Email from Reader: Looking for Wills at the Archives

I receive a lot of emails from readers of my blog, some of them surname related and some of them North Carolina and State Archives related. I would like to share the following reader email regarding locating wills at the North Carolina State Archives and my response to her questions.

Hello Ginger,
I just finished reading your blog about the MARS catalog, and just wanted to add that I've been using it for awhile now and think it is great.  I always tell people who write to me to try it out. I have been able to have a field day with the land grants.  I noticed the recent change in how the catalog was organized, and it has thrown me off.  Old dogs have trouble learning new tricks.

I am also an avid genealogist and am one of the administrators at the Glover Surname DNA project. I was so lucky to have our Glover patriarch's will be one of the digitalized ones....and that's because it was way back in 1754. It was spelled Glovyer, but we all know it is the correct person.

My generalized question for you is this:  I can see by the MARS catalog that there are several wills located at the archive center of collateral people who married into the families, but they are not available as scanned images.  Are you aware of any plans underfoot to have these records scanned?  Or 2ndly, are there microfilms of these wills?

Thanks,
Wendy.......from out in California

Just FYI for background purposes, Wendy is referring to the MARS online catalog on the North Carolina State Archives website. MARS stands for Manuscript and Archives Reference System and is an online catalog of many of the Archives' holdings in Raleigh, NC. Here is my response to Wendy from California:

Hi Wendy, 

Thanks so much for writing. That is great that your Glover/Glovyer patriarch's will has been digitized! The digitized wills are the colonial wills that were held under the Secretary of State's Office. Usually these wills were written prior to 1776. These have been digitized because they are too fragile to be brought out to the public for viewing and handling. 

Most of the wills have been microfilmed, however, it was not the original wills that were microfilmed, but rather copies or transcripts that were made from the original wills and bound in books. Only 5 county's "original" wills have actually been microfilmed by the Archives - Beaufort, Caswell, Granville, Pasquotank, and Person.

FamilySearch.org has digitized most of these non-"original" transcriped copies of wills on their site and you can access them here 

They are still in the process of digitizing and uploading to the site and they are not yet indexed. But if you go to the will index and find your ancestor, it is pretty easy to then find them in the appropriate book and page of the scanned image. 

My only word of caution is to remember that these are transcripts which means that someone wrote what they thought they saw on the original will and these were sometimes written 3 or 4 times and mistakes were made. I have found several mistakes in the microfilmed and digital copies I have pulled off of the FamilySearch site. So if you question any information in the will, I recommend to order the original from the Archives right away before pulling your hair out over a mistake that a county clerk probably made during transcription. 

I hope this helps to answer your questions. I have not heard of any intentions to digitize the original wills from the Archives. However, many records are being scanned and uploaded to the North Carolina Digital Collections site here, including bible records. 

Ginger

The Mystery of William Herbert Peters’ Birth

Today a mystery was solved.

It all started when a woman that I have been exchanging information with for several years now emailed me to say she would be visiting Oregon County, Missouri and wanted to know if there was anything I wanted her to look for while she was there. She said she would be looking for more documents on our Peters and King families.

It just so happens that I had updated my Peters research report back in January and she said she would look it over for me to see if she could find any gaps or offer any suggestions on my next research steps. My Peters line is my dead end or what some might call my “brick wall.” As I was creating an updated narrative report to send to her, I checked the WorldConnect online family tree of my great-grandmother’s half brother, William Herbert Peters to verify some information I had. I noticed the database had been updated in January of 2012, so I re-read his entry. It is always a good idea to re-check information, especially family tree files on the internet because if the owners are anything like me, they are updating their information all the time.

I was originally told by this family tree owner that William Herbert Peters was the son of William Edward Peters (my 2^nd great-grandfather) and Matilda Judd. He was born out of wedlock and Matilda was only 16 years old when he was born in March of 1900. In November of 1900, William Edward Peters married my 2^nd great-grandmother, Dora King who took in the baby as her own. Matilda Judd married Posey Woodside Willard in 1901. Matilda’s family knew about the baby. My family knew about the baby, however, it was believed that he was NOT the son of William Peters, in other words, he had a different father than my great-grandmother and her siblings. I put this contradiction between the two families' stories aside for a while. 

