Thursday, May 21, 2015

Genealogy Gems - More Online Resources You Need to Know About

Last time I told you about 5 of my favorite free sites and here’s a few more that I think you’ll love as much as I do:
  • Every Sunday, with my morning coffee, I look forward to reading The Genealogy News Weekly Edition sponsored by Genealogy Today support@genealogytoday.com.  This newsletter contains lots of press releases from the most well known organizations in genealogy to keep you up-to-date, as well as research tips and findings from historians around the world. I click on the links and when I find one that may help me with a brickwall, I copy and paste the site info as a comment on my ancestry tree associated with the person I'm stuck on. This way, I don't forget the source to check out and I don't feel rushed to do it immediately.  Since my tree is public, others researching the same ancestors can see the comment and check it out themselves.  Win-Win for everyone!
  • Another very good newsletter is Genealogy and Technology E-News by Thomas MacEntree, also the founder of Geneabloggers.  You can subscribe at geneabloggers@gmail.com.  I'll be writing a future blog soon about info in one of the past newsletters.
  • I've mentioned Legacy before but they deserve to be mentioned again - weekly newsletter and webinars that are well worth taking.  Subscribe to their email list at http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp      
  •  My infatuation with Pinterest is recent.  I created an account when it was new but I couldn’t figure out how to use the site for genealogy so my husband commandeered it and posted all kinds of building, gardening and craft ideas. That worked for me - my backyard is gorgeous with all the ideas he's found!  Last winter I returned to pinterest with genealogy in mind and organized my site as Genealogy Guffaws (humor), Genealogy Quotes, American History, Middle Ages and Genealogy Organizers.  Go to https://www.pinterest.com/ and put your interest area in boards or type my site names (Genealogy Guffaws) to go directly to my pages. You'll be amazed at all of the genealogy related info that is out there.
  • My personal favorite of all is Google Picassa https://picasa.google.com/.  I have uploaded all my photos and stored them in the cloud.  This way, I don't have to worry about their destruction, my family has access and they're organized by person so I can find the photo I’m looking for quickly, wherever I am.  The absolutely coolest feature, though, is facial recognition.  I had a lot of old photos in which my dearly departed ones didn't bother to identify the people. Picassa gives you suggestions as to who they might be based on photos that you have already identified.  It does tend to mix up young children - confused my kids several times but since I knew who they were it was a quick fix.  I have this downloaded on my desktop but you can view it anywhere, anytime.  I also have my smart phone photos sent directly to the site.  For my recent trip to Salt Lake City, Picassa created a book based on the photos that it uploaded. It was a wonderful way to remember the trip and took no time on my part to do that!   
Hope you've found these free sites valuable.  

I'm always looking for more so let me know about others that are your personal favorites.

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