Hurley's World

I hated history in high school, a fact that seems absurd to me today since now I’m surrounded by it. But back then, history was just a bunch of names and dates and events that had no impact on me whatsoever. Or so I thought.

Age does funny things to you. Gravity aside, it’s also helped me realize just how much I was personally affected by those events we studied in school. For example, I was always told that my great-grandfather left Austria-Hungary to avoid conscription. What I didn’t know until I started checking dates was that World War I was the bigger trigger.

I thought about this again on Friday as I was watching Who Do You Think You Are? I was quick to make the Salem, Massachusetts link – the witch trials were one of the more interesting things I recalled from high school history, although I may have learned more about them from literature and reruns of Bewitched. Still, if I found Salem in my family tree, you bet I’d start searching for links to witches. The Gold Rush, however, threw me off. Although I currently live in the West, I still don’t immediately connect 19th-century trips to California to searching for gold.

Genealogists have a suggestion for people like me who don’t recall all of those names, dates, and events from history. Put everything on a timeline. Start with an ancestor and create notations above the dateline of that person’s life. Include places of residence, dates children were born, education, occupation, and everything else you know. Note historical events below the line. If your history has become a little rusty over the years, you can find fantastic history sources at sites including The History Channel (http://www.history.com/), Digital History (http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/), and even Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com/). Also read local historic newspapers to add events that may have occurred near your ancestor’s home.

With a timeline in front of me, I would have quickly guessed that Sarah Jessica’s great-great-great-great-grandfather was off to California to strike it rich, and then I could have searched for documents that proved this true. In my own family, I could see which of my relatives might have fought in the Civil War so I can know who might have related pension records. I could determine if there was a political reason for my Italian ancestors to come to America and if the social climate in Italy had changed 15 years or so later when a few of them returned home. And the list goes on and on.

By the way, if you missed the Sarah Jessica Parker’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, you can catch it here. And be sure to watch this Friday, when it’s football legend Emmitt Smith’s turn.

I love organizing. My bookshelves at home are sorted by genre. The shirts hanging in my closet are grouped together based on color (and style). And the obsession doesn’t stop there. I’m always looking for new ways to put my family history in order.

When I first started using Family Tree Maker, I didn’t bother doing much with my media items. I was just happy if they were in my tree and linked to the right people. But as my family tree grew larger and larger and I had hundreds of items, I realized I needed a system. I started taking advantage of the ability to assign categories to each item.

Family Tree Maker comes with some default categories and I created a few of my own.

Have any of you created categories that you find particularly useful? Or deleted ones you didn’t feel you needed?

The next step I took was to add more specific details to captions. Instead of 10 photos titled “Phoebe Gedge,” I now have captions like “Phoebe Gedge in the 7th grade,” and “Phoebe Gedge at her U of U college graduation.” I also changed the way I labeled records and documents. Instead of death certificates being labeled differently for each individual, every record now has a caption consisting of a heading and a name (for example, Death certificate – Herbert Gedge, Obituary – Harold A. Reed, Tombstone – Lorine Bobbitt).

How do you use captions? Do you ignore them? Add lots of details? Have your own identification system?

Now you’ve read about my system. I’d like to hear how you organize your media files in Family Tree Maker. What has worked for you? What has been a disaster? I look forward to reading your comments—maybe it will give me an excuse to organize one more time.

My first thought when I saw that obituary handed to Sarah Jessica Parker was that there was no way John S. Hodge could be John Eber Hodge’s dad. John Eber was born in late September 1850; by my calculations, that’s just a bit too late for him to be the son of a miner who died en route to California the year before.

When it comes to genealogy, it’s the juicy stories that really hook me, which is probably why I immediately jumped to speculation and scandal. Never once did it cross my mind that the obituary might be wrong (c’mon, it was in a newspaper – those are always reliable sources, right?).

I should know better. Seriously, how many times have I looked at two census records for the same person, different decades, and found a discrepancy in birth years? I know to chalk it up to bad reporting, get a second opinion, another record that helps me figure out exactly which date is right. But for some reason I never thought that could happen in an obituary.

