Win a Family Tree University Virtual Conference Registration

Online learning program will give away one three-day pass for March 9-11 event in sweepstakes
And Discount Coupon Code Below!

CINCINNATI, February 15, 2012—Family Tree University’s Spring 2012 Virtual Conference will feature three days of online genealogy learning, with 15 downloadable video classes, live chats and discussions, daily contests and more. And one lucky genealogist will get to experience it all for free. 

Enter the Virtual Conference Sweepstakes at http://www.familytreeuniversity.com/sweepstakes for a chance to win a free registration to the March 9-11 conference, a $199 value. You don’t have to travel across the country or even across town to participate: The conference takes place entirely online, with classes and discussions led by an all-star cast of genealogy instructors. Class topics include:

»        Using Steve Morse’s One-Step Site to Get Ready for the 1940 Census with Thomas MacEntee

»        Using Your iPad for Genealogy with Nancy Hendrickson

»        3 Cool Tools to Help With Your Newspaper Research with Lisa Louise Cooke

»        What’s in a Civil War Pension File? with Diana Crisman Smith

»        Online Resources for Polish Research with Lisa A. Alzo

»        Using Guardianship Records in Genealogical Research with Marian Pierre-Louis

For more details and a full list of classes, visit http://www.familytreeuniversity.com/virtual-conference

Sweepstakes entries must be received by February 23 at 11:59 Eastern Time; the winner will be announced February 24.

Winning the sweepstakes isn’t the only way to get a bargain on a Virtual Conference ticket: Family Tree University is giving all readers of this blog $40 off registration. Enter coupon code LLCOOKE when registering.

About Family Tree University

Family Tree University is part of the Genealogy Community at F+W Media, Inc., which also encompasses Family Tree Magazine—America’s most popular family history magazine—the Family Tree Books imprint and the ShopFamilyTree.com online store. These publications and products are devoted to providing engaging, easy-to-understand instruction that makes genealogy a hobby anyone can do. In addition to the virtual conference, Family Tree University offers more than 30 online genealogy courses and monthly live webinars.

Name That Tune - Family History Mystery Solved!

From the Genealogy Gems Mailbox:

Hi Lisa, You'll probably think I'm crazy, I love your podcasts, but I'm still catching up!!  In August I decided to listen to your current podcasts as you issue them, while still working my way through all your past podcasts.  I'm at number 59 and laugh to listen to you celebrate and sound surprised that you've reached a second anniversary, when I "know" that you've made it to 5 now!

Back in 2009. you ran a series of "Name that Tune" challenges, which I absolutely loved, I think I have old time music in my DNA.  It took me a day to recognize the "Missouri Waltz," I knew "The Dark Town Strutters Ball" right away; when I was little I named my doll "Honey" and always thought of those first lines "I'll be down to get you in a taxi, Honey...", I knew "I'll see you in my dreams" don't know if you are old enough to recall "Sing along with Mitch" when it was on TV, but we had all Mitch Miller's Sing Along albums and "I'll See you in my dreams" was among them.

Okay, so that brings me to the reason for this email.  In Episode 56, you celebrated "I'll See you in my dreams" and then played a brief 30 seconds of another tune, it was a violin instrumental.  Well as I said I've listened up to 59 and I've never heard the result for that last tune.  I think it may be "Thine Alone" by Victor Herbert.  It was from the operetta "Eileen".  Herbert was born in Ireland and emigrated to America, his more famous songs include "Ah Sweet Mystery of Life" and "The March of the Toys" from "Babes in Toyland" but he seems to have written hundreds of songs.

You had a loyal listener named "Jeannie" who called you with the names of the first 4 songs, I laughed at the similarity in our names, but anyway, I'm going crazy, did anyone else ever recognize that song?  If you go to iTunes, there is a good instrumental version of "Thine Alone" on the Album "The Music of Victor Herbert & Sigmund Romberg" performed by George Melchrino.  It is a lovely song.

I can't tell you how many wonderful memories those songs gave me!!  Yes, I am working on my Family History and really enjoy all your podcasts, videos, blogs and advice.  I did finish your Family History: Genealogy Made Easy podcast series, got to get to work on the Family Tree Magazine Podcast too!!

Thank you so much for all you do!
Jean Goggins

Dear Jean,
No, no one ever dad identify that song - until now!  I totally agree after listening to "Thine Alone" on iTunes that is the song.  I'm so glad you emailed me about it!  In fact I was just talking about that "name that tune" series and the old reel-to-reel that of Grandma and Grandpa in my recent presentation  Genealogy Blogs and Podcasts 101 that was streamed live on the RootsTech website (and is still there on video - part of the Saturday Recap). 

I'm so glad you're enjoying the podcasts.  Thanks for writing and solving this family history mystery!
Lisa

Indiana Genealogical Society Annual Conference

February 20, 2012 –Fort Wayne, Indiana: The Indiana Genealogical Society (IGS) is holding its annual conference on April 28, 2012 at the Allen County Public Library (ACPL) in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Debra S. Mieszala is the featured speaker. Her talks include:
·        Lessons from a Snoop: Collaterals and Associates
·        Bringing Our Soldiers Home
·        Digging Through Documents Word By Word
·        Patently Unique: Locating Patent Records, Onlineand Off

A second track of sessions features:
·        What’s New with FamilySearch with Michael Hallfrom FamilySearch
·        Finding Indiana Records and Research inFamilySearch with Michael Hall
·        Becoming an Expert on Using Ancestry with ACPLlibrarian, Melissa Shimkus
·        Writing a Book Using Family Tree Maker andMicrosoft Word with Curtis Sylvester, President of the Allen CountyGenealogical Society of Indiana

Registration is $30 for IGS members, $40 for nonmembers and$45 at the door. Registration forms and online registration are available at http://www.indgensoc.org/conference.php.

