Genealogy's Star

Mystery Photos 2013-05-20

2013-05-20T19:58:00.001-07:00

This is another in the series of mystery photos from the Overson Photographic Collection. After processing over 5,5000 photos, I have determined that Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson was the primary photographer, but that photos were also taken by her father, Charles Godfrey DeFriez Jarvis and likely by her daughter, Eva Margaret Overson Tanner. There were also a number of contributed photos and as shown here, copies of earlier photographs from a variety of photographers. These photos were taken primarily in and around St. Johns, Apache, Arizona. But some came from Utah and a few from California and other states and even other countries.

The earliest photos appear to have been taken in the 1840s or 1850s. Some were taken from that time to about 1900, with the majority being taken from around 1900 to 1920. Some of the photos date into the 1940s with one or two taken just before Margaret Overson died. There are family photos that date into the 1950s but these are not included in this collection.

Here are today's photos:

Bridging the Chasm in Genealogy through Indexing

2013-05-20T06:44:00.001-07:00

In a recent blog post, The Ancestry Insider pointed out that in genealogy, there is a chasm. He said,

On one side of the chasm are the ancestors and relatives we know personally. We know them as people. We grew up with them or with our parents talking about them. On the other side are ancestors and relatives that we know only through records.

He goes on to explain that on the "easy" side of the chasm we use modern records with abundant details and that on the other side, the records are "incomplete, spotty, illegible, unindexed, hard-to-locate, or offline."

Since reading that post, I have been thinking about this issue extensively. I have had several discussion, some at length about different aspects of the problem and come to some conclusions. One of the recurring suggested solutions to the problem is involving those approaching the chasm or even those who potentially may come to the chasm, in the FamilySearch Indexing program. By participating in the Indexing Program, people who have limited experience with difficult records, learn valuable tools that assist them in moving from the "easy" records to those that are more difficult.

The FamilySearch Indexing program currently has over 156,000 volunteers. By participating in the Indexing Program, the volunteers become acquainted with a variety of records and learn the connection between searching records and finding the names of ancestors. This link is the key to bridging the chasm. It would be very interesting to know how many of the people who do Indexing go on to doing research in their own families. I would guess that given the opportunity and incentive, they would be the prime candidates for moving in that direction.

I have had several conversations about involving the youth in the Indexing program. Where that program is operating among the youth, the transition to doing genealogical research is facilitated. The burden for initiating such a program lies with the youth's parents and leaders. Where there is little interest among the parents and leaders, there is no youth activity. If you want to bridge the chasm, get the youth involved in Indexing. In my own area, my LDS Stake, the main obstacle to implementing an active Indexing program among the youth is not the youth, it is the leaders.

Sitting with a Corpse

2013-05-19T08:31:00.002-07:00

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on various occasions, "When I talk with a genealogist, I seem to sit with a corpse."

See Emerson, Ralph Waldo, and Ronald A. Bosco. Later lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1854. Athens, Ga. [u.a.]: University of Georgia Press, 2001, Vol. 1, Page 103. Also found in Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William H. Gilman, Ralph H. Orth, and Alfred R. Ferguson. The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap P., 1977, Vol. 13, Page 443. See again in Emerson, Ralph Waldo, and Joel Porte. Emerson in His Journals. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard U.P., 1982, Page 461.

Emerson's comment, which he seemed to use in a variety of contexts, refers to the practice of having a watch or vigil held beside the body of someone who has died, sometimes accompanied by ritual observances including eating and drinking. In our culture, here in the Southwest, this practice has evolved into a three part affair: a visitation, a funeral and a graveside service. Depending on the background, culture or national origins of the family of the deceased, some or all of those three different steps in the burial process may be expanded or omitted.

The Emerson quote has been used in different contexts to support different views. Sometimes, we use stories in the same way, ignoring the historical setting and context of the story.

I find it strange that genealogists, who deal with records of the dead continually, seem to largely ignore the cultural and historical context of the very acts and events they record. In the current movement to expand "genealogy" into "family history," the emphasis seems to me to be extraordinarily superficial. Even the preservation or dissemination of a "story" loses any real meaning once the events related in the story are removed from both the historical and cultural context in which they occurred. It would seem to me that if you really want to know the "family history" then any competent story teller should have an understanding of the context of the story.

The quote above from Emerson is a good example of the challenge of finding the context. The quote, on its face, could be used to make any number of different points, both positive and negative about genealogy and genealogists. But in reading all three of the different times Emerson recorded this same statement, it appears that he liked the turn of the words and used the saying to make different points, none of which had anything to do with genealogy, as such. Of course, you could read the original sources and draw your own conclusions. But the point here is that the quote had meaning to Emerson only in its original context, no matter how it is used by us to establish our own opinions or views.

I grew up hearing several stories transmitted through the family. It would be facil to conclude that my "interest in genealogy" came about as a result of hearing storing about my ancestors. However, in my case, that would not be accurate. In fact, one of the stories I heard over and over again as child was recently made into a movie about my ancestor. See Utah filmmaker creates movie about his ancestor. The movie, Treasure in Heaven: The John Tanner Story, generally relates a story that is recorded in the book, Tanner, Maurice, and George C. Tanner. Descendants of John Tanner: Born August 15, 1778 at Hopkintown, R.I., Died April 15, 1850 at South Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah. [S.l.]: Tanner Family Association, 1942, Page 14.

It is not in my interest to compare the movie to the written story. Movies are interpretive and do not and cannot convey the reality of any story they tell, but the last two lines of the written story are important. At page 23 of the John Tanner book, it states, "This sketch was written by Nathan Tanner, Jr. son of Nathan Tanner, who was the son of John Tanner, the subject of this sketch." There are no further attributions or citations of sources to the story.

John Tanner was born in 1778. His son Nathan Tanner was born in 1815. The composer of the story was born in 1845 and died in 1919. John Tanner died in 1850, so Nathan Tanner, Jr. would have been five years old when his grandfather died. Unfortunately, there is no explanation how Nathan Tanner, Jr. got the story. It is possible that the document in question lies in the George S. Tanner papers in the J. Willard Marriott Library of the University of Utah Manuscripts Division, but then again, where did the earlier writers get the information? I do find references to the fact that the records were originally accumulated by Nathan Tanner, Jr. and then compiled by a Grandson of Sidney Tanner, Maurice Tanner, but other than this short attribution, the original document does not seem to be available.

The point here is not to question the story, but to point out that there is more to story telling that simply copying down what someone else has published. Some of the details of the story can be verified but, absent the context of the story, there are many details that, although inspirational, may not be based accurately in fact. There is such a thing as inspirational fiction.

Do we want to cut ourselves loose from the facts of the past and build our own history? Or are we interested, as genealogists, in accuracy and source citations?

Surprise, most of the typos have been corrected.

2013-05-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

In this Quick View of Genealogy, I am showing how to edit and merge in FamilySearch Family Tree. As always, if you have suggestions for future videos, please let me know in the comments. I hope you enjoy this latest Quick View.

