An ongoing journal of the history of the Bolles Family. From the first settler, Joseph Bolles of Wells, Maine in 1640, all past and present facts, thoughts, events, research and items of interest on this and allied families.
If you come from “Pennsylvania Dutch,” your ancestors may have lived in Pennsylvania, but they probably weren’t Dutch.
The so-called Pennsylvania Dutch aren’t from the Netherlands at all.
They’re actually descendants of 17th- and 18th-century German-speaking
immigrants in William Penn’s colony. Their language eventually evolved
into a unique dialect, and these Germans made up nearly half the
population of Pennsylvania at the time of the American Revolution.
The Colonial English used the term Dutch to describe both Germans and Netherlanders. The term may be a corruption of Deutsch, the German word for German.
Or, since most of these German emigrants departed Europe from the Dutch
port of Rotterdam, their embarkation point may have been remembered
instead of their actual origin.
Whatever the reason, it’s a tough situation to undo. The 2000 US
census reported a huge upsurge in the number of Pennsylvanians who claim
Dutch heritage. The confusing nomenclature is the only answer
demographers could come up with. Fortunately, the problem doesn’t exist
for 19th-century immigrants, who are known simply as German-Americans.
Think of that friend or family member you’ve described as great—once
you get to know her. There are some free genealogy websites like that,
too. You know what we mean: sites packed with genealogical goodies—if
only you could find them. Once you get to know these sites, we think
you’ll want to bookmark them. When you first visit, however, the
experience can be frustrating.
The first three (government-run sites) might come off a tad opaque
because of their bureaucratic origins. All three feel like “the nation’s
attic.” (How easy is it to find things in your attic?) The fourth, the
Internet Archive, is an amazing volunteer-run, non-profit collection of
everything from old TV shows to rare books. But if anything, it suffers
from being a little too accessible. None of these sites are designed to
make money. So their designers didn’t have as strong an incentive to
make them easy for users to find (and thus, buy) stuff.
We’ve done the hard work for you and mapped out paths to the
treasures on each of these free genealogy websites. Once you get to know
these sites as well as we have, we think you’ll agree that they really
are diamonds in the rough.
The National Archives holds millions of records—but you’ll have to dig deeper than the catalog search to find them.
When visiting the National Archives’ site, don’t expect to find a lot
of actual records. You can best research censuses, most passenger lists
and early military records held by the archives elsewhere. But that
doesn’t mean there aren’t some gems here. Among the site’s records,
you’ll find WWII enlistment records as well as indexes of Russian,
Italian and German arrivals in America. The catalog contains archival
descriptions for 85 percent of the archives’ holdings—plus, most
significantly, more than two million digitized copies. You can also find
quirky stuff (such as maps and photographs) that might fill a gap in
your family history.
“Find” is the trick here, though. The handsome but minimalist main catalog search page
offers a single blank to fill in—no tips, no options, no dropdowns and
no check marks. While admirable for its simplicity, the page often
generates lacking search results. Searching for Russian passenger arrivals, for example, retrieves results topped by a manifest for the RMS Carpathia,
along with a bunch of hits about Lee Harvey Oswald. Clicking on
Advanced Search brings up a screen full of options to help narrow your
search results.
First, though, you’ll want to get in the right ballpark. Here’s where knowing some search tricks for the site come in handy:
The word AND is implied. Searching Ulysses Grant is the same as typing Ulysses AND Grant. The terms must both appear, but not necessarily near each other or in that order. To specify order, use parentheses: (Ulysses Grant) or (Ulysses S. Grant). Other punctuation is ignored.
Other operators are allowed. Ulysses OR Grant would find the general and president, but also Grant Wood and James Joyce’s Ulysses. To exclude a term, use NOT: Ulysses OR Grant NOT Joyce.
Use quotes for exact phrases. “Ulysses S. Grant” (in quotes) would find that exact phrase, but not Ulysses Grant or General Grant.
An asterisk works as a wildcard. Not sure how to spell Ulysses? Try Ulys*.
To find those Russian passenger lists, it helps to know the exact name of the collection. “Russians to America”
(in quotes) brings up the correct result right away (“Russians to
America Passenger Data File, 1834–1897”). The parentheses trick is less
successful, since “(Russians to America)” requires only that those words appear in that order, but potentially pages apart.
The Advanced Search options, as well as the similar refine-search
options that appear down the left side of a results page, can help here.
Clicking “Refine By: Type of Materials,” then Data Files brought the
passenger file to the first page. (A parentheses search otherwise
generated too many useless hits.) If you’re looking for images, try
“Refine By: File Format / Image (JPG).” You can also refine by date,
with options listed by decade. (Note that, the results page lists these
in order of hits, not by date.) You can combine any of these search
refinements—to look, for example, for images matching your search from
1860 to 1869.
Options across the top of the search results also let you specify all
items in the database, items available online, web pages, documents,
images or videos. You can also use the dropdown to sort by relevance,
title, archives identifier, local identifier or HMS (Holdings Management
System) entry number. Be aware that if you sort by an option that
doesn’t apply to an item, that hit vanishes from your results.
Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, just click to explore that
file or source. Clicking on an image or video enlarges it and brings up
a button to download a copy.
Search the Library of Congress’ most useful historical documents, such as maps and manuscripts, from the catalog page.
Much like the National Archives, the Library of Congress catalog
includes a wide variety of material—not just books or physical, offline
items. The Everything search at the top of the home page or the Quick Search
covers 17 million catalog records for books, serials, manuscripts,
maps, music, recordings, images and electronic resources. (There’s also
the Chronicling America digitized newspaper collection.) Digitized resources here tend to be visual, such as photos or prints, which you can search directly; you can search all digitized materials by collection.
To fine-tune a search of the overall catalog, select Advanced Search
or Keyword Search from the dropdown at the upper right of the catalog
search page. Advanced Search gives you blanks to fill in with options
for AND, OR and NOT, plus a dropdown for each where you can select to
search any terms, all terms or as a phrase. Another dropdown lets you
narrow where to look for search terms. You can also click Add Limits to
refine by year, location in the library, place of publication, type of
material and language. Note that “Location in the Library” includes an
option for the photos and prints collection, so you can try that from
here.
A few search tips for Advanced Search:
Use a percent sign (%) as a wildcard, either within a word or at the end, for a single character.
Use a question mark (?) as a multiple-character wildcard, including at the end of words for different forms of a root word.
Capitalization
is ignored, and most punctuation marks are treated as spaces. (Remove
hyphens from ISBN numbers, but not from ISSN numbers.)
Don’t dawdle—the advanced search automatically times out and ends your session.
Keyword Searching, which also has Add Limits, uses a single field
where you can enter words in any order. Use quotation marks to enclose
an exact phrase. The same wildcards work here.
When searching the photos and prints or digital collections directly,
however, use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard instead. Don’t count on
accuracy of date searches here, as dates attached to digitized materials
may not match the creation date. (They could, for example, be the years
the photographer or artist lived.) If you don’t get the results you
expect when searching for an individual, try omitting the first name.
The caption might not include (or not fully spell out) a name. For place
names, try both large geographic regions (e.g., California) and
specific place names (e.g., Fresno).
Note that, when you search photos and prints, the results are individual images. But when you search all digital collections, the results are collections that contain matching items—but may also contain unrelated digital items.
So, for example, if you’re looking for images about the immigrant experience, immigrants
in the “Photos, Prints, Drawings” collection retrieves more than 1,100
images available online, such as immigrants at Ellis Island and
immigrants on the deck of the SS Amerika. The same search of
digital collections retrieves 11 collections, ranging from photos of
frontier life to the papers of Theodore Roosevelt.
If you’re after immigrant photos in collection-wide searches, you can
refine the results by selecting options from the left side such as
Portrait Photographs or Group Portraits. Click on “View [number] Items”
to view the individual items; clicking on the name of the collection
just takes you to details about the collection. Once you’re viewing the
actual images within a collection, you can refine the search further
using the left sidebar.
Image searches may return entries for groups (called LOTs or ADE
UNITs), whose individual photos haven’t been completely catalogued.
Click on the icon for the group to see these. You can also discover
similar, unindexed images (FSA/OWI records) by clicking “Browse
neighboring items by call number.”
When you find an image you want to save, right-click (CTRL-click on
Mac) to download it. The site generally uses GIFs as small thumbnails
with catalog records, JPEGs for larger images on a separate screen, and
high-resolution TIFFs as an option for downloading.
Those with Canadian ancestry will love the books, images and links to other resources at the Library and Archives Canada.
This bilingual site (in English and French) combines aspects of its
southern neighbor’s National Archives and Library of Congress. The
institution’s vast collection, compiled from across Canada, includes
some 20 million books and 30 million images—about 5 million gigabytes of
data in total.
Under Search the Collection on the home page, you can choose to search everything
or to focus on, for example, images, genealogy, military or census
records. (These specific choices, however, mostly take you to links to
databases, rather than search pages.)
Check out these tips for the “everything” search page:
Capitalization is ignored.
Enclose exact phrases in quotation marks.
Two
wildcard characters are allowed: a question mark (?) to replace a
single character or an asterisk (*) to replace multiple characters.
Either can be used at the end of a search term, so Swede? finds “Swede” as well as “Sweden,” and Swed* finds “Swede,” “Sweden” and “Swedish.”
You can use OR, AND or NOT, alone or in combination.
You’ll also want to understand the different search categories.
Library Search is a nationwide database of not only LAC’s
catalog but also that of 1,300 local and regional libraries’ holdings.
Items available online are indicated with where they can be viewed.
Archives Search limits your query to LAC holdings, which focus mainly (but not exclusively) on Canadian life and history.
