New Genealogy Tips and Tricks

Courtesy of en.Wikipedia.org. Thinking of you, Ukraine! I've been Spring Cleaning so I'm a tad late on posting today. I'm really supposed to be in a local genealogy society's Zoom meeting but they are having tech issues so I decided to blog while I wait to be let in. I'm excited to write that I have FINALLY finished scanning my older genealogy collection from my family. I had so much dust, bits of dried brown paper, even glitter from old greeting cards around that I spent the last week plus majorly cleaning. Amazing how those documents permeated nooks and crannies throughout my home! After I get the outside pressure washed, my favorite job, I decided to scan additional documents, such as medical records, too. I'd like to go as paperless as possible going forward. Here is some new genealogy news you might find interesting: ROOTSTECH may be over but if you attended, you should be getting an email notification of your "cousins" that also logged on for the conference. Follow the link (which expires on March 25th) and then click "Roots Tech Relatives." My relative number is 8,944 - those would be the people who also have a FamilySearch.org tree that matches the people I have in my tree. A map appears and you can click to see folks from your area and be able to contact them if you like. Another alternative is to scroll down the page and click in the Surname box - adding a surname you are interested in connecting with. The default is your current surname and if it's like mine, Samuelson, is not going to find you much. There are loads of Samuelsons that aren't related to us because of Swedish naming patterns. I plugged in my top 3 family surnames - Koss, Leininger, and Landfair and discovered that there were 5 Leiningers in attendance but no one with the other two names. Have New York City families? Then you'll love the fact that the vital records are 70% digitized and available for FREE. Check out the link. A list of all available records can be found here. MyHeritage.com continues to improve its site. If you love timelines, you'll enjoy their new color-coded ones with graphics. This blog article will explain it. I'm not sure how I feel about their new Live Story which is a tool for you to make animated videos of your ancestors telling their stories. Personally, it's a little too creepy for me but if you are into AI and liked Deep Nostalgia, this is definitely for you. Try it out here. On the more traditional genealogy path, MyHeritage.com has increased its French records by adding Filae's family trees. That 269 million! Read about it here and there is a link in the article to start researching the records. Sigh, so many records, so little time. Have a wonderful week!