Category Archives: Tip of the Week

Tip of the Week Seattle Genealogical Society

by Charles Hansen

TIP OF THE WEEK – ALL CATHOLIC PARISH REGISTER MICROFILMS OF IRELAND AVAILABLE ON-LINE FOR FREE!

The entire collection of Catholic parish register microfilms held by the National Library of Ireland is now available online, and for free.  With this database, people with Irish Catholic ancestors will be to trace their roots back to the 1740’s on a dedicated website free of charge.  Over 370,000 digital images of the microfilm reels will be available for download.
These parish register records are considered the single most important source of information on Irish family history prior to the 1901 Census.
The documents, primarily baptismal and marriage records, date from the 1740s to the 1880s and encompass 1,086 parishes throughout Ireland.
For more information, visit www.nli.ie. For more on the launch follow the hashtag #ancestorsonline or follow @NLIreland on Twitter.
To use this site, one must know the parish or diocese where their ancestor lived.  It is not possible to search the site for a particular individual or surname.
The site includes a great, interactive map of the counties and dioceses of Ireland.

BONUS TIP OF THE WEEK – KING COUNTY PROBATE COURT RECORDS COMING ON-LINE AT FAMILYSEARCH.ORG

One of the many new databases coming online at Familysearch.org is “Washington, King County Probate Records, 1851-1927.”  This database consists of images of probate records, arranged and filmed in chronological order; currently it contains nearly 34,000 images of probate records from 1861-1893, with the expectation of more records being added as they are digitized and uploaded.
The URL for this database is: https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1878788

Tip of the Week Seattle Genealogical Society

by Charles Hansen
TIP OF THE WEEK – FREE WEBSITE FOR THOSE WITH
CZECH REPUBLIC (BOHEMIA) ROOTS
Onward To Our Past (http://onwardtoourpast.com/) is a web site hosted by genealogical historian, Scott Phillips, offering free tips, hints, help, and genealogy fun together with unique resources for Bohemia (Czech Republic), Italy, and Cornwall family history and genealogy.

One of the valuable resources available on this site is an English translation of a lengthy genealogy article from the 1878 edition of  Amerikán Národní Kalendář, titled STRUČNÁ STATISTIKA: Osad, míst a okresů ve Spojených Státech Čechy obydlených (Translation: “BRIEF STATISTICS: Of settlements, towns and counties at United States, inhabited by Czechs.”)

This publication is described as “an information census of the Czechs and the communities in which they lived” in the United States in 1878.  The web site is presenting these translations in installments (12 so far), covering Czech communities in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, the Dakota Territory, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts and Michigan.
More installments will be coming to this site in the ensuing months.

BONUS TIP OF THE WEEK –FREE ACCESS TO
“THE GREAT MIGRATION DATABASES”
ON AMERICANANCESTORS.ORG
Thanks to the New England Historical and Genealogical Society (NEHGS), family historians may commemorate Independence Day by searching for their early American ancestors for FREE on AmericanAncestors.org July 1 through July 8.
A total of nine searchable databases comprise the Great Migration project on AmericanAncestors.org.
See http://www.americanancestors.org/specials/fourth-of-july for more details.

Tip of the Week FGS Webinars

by Charles Hansen

FGS is restarting their Webinar Series again and the first one will be how to keep your Volunteers Happy, Helpful and Engaged. This one will be on June 23, 2015 at 8 p.m. Eastern and then will be available for 30 days and then moved to the member only site. For More Information go here .

Seattle Genealogical Society Bonus Tip of the Week

by Charles Hansen
BONUS TIP OF THE WEEK –
MOCAVO NOW PROVIDES ALL U.S. CENSUS INDEXES AND IMAGES FOR FREE
Mocavo recently announced that the indexes and images for all United States Federal Censuses are now available for free to everyone on their web site.  See their full announcement at http://blog.mocavo.com/2015/05/u-s-federal-census-images-viewer-now-free-for-everyone for details.

