Save the World's Records

FamilySearch has created a new indexing event for this summer. July 15-17 will be seventy-two hours of indexing. Be sure to join this team of people from around the world, trying to make valuable records available online. In order to join this team follow this link. The Worlds Records 

You can also find more about this event on Facebook Worldwide indexing event 2016 and Twitter #TheWorldsRecords

After you have joined this event, please invite your friends and family to become a part of this great team too.

Hidden Treasure on FamilySearch

While I was at the family history library in Salt Lake City, I saw a tour in progress. They were in the midst of telling those on the tour, that a goal of FamilySearch is to make it possible for everyone in the world that has access to a computer, will have access to records for their family. At the time that I heard this, I thought it was really cool, but was somewhat skeptic on how this was going to be possible. However, through the years, since this encounter, I have seen many miracles with the accomplishment of this worthy goal.

Many records have been made available on familysearch.org. However, you might not know how to access all of them. If you go through the records under the search tab, you will notice a lot of records available for our use. According to the numbers on familysearch, there are 2,099 databases for countries around the world. This is amazing! However, if you are only using this you are missing out on a lot of records that have been made available for our use.

Here are the steps to get to these valuable resources...

1. Click on FamilySearch Catalog

2. Type in the area you want to research in. When searching in the catalog, you want to write your search area like this ... Country, State, County.

 3. Pick the category that fits your research. For example you might want to find a birth, marriage or death record, so your category would be vital records.

4. Pick the database that includes the years you are looking for.

5. Scroll down to the Film notes, and look for a camera icon. This means that the film has been put online, but does not have an index. You will have to look through this film as  if you are on a microfilm reader.

This has become one of my favorite parts of the FamilySearch website. It has been so much fun to have these records at the tip of my fingers. FamilySearch is doing great things. Make sure you don't miss out on all of the resources on this great website.

Happy Searching!

How can the new probate/wills record collection help my research

One of my new favorite databases on Ancestry to research in is the US Wills and Probates. Ancestry is still updating this database, but the information that you can find here is pure gold. This record type has been highly underused because they have not been easily accessible, but with the help of Ancestry, and FamilySearch we are now going to be able to use the valuable information found in these records.

In my own family history research, we have been searching for the death date, of one William Lumpkin Figg. There have been some who believed he died in 1912, 1918, and 1936 all in Linn County, Iowa; which do you pick. For me I picked none of them because I could not prove any of them. I searched for death records in Linn County and time and again came up empty handed concerning William. In my genealogical database the death on William has been blank about five years, but I had not given up hope that I would one day find the date of his death.  

The day this database was rolled out, I decided that I was going to search to see if there were any Figg's with a will in this area. One very promising probate popped up for a William Figg in 1918. When I clicked into the document this is what was found... 

Here I learned that this WM Figg was a resident of Linn County, Iowa, but he died in Buchanan County, Iowa on 9 January 1918. When I saw the dates on this document, I could not immediately take this as my own person, but it made me realize that for the last five years I could have been searching for a death in the wrong county. In order to figure out if this was the correct William Figg, I kept reading the document to see what other information I could come up with. As I continued to analyze the document, his heirs were mentioned as such:

When I found out who the heirs were for this William Figg, a joyful cheer came out of my mouth, because this is my family. I not only know when and where William Figg died. I now have a new county to write to for a death certificate for William. I also know where each of his children were living at the time of his death. This can be very helpful when I start to search for more information about each of their families.

The valuable information that was found in this probate, made me excited for the continued search for other people who possibly have a will/probate. I absolutely love when I am looking at the record collections Ancestry has added or updated and seeing this database increase in size. If you have not started searching for the gold in this database, start today. Take one person who you think might have a will/probate and search for them. The information you can use in these documents is well worth the search.

Top ten things to know about temple work

10. Understand Church Policy

9. Understanding the color code and icons in FamilySearch - you can find the meaning of the icons in the tree under SHOW or on the temple page under LEGEND.

8. Find sources - even if the icon is green make sure they have been sourced. Remember you do not know how accurate people are if there are not sources attached to them.

7. The census is our friend! You can find a lot of great information about families in the census records. Do not let the census be the last place you look.

6. Play well with others- we are in this together, let us help each other do the best that we can.

5. Not everything is as it appears to be - study the family and make sure there could not be problems with the family. Does everything make sense? For example - Is everyone the correct gender? Are there gaps between children that are not explained?

4. Do Descendancy Research - when you find someone through this kind of researching do not forget to do number 8.

3. You can share the people you have reserved with family and friends - on your temple page one of the options is to share with the temple or with family and friends. Be sure to contact the people you are sharing the temple cards with so they know to be looking for the request sheet.

2. Investigate everything - question everything - Find the sources needed to make your case. Don't fully believe anything until you have good proof to back it up.

1. Check for duplicates- there are two ways to do this. 1. Click the possible duplicates. 2. Go up to the find button and see if you can search in the system to find someone that is your person, but does not show up in possible duplicates. When you search this way you need to search multiple ways so that you know there is not another one. Please check both ways before you submit their names for the temple.

How to do research:

Pray study pray
This is a spiritual work. We can gain guidance to the information we need as we combine our prayers and our research together.

Happy Searching!

Thursday Evening Ancestry Class

At our Ancestry class on Thursday night, we learned something great about the connection between our Ancestry and FamilySearch accounts. Sources can now be pushed back and forth between the two sites. Here is a brief tutorial on how to work with the sources on both websites.

1. Sign into Ancestry.com

2. Pick the person you want to work with

3. Click on the FamilySearch Button

 4. Click on Compare person on FamilySearch

 5. Scroll down to the sources, and click on the boxes of the sources you want to push across to either site.

6. On Ancestry you will go to your timeline and it will appear as one of the sources. When you click on that source, it will take you to the citation information. When you click on the weblink you will be taken to document on FamilySearch

7. On FamilySearch you will go to the person page, and scroll to the section called sources. You will notice that it shows up as a web source. You will click on the url and it will take you to the Ancestry website, and the document you were looking for.

With the ability to push sources back and forth between Ancestry and FamilySearch can help make it so we only do the work one time. As we collaborate with each other on the web we can further the work of Salvation faster and better than ever before. This is an exciting time to get involved in family history. We hope you take a look at this new function, and play around with it. If you have any questions about it, please come into the center, and we can help you.

Happy Searching!