Natalie Cottrill of ProGenealogists, who provides Sarah Jessica with the obituary and the documents that prove the obituary wrong in Friday night’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, summed it up nicely for me. “John’s date of death from his son’s obituary is a good example of why it is important to put more weight on primary source information than on secondary information,” she told me. Primary sources, said Natalie, are recorded close to the time of the event. Ideally the information in a primary source is reported by someone who witnessed the event, who has firsthand knowledge of what occurred. Birth records, draft registration cards, even a passenger list (at least in regard to arrival information) – those are primary sources. Obituaries, on the other hand, summarize a life and are written after the fact by someone other than the deceased. What’s stated in one can provide important clues but may not be perfectly accurate, particularly in regard to an event that occurred six decades earlier.

Lesson learned. From now on I’ll consider the origin of the information I’m looking at before I deem it absolute fact. And I’ll let those wonderfully scandalous stories that I conjure up merely encourage me to dig for better proof so I know that they’re right (or wrong).

Turns out history knows a lot about Sarah Jessica Parker’s family tree. She’s a gold miner’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter with links to an accused witch. In case you missed any of the details of where Sarah Jessica went and what she saw, here they are, in a very small nutshell:

Sarah Jessica starts her journey by talking to her mom about the Hodge family – a line of her family that Sarah Jessica never heard of before. Where did her research move next?

• Cincinnati Public Library; Cincinnati Museum Center: Sarah Jessica learns more about the Hodge family’s roots in Cincinnati. But when did gold miner John S. Hodge die? While his son’s obituary says 1849, the 1850 census tells a different story. Which one is right?

• El Dorado, California: Sarah Jessica sees firsthand where the miners might have lived and gets a better understanding of the lives and risks of 49ers as well as the motivation and fate of her great-great-great-great-grandfather. A letter from John S. Hodge’s business partner confirms John’s 1850 date of death and location.

• New England Historic Genealogical Society: Sarah Jessica discovers that the Hodge family marries into the Elwell family – both of which have very long histories in America. She, herself, directly descends from Esther Dutch Elwell – a woman accused of witchcraft in Salem.

• Massachusetts Historical Society: The complaint against Esther Dutch Elwell still exists in paper form from the late 1600s, giving Sarah Jessica the chance to read the handwritten accusation against her ancestor. But further research shows that Esther was never tried let alone convicted: the Court of Oyer and Terminer was dissolved before the warrant for Esther was issued. Esther went free and lived to be 82 years old.

What does history know about your family? Spend a few minutes at Ancestry.com searching through census records, gathering the kinds of details that opened up historic connections for Sarah Jessica Parker. (Hint: read all the way across the census page for clues like military service, birthplace, and immigration dates.) Compare dates for your ancestors to historical timelines and then see if you can learn more about how your family’s actions were influenced by key events.

If you happen to find a link or want to see if one exists between your family and the California Gold Rush or the Salem witch trials, you can dive directly into the following record collections at Ancestry.com:

• Check the 1850 U.S. Federal Census for California to see if your ancestors were Forty-Niners.
• For great context, check out some published histories from some of California’s major Gold Rush counties:
  • El Dorado County
  • Butte County
  • Nevada County
  • Placer County
  • Sacramento County
  • Tuolumne County
  • Yuba County
• Was your ancestor accused of witchcraft? Check out our Salem Witches collection to find out.

And if you want to catch something in the Sarah Jessica Parker episode again or learn more about what’s coming up on Who Do You Think You Are?, visit http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are.

We wanted to let everyone know that we are experiencing some intermittent site problems that have slowed down the site. We are actively working to resolve these issues and apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

Thank you for your patience as we work through this issue.

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was one of Ancestry.com’s very first databases. We’ve been adding names to this collection since 1996, and in that time we have listed more than 86 million names in the collection.  In fact, we were the first to provide family historians online access to the SSDI, so we realize the importance of this collection. This is why we will now be updating the SSDI every week to add the names of those whose deaths were recently reported to the Social Security Administration.