Update on MyHeritage.com

2013-05-18T14:16:00.001-07:00

During the past few weeks, I have been answering a whole lot of questions about MyHeritage.com due to my involvement with the company at RootsTech 2013. In a few cases, I have worked with the people asking the questions on a one-on-one basis to see if we could figure out the problem. In addition, I have been getting some pretty varied comments on my previous blog posts, some very positive and some decidedly negative. Most of the comments and problems center around the issue of Smart Matches and Record Matches.

Almost all of the negative comments have come from relatively new users of the program. In every case, the new user had not looked at the downloadable manual to the program. In a couple of instances, I have worked long enough with these other users to resolve the issues. In every case where I have worked through the issues, I have found the problem to lie with the database uploaded by the user. In one case, as an extreme, I had to delete all of the information in MyHeritage and reload a "clean" GEDCOM file in order for the problems to go away. As soon as I did this, the user began receiving matches to the program. I also found that when the user was identified merely as "living" without further information, the Smart Matching feature did not work properly. As soon as the person was identified by name, she immediately began to get Smart Matches. I am guessing, but it seems to me that the "living" designation blocks some of the features of the program.

I must still say, despite all of the comments and questions I have fielded in the last few weeks, I still think the program works very well. There could be some improvements to the navigation in the family tree view, such as allowing the names to be viewed in a more compact format, but overall, the program seems to work. Now, I am certain that this comment will elicit another round of criticism from those who are unhappy with the program. But I hear the same type of criticism about most of the other online genealogical databases regularly. In fact, I don't believe that I know of any program that I haven't heard negative comments about from someone. This seems especially true about genealogy programs.

I have noticed that Smart Matches seem to come rather quickly and frequently, while Record Matches come less quickly and in bunches rather than individually. It is sort-like waiting for the cycle to come around. If you happen to join the program as the beginning of a cycle, then you might experience a delay, if not, if you are near the end of the cycle, you may get matches more quickly. It is very common for new technology to have a growth period where the program does not work as well as expected or where there are unforeseen difficulties or bugs. It is when the program is more mature that these types of problems become an issue with me. In the case of a new program and especially as here with a new technology, I suggest cutting some slack.

This situation is also similar to what I experience when I do presentations. Some of the people's comments say how much they liked the presentation, others express the fact that everything I said was a complete waste of time. Did these two people hear the same presentation? Sometimes I wonder if my commentators are looking at the same program?

Mandatory Reading for all those using FamilySearch Family Tree

2013-05-17T06:27:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I feel blind, deaf and dumb (even more than I am normally). This last week was the National Genealogical Society Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although Las Vegas is only a few hours away, we had prior commitments that prevented attendance at the conference. I did miss several important announcements and, of course, the opportunity to talk to people from around the world. But most of all, I felt out-of-touch i.e. deaf and dumb. Sometimes reading the blog posts is a good substitute and I thank Randy Seaver and The Ancestry Insider among many others for their contributions to keeping me informed.

Today The Ancestry Insider published what in the news industry would be considered a scoop. The blog post is entitled, "#NGS2013 - Futures for FamilySearch Family Tree." This post should be mandatory reading for anyone trying to work with FamilySearch.org's Family Tree, if only for the reason that it gives hope and a very weak light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course, I can't let this gem of a post go by without comments. I fully realize that I am not responding directly to what Ron Tanner of FamilySearch may have said, but to what The Ancestry Insider has written, but I trust that the reporting was fair and accurate because of the source.

Understand that my progress in doing any additional meaningful work at all with FamilySearch Family Tree ends at about four generations or so up my pedigree. At that point, virtually every ancestor has multiple submissions that put them into the category of Individuals of Unusual Size (IOUSs). This essentially means that there are still multiple pedigrees (attached to multiple individuals) out there that cannot be resolved by merging. This issue is addressed in the blog post by the AI, as follows:

Family Tree is currently in a transition phase with synchronization occurring between Family Tree and NFS. “Today, if a combine is not allowed in NFS, then we are not allowing a merge in Family Tree,” said Tanner. “Once we can separate the two, then you’ll be able to do the merge.”

This statement has been made several times in the past, but it is reassuring to have it said again. For me, and many, many other users of the program, it is the deal maker or breaker. Either get it fixed or the program doesn't work at all. I answer questions about this issue multiple times a day when I am working with patrons at the Mesa FamilySearch Library. The latest 10 May 2013 version of the Family Tree manual, Using the FamilySearch Family Tree A Reference Guide (10 May 2013) LDS Version states as follows at page 146, about merging:

You cannot merge records in the following situations:
• The gender on one record is male, and the other is female.
• One record indicates the person is alive; the other is deceased.
• Both records come from the membership records of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints.
• One of the records came from new.familysearch.org, where it has been combined
with too many other records.
• The duplicate record has already been deleted due to another merge.
• One of the records has restrictions that would prevent it from being changed.

Apparently, there is no solution to this problem from the standpoint of the user. We just have to wait until the problem is resolved by FamilySearch.

Some of the other developments coming in FamilySearch Family Tree are nice but not deal breakers. For example:

Printable family group sheets and pedigree charts
Taking a photograph and making a source out of it
Notes and copied notes from New.FamilySearch.org
Sources from New.FamilySearch.org

All of these have been discussed at one time or another in both public and private. The second item above, the ability to take a photograph and make it a source, may refer to adding your own documents as sources? That is speculation on my part.

The AI also mentions the ability to "match records in historical collections to ancestors in the tree." This would be a huge development and hopefully similar to what is being done now by MyHeritage.com and Ancestry.com with their family trees. Perhaps an agreement with one or the other is in the offing to implement this feature?

There is quite a bit about preventing or solving "revert wars." The AI uses the term "toggle war." As a long time user of the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki, I see this as a potential problem, but not as one that occurs very often. There are already a number of features built into Family Tree that discourage this type of behavior. I wonder if any revert wars have already been reported to FamilySearch? The solution, as outlined in the post, is simple; lock the program to the participants.

Attaching records to an entire family would be a huge timesaver. Of course, there are other items mentioned but there is no timetable for their implementation and some of the features may simply be on a wish list. But it is nice to get a peek at the future, even through my deafness and dumbness.

Memorial Day Free Access to findmypast.com Military Records

2013-05-16T16:53:00.002-07:00

In honor of Memorial Day on May 27, and in remembrance of all who died while serving our country, findmypast.com will offer its collection of US and International military records for free in the days leading up to national observance.

With more than 26 million US and International military records available, findmypast.com is encouraging people to explore and learn about the heroic efforts of their ancestors this Memorial Day. Record sets such as ‘Draft Registration Cards,’ ‘Casualties Returned Alive,’ ‘POWs’ and others will offer a captivating glimpse into the lives and experiences of our veteran ancestors.