Seattle Genealogical Society Tip of the Week

by Charles Hansen
TIP OF THE WEEK – FIFTEEN FREE WEBINARS FOR BEGINNING AND INTERMEDIATE GENEALOGISTS
The Family History Library and the Research Specialists of the United States and Canada Reference team are offering a free, never before offered, week-long seminar in October of 2015 in Salt Lake City. The focus will be exclusively U.S. research. The sessions will be ideal for beginning and intermediate genealogists interested in learning about U.S. records, FamilySearch resources, and Family History Library collections.  The seminar is now full for anyone wishing to attend in person. However, fifteen of the thirty classes will be broadcast via webinar. For more information please see the following: https://familysearch.org/blog/en/united-states-research-seminarTo attend one or more of these webinars, just click on their links below to attend.
ALL TIMES LISTED BELOW ARE MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME; SUBTRACT ONE HOUR FOR PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME.  You can join the webinar up to 30 minutes prior to each start time; just go to the link below, and click on JOIN.

12 October, Monday:

13 October, Tuesday:
14 October, Wednesday:
15 October, Thursday:
16 October, Friday:

 

Printing A Booklet

by Charles Hansen

Printing the Membership Booklet

A while back Eastern Washington Genealogical Society decided due to cost of postage and printing to stop printing and mailing the membership list to our members. The membership list is on the society website and our webmaster set it up so you could download a PDF file of the membership list if you wanted a copy on your own computer, so I downloaded a copy for me. It was 22 pages long and included a nice cover page and the society by-laws just like the old copies we used to receive by mail.

Since it was a PDF file I went to Adobe Reader to look at the file, and since I wanted a hard copy for a project I was doing I wanted to print a copy. When I went to the print box up came a list of ways to print the file, and one said print a booklet, so I hit that one and the printer started printing. What surprised me was it printed half size, so two pages on each sheet, and then it turned over the paper and printed on the back of the same sheet of paper. Out came 6 pages all in order and when folded in half I had the whole 22 pages printed.

Now I had bought a new printer a Brother all in in one, and it had duplex printing. I did not have a clue what that meant until I found out it will print on both sides of a sheet of paper which is a big paper saver. I also have an older Kodak printer and I did not know it had duplex printing also, but it does and will print booklets also. So do you have a duplex printer? Have you printed a booklet?

Seattle Genealogical Society Tip of the Week

by Charles Hansen

TIP OF THE WEEK – 30% DISCOUNT ON ANCESTRY.COMSUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE TO AARP MEMBERS

According to the Ancestry.com web site (http://www.ancestry.com/cs/us/aarp), AARP members can get a 30% discount on Ancestry’s World Explorer for one year.  Moreover, if you’re already an AARP member and also are currently an Ancestry subscriber, you can receive a discount on that subscription.
For details, go to the above web page, then click on See Offer Details, just above the red AARP logo on the left side of the page; SOME RESTRICTIONS APPLY, so check the small print.

BONUS TIP OF THE WEEK – MOCAVO NOW PROVIDES ALL U.S. CENSUS INDEXES AND IMAGES FOR FREE
Mocavo recently announced that the indexes and images for all United States Federal Censuses are now available for free to everyone on their web site.  See their full announcement at http://blog.mocavo.com/2015/05/u-s-federal-census-images-viewer-now-free-for-everyone for details.

Seattle Genealogical Society Tip of the Week

by Charles Hansen
TIP OF THE WEEK – A WONDERFUL SPOOF OF THE “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” TELEVISION SERIES

Who Do They Think They Are? is a hilarious Aussie spoof of Who Do You Think You Are?, the television program sponsored by and prominently featuring Ancestry.com.  Created by The Checkout, an Australian television program, it’s less than 6 minutes long, and will be appreciated by anyone familiar with the American version, whether fan or foe of this series.
It satirizes the Who Do You Think You Are? series, Ancestry.com, DNA testing, and trying to find genealogy information only on the Internet.
It also delivers a serious message about the proper methods of searching one’s family tree.
Check it out at https://youtu.be/C61tKCkR8Nk.

Tip of the Week

by Charles Hansen
TIP OF THE WEEK – ONLINE INDIANA DATABASES
The Indiana Genealogical Society has announced that it now has more than 1,500 databases on its website at www.IndGenSoc.org.  These databases are from all 92 counties, plus numerous statewide collections. Some are available to the public and others are accessible to IGS members only.
If you have Indiana ancestry, you want to check out the announcement athttp://indgensoc.blogspot.com/2015/04/igs-now-has-more-than-1500-databases.html.