Most of the members are probably already familiar with most of these resources (and more!), but just in case there's something that's new to you...
= = = = = = = = = = Wall Street Journal, DECEMBER 1, 2011 "Not Your Grandmother's Genealogy Hobby / With Wikis and Other Forms of Group Research, Family Historians Are Making Surprising Connections": http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204012004577070160995868288-lMyQjAxMTAxMDAwMjEwNDIyWj.html By ALINA DIZIK Chloe Persing likes to brag about her famous alleged ancestors—French queen Marie Antoinette (10th cousin eight times removed), English author Jane Austen (ninth cousin, seven times removed). She'd rather not dwell on her connection to murderous cult leader Charles Manson, though. Ms. Persing discovered these claims to fame on Geni.com, a genealogy- focused website and social network that helps users tap into a single giant family tree by merging their own family trees with those of distant relatives. Recently, Ms. Persing sorted family members by birth year and examined old military draft records to figure out which ancestor was the owner of the heirloom Civil War sword her grandfather keeps. "I was up until 2 o'clock in the morning, and I just kept finding clues," the 22-year-old says. Wikis, social-networking sites, search engines and online courses are changing genealogy from a loner's hobby to a social butterfly's field day. New tools and expansive digital archives, including many with images of original documents, are helping newbies research like pros. Some companies enable users to piggyback onto existing research from the moment they sign up. Others connect several users with similar interests for larger cooperative projects. Users, meanwhile, eager to dig deeper, are often quick to cast aside doubts about authenticity and embrace the instant results. Digital access is fueling the explosion in interest in family roots, says Cliff Shaw, who founded the genealogy-themed search engine Mocavo.com last year. It uses an algorithm that provides ancestry- centric results that may not show up in a Google search. When a user types in a keyword, such as a surname or a place name, Mocavo searches genealogy Web forums, websites and old discussion threads that rarely pop up in regular searches but can be useful for genealogists looking for clues. Ancestry.com, based in Provo, Utah, is the largest genealogy website, offering access to more than 7 billion records. Directly or indirectly, it is the reason so much genealogy information has become accessible online. "There was a giant digitization wave that Ancestry brought on, and we realized that there is an enormous amount of data that is now made searchable," Mr. Shaw says. Even seemingly random databases, like "Names of Foreigners Who Took the Oath of Allegiance to the Province and State of Pennsylvania, 1727 to 1775," are available on Ancestry.com, in some cases behind a pay wall. Is genealogy information found online true? Verifying results online is difficult. Catherine Auvil says she often has doubts about the authenticity of some of the sources. "I think about it all the time," says the 50-year-old photographer and family historian. "I don't want to lead anyone astray, especially my own family." On Ancestry.com, many records were created when the subjects were still alive and so are likely to be accurate. Images of original written documents help confirm findings. Still, users are encouraged to confirm information using multiple sources, says Anastasia Harman lead family historian at Ancestry.com. It's exciting to find a connection to a historical celebrity like Marie Antoinette or Jane Austen, says Noah Tutak, chief executive of Geni—and it's also a fairly common occurrence. "If you go back far enough, you're probably connected to everyone you know," he says. Ms. Persing found her famous relatives by merging her Geni profile with more-developed profiles and then scanning down to her alleged 25th great-grandfather on her father's side. The site's users self- correct data by flagging discrepancies and inaccuracies, and they solve disagreements by presenting evidence like birth records. Ms. Auvil turned her genealogy obsession into a group history project. She did a Google Books search of an ancestor, Mathias Harman, and found him in a 1910 tome, "The Founding of Harman's Station." There, she learned that she is a descendant of the so-called long hunters, 18th-century explorers who went on extended expeditions to the American frontier in present-day Kentucky and Tennessee. After finding other long-hunter descendants on an Appalachian Heritage list-serve she subscribed to, Ms. Auvil formed her own group of long- hunter descendants. "We're learning more and more new things every day," she says. The group uses WeRelate.org, a genealogy wiki, to keep track of its facts and sources. On the website, users create pages for individual people or places, and other users can add links to related people, places and sources. After reading a page on WeRelate.org about Daniel Boone, one of the most famous long hunters, Ms. Auvil says she found a wiki page link to a Kentucky state surveyor and friend of a brother of a Tennessee senator who was a friend of the man who adopted her fifth great- grandfather after his own father was murdered. WeRelate.org invites users to keep track of sources so other users can retrace their research, says Dallan Quass, who created the wiki in 2006. Some users are offended when another user edits their page or corrects dates or facts. For them, "it can be a pretty frustrating experience," Mr. Quass says. Users work out differences by editing and adding sources. Ancestry.com offers some free tools, but it keeps many of the most useful databases—draft registration cards from World War I, lists of passengers and crew on ship crossings, international marriage records— behind a pay wall. The fastest way to find census records or death certificates is to pay Ancestry.com's fee, which starts at $155 a year, or $29.95 per month. Kevin Lease, a 47-year-old owner of a Seattle equipment-leasing company, turned to a personal researcher when he began researching his Italian roots with just one name to go on. He paid $2,000 for three weeks of research, much of it from Ellis Island records, he says. Mr. Lease learned enough to successfully apply for dual citizenship in Italy and has since traveled to the town of Front, enjoying travel with few restrictions on a European Union passport and meeting his Italian cousins. "By way of that bloodline, you've breached a lot of that separation," he says. Joy Shivar, an antiques dealer in Huntersville, N.C., tries to connect family historians with family heirlooms with a website she founded in 2005 to sell her own antiques. In 2011, she rebuilt it as a listings site, JustaJoy.com Family Heirloom Exchange. It catalogues heirlooms that are engraved or otherwise contain a specific surname; for an annual fee of $20, members can list or buy. "I've always handled historical stuff that gets passed around, but I've often wished that I could get it back to the original family," she says. One member purchased a World War II athletic field plaque and returned it to a 93- year-old colonel listed on it; descendants of the original owner purchased an 1825 family Bible. Write to Alina Dizik at [email protected] -- To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership."
