We are delighted to share genealogy tech tips with you each week in these new videos. It’s Lisa’s way to share tips and tricks for your genealogy and your overall internet research success. You don’t have to be a lover of all things genealogy to love a good tech tip and we think you’ll agree!
Our Google guru, Lisa Louise Cooke, has been busy creating short, informative tech tip videos for you. You will find these videos first posted to our Facebook page. Be sure to always see what’s new by “liking” The Genealogy Gems Podcast page.
Additionally, you can comment, like, and share directly from Facebook. This is a great way to share these tips with your genealogy friends and society members.
Each week, Lisa will share with you what’s new in the world of technology and especially those tips that will make you a better and more effective genealogist.
Lisa’s first video, Free Google E-Books for Genealogy and Family History, walks you through the steps of accessing free digital books from the comfort of your home. From county histories to family histories, Google e-books are a treasure trove of genealogical information. Using Google e-books helped me find several pictures of ancestors that I had never seen—and that was just the start.
We think you’ll also enjoy our most recent tech tip video entitled How to Use Google Chrome to Identify Old Photos and Images for Genealogy and Family History. Using Google Chrome for your internet browser can be an effective tool for identifying images that are more universally known. While this likely won’t be able to identify an unknown person in your ancestry, you may be able to figure out the location a postcard image was taken.
Join us each week as Lisa shares these great tips for genealogy and more! If you find the information helpful, why not share with your genie friends too!
Records that have been created recently are difficult to find and access. Some privacy laws protect, and hinder, our being able to find more recent birth, marriage, and death records we need. Here are some tips for finding these and other genealogy records not yet online.
Recently, Tom in Olympia, Washington wrote us with a question about how to find recent genealogy records that are not online yet.
“My wife’s mother was adopted in 1925. We have found her biological mother’s name and through Ancestry.com, I’ve found several bits of information about her from census records. She also was a crew member on three steamships in the 1930s. On two of the ship manifests, her U.S. passport numbers are listed. Do you know any search options for finding information from passports in the 1930s?”
Maybe you have had a similar question. We hope our answer helps everyone more easily find genealogical records that are not online yet.
Obtaining Recent Passport Application Records
Tom will be interested in obtaining a passport application record which may hold more information about his targeted ancestor. As Tom already discovered, U.S. passport records are online at Ancestry and FamilySearch, but only those records prior to 1925.
My original hope was that the National Archives Records Administration would have had the passport application records for the 1930s. I googled passport applications National Archives, and the first search result took me to an excellent article. I learned the U.S. State Department has passport applications on microfilm between the years and dates of 1795 to 1905 and January 2, 1906 – March 31, 1925. Sadly, these were not the years Tom was looking for.
To find information about passport applications in the 1930s, I needed to go another route. I opened a new window and googled U.S. State Department passport applications request copy. The first search result took me right to the page I needed. The Passport Services maintain the U.S. passport records from 1925 to the present. These records are protected by the Privacy Act of 1974.
Passport records in this time frame for a third-party person are processed under the Freedom of Information Act. These records need to ordered by mail. Tom can make a request in writing and send that request to:
U.S. Department of State
Office of Law Enforcement Liaison
FOIA Officer
44132 Mercure Cir
P.O. Box 1227
Sterling, VA 20166
I suggested he mention his desire for the information is for genealogical purposes and what his relationship is to the person in question.
Using the Same Strategy for Other Recent Genealogy Records
Remember, this same kind of strategy applies to other genealogical records you might be looking for that were created recently. You can use Google searches and follow-up phone to find out where more recent records are and the access policies.
As an example, a recent Indiana marriage license index can be searched and viewed online for free at the Public Access records website for the state. I found this little goody by googling Indiana marriage records.
All of us at Genealogy Gems adore having the opportunity to find and share solutions like this one for overcoming the problem of locating recent genealogy records that aren’t online. If you haven’t done so already, sign-up for our weekly newsletter for more tips and tricks. Oh, and write to us anytime with your genealogy questions! We love to hear from you!
More Gems on Recent Genealogy Records
Other recent genealogy records in the U.S. are also available via the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Click here to read about them! They include post-World War II draft registrations, immigration and naturalization documents and Social Security applications (SS-5).
Exciting new genealogical records are popping up for the southern U.S. this week. If you haven’t found the record you need yet, try again…you may be surprised! Records for Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Kentucky, and Georgia are listed below.
ARIZONA, NEW MEXICO, CALIFORNIA, AND TEXAS – BORDER CROSSINGS
Ancestry has updated their Border Crossings: From Mexico to U.S., 1895-1964 collection. This database is an index of aliens and some citizens that crossed into the U.S. from Mexico via the states of Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Texas. Each port of entry used a slightly different form, so some data will vary. Information contained in these records may include: name, age, birth date and place, gender, ethnicity, the names of individuals accompanied by, and port and date of arrival.
KENTUCKY – MARRIAGES
FamilySearch has updated the Kentucky, County Marriages, 1797-1954 collection this week as well. This database is unique because it contains digital images of the marriage books and ledgers. There are over 1 million digital images in this collection, and now they are almost completely indexed. It is much easier to search these records when they have been indexed. However, you can still have great success using browse-only databases by reading our simple how-to post here.