The US and International military records will be available free of charge starting at midnight EDT on Thursday, May 23 until midnight EDT on Monday, May 27. Anyone can access the records by registering for free at findmypast.com.

Why I am proud to be a genealogist and do not apologize to anyone

2013-05-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

My last post started me thinking. To increase my awareness of the topic, I am also reading a very interesting book about the history of genealogy, as such, that reinforces my thoughts. (See Weil, François. Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America. 2013). It is certainly true that genealogy and genealogist come from a highly checkered past. So why would anyone want to be associated with genealogy? I am not sure if that is a rhetorical question or not.

I fully realize after more than thirty years of doing genealogical research, that I am not going to become popular or even mildly tolerated by most people because of my genealogical interests. In fact, I have frequently been the target of outright hostility. But I don't really care about that aspect of the work. I am proud to be a genealogist for deeper reasons that popularity and social acceptance.

Take this blog for an example. There are thousands of topics I could have written about that would have been more popular. If I was seeking a large audience and popularity, I certainly choose the wrong subject matter. But the rewards are more than popularity, they go far deeper than making money or becoming well known. None of those categories fit at all well into the genealogical mold.

So what is the motivation and why would I continue to plod along, day after day, persistently adding to the pile of my family's history? I think the answer to that question is not simple. My personal motivations for doing genealogy, teaching genealogy and writing about it, day after day, can hardly be either easily or briefly explained. The easiest explanation for my passion for genealogy, would be to attribute it to some of my basic religious beliefs. But I share those religious beliefs with lots of other people and very, very few of those people have even a passing interest in genealogy. In fact, some of them are the most hostile. So, although there may be religious component, it is not a satisfying answer to the basic question.

Basically, I started and I would like to see the job through to the end. In my heart, I know this is not possible, but until the last name on the most remote family is accounted for, I will keep working.

In my case, genealogy is more of a compulsion, rather than an interest. It is due more to need and desire than to any sense of duty or obligation. I see it as a positive task that needs to be done and needs to be done right. When I see the mistakes of the past, I look on those mistakes as opportunities to make corrections. Like art and music, genealogy is worth doing for its own sake and needs no deep or philosophical justification. Besides, after working with living clients for the past 39 years, it is refreshing to deal with dead ones.

No matter what the motivation, I am proud and happy to be a genealogist. I don't really care if people ignore me or whatever because of my interest, but I will continue to work until I am too old to do so.

Are Genealogists being defined out of Family History?

2013-05-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

The tag line on a recent family history promotion entitled "Family History is for Everyone" is "Family history is much more than dates, records, and research." The idea here is apparently to involve a wider audience in the area of family history, which is an extremely laudable goal. But isn't the implication that dates, records and research are not appealing and that these aspects of "family history" need to be downplayed so that it will have a "broader" appeal. This isn't just about avoiding the term "genealogy," this is about how we-who-are-actively-involved are being portrayed.

This promotion goes on to list ten suggested activities. Interestingly, I have done every single one of the suggested activities at some time in my genealogical career and most of the genealogists I know have also done most if not all of the listed activities. Why then are these activities something that is in contrast to the core activities of dates, records and research? These are things we, as genealogists, have been doing all along and I might add, without recognition or an audience. For example, my daughter has had a fabulous family history blog for years and very, very few of the family members, even those who know about it, take the time to even read the stories and look at the photographs.

For example, I have been adding photos, sources and information to FamilySearch.org's Family Tree now for over a year. Unless I go back many generations, I can find no indication that anyone else (other than my one daughter) has even looked at the information online.

Interestingly, none of the suggested activities are directly aimed at finding and identifying your ancestors. How do you move from something such as interviewing family members and sharing their stories online, to finding the identity of unknown family members. How do you interview someone you cannot identify?

Dates, records and research are the engine that drives this family history vehicle, not something that can be ignored. Some of the suggested activities fall into the category of the survey in the research cycle, but other of the activities are things you do after your research has provided names, stories and photos to share. What is missing is the connection between the listed activities and where the information comes from. I fully realize that we can all ride in the car and that we don't all have to be mechanics, but without the mechanics, the car doesn't run.

I acknowledge that I personally have not done everything I could do to involve my family in family history. But it is hard to confront absolute and total indifference. I was talking to some friends I hadn't seen for a while and they politely asked what I had been doing lately, when I mentioned genealogy, they quickly changed the subject and walked away. What are the new, budding family historians going to do when they meet this kind of reaction?

I applaud the effort being made to involve a wider audience in family history, but how are these new family historians going to move on to the next step of research, records and yes, dates? Is this simply a public relations problem? Or is there something more to genealogy than meets the eye here?

Pinterest-like interface comes to Google+

2013-05-16T07:39:00.001-07:00

Google+ had some significant changes in the last day or so. The changes were announced at the keynote address at the Google I/O 2013 conference. The main visual change is that the display on Google+ adapts to single, double or triple columns depending on the size of the display. Google+ also adds hashtags to create ranked searches from the whole database of posts. Google is also adding hashtags by image recognition even if the post does not mention the subject of a photo. Google also released an entirely new Google Hangout application. Conversations on Hangouts are preserved so that the conversation can last for an extended period of time, even years.

I am sure that there will be some extensive discussion about the new additions to Google+ but it looks like there may be a whole set of tools that could be used if we all had time away from Facebook and Pinterest.

I noticed that the three column mode only showed up when I enlarged the window past a certain point on my large display. There are some extensive additions to the way photos are displayed and handled, hence the relationship to Pinterest. Some of the changes have been implemented previously but are now fully available, such as the huge photos that can be put on your profile page (see screenshot above).

What I see is an integration of the reader concept into Google+, trying to make the streams consolidated so you aren't going to more than one place to view content. But it is not yet, and may never be, a replacement for a reader or aggregator.

What Happened to FamilySearch TechTips?

2013-05-15T07:51:00.002-07:00

For quite some time, I was writing regularly for a website called FamilySearch TechTips. As you can see from the link, the site is still online, but nothing has been added to the site since last year, 2012. The content of the site, to some extent, had been rolled over to the more general FamilySearch.org Blog. The FamilySearch Blog enjoyed frontpage and direct, menu bar link status in the older version of the FamilySearch.org website, but with the makeover, the Blog has been relegated to a single link at the bottom of the startup page in between "About" and "Feedback." The Blog originally had links to content, including TechTips, but now the Blog is pretty simple and generic. Here is a screenshot of the posts through 15 May 2013:

In my Chrome browser, the menu items, including a link to TechTips and other resources is located at the bottom of the page. Here is a screenshot of the bottom of the page:

This menu may appear at the top of the page depending on your browser. The link to TechTips goes to the Archives of TechTips. Here is a screen shot:

I haven't heard anything about the future of this portion of the site and haven't been contacted about further contributions. There are several FamilySearch websites and portions of websites that seem to be in the same category.