Six years later, I read in this updated family tree file that William Herbert Peters was the son of Posey Woodside Willard and Dora King and that an affair had ensued and a child had been produced and said child had been adopted by William Edward Peters. Does that name sound familiar – Posey Woodside Willard? – it should because he is the man that Matilda Judd, the woman originally thought to be William Herbert Peters' mother, married in 1901!

Usually the owner of this tree emails me when he finds new information, but I haven’t heard from him in years. So I sent him an email asking how did he learn about this new information and I CC’d the researcher I had been exchanging emails with today. I asked him had he obtained William Herbert Peters’ death certificate?

Well wouldn’t you know it but two seconds after I asked, I decided to look on FamilySearch.org to see if they had uploaded any new databases recently from Texas. Sure enough, I found “Texasdeaths, 1977-1986” which filled the gap they had previously. The previous database of Texas Death Certificates only went up to the year 1976. This one went a little further. It is not yet indexed, but it didn’t take me long to find the one I was looking for by browsing through the images. I knew that he had died 20 Apr 1979 in Bowie County, Texas. 

Sure enough, his death certificate says his parents were Dora Watson and Posey Willard. His mother’s name was Dora King; however after her father died when she was just 2 years old, her step-father, Samuel Watson, adopted her.

Here is a look at the death certificate (click to make it bigger):

So the mystery of William Herbert Peters has been solved.

Discovering divergences like this and documenting them is essential to building successful connections to your ftDNA Family Finder (or 23andMe) matches. Trying to prove connections is often difficult and discouraging because events like this happen and it appears as if even 2^nd or 3^rd cousin matches are not possible. So make sure to look for any and all kinds of diverging branches of your tree and document them well!

Citation as provided by FamilySearch.org webstie:

"Texas, Deaths, 1977-1986." ''FamilySearch'' ([http://www.familysearch.org https://www.familysearch.org]). Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics. Digital images of originals housed at the State Registrar Office in Austin, Texas. FHL microfilm and digital images. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. William Herbert Peters. 

Looking for *Estates* in all the Right Places...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how the North and South Carolina wills and probate record images have been scanned and placed online for users to browse on the FamilySearch.org website.

Today I was trying to find the probate record for Susan McCoy in Greenville County, SC (1847-1850) and grew increasingly frustrated when I realized that the index (if one existed) was not posted to the FamilySearch.org site. Without an index, I could not figure out what "apartment," "file," or "no." her probate records were filed in. I looked through a bunch of the images to see if I could determine if they were filed by date or by surname, but they were not. I simply needed an index.

On a whim, I went to the Greenville Co., SC USGenWeb site thinking they MUST have an index posted somewhere. Although I didn't find an index I did find a link to the Greenville County Governement Online - with a page dedicated to historical records and there I found an Index to Estate Papers, 1787-1976. I clicked on the "M" link for "McCoy" and it brought up the browsable image index for all the "Ms." This is what I found:

McCoy, David - Apartment No. 5, File No. 339, Year filed 1822, Robert Cox, Admr.
McCoy, Susan - Apartment No. 11, File No. 74, Year filed 1847, Robert Cox, Exor.

Here's what the scanned image looks like:

This is exactly what I was looking for!

Now I have TWO - actually THREE Options: 1) I can go back to FamilySearch.org and look for these probate records in the browsable images 2) I can stay on this site and look for these records or 3) I can do BOTH!

Option #1: 
Searching for Estate Records at FamilySearch.org:

Now I can go back to the browsable images posted on the FamilySearch.org website:

South Carolina Probate Records, Files and Loose Papers, 1732-1964

Click on the link for Greenville, click the "Probate Court, Probate Records" link, the "1787-1868" date range.