The SSDI contains only deaths that were reported to the Social Security Administration or the Railroad Retirement Board.  So it is possible that Granny is not included.  But before concluding that Granny was not, make sure to search the SSDI in several ways. Here are some tips for your search:

• Search with the surname by which she was known at the time of her death.
• If that does not bring up the record, try other surnames that she may have used at various times. 
• If you know the year in which she died, try searching by given name, year of death, and year of birth, without including a surname. 
• Try searching with initials (many SSDI records do not include the full given name). 
• Try using a middle name instead of the first given name. 
• Try variant forms of names – for Sarah also try Sally; for Mary also try Molly and Polly. 
• Try switching the month and day (for 5 February also check 2 May).

If you have a record that lists the Social Security Number, that can be searched on without needing to enter information in any of the other search boxes.  We recently increased the ability to use truncation in searches so try entering just the first few letters of the name and then using an asterisk.

Exactly what each SSDI record contains depends on what information the Social Security Administration provides.  Some SSDI records provide the exact date of death while others list only the month and year.  In no case do SSDI records list where death occurred because the Social Security Administration does not provide that information.  What is commonly thought to be the place of death is instead the last place of residence that was known to the Social Security Administration.  This locality might be where the death occurred, but you will need to find other records, such as the person’s state-issued death certificate, to know for sure.

So, if you haven’t already tried searching our SSDI collection – try it today. And keep in mind that this collection will be updated weekly, so it’s worth checking back regularly to see if Granny was included.

No need to adjust your computer screen – you’re at the right place. As you may have noticed, we have updated the appearance of the blog to give it a little facelift based on feedback we received from the blog survey we conducted this past January.

The appearance updates are minor, but we hope they will make the blog a little more user friendly for our readers. As part of the makeover process we have simplified archived blog posts and moved popular links to the top of the page to make them more accessible.

The Ancestry.com blog look may have changed, but the content remains the same. We will continue to post updates around new additions – our product, content, features and other services – as we develop them, and you will hear from the people who create and develop these products and site features for Ancestry.com.

We hope you continue to enjoy the updates we provide on the blog as you experience the journey of discovering, sharing and preserving your family history.

I’ve been told all my life that I come from a family of horse thieves. How else can you explain turning out a last name like Croasmun when a perfectly simple-to-spell version, Crossman, exists?

But family stories aren’t always as they seem.

Take actress Sarah Jessica Parker’s family story, which says she’s from a family of recent immigrants. Good people, but historically speaking, Sarah Jessica is pretty certain her family’s history is reasonably uneventful. Then she agrees to let professionals help her with her family tree on the premiere episode of Who Do You Think You Are? and Parker quickly discovers her family roots are anything but mundane.

Parker is the first of seven celebrities appearing in the U.S. version of the internationally known series, Who Do You Think You Are? Going into the series, each participant knows very little about his or her family tree. But with the help of researchers, Ancestry.com, snazzy finding tips, and history pros, each one walks away with a new – and better – understanding of the family that came before them.

I’m planning to watch the series with my kids, which means I’ll have the perfect opportunity to entertain them during commercials with family truths about coal miners, immigrants, and icemen. Yes, ice delivery is exciting when you’re 5 years old. It’s even better when Mommy can log into Ancestry.com and show you proof in a census record.

Who Do You Think You Are? airs at 8/7c on Friday, March 5. You can catch a preview at http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are. And check back here after the show for my recap, or chime into the discussion at http://www.facebook.com/ancestry.com.

I have this dream that one day someone will hand me the money to go on the family history trek of my choice. Not the one that takes me to Pittsburgh, to coal mines in western Pennsylvania, or to dig through a shoebox full of photos at my parents’ house in Alabama – all fantastic places, but if someone else is footing the bill, I’m going to find my Italian line. Southern Italy. Coastal. Villas. Vineyards. And Venturas – my grandfather’s surname. 

No one, however, has offered to send me there yet. You, on the other hand, may have a chance, if you’re the winner of the Ancestry.com Ultimate Family History Journey Sweepstakes.