Searching for Genealogy - What works and what doesn't

2013-05-15T07:05:00.002-07:00

Genealogists who are actively doing research, spend considerable time searching for information. Obviously, as technology and the Internet have become pervasive, a lot of that time is spent looking for information on or in websites. To do this, we collectively rely on a variety of search engines (programs that search either the Web at large or a specific database). The two extremes of our searches involve either no responses or at the opposite end of the spectrum of results, millions of responses including mostly "false positives."

In the past, I have compared both the general online search engines, such as Google, Bing and others, as well as individual database search engines. In doing this, I have used the name of my Great-grandfather as a search term. This was done for a variety of reasons, primarily because I already know approximately how much information is contained on the Web about him and because his name was just distinctive enough to be a good indication of the effectiveness of the search engine's ability to filter out false positives.

I recent did a search for another ancestor in a major online database and got some interesting results. My search included his name and other information including his date and place of birth and date and place of death. However, the results came back with some limited information on the ancestor but many more false positives, all of which were for people who did not match either the birth date (i.e. lived before) or the death date (i.e. lived after). For example, the ancestor died in the 1890s, but I consistently got suggested matches for U.S. Census records after 1900. This started me thinking as to why the programmers added those types of fields into their search terms if the program was not sophisticated enough to make those types of distinctions.

What is more frustrating than false positives is a complete lack of response, where the search engine returns no matches. This happens frequently, even when I search for a very common name or even a common place. Usually, the problem lies with something ridiculous such as adding or not adding an initial capital letter or something similar. It is more common when I am searching for a particular string of words or letters. For example, if I enclose the name in quotation marks to specify the entire name. Of course, it is entirely possible that the person is listed in the database but not with that specific name.

So, in order to judge the effectiveness of any particular search engine, I decided that looking for names was a good way to judge whether or not a the program worked and how it worked. I also occurred to me that I should use a specific document that I know exists as a test. I decided to combine the two and add a book about my Great-grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner, as an additional test of the search engines capability. Of course, this would not help if the database did not have any book titles or names, but the same principle could apply, I would just have to look for a general terms and then get more specific, adapting the searches to the type of information I expected from the database.

It has been some time since I compared the general search engines, so I thought I would get right down to business with a quick review of where they stand today and then go on to some more specific types of database searches. The book I chose is as follows:

Tanner, George S. Henry Martin Tanner; Joseph City, Arizona Pioneer, Born June 11, 1852, San Bernardino, California, Died March 21, 1935, Gilbert, Arizona. 1964.

This book had a very limited printing. The title of the book contains some very generally available search terms, such as Arizona, California and pioneer and I know if can find the book immediately in WorldCat.org because it is in quite a large number of libraries around the United States. Additionally, I know the book has been digitized by FamilySearch and a digital copy is available through the FamilySearch Catalog on FamilySearch.org. Finally, Henry Tanner has tens of thousands of living descendants and many of them are involved some way or another in genealogy. So, if I do not find anything, the problem does not lie with a lack of availability.

Here are the results of my searches with some general online search engines. I used just the first part of the name of the book as the search term, "Henry Martin Tanner; Joseph City, Arizona Pioneer."

Google.com

The first search in Google showed more than 50 exact results to references to the book before the entries became so attenuated to be referring to other topics. However, a search in Google Books for the book, as I have noted before, indicated that no digitized copy was available. This is likely due to the fact that the FamilySearch (Family History) Library Catalog is not "online" as yet.

Bing.com

Microsoft is still striking out. Bing.com found only 9 references to the book and had false positives and totally unrelated results within the first three entries. It sent me to Facebook and to other unrelated individuals immediately.

Mocavo.com

This genealogically oriented search engine and website has come a long way. I have been very impressed with their progress. But in finding this book, it had 10 results, but none of them were to the location of the book, merely to websites where the book had been quoted.

Yahoo.com

Since Yahoo.com uses the Google search engine, you would expect similar results but disappointedly, Yahoo.com struck out with results similar to Bing.com; only 9 direct results even going on to over four pages.

Ask.com

I had a hard time with this one. Ask.com gave totally unresponsive results immediately. One interesting one, the fourth response was to the Biography of Doc Holliday. Hmm. I wonder if there is a connection? It did have possibly 10 references to the book but they were surrounded by totally false positives that did not even have a majority of the search words.

Aol.com

Aol.com actually didn't do too bad. It made about 14 hits before it got so vague as to be useless. But those were still mixed in with the first 4 pages of search results. It has the same problem as Ask.com, mixing in totally unrelated items that do not match any of the search words.

Dogpile.com

I have searched in this one in the past, so I decided to throw it into the comparison. Except for trying to sell me hotel rates in Joseph City, Arizona, it did have only 8 results in the first 4 pages, giving it a very low score in this comparison.

I guess I gave up after Dogpile.com, there didn't seem to be any point in prolonging the comparison.

Even if you are anti-Google, for whatever reason, you can't argue with results. The point here is obvious. If you are looking for genealogical information and don't want hotel reservations or Facebook, you might want to stick with Google. But realize that even Google couldn't find the online, digitized copy of the book. More about this later. The clue is in this post: I found the book in WorldCat.org.

The Accuracy (or Inaccuracy) of Online Family Trees

2013-05-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

We commonly accept the proposition that online family trees are inaccurate and mostly passed around copies of each other. But can this be accurately demonstrated? If the trees were merely copies, wouldn't the information in each copied tree be about the same? What's the use of copying a family tree if you don't copy all of the information correctly? So why are there so many different iterations of ancestors with lots of descendants?

MyHeritage.com gives me a perfect way to see all the duplicate family trees and the variations. I will go to my standard ancestor, my Great-grandfather Henry Martin Tanner. MyHeritage.com, with its Smart Matching software, shows me 46 family trees that have Henry as a common ancestor. Conveniently, they also have compilation of the differences from each of the other trees along side my information. So how do I know my information is correct? Let's just say that the basic facts are well beyond dispute and I presently have a long list of sources supporting each fact. Se here are the results of the comparison:

My file:

You will have to click on the image to see any detail.

OK, so here is the compiled information from 46 other family trees that share this ancestor on MyHeritage.com:

Once again, click to see any detail.

First of all and notably, the variations in his birth information go from close match to far-fetched. As a matter of note, Henry never lived and was not born in South Cottonwood, Salt Lake, Utah. He was born in 1852 but the actual date is 11 June 1852 and the place, as shown on my entries, was San Bernardino, Los Angeles, California, United States. Actually, California was state (1850), but San Bernardino was not yet a county. That might explain why some of the entries say San Bernardino County, but doesn't at all explain why some miss the state entirely. As I said above, if they were merely copying, why are there so many wrong entries?