A list of file numbers come up. Since I am looking for file no. 5, I click the link for "Files 04-06, Nos. 215-420."  (Although the link has been included here, I cannot guarantee it will continue to work longterm, so please follow my description of how I found the files.) 


This is the hard part. This set of images only contains file nos. 4, 5, and 6. I have to find file no. 5 in there somehow. I know no. 5 is in the middle somewhere. At the top, it says I am on image 1 of 730. So there are 730 images in this set. That means the middle is probably about image no. 375. I can type in 375 into the Image No. box and press enter to go directly to that image.  This gives me the estate record for Jesse Moody. Going back one page brings up the first page of his estate record which says it is file no. 338. So all I need to do is fast forward until the end and that should take me to David McCoy's file no. 339.

I only had to go 2 more pages to get to David McCoy's file. The first page was missing, however, so I might want to order the entire record from the South Carolina State Archives if I feel as if it is not complete.

**OR**

Option #2: 

Stay on the Greenville County Government Site and Searching for Estate Records:

Click on the Estate Records link. 

Click on the Apt 0004 File 265 - Apt 0006 File 366 Link

Start going through images as above. This is system is much slower and the images are of poorer quality. 

HOWEVER, I retrieved only 9 images from the FamilySearch.org site and I retrieved 22 images from the Greenville County Government site!!! 

So my recommendation is... 

Option #3:

DO BOTH!!! - This just goes to show you that even in the realm of genealogy, things really are changing relatively quickly. Sometimes we have to check several places before we give up and then check them again because new things are being added all the time. 

A word of caution: **If** you do pull records from both, please make sure you cite them properly. If you found one loose piece of paper listing all of the children of the deceased off of one site, but that same piece of paper is NOT uploaded to the other site, then it is YOUR responsibility to note that. 

Now if you have ancestors from Greenville, South Carolina, be sure to check out the Greenville County, SC Government Online Historical Records page !!!

North Carolina Probate Records on FamilySearch.org

I have been looking for the parents of Jesse Dunlap, my fifth great-grandfather. I found an article written about Jesse Dunlap in the book A History of Boone County Arkansas (p. 217) in which it is said that Jesse Dunlap was born in Stokes County, North Carolina in 1783. The only problem is that Stokes County wasn’t formed until 1789.

But all information is good information in my opinion, so I decided to use that as a starting point. Whenever I am looking for someone’s parents and I don’t have anything to go on except a location, I usually start by looking through the wills for that surname in that location.

The North Carolina State Archives has access to the Mitchell’s Will Index through their online catalog called MARS. Sometimes a person didn’t write a will, but there are items relating to their estate recorded in the county in which they died. Items relating to a person’s estate have been scanned and digitized by FamilySearch.org. Although the digital items have not been indexed, they are browsable online for FREE on their website and many of the county records have indexes contained within the bound books.

Some genealogists might wonder what the benefit of such documents are if you can’t do a collection-wide textual search for your ancestors’ names. I still find the images useful. I loaded the images for the North Carolina Probate Records, 1735-1970 and then selected Stokes County. Under Stokes County, there are 5 sets of wills – volumes 1-5. 

Volumes 1, 3, and 5 have an index at the beginning; volumes 2 and 4 do not. I do not want to miss any Dunlaps who might have recorded a will in either of these two volumes, so I look through both volumes, one image at a time. Volume 2 has 184 images which is roughly about 90 pages total because each image is a scan of two pages of the book. As I “browse” through each image, I look for the signature or name of the person who wrote the will. I don’t actually have to read each wills, but merely scan through the images for the short block of text that looks like a signature to see if it is a Dunlap. Here is an example of a will written by Fredric Hausen.

I don’t have the best attention span, but browsing through 182 images is not that bad. It took me about 40 minutes to look through this volume containing 182 images. Unfortunately I did not find any Dunlaps in this volume. Volume 4 will probably take me another 40 minutes as it is 197 images.

Have you checked out FamilySearch’s latest browsable images? North Carolina and South Carolina Probate Records have been very valuable to me these days!

Family Search Bloggers Reception at FGS

We finally made it to Springfield IL for the FGS genealogy conference which starts tomorrow. 

