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Family History Episode 12 – Post An Online Family Tree
Originally published 2009
Republished December 31, 2013
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Download the Show Notes for this Episode
Welcome to this step-by-step series for beginning genealogists—and more experienced ones who want to brush up or learn something new. I first ran this series in 2008-09. So many people have asked about it, I’m bringing it back in weekly segments.
Episode 12: Post Your Family Tree Online
In this episode we focus on posting your family tree online. There’s no use in re-inventing the research wheel! By posting what you know about your family tree online you can easily connect with others who are researching people in your family tree. You can share information, collaborate and even get to know distant relatives.
Updates and Links
A few things have changed in online family tree services, including the 2013 acquisition of Geni.com by MyHeritage and the end of GeneTree. Check out these great sites for creating free family trees (you will need to create a free login to use these sites):
Hitting the Road for Christmas in 1926
90 years ago, on page 1 of the Ford News 12/15/1923, Henry Ford shared the following Christmas Greeting: “Christmas stands for the human factor which makes life tolerable midst the hurry of commerce and production. All of us need the annealing effect of Christ’s example to relieve the hardening we get in the daily struggle for material success.”
In the following short film from the vaults of the National Archives the Ford Motor Company wishes “A Merry Christmas to All” in 1926:
National Archives Collection FC: Ford Motor Company Collection, ca. 1903 – ca. 1954
Production Date: ca. 1926
Earlier that year Ford Motor Company became one of the first companies in America to adopt a five-day, 40-hour week for their employees in its automotive factories. The policy started in May with the factory workers and extended to office workers in August.
The decision to reduce the workweek from six to five days had been made in the year before. According to an article published in The New York Times that March, Edsel Ford, Henry’s son and the company’s president, explained that “Every man needs more than one day a week for rest and recreation….The Ford Company always has sought to promote [an] ideal home life for its employees. We believe that in order to live properly every man should have more time to spend with his family.”
The Piece of Family History that Miraculously Made Its Way Back to This Indianapolis Woman
A few years ago while attending a genealogy conference, I decided to conduct some on-the-fly interviews for the Genealogy Gems Podcast. I asked folks to tell me about the most prized family heirloom that they possessed. I heard about everything from the door knob of a woman’s parent’s bridal suite, to the bedazzling flapper dress worn by a great grandmother.
All were interesting, but I was stopped in my tracks when one woman looked at me with pain in her eyes and declared “I have nothing. Not a thing. My cousins destroyed everything.”
It was a difficult concept to digest. As the acknowledged “keeper of the family history flame” in my family, I’ve been fortunate enough to have inherited an abundance of family heirlooms from both sides of my parents families. How sad it would be to have nothing concrete to hold in your hand; nothing to help you feel the generations that held the item before.
Since that day I’ve remained inspired to help people find ways to track down information and artifacts that make up their family history. Time and time again, I’ve found that just when you thought there was nothing left to find, an item will resurface. The Galaxy Quest movie quote (surely based on the famous words uttered by Winston Churchill in 1940) is one I cling to when it comes to genealogy: “Never give up! Never surrender!”
This motto has never been so gloriously justified as it was recently when a woman from Indianapolis, Indiana received the surprise of a lifetime this Christmas. The Purple Heart awarded to Pat Davis’ father, (a father she never met) was found recently and returned to her. Watch the compelling video below where the daughter holds the unearthed piece of family history in the palm of her hand.