This comparison makes me start thinking that I need to revise my opinion of online family trees. They aren't inaccurate because they are copies, they are inaccurate because they are unaware of the facts and don't even know it. Why would I say (or believe) such a thing? Well, Henry Martin Tanner is probably one of the most completely documented people you can find outside of a president of the United States or a few other famous people. It takes absolutely no effort to find correct (or essentially correct) information about his and his entire family. As a matter of note, the John Tanner book (his grandfather) and the Sidney Tanner book (his father) and the Henry Tanner book, all have the correct information. The John Tanner book simply omits the county in the birth information for Henry Martin Tanner.

Here are the books, by the way:

Tanner, Maurice, and George C. Tanner. Descendants of John Tanner Born August 15, 1778 at Hopkintown, R.I., Died April 15, 1850 at South Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah. [S.l.]: Tanner Family Association, 1942.
De Brouwer, Elizabeth. Sidney Tanner, His Ancestors and Descendants: Pioneer Freighter of the West, 1809-1895. Salt Lake City, Utah (4545 S. 2760 E., Salt Lake City 84117): S. Tanner Family Organization, 1982.
Tanner, George S. Henry Martin Tanner; Joseph City, Arizona Pioneer, Born June 11, 1852, San Bernardino, California, Died March 21, 1935, Gilbert, Arizona. 1964.

Now, you can see that Henry's Grandfather, John Tanner died in South Cottonwood, but how did it happen that all those people decided that Henry was born there? His death information is a little easier to explain. Henry had a cousin named Martin Henry Tanner who lived in Grantsville, Tooele, Utah. I guess it must be really easy to mistake, Henry Martin Tanner of Joseph City, Navajo, Arizona with Martin Henry Tanner of Grantsville, Tooele, Utah.

Now here is real issue. MyHeritage.com has made big deal out of finding source information for all its users. You don't even have to do anything and the program tells you the correct information from original sources. Doesn't this go beyond simple copying? Doesn't it get a little bit weird that these people don't correct their files? After all they are getting the same Smart Matches I am getting and they can see the same confusion. This goes way beyond mere copying.

Part Two: Digital Books for Genealogists -- the sources

2013-05-14T10:47:00.002-07:00

In this session of Quick Views of Genealogy, I focus on online digital books for genealogists with several useful suggestions for finding and viewing online digitized books. This segment is part of a series on digitized books that would normally be incorporated in a one hour or more class. If you have any suggestions for future presentations, please feel free to make comments.

The limitations of citing online documents for genealogists

2013-05-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

I received the following comment to one of my recent posts on adding external sources to FamilySearch.org Family Tree with Tree Connect:

Thank you for your informative video. Is there a way to use TreeConnect to show the actual source record when the url to the site brings up a search form and additional steps must be taken to reach the desired record? My research is primarily in the Danish Archives on the arkivalieronline.dk website. These records are not indexed by name of person, but by record type (parish records or census), county, parish, and time period. When the correct parish register is identified and shows on screen, a manual search is required to find the desired person. Once the correct record is found, I have not been able to figure out how to reference that particular record with TreeConnect, except, perhaps, to include instructions with the source. I will appreciate any suggestions.

The comment raises a basic issue concerning the use of online sources. The issue is the use of documents embedded in digitized sources online where there may be no direct link to the actual record.

Fortunately, this issue is not new. It is essentially the same issue faced for many years in citing to a microfilmed record of the same documents. The commentator is apparently concerned, in part, with the use of an automated sourcing utility, i.e. Tree Connect, and how to specify the exact document searched. This becomes a problem when, as the commentator has noted, the URL of the source is the entire document, not the page being viewed.

The general purpose of a citation to a source is to provide a way for subsequent researchers to view the record to verify the accuracy of the conclusions drawn from the record or to find additional information not extracted by the original researcher. This purpose is served by specifying the source as nearly as possible. This type of record is covered in the book,

Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Baltimore, Md: Genealogical Pub. Co, 2007.

The specific example, from the Mills book is at page 555. Basically, the idea is to be as complete as possible. Whether or not you choose to follow Mills or use your own system of citation is entirely up to you, but the basic information should be conveyed to those who will view and use your information.

The form used by FamilySearch Family Tree and incorporated into Tree Connect, certainly does not reflect all of the nuances of the vast number of different citations contained in the Mills book. This alone should tell you that some adaptation is and will be necessary. The fact that there would be any citation is a dramatically valuable step in the process of genealogical research, quibbling about the form of the citation only leads to discouragement on the part of researchers.

I suggest that the commentator has already devised a solution to the problem posed, that is to explain how the record was found in the source cited.

Can institutions claim a copyright to their collections?

2013-05-14T07:54:00.000-07:00

Let's suppose that you are looking online for your ancestor and through a search on his or her name, you find a previously unknown photograph of the family, including the ancestor you were searching for. Since your ancestor died in 1910, you assume that the photo was taken some time prior to the date of death. Under U.S. Copyright law, since that photo was obviously published (i.e. made public in this case) any possible copyright claim would have long ago expired. However, there is a very prominent notice on the top of the webpage showing the copy of the photograph that says:

Copyright, 1999, ------ State Historical Society. All rights reserved. Reproduction, storage or transmittal of this work, or any part of it, in any form or by any means, for commercial purposes, is prohibited without prior authorization of the ------ State Historical Society. This work may be used for scholarly and other non-commercial use provided that the ------ State Historical Society is acknowledged as the creator and copyright holder.

You are confused, how did the State Historical Society gain copyright ownership to your family photograph? What is more important, how did the State Historical Society become the creator of the works in its collection? Do you have to acknowledge the State Historical Society's claim if you copy the photo? What if you use the photo in a book about your family you intend to sell?

I must note that I did not make up the notice quoted above, I have merely removed the name of the state to avoid getting a nasty letter from the Society's attorney. Interestingly, the same photographs also have this additional notice prominently displayed on the same page:

The ------ Collection is the physical property of the ------ Historical Society, ------. Literary rights, including copyright, may belong to the authors or their heirs and assigns. Please contact the Historical Society for information regarding specific use of this collection.

This type of notice appended to historical documents and photographs is not uncommon. Does the fact that the collection is the "physical property" of the Historical Society have any bearing on the issue of copyright ownership? If the copyrights, in fact and if they exist, "belong to the authors or their heirs and assigns" how did the Historical Society gain their "all rights reserved" status?

I am aware of several large collections where the copyright is claimed on documents that did not originate with the claimant. In fact, a copyright claim is personal property. A copyright can be bought and sold, leased and rented, just like any other item of personal property. But it is "personal" to the author or creator of the work. Copyright claims, although assignable, do not arise merely out of possession of the copyrighted work. If this were true, when you purchased a copyrighted book, you would assume some or all of the copyright protection given to the author.

This whole issue is basically out of control in our society. The length of the present copyright interest entirely defeats the whole purpose for establishing copyright protection in the first place, that is, to protect the author but also to ensure innovation and invention. Article One, Section Eight of the United States Constitution states, "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The reason for the provision was to promote progress. How is progress promoted by the length of the current copyright law? How is the "progress of science and the useful arts" promoted by institutions making unsupportable and illegal copyright claims?