The
Ancestors Search page links to databases of vital records, censuses,
immigration records, land records, military records and directories, and
biographies; you must search these individually. Some of these
databases, however, can now be searched using the new Collections
Search, selecting Genealogy from the dropdown. (Not everything is
included, however—you’ll need to search most censuses individually for
now.)
Tricks for the new, beta Collections Search
are a bit different. An asterisk (*) still works as a wildcard for one
or more characters. But the single-character question mark wildcard does
not. Quotation marks and logical operators also work. The search page
will generally understand names in any order (Oscar Erickson or Erickson Oscar)
and search accordingly. (Sometimes if you enter only one name,
especially when you switch categories, you’ll get a message like “No
results for Erickson Erickson.”)
Once you perform a basic search, a left-hand sidebar on the results
page lets you refine your search by type of resource (such as census or
military record), date range by decade, type of material, hierarchical
level (file or component), whether available online, and type of source
(such as government). Options across the top will run the same search in
other collections, such as library or archives searches or images. You
can order your results by relevance, title (A–Z/Z–A) or date (ascending
or descending).
Just as with commercial genealogy collections, you may want to search
LAC’s individual databases separately. In fact, some can only be
searched that way. It’s more efficient to jump straight to that search
page than to clutter your results with hits from other sources. It’s
also helpful to be able to see exactly which fields you can search in
individual databases. For the 1881 Canadian census, for instance, the
basic options are keyword, surname, given name, age and province. Click
Hide/Show Advanced Options to access filters for district name and
number, sub-district name and number, division number and page number.
You can use the asterisk as wildcard here, too.
If you’re looking for images illustrating your ancestors’ Canadian past, the new Enhanced Image Search page
lets you specify type of image (all, architectural and technical
drawings, art, maps and cartographic material, objects, photographs,
stamps and stamp products). Search options are the same as for other
types of Collection Search. Results show large thumbnails, which you can
hover over to reveal captions. Click a thumbnail to bring up a larger
image with caption, where you can click Full Size to view and download
the image (by right-clicking or CTRL-clicking). Clicking the box with
the image’s identifying number (such as MIKAN 3368010) jumps to a page
with details.
The
Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine preserve a variety of content:
books, web pages, audio recording, videos, television broadcasts and
more.
The Internet Archive sounds similar to these other sites,
and its web address is confusingly similar to the National Archives’.
But it’s actually a web-only nonprofit operation, with no physical
“archive.” Instead, the site has partnerships with more than 450
institutions. Its modest goal: “provide Universal Access to All
Knowledge.” As the site’s name suggests, the site began by literally
archiving the internet. Its “Wayback Machine,” searchable at the top of
the home page, lets users go back in time to visit 341 billion old web
pages. This includes pages from defunct sites that no longer exist
elsewhere.
Since its founding as a website repository, the Internet Archive has
expanded to encompass other digital content: 11 million books and texts,
4 million audio recordings (including 160,000 live concerts), 3 million
videos (including 1 million television news programs), 1 million images
and 100,000 software programs. The archive has plenty of content useful
to genealogists, including digitized histories and old documents of all
sorts. The trick here (as with the other three websites) is finding the
good stuff.
As you’d expect from such a tech-savvy site, the Internet Archive has
powerful search tools. These tools are not necessarily simple for the
less-tech-savvy, however. The Advanced Search page, accessible from a
link on the home page or via direct link,
looks like the stuff of your tech-averse Aunt Minerva’s nightmares. So,
contrary to our usual advice, start with the simple search box on the
home page. Then use the techy tools that appear alongside the results to refine your search if necessary.
When you click to type in the basic search field, four pop-ups allow
you to search metadata, text contents, TV news captions, or archived
websites. You can choose only one at a time. A metadata search will
return all kinds of content, including images and recordings, while a
“text contents” search generates documents only.
Options down the left side of a metadata results view let you narrow
by media type, availability, year archived, topic (such as history or
genealogy), collection, creator and language. (Text contents searches
have options only for topic, collection, creator and language.) Checking
more than one choice within a category retrieves items matching either
one (images and audio, for example); check boxes in two different
categories to return only results that match both (images from the
California Revealed collection, for example). Options across the top let
you sort results by relevance, views, title, date archived and creator.
You can also search within collections, which vary from libraries to
the “Internet Arcade,” by scrolling down on the home page and selecting
one of the icons. A box at the top left of the resulting page lets you
“Search this Collection.”
While the Advanced Search page offers many more options, these basic
search tips work in either sitewide or collection-specific searches:
Use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to represent one or many
characters, including to truncate words (“John*” for “Johnson,”
“Johnstown,” etc.).
Include OR, AND or NOT to build searches, or select them from Advanced Search.
Enclose exact phrases or names in quotation marks.
You can view or download most archived items in your results list
simply by clicking on them. You can borrow others for a few weeks once
you register for a free “virtual library card.” Keep clicking on images, and you’ll get a page with only the image, which you can right-click (CTRL-click) to download.
Give it a try and play around a bit. Like these other hidden-gems
sites, once you get to know the Internet Archive, you’ll come to love
it.
