James Tanner's Blog – September 2009 Archive (34)

From time to time, I encounter individuals who have huge family files comprising tens of thousands of names. These people, who I will call name collectors, seem intent on compiling the largest collection of names possible. Usually, they have absolutely no idea who any of the people actually are, but they take pride in the huge number of individuals. Name collectors are neither genealogists nor family historians. With today's technology and a few GEDCOM files anyone can have a huge collection of… Continue

In a recent post citing FamilySearch on 11 September 2009, Dick Eastman listed a number of updated collections in FamilySearch's Record Search Pilot. But the most interesting thing about the new files is not in the article. The new files listed are:
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One of my remote great-grandfathers moved from Rhode Island to New York. All of the published family histories had the story but the move had never been documented or, at least, the source had never been recorded. In reading through early Rhode Island town records, I discovered the real estate tax rolls for the town where they lived. In the tax rolls, I found the family listed year after year, and then they disappeared. This event gave me source for the timing of their movement to New York,… Continue

Perhaps a couple of examples will illustrate the reason for my recent posts on brick walls. I have the opportunity to talk to many people every week about their genealogy and for that reason, I frequently have comments about difficulties in finding one certain individual, sometimes a direct line relative but often a collateral relation. Often, these researchers become so consumed with finding the information about the difficult individual, they spend most of their research time going over and… Continue

The final Stakes in the Idaho Falls Temple District are now scheduled to go live with New FamilySearch on September 14, 2009. All of the members of the St. George Temple District now have full access to the Website. This leaves only the following Temple Districts to yet have access to New FamilySearch:
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In a recent article in the print edition of Family Tree Magazine, Lisa Louise Cooke listed six very large online collections of maps. This list got me thinking and I decided visit a few of the sites and some others besides those in the magazine. The largest collection of maps listed was that of the National Library of Australia. However, the article claims that there are 300,000 maps in the collection, but the Website states that there are " Over 7225 items from the Map Collection are now… Continue

Despite the economic difficulties and their impact on various state libraries and archives, there is one very bright spot, the State of Washington. A recent blog of the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society, once again called my attention to this huge online resource. The main Washington State Archives Website has access to the Digital Archives site with an amazing 83,887,328 total records with 66,904,296 searchable online. The online records include the following collections,…

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In two of my previous posts, I have discussed aspects of the situation commonly referred to by genealogists as hitting a "brick wall." See Records you may not even know exist and A return to the "brick wall" issue. It occurs to me that the term is really so vague as to be useless and as I pointed out, the concept of being unable to continue with research is a fallacy. If there are no more records, then that is not a brick wall situation, it is an end of the line. To illustrate my point about… Continue

In one of my last posts, I gave the opinion that most of the so-called "brick wall" claims in genealogical research were mostly fallacious. Of course, I immediately received contrary opinions. For that reason, I believe the discussion of the issue should be expanded. Genealogical research is not entirely open ended. As with all historical research, there are finite limits to the amount of information available in any given locality or time period. It is evident that in the current era, the… Continue

The National Archives is "the UK government's official archive, containing almost 1,000 years of history, with records ranging from parchment and paper scrolls through to digital files and archived websites." I have discussed some of the online resources of the National Archives before, but found an especially useful online service, a Beginners' Latin tutorial. To quote the Website,
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In helping others with their genealogy, I constantly hear about the so-called "brick wall." This popular subject is consistently discussed in blogs, magazine articles and forums. Of course, I have to concede that some people left very few historical records, but the concept of a brick wall is basically a fallacy. In the vast majority of cases, the issue is not a lack of records, but a lack of the awareness that the records even exist. Some people truly believe that they have search "every… Continue

September 7, 2009 is the new release date of New FamilySearch for additional Stakes in the St. George and Idaho Falls Temple Districts. With the new date,
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Wikis are specialized Web programs that allow users to create and edit the content of Web pages using any browser. The organization of the contributions can be edited as well as the content. See What is Wiki. Although the concept is simple, the content can become extremely complex. The first Wiki was created online in 1995 as is known as the Wiki.
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Record Search 2.0, the newest version of FamilySearch's rapidly increasing database of images from the FamilySearch Indexing project has a new look and and a completely different homepage.

The changes to the program include the following, quoting from the FamilySearch Labs blog:
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