MyHeritage Introduces Record Detective

2013-05-13T17:01:00.001-07:00

There are several blog posts so far today about MyHeritage's new Record Detective program introduced this past weekend at the National Genealogical Society (NGS) conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since I did not attend NGS, I have had to rely on reports from others. For an example, see Randy Seaver's thoughtful commentary at "First Look at Record Detective and Record Extraction Features on MyHeritage." Almost all of the other comments by other bloggers are simply reports of the press release.

For my part, I was aware of the pending release of the Record Detective program and made mention of the soon-to-be released program in the presentation I did for MyHeritage at RootsTech 2013. I was very interested in viewing the program and seeing how well it fulfilled expectations.

I am on record as very impressed with the MyHeritage Record Match technology. I am and have been for some time simply unable to keep up with the large number of very accurate suggested records for people in my online family tree. At the moment, I have 2661 Record Matches in 22 historical collections. I have been selectively working through these records as I have time to do so.

Today I did receive the Press Release from MyHeritage about the new addition to their online Family Trees and I began to look at the new features to the program. My first impression was that the I had a lot more work to do. But at the same time, I started to see quite a few false positives. These were easily disposed of, but it looks like it might take some time to get a complete impression of the program.

Randy Seaver discussed a pop-up menu that allowed the record to be saved to the person's record in the family tree. I did not see the pop-up menu, but I did find the records copied to the individual in my family tree. I am guessing that I need to work with the program some more to see how it works in practice. So far, I am finding far more records than I can process.

I have had some feedback from friends and commentators on this blog about their lack of Record Matches. I have found that this is a rather longer process than was anticipated, but, at least in my experience, the records do start to appear. I fully realize that my ancestral family is not ordinary in any sense. They are likely some of the best documented people on the planet.

Like some of the other of bloggers, I will keep working with the new features and get back to you all with comments.

What if my ancestors did not live in a town? How do I find their exact location?

2013-05-13T08:33:00.002-07:00

In a recent blog post, I described a way to find the exact address of someone living in a city using U.S. Census records and City Directories. This exact location is helpful to distinguish between people with the same or very similar names living in the same area. It is also helpful for finding a myriad of genealogical records that are stored and maintained geographically. But what about the situation where the ancestor lives in a rural area? And more importantly, what if the ancestor did not own any property?

The key to all of these issues will depend on the country you are researching. But in the United States (and the colonies before independence) the issues of location are tied into land ownership. It may seem overly simplistic, but you can find the land owned by looking at the ownership records for any given location. Ownership and title to real property has always been an issue since ancient times. In the United States and many other countries, there are whole commercial industries based solely on the service of providing a chain of ownership for any particular parcel of real property. Although the form and content of the reports these agencies provide may vary from state to state and country to country, the need to show a chain of ownership does not vary. In the United States these companies are called title abstractors or title companies. In the UK, they have local and nation wide Land Registry Offices. In Australia, for example, Land Titles are handled on a provincial basis. You can also go to the Land Titles and Title Plans site for Australia and New Zealand. These services are usually not free and can run many hundreds of dollars in the local currency.

There are many different kinds of records that can show land ownership as well as tenants. Some of these records would seem to have no relationship to land ownership, but nonetheless are sources to find a record of the ownership of the property and thereby assist in specifying the location of your ancestors. For example, U.S. Census records. Ancestry.com and many other sources provide blank U.S. Census forms that show the categories of questions asked. Many of the years of the U.S. Census ask specific questions as to whether the home was owned or rented. This applies to people living both within cities and those living in rural areas. If your ancestor shows land ownership in a census, there is an automatic need to look into the land records for the area where your ancestor was found in the census. As time goes on, more and more of these types of records are becoming searchable online. In my own state of Arizona, title records from the County Recorders, in many cases, can be viewed online for free.

Finding the exact location of where your ancestors lived is wrapped up in all of the rest of the research you do about your family. The types of documents that may show an address or similar location are almost without end. For example, both letters and photographs have been used to pinpoint an exact location. Listing all the types of records that might assist in finding the location is essentially the same as listing all the documents available for research. Any type of document from town records in New England to tax records can give enough information to establish a basis for doing a title search in any given area. Many of the agencies that maintain such records have what are called grantor/grantee indexes. This means that they have a list of all the people both buying and selling the land. Few, if any, of these records are kept by genealogy companies but there are notable exceptions. Ancestry.com presently has 332 collections of land records including millions of records of U.S. Indexed County Land Ownership Maps from 1860 to 1918 among many other valuable records. These records, also available from the Library of Congress, are the counterpart to the city directories and are collectively known as county landownership atlases.

In the U.S. we have a whole category of records dealing with the original acquisition of the land from the Federal Government. There is an online index with links to the original land patents for all Homestead property in the western United States in the Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records. The image at the beginning of this post is a copy of the Land Patent issued to my Great-grandfather, Henry Martin Tanner. This document shows exactly the land owned by my ancestor.

The point here is that finding the exact location of where an ancestor lived is the key to locating additional documents, but rather than search for birth and death dates, the real investigation should focus on locating the ancestor first. The records that might show this information are seldom searched by genealogists.

Recording dates to reflect the calendar change

2013-05-13T06:36:00.001-07:00

If you start doing genealogical research back into the 1700s you will likely run into an interesting problem concerning the change from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar that began in 1582 A. D and continued until as late as 1752 depending on the country. This so-called calendar change or adjustment, presents an additional interesting problem in the way to record dates both before and after the change. When genealogists are dealing with places, the rule is to record the name of the place and its jurisdiction as it was at the time the event occurred. However, there is a question as to whether the same type of rule applies to dates. If the event occurred in the transition period, do you record the date according to the Julian Calendar or the Gregorian Calendar or both? The answer to this question turns out to be quite complex and a real challenge to genealogists unaware of the issue.

The Julian Calendar was used throughout Europe beginning as early as 45 B.C. In that calendar system, the new year began on March 25 and March was the "first month" of the new year. The problem arose from the fact that the Julian Calendar to not take into account the difference between the length of the year and actual length of the year according to the rotation of the earth around the sun. As a result, the seasonal dates, such as the calculation for Easter, slowly moved later in the year.

Beginning in 1582, under the mandate of Pope Gregory XIII, the calendar was revised and correct for the drift, the last day of the Julian Calendar was 4 October and the following day was 15 October. Unfortunately, this change was not accepted by non-Catholic countries for up to 170 years. As time passed, the number of days needed to correct the Julian or Old Style Calendar increased.

Illustrated below in this Table from the Wikipedia article "Old Style and New Style dates," are the number of days needed to correct the Old Style dates to New Style dates. Researchers also have to take into account that the days between the adjustment dates simply disappear from the calendar.