Spend the day learning from experts, researching in thecountry’s second largest genealogical library and collaborating with othergenealogists.

Come a day early to join the IGS pre-conference and gainresearch time in the library. Topics on April 27, 2012 include:
·        Indiana County Genealogists Show N’ Tell
·        Social Media for Our Societies
·        Ask the Experts Panel

Registration for the pre-conference is only $5 or $7 at thedoor. Find out more at www.indgensoc.org/seminar.php.

About the IndianaGenealogical Society
Formed in 1989, the Indiana Genealogical Society strives tohelp preserve and publish materials relating to the people who settled thestate. IGS has been at the forefront of efforts to make Indiana’s historicalrecords more accessible to the public by indexing and digitizing records. IGShas more than 500,000 records on its website, representing all 92 of Indiana’scounties. Learn  more about IGS at http://www.indgensoc.org.   

Open-Source Genealogy Database of Name Variants Announced

Here's the latest from Ancestry:

"Ancestry.com, BehindTheName.com, and WeRelate.org announce an improved approach to finding variant names in genealogy searches.  Up to now, most genealogy websites have had to rely upon Soundex to return variant names in response to searches. These approaches often miss variants that should be returned, or include variants that aren't very similar.

Ancestry.com, BehindTheName.com, and WeRelate.org have created an open-source database of name variants that is free for any website or genealogy software developer to use. Tested against pairs of names provided by Ancestry.com, it reduces the number of missed name variants by over 25% in comparison with Soundex.

How you can help: A large portion of genealogical expertise involves learning variant spellings for the surnames in your tree. By adding your variant spellings to the database, searches on any website that uses it will include your variant spellings automatically. You can review and add variant spellings here: 

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Special:Names

In addition, we need people to review the changes that others have made to the database, to make sure that we have multiple pairs of eyes reviewing the names that are being added and removed. You can review changes that others have made here: 

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Special:NamesLog

More information about the project can be found at:
http://www.werelate.org/wiki/WeRelate:Variant_names_project"

RootsTech Announces Winners of the Developer Challenge

Congratulations to the winners of the of the #RootsTech Developer Challenge:

First Place: Jimmy Zimmerman, NoteFuser

NoteFuser connects your Evernote® notes to Geni.com or new.FamilySearch.org person records. It also allows you to easily create Evernote® powered research logs and other notes with one click.  Make sure you watch the NoteFuser Demo video on the homepage http://notefuser.herokuapp.com.

Second Place: Brooke Schreier Ganz, LeafSeek

LeafSeek helps you turn your genealogical or historical record collections into searchable online databases. LeafSeek includes features such as built-in geo-spatial searches, pop-up Google Maps, Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching, name synonyms, and language localization to help you turn your spreadsheets of names and dates into a full-featured genealogy search engine.  Check it out at leafseak.com.

Third Place (tie): Brigham Young University Computer Science Department, 20 Minute Genealogist

20 Minute Genealogist is a site that will visualize your family tree using your new.FamilySearch.org credentials.  You can see who in your tree needs work and instantly link to FamilySearch and Ancestry to search for the missing information.  Sign up to be a beta tester at twenty.byu.edu. 

Third Place (tie): Ellie Rasmus, Facetree

Facetree has been developed as a way of using genealogical data from GEDCOM files as context to improve the accuracy of face recognition.

FamilySearch Launches Mobile Indexing App

FamilySearch launched its much-anticipated mobile device for indexing. The device will expand the capability of volunteers to help make the world’s historic records searchable online.  The mobile device app works on Apple iPads, iPhones, and Droid smartphones. 

 To download the free app, search for the FamilySearch Indexing app in the Apple app store or Droid Market store online.

In the iTunes store

In the Droid Market store

Brightsolid Enters US Genealogy Market With Censusrecords.com

Here's the latest from brightsolid. Stay tuned to the free Genealogy Gems Podcast and Genealogy Gems YouTube channel for my interview with Brightsolid's CEO Chris van der Kuyl:

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH. brightsolid, a leading online provider of historical and genealogical content, announces its entry into the US genealogy market with the launch of a ground-breaking, "pay-as-you-go" site: www.censusrecords.com.

The new site will let customers search all US census records from 1790 to 1930 and is the first dedicated to US genealogy by British-owned brightsolid. It will also house the 1940 US census records, when they are released later this year.

What makes it unique to the market, however, is it's the first genealogy site in the US to give customers access to census records on either a pay-as-you-go basis or via the subscription model that is currently the only choice offered by other sites.

The new site is being launched as an early beta version, with brightsolid inviting user feedback and suggestions.

Every visitor to censusrecords.com will be able to search for free. Customers wanting to view documents, and download them to their computer to keep and access later, will then have the option of either buying a subscription in the conventional way or buying pay-as-you-go credits, starting at $7.95. Pay-as-you-go customers will be able to buy further credits at any time, giving them the freedom to spend as much or as little time and money on their research as they want.

"The launch of censusrecords.com is just our first offering to the US market", says Chris van der Kuyl, CEO of brightsolid. "It will be followed later this year by the launch of findmypast.com, which will be our flagship American brand."

brightsolid is proud to be part of the 1940 US Census Community Project, a joint initiative with Archives.com, FamilySearch and other leading genealogy organizations, which aims to make the census searchable as quickly as possible after its release this April. The completion of the project will allow anyone to search for their ancestors in the 1940 census for free online.