Tonight I attended the Bloggers Reception put on by Family Search that was held on the 29^th floor of the Hilton hotel in downtown Springfield, Illinois. This offers an opportunity for the bloggers to get together and meet each other in person and interact with the members of the Family Search team.  It is also a way in which Family Search can disseminate information about what they have been working on to fellow geneabloggers who can then share with their readers.

Some of the announcements on current Family Search projects:

1)      As many of you know, the 1940 census report images will be released on Ancestry.com on April 2^nd, 2012.  Family Search has joined a consortium to index it and make it free “in perpetuity.” They hope to engage the public and local genealogical societies for their help in bringing this project to fruition prior to the April 2^nd release date.

2)      David Rencher announced that Family Search did a 4 generation pedigree of the Abraham Lincoln family, framed it and presented it to the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum this week. Prints of the pedigree will be made available for sale in the museum store.

3)      More news on the Civil War Records being released by Family Search can be found on their website at www.familysearch.org/civilwar. Information about places, regiments, and events can be found on their wiki along with current indexing projects that need your help! One thing that caught my eye was an indexing project of union soldiers’ headstones!

4)      If you are an indexing volunteer or would like to learn more about their volunteering opportunities, stop by the Family Search booth during their Volunteer Appreciation Reception on Thursday night from 6 to 8 pm.

5)      Be sure to check out the white paper on “Preserving Your Family History Digitally” which has been recently updated and discusses the advantages and challenges of preserving your family history records digitally.

6)      We also saw slides of the learning center webpages which have been redesigned and offer over 200 free learning courses for you to choose from.

Two huge announcements released this week include the transition of digital scanning from the field to on-site digital publishing and the replacement of the BYU archive of family history books which goes into beta this week in the Family History labs.

Field Express:

You may have noticed a lot of records being made available “by image only” prior to being indexed by volunteers. This is made possible by over 165 field cameras placed throughout the world which are responsible for capturing digital images and uploading online from the field.  This is much faster, providing a “digital pipeline” directly to the genealogists who used to have to wait years before content was captured, indexed, and delivered to the public. To date, turnaround time is approximately 4 weeks from capture to delivery; the goal is 2 weeks turnaround time.

The BYU Family History Archive will be replaced by the new Family Search Family History Books which can be found in the FamilySearch Labs. Check it out!

They also announced next year's RootsTech2012 conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, Feb 2-4, 2012. All FGS conference attendees receive a discounted $99.00 conference registration fee good for yourself and anyone else you would like to register while here at FGS. This is a $30 discount off of the early bird registration fee of $129 and almost half off the $189 full registration fee. 

Tomorrow is the Focus on Societies Day of the conference. I hope to gain insight into how to manage a genealogy society, provide education and outreach to our members, secure funding and setup fundraising events, and organize volunteers. 

FGS Conference - Free Kids Camp !!!

FamilySearch is hosting a FREE kids camp on Saturday, September 10th from 9 am to noon at the Hilton Hotel in Springfield, Illinois.  This is a great opportunity to introduce your kids (ages 10-14) to the concepts of family history and genealogy: here they will learn how to interview relatives, collect information into a journals and their family tree, and do some hands-on work with computers to find information on their ancestors!

You don't have to be an FGS conference attendee to sign up for this event. It is open to the public and is being held in conjunction with the conference. So if you know anyone in the Springfield area who would like to attend, please encourage them to register.

You can register by sending an email to kidscamp@fgs.org. Provide the names of the kids who would like to attend and your contact information. For more information, visit FamilySearch Kids Camp.

FamilySearch is the leading genealogy organization in the world and is a service provided by the The Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints. For over 100 years FamilySearch has been gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide and providing access to millions of patrons via online at FamilySearch.org and through their family history centers in 70 countries. Learn more at FamilySearch.org. 