From shows on the DIY Network to crafty pins on Pinterest, the
do-it-yourself culture is thriving. With a little inspiration,
determination and instruction, you can DIY a garden walkway, a feature
wall out of old wooden pallets or a no-sew shopping tote from an old
t-shirt. “But what I really want to DIY,” we can hear you thinking, “is
my family history book.” Well, guess what? You can DIY that, too.
You may have thought an actual print book in which your relatives can
read your family’s story and see photos would be out of reach. But with
modern printers, desktop publishing software, online book services
and entire self-publishing companies, the dream many family historians
share—to see their genealogy work in print—is achievable.
And just like a home improvement project, you can DIY it all, or you
can focus on the parts of family history publishing you feel comfortable
with (say, the writing)
and outsource the rest. Whether your needs and budget call for a simple
bound collection of written family memories, a narrated photo book or
an heirloom-quality hardback, this DIY guide will see you through.
DIY Publishing Options
The technological advances that let you find digitized records and
track your family tree online have opened up new options for
self-publishing your family’s story. The processes and end products vary
for each of the following options and, as you might expect, so does the
cost:
Photocopied booklet
Using a word processing program, you can pull together a narrative
family history, drop in images and a family tree generated from your
genealogy software, and add footnotes or end notes. Print it on your
color printer, staple it or put it into a presentation binder, and call
it a day. If you want multiple copies, email the file to your local copy
shop or take it in on a flash drive, which will result in better images
than photocopying your printouts. A copy shop also can provide card
stock for a cover and even bind your book with saddle stitching (pages
are stapled down the middle and folded), a spiral (like a notebook) or a
perfect binding (resembles a paperback book) with a printed spine.
The more you spend on binding, the more durable your book will be.
Wire spirals damage the pages each time someone turns them. A relatively
short-lived booklet might be fine for your purposes, but be prepared to
spend more on a sturdier binding if you want the book to last for a
while. Going to a copy shop is simple and quick, but it may not be the
most cost-effective option. Black and white copies generally start
around 10 cents each, but the charges quickly add up for color printing,
better-quality paper, two-sided pages and binding. You’ll usually get
discounts for multiple copies of the same booklet. Get quotes from
several shops—prices can vary greatly.
Photo book
Do you want to recount your family history in something more like a traditional book? A photo-book service
offers a customizable layout, high-quality paper, attractive templates
in a range of colors and themes, and a gorgeous cover. You start by
picking a template, which comes with a selection of backgrounds and page
layouts; then upload photos as JPG files; and add narrative (it’s a
good idea to finalize the text in a word processing document before
starting your book).
Because text boxes may be limited in size, this option is ideal when
you want to let photos and document images tell the story, helped along
with explanatory captions. Prices depend on the service and the size of
book you choose. For example, on Shutterfly,
hardcover books range from 8×8 to 11×14 inches. Prices are based on the
first 20 pages, with a per-page cost for a longer book. The expense is a
downside to this option, though frequent sales (especially around
holidays) help mitigate the cost. These services save your book once you
create it, so you can purchase a copy and let family members order
their own. Another downside is the lack of templates for
genealogy-friendly design elements such as timelines and family tree
charts. You could use your software to generate a tree, convert it to a
JPG file and add it to the book as you would a photo.
Print-on-demand (POD)
Never before have so many aspiring authors in all fields of study published their work. POD self-publishing sites like Lulu and Blurb
let you create a book on your computer and upload it as a PDF file for
printing. You set the sale price and order copies as needed, or send a
link to cousins so they can purchase their own copies. The POD printer
gets a percentage of your sales. You even can sell your book
commercially. In that case, the book will be available through Amazon,
which also gets a cut: A $14.95 Lulu book purchased on Amazon nets the
author $1.58, but the same book purchased straight from Lulu nets the
author close to $8.
You’ll need to format your book in a document according to the POD
site’s specifications for file type, image resolution, margin size,
etc., and create a cover. Most sites provide helpful instructions and
templates, and some will do this work for you for a fee. You may be able
to add on services such as obtaining an ISBN, necessary if you want to
sell your book commercially. Blurb offers online software you can use to
create your book, though it has a steep learning curve, says Nancy
Barnes, owner of author services company Stories to Tell Books.
She recommends this option for skilled computer users. The cost of
actually printing the book varies based on size, style, cover type,
bindings and paper. You also may be able to choose an e-book. Your sale
price should account for the site’s percentage and any profit you want.
Find Lulu’s pricing calculator and Blurb’s pricing calculator.
POD costs more than working directly with a printer (our next option)
that offers volume discounts, but POD means you don’t have to buy a lot
of books up front that may end up collecting dust in your attic.