Grand prize should cover your trip, regardless of your family’s place of origin — $20,000 in travel cash. Don’t know where they’re from? That’s covered too: you get genealogy and local experts to help you out. And if, after visiting, you tire of that family line, you can easily switch to researching another since the grand prize winner and five of his or her family members score annual World Deluxe subscriptions to Ancestry.com, gratis.

The sweepstakes is running in conjunction with the series Who Do You Think You Are? which airs Friday nights on NBC beginning March 5. And like all good contests, there are some official rules to read before tossing your cappello in the ring. Rest assured that your chances are even better since, as an employee of Ancestry.com, I can’t actually enter to win. But you can – and often: once each day now through April 30.

Enter the sweepstakes and learn more at www.ancestry.com/sweepstakes. 

Ciao!

Our search has been experiencing intermittent technical issues this morning. We are working on the problem and apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Update: We are also experiencing some intermittent technical issues with Ancestry Family Trees and are actively working to resolve them.  We hope to have everything resolved shortly.  Thank you again for your patience.

Update We believe that our issues from this morning our resolved. We know how important searching on ancestry is, and we apologize for any inconvenience that you have experienced.

You’ve been asking for better ways to control your results. Over the next couple of months, we will be launching two new sets of filters in new search. One will be a name filter, with specific options for first and last names, and the other will be a place filter.

Here’s a quick preview:

• Name filters: In new search, when you search for a name, you currently have two basic options: our default search or exact search, and you can manipulate either one with some clever use of wildcards. We are going to introduce options for soundex on last names, initials on first names, and other phonetic searches on both.
• Place filters: Also we’ve been working to give you more control over how you search places. Let’s say you choose “Rockbridge County, Virginia, USA”, but you want to search Rockbridge County and all the surrounding counties, but nothing else. You’ll be able to do that. Or maybe you want to search Virginia and adjacent states. Well, you’ll be able to do that too. I’ve been doing some testing on it, and it’s very convenient, to say the least.

To get ready for these two new filters, which will give you a lot more control over your searches, we had to make some changes to the way the search form sends queries to the actual search engine. We added in the structure for these filters and while we were at it, we ran it through a large volume of tests for relevancy, and made some improvements there as well. You won’t see much difference, but on some of your queries you may see some changes in the order of results. These changes will be seen in new search and old search without the exact option. Old exact search will not change.

The changes to the interface will launch sometime on Friday and none of this will change how you use search. But the filter changes are coming, so stay tuned.

We have updated our group pages to be more useful and efficient for new and experienced members. These group pages can help you quickly find individual data collections that share a common characteristic such as census records from a single country.   For example, you can access all the US Federal Censuses from the US Federal Census Collection page.   All of the United Kingdom and Canadian censuses are organized similarly.

The forms have not changed. We only updated the content around the forms. Below is an example of the US Federal Census group page:

The group pages contain:

• A search form
• A list of data collections below the form
• Help links
• Introduction text to describe the group, explanations of typical data found in the group, and historical context
• A sample image of a famous person or place that is included in the group

From Ancestry.com, you can access the US, United Kingdom and Canada Censuses pages from the left side of the search homepage here:

You can also access them from  the left side of our Census and Voter lists page :

These pages give us the capability to group different collections together in a way that makes some topical search strategies easier.  We hope you find the improved formatting and access to these pages helps make your searches more efficient.  We are expecting to make more of these available throughout the year.

Laura Dansbury

As you may have already heard, NBC is premiering the new TV show Who Do You Think You Are? on March 5 at 8/7c.

The family history-focused series will lead seven celebrities on a heart-warming journey back in time as they discover more about the ancestors who came before them. Lisa Kudrow, who executive produced the show, will be featured, along with Sarah Jessica Parker, Spike Lee, Matthew Broderick, Susan Sarandon, Emmitt Smith, and Brooke Shields.

We hope you’ll invite your friends and family to watch the show. For ideas around how to spread the word about Who Do You Think You Are?, check out www.ancestry.com/spreadtheword.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? BACKGROUND

The idea for Who Do You Think You Are? originated from a show that has been phenomenally successful in the United Kingdom for several years. During the last season, more than 5 million viewers tuned in to watch the show. All in all, the UK has seen a surge of interest in family history, and we hope and expect the same reaction from Who Do You Think You Are? in the United States.