**Conversion from Julian to Gregorian dates**
Time period (from 1 March of first year to 28 February of last year)	Сorrection, days
1–100	−2
100–200	−1
200–300	0
300–500	+1
500–600	+2
600–700	+3
700–900	+4
900–1000	+5
1000–1100	+6
1100–1300	+7
1300–1400	+8
1400–1500	+9
1500–1700	+10
1700–1800	+11
1800–1900	+12
1900–2100	+13
2100–2200	+14

If all this sounds complicated, it is. But ignoring this issue causes some really interesting dating problems for genealogists

Now the issue becomes, how do genealogists record their date entries to match the changes made to the calendar? Here is a partial explanation from the Encyclopedia of Genealogy:

Around 1700 many New England town clerks began entering split-year dates. If one is found to be clearly entered, then use "21 February 1704/5" or whatever form the recorder used. For dates in the ambiguous, 1 January-24 March range without split dates, safe genealogical practice suggests using the notation "21 February 1704[/5]" when primary, direct evidence clearly suggests a split year applies, with an explanation in your footnote. If there is primary, indirect evidence that the split date applies but was omitted, then "21 February 1704[/5?]" would be appropriate, again with an explanation in a footnote. In general, the acceptable practice is to not convert pre-Gregorian dates to New Style, or (N. S.), but rather to record Julian dates with an Old Style, or (O. S.) notation suffix, for example, "She dated her letter 21 February 1714 (O.S.)". Conversion simply introduces another error opportunity, and further removes the information from its original form. Other genealogists can handle the conversion, if they have the need.

Researchers in America need to understand this because the English Colonies, including those in America, did not make the change until 1752 but implementation depended on the exact area, some beginning before 1752 and some after.

Unfortunately, there are few of the genealogy programs that make allowances for the split-year dates and the best you can expect is that the program will let you enter a "non-standard" date to accurately reflect the issue.

For more information on the subject see the following sources:

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of more articles on the same subject; try searching for "calendar change genealogy" in Google.

For a more extensive discussion, including tables for calculating dates, see:

Cheney, C. R., and Michael Jones. A Handbook of Dates: For Students of British History. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

This whole discussion, of course, does not address the issue of other calendar systems throughout the world, including the Jewish Calendar or other non-European systems.

Mystery Photos 2013-05-12

2013-05-12T11:10:00.001-07:00

Although it has been some time since I last put online some of my mystery photos, the digitized collection continues to grow. So far, I have digitized and developed over 5000 items. In case you haven't read some of the previous blog posts on this subject, these photos date back to the mid-1800s and are part of the photographs taken by Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson and her father Charles Godfrey (De Friez) Jarvis. They took most of these photos as professional photographers while living in St. Johns, Apache, Arizona. However, it also appears that many of the photos were obtained from other sources, as I find photos taken in Salt Lake City, Utah, St. George, Utah and other locations by other photographers.

Here are today's mystery photos:

Does your family have a Coat of Arms?

2013-05-12T08:31:00.001-07:00

Long before I was very much aware of my extended family, we had a book in our home with a green cover and the words "John Tanner Family" in gold on the cover. It was written before I was born, but it did list my father and his only brother. As I know now, the book was originally published in 1923 and then updated and revised in 1942. In 2007, the book was reprinted. Here are all the editions of the book:

Tanner, Maurice, and George C. Tanner. Descendants of John Tanner Born August 15, 1778, at Hopkintown, R.I., Died April 15 1850, at South Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah. [S.l.]: Tanner Family Association, 1923.

Tanner, Maurice, and George C. Tanner. Descendants of John Tanner: Born August 15, 1778 at Hopkintown, R.I., Died April 15, 1850 at South Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah. [S.l.]: Tanner Family Association, 1942.

Tanner, Maurice, and George C. Tanner. Descendants of John Tanner: Born August 15, 1778 at Hopkintown, R.I., Died April 15, 1850 at South Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah. Salem, MA: Higginson Book Company, 2007.

In looking at this book, when I was much younger, I was impressed by a plate at the beginning of the book showing our family's "Coat of Arms." It was a remarkably ugly and rather crude drawing (which I will not reproduce here in the event that some Tanner family member immediately adopts it as valid). As I began to be more involved in genealogy, many years later, I was struck by the statement on page 7 of the book made after listing several men in England with the Tanner name and noting that the "name is clearly of English origin, although found in Wales, Ireland and even in Switzerland and among our Scandinavian cousins":

It is not definitely known from which of the first emigrants of the name to America were descended but it is generally believed that ll lines of this illustrious family in England were of common ancestry at a remote period.

The blunt truth of the matter is that the original Tanner, to whom this branch of the family traces its ancestry, arrived in America about 1680 and, so far, his ancestry has yet to be established with any certainty. In other words, it is pure speculation that any of the people listed in the introductory paragraph of this section of the book are in any way related to our American family.

I have spent a considerable time and effort examining early records of the Tanner family and, so far, my research has confirmed the statement that its origin past 1680 in Rhode Island, "is not definitely known."

So where did the Coat of Arms come from? Why is there some claim to a Coat of Arms if the origin of the family is unknown? The more serious question is why would you believe that a surname that is obviously adopted from an occupation, can be traced back to a common ancestry? Can you claim ownership of a Coat of Arms merely because you share a common surname with someone who had a Coat of Arms in England? Does a Coat of Arms mean anything more than the person has a surname? Is a Coat of Arms merely a useful symbol of the family and helps to engender interest in family history?

The answer to this question determines to some extent your approach to genealogy and/or family history. The fundamental question as expressed by Val Greenwood in his book,

Greenwood, Val D. The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Pub. Co, 2000.

is this: Is genealogy a science or a pastime. He says, at page 8, "Genealogy should be a science--it deserves to be a science--but the methods of some tend to lower it to the level of a mere pastime, and that built upon false premises."

Now I have to say that the statements made in the Tanner book and other surname books written about my family contributed to my passion for genealogy. But not in the way you might expect. I was not caught up in a desire to know about my romantic past with kings and knights in England, I was appalled at the inaccuracy and mistakes of fact transmitted by these books and I was offended by the fact that for so many years, I had been told something that was fundamentally untrue. My desire was to find out for myself whether or not the information, unsourced as it was, was true or not. I am still in that mode and still finding inaccuracies and misinformation.

Unfortunately, I am losing ground rapidly. The proliferation of family trees including my own family lines is so immense that it is doubtful that the mistakes and errors will ever be corrected. The fables and falsehoods are now accepted as fact and spread at the speed of light to unknowing family members.

That Tanner Coat of Arms to me is a symbol of everything that is wrong with genealogy and its more general name, family history.

Seasonal Changes in Genealogy Interest

2013-05-11T21:50:00.002-07:00

Did you just find yourself a little too busy to get going on your genealogy recently? Does it look like your summer might be too filled with other activities and you will not get much done on your research? Does the traffic at the Mesa FamilySearch Library become very sparse as the days get hotter and more people flee to the mountains or the coast? If that is the case, then you are simply experiencing the annual cycle of genealogical interest. I can see it plainly in my blog statistics and I am sure that everyone associated with genealogy sees the same pattern. Interest in genealogy peaks in about February or March and then slides downhill until August. With Fall and back to school, interest begins to pick up again and the cycle starts over.