Publisher-for-hire
When you work directly with a book printer, whether online or in your
local area, there’s no continuing arrangement between you and the
printer, as with POD. Instead, you supply the files for your book, order
a minimum number of copies, and the print service prints them. Ask
about volume discounts, though you may need to buy 100 or more books for
a significant price break. If you have a large family and everyone
wants a copy, working with a printer may be your most cost-effective
option. Printers require you to submit fully prepared files, usually
PDFs, that meet their specifications. You may need to submit image files
separately as well as embedded into your PDFs.
Most publishers offer more personalized guidance and add-on services than a POD site would. Self-publishers such as Genealogy House
can help with writing, editing, graphic design and other aspects of the
publishing process—great if you have a long, complex book combining
text and images. These are best laid out with graphic design software
such as Adobe InDesign. Especially if you plan to sell your book, you should seriously consider professional editing and design services.
eBook
Digital books are increasingly popular choices for self-publishing. A
wide range of file formats are proprietary to different e-reader
devices, such as Kindle and Nook, but if you stick to a simple PDF,
people can read your book on a desktop computer or on any device that
will open a PDF. And it’s easy to create your book in a Word document
and save it as PDF. Try to see how your book looks on popular devices.
You may need to tweak the layout to make sure page breaks and pictures
fall in the right places.
The big benefit to an ebook is avoiding the costs and decision-making
of printing, but remember that not all of your intended audience uses
e-readers. Many won’t place the same value on a PDF file as on a printed
book. The longevity of ebook files will likely change as technology
develops, but that printed book on your shelf will be able to be held by
your descendant’s generations from now. If you’re trying to produce a
family history that stands the test of time, print your book. Or offer
the best of both: If you use Lulu or Blurb, relatives can choose to
order a print book or an ebook.
This table makes it easy to compare some different family history book options.
Assembling Your Book
Go ahead and start writing, but when you set up your book file with
images and footnotes, you’ll want to have a plan for the self-publishing
option you’ll use, the type of binding, the size of your book, etc.
“Many people ask if there’s a template for such a book,” Barnes says.
“But each family history is so unique and the information takes
different shapes and uses a different organizational plan.” Start by
browsing the family history section at a genealogical library and noting
what you do and don’t like about those books. At genealogical society
meetings and on Facebook, talk to fellow researchers who’ve undertaken such projects. And ask yourself these questions:
What’s your budget for this endeavor? Will family members be interested enough to purchase copies?
What
type of end product do you want? A hardback, full-color, high-end book?
A paperback novel? Or will black-and-white photocopies do?
How much time can you spend on it?
How comfortable are you with word processing and desktop publishing software?
Who’s your intended audience?
How long will your book be?
Do you have a lot of photos and/or record images you want to include?
How many copies of the book will you need?
Do you intend to sell the book for profit, give copies as gifts, or make it available for purchase only to relatives?
Once you have a clear vision for your family history book project, think about these important elements:
Writing the Story
The length and type of your book goes hand in hand with the option
you choose. Writers think in terms of word count. Use the word count
feature in your word processing software to find out how many words your
manuscript holds. The 6×9-inch book you’re envisioning typically has
300 words per page, so your 24,000-word manuscript will need 80 pages,
plus more for photos. A photo book with captions requires fewer words
than a full-length narrative.
You’ll want to have a fresh eye on your book before you submit it for
printing. A friend who’s good with grammar will do for a book that’s
just for family, but hire a professional editor if you want to sell your
book. Even the most seasoned authors utilize copy editors to proofread
their work and double-check grammar and spelling. Making sure your text
is in its final form also will save you money: You pay for every change
you make after submitting your book to the printer.
It’s also important to include the sources of your family history
information. That’s where it helps to cite sources all along—you won’t
have to try to figure out where you found that census record five years
ago. Whether to include formal citations or to simply provide source
information is up to you and will depend on your intended audience. You
can include citations/source information in numbered footnotes (at the
bottom of the page) or end notes (at the end of the book).
If you have a lot of photos and record images to include, you’ll want
a book with high-quality paper and color printing so the images will
reproduce well. As you write your draft, note in your document which
images you plan to use. Make sure you have permission to use the pictures in a published work.
If they’re from your family collection, you probably do, unless a
professional photographer took the photo after 1922. Otherwise, you’ll
need to obtain permission from the copyright holder or the owner of the
image, or figure out whether it’s in the public domain (this chart
can help). That could take some time, so weigh how important each photo
is to your project. Image quality is important: If photo resolution is
too low, the image will look pixelated in print. Barnes recommends using
high-resolution files (usually JPG or TIFF), of at least 300 dpi (dots
per inch) or 1000×1000 pixels.
Tip: Not enough ancestor photos for your book?
You can illustrate your family’s story with maps, record images,
historical photos of ancestral communities and pictures of gravestones,
heirlooms and family homes.
Choosing the Cover
An attractive cover will entice generations of your family to open
the book. A simple cover with an ancestor portrait and a title is best.
If your book will be just for family, you can use a site such as Canva,
which offers design templates you can use, or ask your graphic design
student niece. If you plan to sell your book or you just want a polished
look, consider hiring a graphic designer for the book cover and
interior. It’ll be worth the extra expense.