If you haven’t already seen it, check out the Who Do You Think You Are? trailer to see what it’s all about.

EXPANDING INTEREST IN FAMILY HISTORY
Ancestry.com is a partner and sponsor for the show, and assisted in researching  the celebrities’ family histories to be used in the show.

Many of the reasons we partnered with NBC are the same reasons the genealogy community will be interested in the show – because Who Do You Think You Are? brings family history to the general public and presents new opportunities for the entire genealogy community. This means:

• More people may want to join a local genealogical society
• More people asking for help finding their stories
• Increased media exposure for the family history community
• More funding and resources for organizations focused on family history

What is wonderful about the show is that it will help people everywhere understand what they could discover about their own family stories.

Who Do You Think You Are? could very well be the next biggest family history phenomenon since Roots. America will see a renewed interest in family history.

Let your friends and family know about this exciting new show and get ready watch on Friday nights at 8/7c starting March 5th.

Learn more about Who Do You Think You Are?

We’ve recently added the ability to link photos (or other files like stories, audio, and video) to any fact or event you have for a person in your family tree.

Adding photos and stories to your family tree can create a much richer history of your ancestors’ lives, and make it much more interesting when sharing it with children and grandchildren.  Where previously you could only add a date, place and description to describe key moments in your ancestors lives, now you can add images, stories, audio, and video to make these important events that much more exciting to share and preserve.

Of course, many of you have already uploaded photos that are connected to events in your family tree.  We’ve created a simple way to link photos you have already uploaded as well as tools to upload additional photos.

In the past week we have released two exciting collections to be indexed through the World Archives Project.

Yesterday we released the Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, 1936-1938.  Within these records are interviews with former slaves, photos, and folklore – or in other words a captivating way to spend a few hours.  The interviews detail the lives of former slaves, from when they were slaves to after they were free.  Although this collection is typed it is made a little more difficult to capture information as great care was taken to preserve the dialect of the former slave.  For additional information about this project you can refer to the Project page, help article, or  message board.

The London, England, School Admissions and Discharges, 1841-1911 were released last week – there are currently 350 contributors working on the project and they have already keyed 65,000 records!  This collection is comprised of records for millions of students (names and birth dates) who attended school in London for a time period spanning over 150 years.  Many times the records also include the names of the students parents so there is a wealth of knowledge available in this collection.  These records are handwritten but are recorded in easy to follow forms.  For additional information about this project you can refer to the Project page, the help article, or message  board.

If you would like to participate in keying these records you can learn more about the Ancestry World Archives Project here.   To download the Ancestry World Archives Project Getting Started Guide click here.

The Ancestry.com Family Tree Service will undergo scheduled maintenance tonight for a few hours beginning at about 11:00 PM Mountain Standard Time.

During this time Ancestry Member Trees, OneWorldTree, some portions of My Canvas, the sections of the Home Page that are related to Member Trees, and the sections of MyFamily.com 2.0 that are related to Member Trees will be unavailable.

For the vast majority of our members living outside Mountain Time, 11:00 PM MST is the same as…

Coordinated Universal Time: 06:00
In London: 6:00 AM
In Melbourne: 5:00 PM
In San Francisco: 10:00 PM
In New York: 1:00 AM
In Moscow: 9:00 AM
In Rome: 7:00 AM
In Tokyo: 3:00 PM

As we mentioned last month, we will be launching a series of filters in new search with the aim of giving the experienced searcher a lot more control over his searches and therefore making it much easier to understand search results.

Early on Thursday Feb 11, we will be launching our improved Collection Filters, which will give you not only the ability to prioritize different sets of records based on location, but also the ability to exclude everything but those records.

First, make sure you are in new search, and you are in advanced mode.

At the bottom of the main and category search forms, you will see the Collection Priority area:

So if you wanted to search for your great great grandfather John Smith in Canadian records, you could set the collection priority to Canadian:

And if you only want to see records from those collections, you would check the “Show only records from these collections” checkbox:

Then perform your search, and your records will only come from this group of collections.

