Genealogy Gifts

Looking for a gift to give that special family historian? Sometimes it's hard to get for someone who has basically everything. And we family historians usually have the subscriptions and software so it is hard when the holidays come around to think of just the right thing.

If you know that your favorite genealogist needs something like a book for research or software then that's the easy part. But if you have no idea then here are some suggestions:

1. Paper. Yup paper. The kind you write on. Or print on. We are always writing and always printing out things we find. With paper you can also get a good set of pens and pencils.

2. A folder of some sort. File folders. So we can put our papers in. We always have papers we need to organize even if we put our work online or we have some kind of software.

3. Notebooks. We could always use a notebook or two. Again always writing things down.

4. Sticky notes. To stick on the paper. In case we need to file something for later. Or research later. Or check something out later.

5. Something funny. Yup something funny like a shirt or coffee mug.

Genealogy Detective Shirts by gedcom
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Bitten By The Genealogy Bug Tee Shirts by gedcom
Get the best in custom tshirt printing at Zazzle

New Family Search Features

For those who use Family Search for their researching like I do, will find a few changes when they log in.
Quite a few records have been updated these past few months including marriage and death records. My family ties are in New York so I was so excited to be able to see the names of my great grandparents on my father's side. Until now we did not know his great grandmother or if we were sure of his great grandfather's first name. Lots of holes were filled in. Being they were from Germany I wasn't able to go back too far but I will continue to research. I was even able to find out when some of his family died and where they are buried. Just wish they were buried a little closer.
The next big change was being able to search not only on the Family Search website when researching a particular relative, but now we can also research Ancestry, Find My Past, and My Heritage. Now these other sites have subscriptions but when you use the link from your relatives page to search it does give you search results. This may lead to a little snippet of info that you did not have before. I have been able to get some more info on my family just by doing this.
I hope you find this useful and have luck with your research.

Updating

Doing a little updating to the site. Just added an Immigration page. Been really busy but still trying to dedicate at least a few hours a week to this site. Weather has been terrible so we haven't went around to the local cemeteries.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Google News ( Free )

No this isn't news about Google. I just actually came across this. I have always used Google Books to research from. Google News is a list of newspapers that have been archived. You can actually look at the pages online. It goes by the name of the paper which if you aren't sure what that would be you can look here to find your states newspaper. It also lists what year the issues are from.

Hope you find this helpful.

Immigration Ancestors Project ( FREE )

Immigration Ancestors Project is a free database to search for your immigrant ancestors. Students from Brigham Young University are hired as part of the project team to supervise the volunteers and edit their work before adding it to the database. Images of emigrant papers are transmitted over the web to volunteers to transcribe. You can read more here

ArchiveGrid ( Free )

ArchiveGrid provides access to detailed archival descriptions for institutions in the United States. These descriptions are from historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and other materials.

Here is also their FAQ Just scroll down to read this section on their site.

What Flag is That?

Maybe some of you would like to add your ancestor's country's flag to your research. I know with me some of my ancestors have very little information on them. Just dates for some and where they were born. I try to add information of their country of birth and other historical information concerning the town they lived or died in. Just so I have a little more information on them. Which occasionally leads to information I did not have on them before. But anyways...getting back to adding research; I found a site that lists flags. It is easy to navigate around and it seems flags are being added.

It is called the Easy Flag Identifier . If you are researching ancestors from America don't forget that every state here has a flag of their own. Or you might have pictures that may have a picture of or the flag itself to help you identify the picture.

I hope that helps some people out with their research.

* Just a little note here: It has been really busy for me in the last few weeks. Spring is here and I have been cleaning up our garden. Veggies have been planted. Trying to get myself settled in because I found out I will be staying in New York indefinitely. Sometimes relationships end when you least expect them to. But I will be ok and have alot to keep me busy with. ALOT lol.