Preserve and Project Your Project
Any written work is copyrighted whether or not it bears a copyright
statement, but you can remind others it’s copyrighted and identify
yourself as the copyright holder with a statement on the back of your
title page. For example, “Copyright 2015 Joe Smith. Not to be reprinted
without permission.” You also might include your contact information in
case someone wants to reuse a part of your work.
Registering your self-published book with the US Copyright Office
creates a public record of your authorship, a big benefit if you have
to pursue a copyright infringement in court. The simple process involves
filling out a form and paying a $35 fee. You’ll receive a certificate
legally declaring you the copyright holder for your work.
If you’re writing a book you plan to sell, you’ll want an ISBN
(International Standard Book Number), a unique commercial identifier.
Your publisher or POD service can supply one, although this locks you
into keeping your book with that company. And when you purchase your own
ISBN for about $125 through an agency called Bowker, you can come up with your own publishing company name.
Once you have an ISBN, you’ll need yet another number, an LCCN
(Library of Congress Control Number), if you want to add your book to
the Library of Congress. A POD publisher can’t do this for you. Follow
these instructions.
There’s no fee, but you must order the LCCN before your book is
published, and once it’s published, you have to send a copy to the
Library of Congress. The ISBN and LCCN must appear on your book’s
copyright page. In the end, you’ll be proud that you took steps to
preserve and present your family history.
A version of this article appeared in the September 2015 issue of Family Tree Magazine.
Our favorite online genealogy hacks make websites do things you
didn’t know they could do, speed up your research, and even combine the
capabilities of multiple websites and tech tools. Some hacks can also
save you money on subscription websites, by helping you ferret out free
records or pay for them as you go.
Here we share some of the best online genealogy hacks to try.
1. See what’s new at your favorite genealogy websites.
It’s good to repeat searches on your favorite genealogy websites. But
rather than slog through the same matches you’ve already seen, you can
easily check out the latest additions at these sites:
Ancestry.com: Bookmarkthis pageto
see just-added content and what’s coming soon. (Note the dropdown menu
set to United States; use it to view new content for other countries.)
To have Ancestry.com automatically email you about new databases added
to the site, opt in to New Records Notifications.
FamilySearch: On the same page where you can browse all collections, click Last Updated to list them by the most recently updated.
Findmypast: This UK-focused site at makes it easy to see new content. Just click Help & More>What’s New on the main menu bar.
Ancestry.com has
more than 1,800 databases that are free to search even without a paid
subscription. Many of these collections were created or indexed in
partnership with other organizations, such as FamilySearch, and Ancestry.com has agreed to keep access to them free.
If you’re not a subscriber, you’ll need to create a free Ancestry.com
account to access them. This account also lets you build online family
trees, preserve and share photos and stories, connect with other
researchers and read how-to help.
To see a list of free databases, search the card catalog for the keyword free (you can also combine this with other words, such as Ohio or war, to see what’s free in your area of research). Or you can search all the free databases at once.
Scroll down on this page to see the full list. Collections include
selected censuses for the United States, United Kingdom and Australia,
as well as more obscure topics such as Alabama convicts and passengers
on the sunken ship Mefkure.
3. Find free and a la carte records on Findmypast.
Ancestry.com isn’t the only subscription website with freebies. By
registering for a guest membership at Findmypast, you can unlock 850
million records—US censuses, US and Canadian public records, family
trees and 10 million Irish Catholic parish records—without paying a
cent. Don’t forget to check out the freebies!
If the records you want at Findmypast aren’t free but you don’t care
to commit to a subscription, you can buy “credits” to pay for individual
records. Check out your options on their webpage,
which start at 100 credits for $14.95. (Scroll down to the “Prefer to
pay as you go?” header.) Credits are valid for 90 days, and records cost
between 5 and 60 credits to view. Once purchased, records can be viewed
unlimited times.
4. Search GenealogyBank for all newspapers published in a city.
Don’t limit yourself to the biggest newspaper in your ancestors’ hometown when searching subscription site GenealogyBank.
Newspapers have come and gone, and the site’s collection often includes
lesser-known publications you might never have thought to search.
(Conversely, searching the entire site when you’re really interested in
hits only from one place can flood you with useless results.)
To view all the newspapers from a single city and search them at
once, click Browse>Newspapers by State. Click a state, then a city to
search all the applicable titles. In Birmingham, Ala., for example, you
can search the Age-Herald,Courier, Labor Advocate and Wide-Awake all at once.If you’re using America’s GenealogyBank, the institutional version
available through many libraries, click View Title List in the
Historical Newspapers paragraph and that will take you to the same list
of states.
5. Search GenealogyBank for only recently added records.
If you’re a regular user of GenealogyBank’s newspaper collection, you
might not want to search all billion-plus articles every time you
return to the site. Fortunately, GenealogyBank makes it easy to limit
your searches to records added in the past few months. On the main Newspaper Archives page,
as well as on individual state, city and periodical search pages, click
under the Added Since dropdown menu to select a date range of new
content to view. You can also view a list of all new content online.