Also, once you set your collection priority it stays “sticky”, so if you want to prioritize or limit to a different set of collections, you will need to reset this.

Happy Searching!

Join Ancestry.com at the St. George Family History Expo for family history, classes, vendors and much, much more.

 2010 St. George Family History Expo
February 26-27, 2010
Dixie Convention Center, St. George, Utah

 Expo Classes – Expo registration required to attend
Register to attend the expo’s two full days of family history classes taught by the nation’s top experts and professionals.

The expo’s classes include the following taught by Ancestry.com experts:

• Getting the Most out of Your Ancestry.com Subscription
• Best Strategies for Searching Ancestry.com
• Tapping into the Ancestry.com and RootsWeb Community

Register today to attend the St. George Family History Expo.

Exhibit Hall – Free to the Public
Stop by the Ancestry.com booth in the expo’s exhibit hall where Ancestry.com experts will be on hand to answer questions about Ancestry.com, Family Tree Maker, MyCanvas and more. And don’t miss special expo discounts on various Ancestry.com products.

The exhibit hall also features family history vendors from across the country. The exhibit hall is free to the public and is open:

• Friday, February 26: 9 am- 6 pm
• Saturday, February 27: 9 am – 5 pm

Digitize Your Family Records – Free to the Public
Ancestry.com is excited to provide St. George Family History Expo attendees the opportunity to have their family photos and documents scanned at the expos, for free, on our professional scanning equipment. It’s a unique opportunity to have your family history records digitized!

Expo attendees can sign up for 15-minute scanning sessions to be held during the exhibit hall hours. Scanning-session signs-ups will open each morning—sign up Friday morning for a Friday time slot, Saturday morning for a Saturday time slot.

Will you be bringing items to scan? Please help us plan accordingly by letting us know how much and what you’ll be bringing at the following link: http://2010stgeorgescanning.eventbrite.com/

Register today to attend the St. George Family History Expo.
We hope to see you there!

We recently introduced an RSS feed for your Member Connect Activity so that you can receive updates even when you’re not on Ancestry.com. If you use an RSS reader, this is a great way to easily check your latest Member Connect Activity alongside your other favorite news (learn more about RSS here).

The RSS feed is available from the Recent Member Connect Activity page. You can subscribe to the RSS feed in 3 easy steps:

1. Click on the “See more activity” link in the Recent Member Connect Activity on your homepage or click on “Recent Member Connect Activity” in the sub menu under the Collaborate main navigation (these links take you to the same page).
   
   
   
2. At the bottom of the right column on the Recent Member Connect Activity page, you’ll find a link to subscribe to the RSS feed.
   
   
   
3. When you click on the link, you will navigate to the RSS feed (XML) page. There are two ways to subscribe to the RSS feed. If your browser supports this, you can click on the “subscribe” link/button at the top of the page to add the RSS feed to your RSS reader. Otherwise, you can manually subscribe to the RSS feed by copying and pasting the URL from your web browser address bar into your RSS reader.

To make it easier to navigate to your account information (such as site preferences, email preferences, and alerts), we’ve created quick links in a drop down menu from the My Account link. With this change, account settings are now one click away from any page on the site.

These links replace the ones that used to be on the Collaborate pages just below the right side of the main navigation bar. If you prefer, you can continue to edit your account settings from the “My Account Information” section of the “My Account” main page.

Message Board Favorites Listed In the Message Boards
The message board favorites list has also moved. You used to have to click on Collaborate > Message Boards > My Favorites. Now you can easily get to the topics you care about from the main Message Boards page. Click on Message Boards under the Collaborate main navigation from any page on the site and your message board favorites are directly listed there. If you have a lot of message board favorites, you can click on the “See all favorites” button to get to your full list.

If you’ve never used the Message Boards, it’s a great place to post questions for other members to help you in your research. To keep track of message boards you want to follow, look for the star icon on the category and board pages to save topics to your message board favorites list.