Inferential Genealogy Course in Second Life - Case Study 2

Tonight I attempted to work through Case Study # 2 in the Inferential Genealogy Course on FamilySearch.org. If you haven’t heard about this Inferential Genealogy Study Group that we are holding in the virtual world of Second Life, you can read about it here. Tonight’s homework was to work through Case Study # 2 in determining who the parents of Obediah Overton were using the 5 steps of Inferential Genealogy that Tom Jones has been showing us:

1.       Define research goal

2.       Do a broad search

3.       Analyze the documents

4.       Correlate the evidence

5.       Write your results down

In this case study we were presented with a man named Obediah Overton who has been traced to Orange County, Virginia. No one document specifically states who the parents of Obediah Overton were.  However, many documents researched have identified several possibilities.

We start off with our Research Question – Tom Jones’ focused research question was to identify the parents of Obediah Overton of Orange Co., VA. I like to take a little bit of a different approach. I asked who were NOT the parents of Obediah Overton? Sometimes it’s easier for me to prove someone is NOT the parents – they might not be old enough or might not have had any children and so forth.

We looked at 8 different documents. I took screenshots of each document and what I wrote in my journal so I could go back and reference them easily and quickly and then compare to what Dr. Jones discerned from each document. Let’s take a look at the documents…

Document # 1: Deed from George Overton and Mary his wife to Benjamin Massey and Thomas Moore. 1795. Dr. Jones said there was no record of George Overton ever paying taxes on this land. This might have to be addressed later on in our conflicting evidence section.

Document # 2: Tax records showing Benjamin Massey and Thomas Morris paying taxes on land bought of George [Harrison]. This part of the video was kind of confusing to me because when I read the record, it looks to me as if it says George “Harrison” which is why I put it in [brackets] above. However, when describing the record, Dr. Jones said it was land purchased from George “Howerton.” For the sake of this exercise, we have to assume it says “Howerton.” Dr. Jones also said that previous tax records listed a George “Howerton” as having paid tax on this land. This document, in combination with the first one, is important in correlating a name change between Overton and Howerton.

Document # 3: Deed in which [James] [Overton] gives land to his son George Overton in Spotsylvania County, VA. Again, this was kind of confusing because Dr. Jones described this as a deed in which “John Howerton” gave land to his son George Howerton, however you can clearly see from the scan that it says “Jas Overton.” This document is important because it establishes a relationship between John (or James) and George Overton.

Document # 4: A petition that was signed taken from the Orange County, Virginia History book listing George Overton, Obediah Overton, and Thomas Morris as signers of the petition, establishing they were in the same location at the same time.

Document # 5: 1842 deed from the heirs of George Overton of land to Willis Overton, signed by Willis Overton, John Overton, William Carmmack, William Davidson, and an attorney for Wish H Overton and George.

Document # 6: A deed that John Howerton witnessed. Here we see the “Howerton” name again. Also, we can use this document to assume that John Howerton was at least 21 years of age when he witnessed this deed. Dr. Jones said this would make him old enough to be Obediah’s father, however we were not given a date of the document, so I personally can’t say for sure. That seems to be a vital piece of missing information.

Document # 7: Tax records – there were a couple different scans that rotated through this view and unfortunately my print screen did not capture the correct one that showed two Willis Overtons listed – one was said to be “son of George” and the other was “son of Obediah.” I’m not yet sure of the significance of this document as I have not been able to get any further in the video due to technical issues FamilySearch is having at this time. - Update from my 2nd time around reviewing this case: This document was important because it indicated a similar naming pattern between the two men - George and Obediah who both named one of their sons "Willis." 

Document # 8: The Will of John Howerton, written 1791. Dr. Jones said that it listed several of John’s descendants, however the scan does not show any descendants’ names. It only shows the witnesses’ names which were David, Samuel, and Sam G Partlow Jr. I figured this must be significant somehow, but at this time I have no idea how or why.

Unfortunately, due to technical issues with the video, I was unable to finish the correlation part of the video and to see what Tom said about each of the documents. I did get to the first correlation, however. I have listed it below.