6. Add your DNA profile to MyHeritage or Geni.
You can now privately incorporate your autosomal DNA results into your MyHeritage family trees. First, download your raw DNA from 23andMe, AncestryDNA or Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder test. Then click the orange Upload button on your member profile page. A similar process works on Geni for those who’ve tested with Family Tree DNA: Just go to your Geni profile page and click Transfer Your DNA Results.
7. Map your family tree locations in MyHeritage.
Another new MyHeritage feature, PedigreeMap puts your ancestors on
the map—literally. From the main menu bar at top, select PedigreeMap,
and MyHeritage will automatically generate a world map of your online
tree events. You can zoom in and out and select different trees to map.
8. Automate searching at your favorite site.
Once you’ve created at least one family tree at the following
genealogy websites, why not let the ’bots do the searching for you? Each
site offers hints for potentially matching records on its site.
Even if you don’t subscribe to all these sites and can’t fully view
matches, it’s worth keeping track of what records are out there. Here’s a
breakdown:
Ancestry.com:
Hints show up as leaf icons next to individuals in the tree view; click
on each leaf to review and accept or reject hints. Or, on an ancestor’s
profile page, click Hints to see them. See all recent hints by clicking
on the leaf in the far upper right corner of any tree. The dropdown
menu under See All Recent Hints In lets you choose a tree to work with.
Manage hint preferences on their site preferences page and request weekly, monthly or no email alerts for new hints on this page (click Delivery Options).
FamilySearch:
In the tree view, blue icons indicate available hints. Click the icon
to view, and click in the resulting popup window to review the hint or
jump to a page where you can view all this person’s hints and accept or
dismiss them. FamilySearch also offers Research Suggestions. Click the
purple icon to view these tips. You can view both hints and Research
Suggestions on the right side of a person’s page.
Findmypast:
Automated hinting is now available for just birth, marriage and death
records (additional collections are pending). When you add a new person
or amend a key piece of information in your family tree here, you may
notice that a number within a circle appears on that profile, indicating
the number of hints automatically found for that person. Clicking on
the orange circle takes you to that ancestor’s hints page. Hints for
birth and baptismal records are red; marriages, green; and deaths and
burials, blue.
MyHeritage: The site
automatically generates possible matches (called Smart Matches) in
others’ trees; you’ll need a Premium or Premium Plus subscription to
fully explore them. According to MyHeritage, its hinting technologies
are about 97 to 98 percent accurate, based on user acceptance rates.
View pending matches by clicking links on the left side of your
MyHeritage home page.
9. Try some one-stop shopping.
A few genealogy sites have extended their reach by searching sites
beyond their own collections. The best part? You don’t have to do
anything extra to add these partner sites to your searches, as long as
you’re doing a general search rather than focusing on a single
collection or group of records.
MyHeritage automatically pulls in finds from its sister family tree website Geni, as well as BillionGraves, Tributes and FamilySearch. It also searches digitized newspapers at Chronicling America and the Australian site Trove. Ancestry.com scours the RootsWeb site it hosts, Find A Grave and
more than 300 other “web indexes,” or copies of indexes that point to
offsite content. The free FamilySearch hosts indexes to several
collections that require connecting to subscription sites to view
related images.
10. Get a quick view of Ancestry.com search results.
Once you’ve got some search hits on Ancestry.com, you can save time
by not clicking through to review every possible result. Instead, hover
your pointer over the blue, underlined collection title (such as “1940
United States Federal Census”). A window pops up showing all key data
from that record, which you can use to decide whether this hit is worth
investigating further.
If it is, click on the collection title or on the green See More box
in that floating popup window to jump to a complete, printable extract
page. You also can skip straight to the associated record image, if
available, by clicking View Image below the collection title or on the
thumbnail image on the floating window.
11. Print without paper.
Of course, you want to save your finds from these popular genealogy
sites, but you might not want bits of dead trees cluttering up your
workspace. One simple way to “print” without paper—and to make your
finds accessible on any device—is to use the free Evernote app.
Once it’s installed, you can use the Evernote “clipper” to save a full
screen or selection to your Evernote notebook, or just copy the record
you want to save and paste it into Evernote.
You also can select Save PDF to Evernote from the PDF dropdown menu
in the lower left corner of the Mac print box. In Windows, you’ll need a
PDF printer installed; then you can “print” a PDF to a designated
folder that Evernote automatically imports into a designated notebook.
(Set this folder in Evernote under Tools>Import Folders.) For more
about Evernote, see How to Use Evernote for Genealogy (Family Tree Books).
Even without Evernote, you can still use PDF “printing” in Mac or
Windows to save digital copies of documents into whatever folder you
choose. You can even organize these by ancestor or family group. Just
remember to back up all your finds on the cloud or on separate storage
media. Unlike paper, digital printouts can get lost when your computer
crashes.