GEORGIA – MILITARY
The Georgia World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1945 have been updated at FamilySearch, too. These draft cards cover a group of individuals born between 1897 and 1929. Usually, WWII draft cards contain the following information:
Name and Serial Number
Place of residence
Date and place of birth
Age
Name of person who will always know your permanent address (which is sometimes a relative)
Employer’s name and address
Physical description (height, weight, color of hair and eyes)
GEORGIA
This week, I found the Georgia Vault online at the Georgia Archives. The “vault” is an online website of digital material that pertains to the history of Georgia. Deed books, church records, colonial wills, and confederate pensions are just a sampling of the things you will find there. I think you could spend a few afternoons browsing their wonderful collections. There is so much to see!
Would you let us know of any new or updated record collections we may have missed? Just leave us a comment below. Afterall, it’s nice to share!
Free RootsMagic guides, called Magic Guides, are easy to download and share. This is just another reason why we love and recommend RootsMagic as the go-to genealogy software.
RootsMagic 7.0 can be downloaded for $29.95 by clicking here or you can try out the free version called RootsMagic Essentials.
Free Magic Guides
RootsMagic has many wonderful features you will want to try. Don’t learn by trial and error which can be frustrating. Download these free RootsMagic guides which make it easy to utilize the program to its fullest. These free guides are called Magic Guides. Each Magic Guide covers a single RootsMagic topic and includes step-by-step instructions with illustrations and tips. The guides can also be copied and distributed (but not sold) as handouts in groups when you teach others in RootsMagic classes, making them a perfect resource for genealogy societies.
You can find a list of all the Magic Guides available by going to the RootsMagic website and clicking on Learn at the top of the screen. Then, choose Magic Guides (handouts).
From installing to importing and everything in between, Magic Guides are a helpful addition to your using RootsMagic.
How to Get Your Free RootsMagic Guides
To download a guide to your computer, click the Download button under the title you want. Some devices are already set up to open the guide in PDF format. Other devices may require you to click Save Link As. If you are required to save the link, remember to save it somewhere you will remember. I suggest saving it to your desktop where it is easily accessible.
As an example, I downloaded the Magic Guide to Create a Shareable CD. I always enjoy sharing my new findings with the family and RootsMagic makes it so easy to do. The guide to creating a shareable CD is four pages long. It offers instructions on how to burn it now or burn it later, which is really nice in case I get distracted!
Here’s What I Learned from Free RootsMagic Guides
One thing I really love about these guides are the tips. In this guide, I learned that when creating a CD, you are making an exact copy of your database. That means all your private facts and notes that you may not want to share with the entire family, will be visible. With a few quick steps, the guide walks you through how to exclude these private facts and only share what you want to. Isn’t that great!
Share this Free Resource
If you have a friend who is new to using RootsMagic, be sure to share with them how they can use the free RootsMagic guidesto enhance their experience. Share this article on Facebook or tweet about it! After all, everyone loves good news!
Family history videos can captivate the non-genealogists in your family. In this step-by-step video series I’m going to show you how to create them quickly and easily!
If you’ve spent some time researching your family history, your discoveries probably look like this: old documents like census records and death certificates – not exactly exciting stuff to your kids and grand kids. And yet they are the ones you hope to pass your family’s history on to.
The truth is that the non-genealogists in your family may not be all that captivated by the same things you are. You can solve the “boring genealogy” problem with a tech tool that will help you create fabulous and captivating family history videos. It’s called Animoto. It’s super-fast and incredibly easy, and no special skills are required.
(Full disclosure: The links I provide in this article are affiliate links, but if you follow me then you know that I only recommend and provide links for services I use myself and think are “Gems.”)
There are many wonderful opportunities to share videos:
Birthdays, Weddings, & Anniversaries
Family Reunions
Holidays
Facebook and other social media
Your own genealogy website or blog
Riveting Family History Videos
Creating digital video can be intimidating. In the past I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on video editing software, and then invested hours trying to learn how to use it. When my eldest daughter got married, I offered to create a short (5 minute) video to show prior to the ceremony. My goal was simple: create a heart-warming look back at the bride and groom and how they found each other, including old photos, nice fading transitions, a few home movie video clips, and a favorite song. That short video took 3 days to create! It’s that kind of financial and time investment that keeps so many of us from attempting family history videos.
…you can use Animoto to create family history videos.
I want you to see what Animoto can do to help you share your genealogy research through riveting family history videos. In this first video we’re going to lay the groundwork for the story you’re going to tell in your video. In fact, you’ll probably find that this step takes longer than actually creating the video! Click the video below to watch Episode One of my series Creating Captivating Family History Videos. Then click here to head to my Genealogy Gems YouTube channel. Click the SUBSCRIBE button to get all new upcoming free videos.
Convert Files for Free with this Online Tool I Use
Free RootsMagic guides, called Magic Guides, are easy to download and share. This is just another reason why we love and recommend RootsMagic as the go-to genealogy software.
Family history videos can captivate the non-genealogists in your family. In this step-by-step video series I’m going to show you how to create them quickly and easily!