This is the case, at least in part, because genealogy is a part-time pursuit for most and only a full-time job for a relatively few. Of course, there are those of us who can't afford to slow down in the summer. We have conferences to attend and presentations to make, blog posts to write, research to do and compile and I always have the never ending pile of documents to scan and organize. Summer for me will be almost as busy as February or March, just not quite so many conferences and seminars.

I don't have the statistics to show how traffic on the major genealogical websites is affected by the seasons, but my best guess is that the interest waxes and wanes with the months just as the traffic at the FamilySearch Library and my blog.

So, for those of you who are getting involved the the usual summer activities, we hope to see you again in the Fall. But for those of you who stay around, thanks for reading and listening.

Quick View of Genealogy, Part One Digitized Books Online for Genealogists

2013-05-11T14:50:00.002-07:00

This Quick View of Genealogy is Part One of a series about digitized books or eBooks online for genealogists. In Part One I cover some of the basics of understanding what digitized books are and where they can be found. In Part Two, I will discuss some of the major websites with digitized books for genealogists in more detail.

Finding your ancestors exact location

2013-05-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes knowing the general location where an event concerning an ancestor occurred is not as useful as it could be because there are several people in the same are with the same or very similar name. In those cases, and many others, it is important to find the exact location of an event. This may mean finding the actual address where your ancestor lived or, if outside a city, the geographic coordinates for the location of the event.

Surprisingly, finding the exact address or geographic coordinates may not be impossible. To illustrate the possibilities I will show different ways to find the same information about my Grandfather living in Salt Lake City, Utah in around1930 to 1940. But, you may say, my relative lived in a much more remote and difficult to locate place. If that is the case, then finding the location may be a bit more of a challenge, but still possible.

Commonly, location information for ancestors as collected by popular genealogical database programs preserves only the city, county and state of origin. The address of the ancestor, even if it is known, is relegated to the notes or some other entry form. It is a basic principle of records and record keeping, that more records are available when you know exact locations. The reason for this is simple; many very local records are kept by location, not necessarily by name. It is true that some database programs allow you to "geolocate" the place name, but again, this is generally based on a standard database of geographic locations with the coordinates to the city or county, not to a specific address.

Innovative programs, such as BillionGraves.com, have recognized that iPads and some smartphones, such as the iPhone, have built-in geolocation or GPS abilities and have utilized that capability to attach a reading of the GPS location. GPS stands for "Global Positioning System" and most of these devices, including the GPS systems for vehicles, utilize a combination of satellites and cell phone towers to accurately locate the device on the earth. I you do not have a GPS device, you can simply enter an address into a program such as Google Maps and the program will put a "marker" on the map at that location. If you right-click on the location, not the marker, you will get an option to see "What's here?" and selecting that option will put the coordinates in the search field for the map. Here is an example showing the North Rim of the Grand Canyon:

While useful, for genealogists, the question still remains about how to obtain the address or location. OK, so the trick is really finding a record that recorded the address or the name of the farm or gave a legal description of the ancestor's real property.

If your ancestor lived in a larger city, then the first and easiest way to find the exact location is through city directories. Many of these have been indexed or digitized online. Generally, however, city directories are difficult to locate but are likely available at state archives or major libraries. Directories are not a new innovation, many of them go back hundreds of years. You won't find one, if you don't look for it.

I mentioned my Grandfather. In 1940, Harold Morgan lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. It happens that Ancestry.com has a rather extensive selection of City Directories. When you search in Ancestry.com, you need to go down to the individual database level in its "Card Catalog." One of the filters by collection includes directories. Here is a screen shot showing the list of collections with the "Schools, Directories & Church Histories" highlighted:

You click on the filter to separate out that category and then further filter the selections for time and place. I filtered the selections until I was looking at a list of directories for Utah. I then selected Salt Lake County. I found a database called Utah City Directories and searched for my Grandfather. I found him in the first entry in the search list.

There was his exact address in 1934. I could have looked further, but this was enough to show the point.

Now, I could have gotten the same information for 1940 from the U.S. Census. Here is the entry for Harold Morgan in the 1940 U.S. Census with Ancestry.com's summary:

So now I have two exact locations where the family lived in two different years. I plan to make this demonstration into a video to add to my YouTube Channel in the very near future.

How reliable are published or traditional lines of nobility?

2013-05-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

I have recently been taken to task because of some comments I made concerning the reliability of the traditional genealogies of noble and royal families. So, how reliable are these royal pedigrees that are incorporated into so many family trees?

As a matter of fact, I have seldom seen a claim to royal ancestry that was adequately sourced or had any sources at all. This lack of sources is much more common in countries such as the United States, where royal descent is viewed differently than it is in a country with a reigning monarch. I am reminded of the series of blog posts that I see from time to time asking if you are related to some famous movie star or political figure or another. There is an underlying, incorrect by the way, assumption in all of these claims, that the pedigree showing the relationship is accurate and correct. You might be impressed to be related to someone important, but how reliable is your own pedigree? How carefully has the connection been established?

OK, to start out, kings and queens had children just like the rest of the population. So, it stands to reason that their descendants can trace their ancestry back to some king or queen. What is not usually carefully researched by the claimants is each step in the relationship, even when the supposed relationship comes from an "accepted resource." It is also apparent that most of the discussion on this topic is by people who know little or nothing about doing research in the claimed royal lines. It is far different for a careful researcher in England to claim royal ancestry than it is for someone from the United States, who sees an online family tree showing royal ancestry and copies it.

Another crucial point here is the time period of the claimed connection. Many of the connections I have seen to royalty, make the connection back in the 1600s or even the 1500s when the research is much more difficult and errors are more common. There are absolute limits to the accuracy of any genealogical claim that goes far into the past. A recent book is cited by Nathan W. Murphy of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah in his post "I Have My Family Tree Back to Adam and Eve" Part 2: (I suggest reading Part 1 also).

Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America. By François Weil. Published by Harvard University Press, Online bookstore; 2013. ISBN 9780674045835. 320 pp.

In that book, the author, François Weil, Chancellor of the Universities of Paris, as quoted by Nathan Murphy, states:

Genealogy was originally the prerogative of kings and princes. The oldest surviving royal genealogies in Europe go back to the sixth century A.D. for Gothic sovereigns, to the seventh century for their Irish, Lombardic, Visigothic, and Frankish counterparts, and to the eighth and ninth centuries for Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian kings. (pp. 10-11)

In doing any research in this area it is important to rely on the most recent and reliable sources. Any pedigree dating back to the 1800s or 1700s is suspect merely because more current research may have corrected earlier errors. Copying an undocumented pedigree from an online family tree is misleading and a total waste of time. Bad genealogical practices are bad whether or not they produce a connection to a bank robber or a king.