12. Search from within RootsMagic.
Users of the RootsMagic genealogy software program don’t even need to leave the program to search the web for ancestral info. According to Family Tree Magazine
software guru Rick Crume, just select the individual you want to
research and switch to the WebSearch tab (if Auto-search is checked).
You can search for someone else on the same site by clicking the name in
the sidebar.
To select which websites to search, click the little dropdown arrow
to the right of the search button. If you want to add sites that the
program doesn’t include (or if you want to hide some of the built-in
sites), choose Manage Search Providers.
The main part of the WebSearch screen is a web browser window that
displays your results. Like a standard browser, the web address is
displayed at the top of this window, with Back, Forward and Refresh
buttons to the left. A down button at the right side lists recently
viewed sites, which you can revisit by selecting from the dropdown menu.
Add WebTag adds a link to the current website to the card of the person
on whom you’re searching. To open your results in your regular web
browser instead, click the Use External Browser checkbox. (Note that
this disables the Add WebTag button.)
13. Search from within Legacy Family Tree.
A similar hack works to search from within the free Legacy Family Tree genealogy software.
Start by selecting Search Internet from the Internet tab on the Ribbon
bar. Legacy comes preloaded with 30-plus sites to begin your searching. A
dropdown combo box at the top of the Search Internet page displays all
the current options. In the Deluxe Edition ($34.95), you can click
Customize Searches to add, delete or edit sites.
Here, too, the search focuses on the currently selected individual.
Legacy pre-fills the necessary search fields with information from your
file. You can change this data, however, before beginning your search.
Fields that are not used for the currently selected site are grayed out.
As you select different search sites, the appropriate fields are made
available. To keep the search window open after a search, uncheck Close
This Window after Each Search.
14. Upgrade your mobile web browser.
While most of these hacks focus on desktop or laptop surfing (though
most also work on mobile devices), this one is specific to tablets and
smartphones. Try the free Dolphin web browser,
available for iOS and Android. It’s got the Evernote web clipper built
in, along with nifty shortcuts for sharing web pages with nearby users,
syncing bookmarks, and more.
15. Translate foreign-language finds.
Records from your ancestors’ overseas homelands won’t do you much
good if you can’t understand what they say. Fortunately, the web is full
of free translation tools. Google Translate can
translate words or phrases from any of more than 90 languages; it even
accepts voice input for some languages, and can speak translations in
some. Type a web address to translate an entire page. Google’s free Chrome browser will offer to translate any foreign-language site you visit with it. You also can try Microsoft’s Bing Translator, which can handle more than 40 different languages.
16. Find vanished web pages.
How frustrating is it to find something valuable online about your
family history, only to have the web page vanish into the interwebs the
next time you try to visit? The Internet Archive may
have a solution for such puzzles. Its Wayback Machine (accessible via a
link at the top of the Internet Archive home page) stores the history
of more than half a trillion web pages, including many from sites that
are no longer live. It’s the perfect place to track down that elusive
page about your family that was once hosted on Geocities or some other
platform now lost in the rapidly changing online landscape.
City and county directories are fantastic resources for genealogy research. Unlike the US census,
which is taken once a decade, city and county directories are often
published annually or every other year. This gives you more
opportunities to put our ancestors in a specific place at a specific
time. City directories are also indispensable when researching a house history.
Ancestry.com has a huge collection of digitized city directories. Its
collection “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995” has more than 1.5 billion
records. (It’s also the third most-popular collection on the site,
behind Public Member Trees and the 1940 federal census.)
Perhaps because of the size of the collection, many people think that
if the directory isn’t on Ancestry.com, it doesn’t exist. Yes,
Ancestry’s collection is enormous, but it doesn’t have everything.
Don’t worry! There are lots of places to look for the directories you need—and those listed below are free.
1. The public library in the city or county of interest
Public libraries often collect directories for their own city and
county. Start with their online catalogs. However, many libraries don’t
list each year of the directory they hold. The catalog might list only
the earliest year, or give a range of years with no indication of
missing volumes. If you don’t find what you’re looking for in the
catalog, contact the library. (Bonus: Some libraries have digitized directories for their area. I recently discovered several Columbus city directories on the website of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.)
Besides hosting the Wayback Machine, Internet Archive has digitized
millions of items, including city and county directories. To find them,
begin with a basic search of city directory or county directory (For
example, Indianapolis city directory or Nassau county directory.)
Use the same search strategy that you would on Internet Archive.
However, be aware that some results may only be a snippet or preview of
the full directory.
This website has links to hundreds of online directories. Also check out Linkpendium and Cyndi’s List(note that some of the links on these sites lead to fee-based resources).
If the local public library doesn’t have the directory you need and
you can’t find it digitized online, look it up in WorldCat to see what
other libraries have it.
Though Ancestry.com’s collection of city directories is massive, it
doesn’t include all of the ones that have been published. The local
public library and other websites can help you fill in the gaps.
