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Archive for April, 2008
Genealogy Programs, Organizing Your Ancestors the Easy Way
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008I love computer Genealogy Programs. I think they are the most useful invention since home computers and certainly the best reason to own a computer. Why? I don’t like getting organized. But genealogy requires organization and Genealogy Programs are a great solution to the problem. These lovely programs allow you to simply fill in the blanks with all the facts that you’ve collected in your research and add the sources for those facts. Just like that, you’re organized. See how easy that was? Then, with a click of the mouse, the computer’s little microchip brain starts linking all those facts together and spewing out detailed reports and charts about your ancestors that you’ll be proud to show off to everyone at the next family reunion. What could be more useful than that? Not even Tupperware.
Deciphering The First, Middle and Nicknames of our Ancestors
Thursday, April 24th, 2008A Rose by any other name might be called Polly, Molly or Maude. And John can be known as Jack, Archibald as Balt and Christopher as Chris, Christy or Christian. I even have an Uncle Cecil who was known as Peiko. Where did that come from? That’s right, it’s not just surnames we have to worry about when searching for our ancestors. (See my post on April 20th, Hooked on Phonetics . . . The Many Misspellings of our Ancestors’ Names.) A man may have been known by his middle name until he reached maturity, and then switched to his first name. Some men and women used nicknames instead of their first names even for legal documents—but not every time. This makes them difficult to research.
Hooked on Phonetics . . . The Many Misspellings of our Ancestors’ Names
Sunday, April 20th, 2008From the moment the first European ship hit American soil, our ancestors’ surnames have been cruelly treated by the people inscribing them on parchment, paper and in printer’s ink. The reason is simple. Many people didn’t know how to spell them: not the person owning the name, the person writing it or the person setting the type. The way this problem was dealt with was Phonetics. If a man didn’t know how to spell a name, he spelled it as it sounded, and every man responsible for recording those names had a different idea how to spell what he heard. To complicate the matter, many of the people speaking the names and those writing them spoke different languages.
Free Civil War Website Available - But For a Limited Time, So Hurry!
Thursday, April 17th, 2008It’s free, it’s great, and it’s for a limited time. Best of all, it’s everything a genealogist wants to know about the Civil War; who the soldiers were, what battles their regiments fought in, what songs were the men singing as they marched to battle and who was writing diaries about the whole affair. The Alexander Street Press is a database that has lots of great information–but it’s usually only accessible at libraries, colleges and universities that subscribe to their website. That is until now, and I mean right now.