved in your family tree. Some of these researchers publish their works on their website for other people to visit. Other helpful tools that can also be found in the internet are the searchable indexes that contain references needed in your study.

The genealogical or historical society is an institution that you can ask help from. They are found in the towns where your ancestors once lived. This is an excellent source of information on how life was during the time of your great, great grandparents. The genealogical or historical society keeps the records of local directories, the list of buried people even in inactive burial spots, and newspaper archives. The advantage of seeking help from this institution is that this is run by volunteers who have been oriented with some genealogical facts. This also contains addresses of other societies which have links to their webs.

Way back in 1800's, the US and Europe has the long tradition of funeral cards or mourning cards. These are also great sources for genealogists. There are also web sites that deal on the indexing of these cards. You can visit these sites and search for the surnames that you need.

Newspapers are also good sources of local information. They usually contain valuable information about people who have lived a few years ago. The online newspaper archive is a searchable site that takes the place of microfilm reels. However, it would be advantageous if you have some information about your ancestors such as the event where they have been involved. When you search in online newspaper archives, you type the surname and the keyword, which is resembled by the event. The newspaper online is updated regularly that makes their information reliable.

Another research tool that is helpful in genealogy is the indexed census. Aside from this, there are other transcribed records which are also available online. Such records of birth, marriage and death information are available in some databases.

There are various research tools that help in the search of your ancestry. There are free and accessible sources that only proper organization provide.