Correlation # 1:

The first two documents – the Deed from George Overton to Benjamin Massey and Thomas Moore and the tax list in which Thomas Morris and Benjamin Massey pay tax on land purchased from George [Harrison]/Howerton shows a correlation between the two names Overton and Howerton and how they might have been used interchangeably.

In order to put things in context, Dr. Jones showed a table of occurrences of both of the Overton and Howerton names. You can see from the table that most men used the Howerton name in the first 10 years and then switched over to the Overton name in the last 10 years of the time period that was studied. What a great visual representation!

Regarding the will of John Howerton, whom is believed to be the most likely candidate to be Obediah's father: We know from Dr. Jones that John Howerton did not name a son, Obediah Howerton in his will. Dr Jones also told us that John Howerton mentioned a granddaughter, without mentioning her parents, therefore we already know that John has left out at least one son or daughter's name from his will. We cannot assume that Obediah is NOT the son of John Howerton simply because he was not named in John's will!

I hope to have access to the video tomorrow before class to hear what Dr. Jones had to say about the documents. If so, I will post my findings as an update to this post. If not, I will wait until we meet in SecondLife at the Genealogy FirePit at 9 pm EST to hear what he had to say and then voice my opinion then. I will post my thoughts as an update following that discussion. 

Inferential Genealogy Course in Second Life - Case Study 1

Tonight I reviewed Case Study 1 presented by Tom Jones in the Inferential Genealogy class that we are reviewing in Second Life on Tuesday and Sunday nights. You can read about this study group in my previous post here. On Tuesday night we learned about how we can use 5 basic steps to conduct an inferential genealogical process to answer a research question. In this Case Study, we saw this process put into practice. 

Step # 1:

We start off with a focused goal. In this case study, the question, or focused goal, was to identify the parents of Maxfield Whiting who married Lettice Johnson in 1753.

Step # 2:

Conduct a broad search of time, location, and associates. In this case study, Maxfield and Martha Whiting were witnesses of a will of an associate. According to Tom, two witnesses with the same last name are almost always related; however I’m not sure I agree with that 110%. In this case, it turned out to be a correct assumption.

Step # 3:

Understand the documents and the motivation behind why they were created; follow their creation process through to the finish, especially when dealing with probate, court, and land records; In this case study, we examined 7 distinct documents and wrote our analysis and findings down in our research journals:

1. 1779 court document of Mr Fitzhugh, Maxfield Whiting’s landlord which included a deposition of Maxfield Whiting himself in which he said he was 50 years of age, putting his date of birth around late 1720s, early 1730s
2. Church record stating marriage of Maxfield Whiting to Lettice Johnson, Feb 3, 1753 – Tom Jones said that most males in VA at this time married in their early 20s, making Maxfield’s date of birth about 1730
3. An associate’s will written 1757 which Maxfield Whiting and Martha Whiting both witnessed – Tom Jones says they are probably related
4. 1731 Petition of Martha Whiting to use property given her by her father, Maxfield Brown; says she has small children and her husband William Whiting left her – Maxfield Whiting could fit in easily as one of these small children
5. The will of Maxfield Brown listing daughter by the name of Martha Whiting
6. Marriage record of Martha Whiting to Daniel Fendleston, 1755
7. Letter from Maxfield Whiting naming his daughter Martha Whiting – indicates similar naming pattern after his mother, Martha Whiting

Step 4:

After all the documents are understood and analyzed, they must then be correlated. The will of Maxfield Brown above correlates the 1731 petition of Martha Whiting to the court in which she said her father was Maxfield Brown.

In the same token, conflicting documents must also be resolved. Can you see what is conflicting in the documents above?

The 1757 will lists Martha Whiting as the witness along with her son Maxfield Whiting. However Martha Whiting had already remarried to Daniel Fendleston in 1755. How do we resolve this?  

Tom Jones suggests that the clerk made an error in the will because he knew both Martha and Maxfield Whiting and probably knew of their relationship and simply wrote both their names as Whiting. Neither of them could probably read or write their own names, so they just placed their marks. It is possible the clerk was not even aware Martha had remarried. I am not sure how I feel about this conclusion, but the rest of the evidence seems to correlate. That leaves us to the next step.

Step #5:

Write it down! As long as you have your conclusion written down in a manner that makes sense to you and to others and such that someone can carry forth your work then you should be confident the case is solved.

I really enjoyed going through this exercise with Tom Jones and the video and I’m looking forward to discussing it in our next Second Life meeting this Sunday at 8:15 pm EST.  I’m not sure I always agree with everything Tom Jones says, but that’s what makes us unique researchers.

This is also really helping me to focus on my sources, learn how to sort through them, look at them one by one, analyze them and think about their meaning instead of just collecting them and filing them away somewhere. I think this is just what I needed!

Here is a snapshot of our meeting from Tuesday night. It was a full house!

For More Information:

To access the Inferential Genealogy course at FamilySearch click here

To learn more about our Inferential Genealogy study group at Second Life, check out DearMYRTLE’s Genealogy Blog post here.

To download SecondLife click here

The Great Illinois Genealogy Scavenger Hunt Contest is Here!

The Illinois State Genealogical Society (ISGS) and FamilySearch are teaming up to bring you the Great Illinois Genealogy Scavenger Hunt Contest! 

This event will go on from June 1^st – June 30^th.

During this time, as a participant, you can submit original articles on Illinois genealogy-related topics OR hyperlinks to specific Illinois genealogy-related resources such as online indexes, databases, and repositories, etc that you have found that were particularly helpful in your research or ones that you believe may benefit others.

Best articles and hyperlinks will be shared in the FamilySearch Research Wiki Illinois Community page. 

You can post submissions via the online form each day for chance to win many prizes. All they ask is that you please check the FamilySearch Wiki pages before you start to see if the articles and hyperlinks are already listed.

What will YOU find? 

Complete Contest Rules

Inferential Genealogy Course in Second Life

A very new and exciting opportunity came across my radar this weekend that I can’t wait to get started!

I don’t know if you know it or not, but FamilySearch.org has a bunch of online courses that you can take from the comfort of your own homes for FREE!

There are courses on beginning genealogy, research in various countries such as Austrialia, Germany, England, Italy, Poland; courses on analyzing handwriting, and even courses on reading other languages!

Many of these “classes” are video based and interactive – in my opinion – very well put together and easy to follow along with.

And you don’t have to go through these classes alone. You can beam them up on a big projector screen in front of your local genealogical society and work through some of the exercises together as a group.

Or…..

You can do what some of us are going to do and meet in the virtual world of Second Life where informal genealogy meetings are being held right before your eyes! Second Life is a virtual reality "world" that you go to on your computer. It has a genealogy environment including a Family History Center and Just Genealogy Fire Pit where most of the genealogy events are held. This is a place where genealogists all over the world can come together and chat, share ideas, give, watch, or listen to a presentation; exchange information, etc. 

That’s right. We are going to meet over the course of a few weeks and take a class together in Second Life. We will have homework to do and will take part in discussions just like you would in a normal chat room or class room.

And the class we are taking is called “Inferential Genealogy.” It is posted on the FamilySearch.org website and can be accessed here: http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/community/cbig/player.html. Tom Jones opens the video with a brief introduction and then asks you to decide what you would like to do. Click on the “Help” link to start the learning module.

Everyone is welcome to attend this learning opportunity in Second Life. Please visit DearMYRTLE’s Genealogy Blog for more information and the schedule time and meeting places in Second Life.  Also, there is an open Facebook group called “Genealogists in Second Life” where you can find information about all of the genealogy related events happening in the virtual world of Second Life. 

Our first meeting is tonight in the Just Genealogy Fire Pit at 9pm EST. I can't wait to see how this goes!

NGS Charleston, S. C. Here We Are!

Today I arrived at the NGS 2011 Genealogy Conference in Charleston, S. C. with two members from my local genealogy society. We checked in to our hotels then picked up our registration materials at the Convention Center. This is my first National Conference – ever – so I didn’t know what to expect.  I received a green tote bag, an envelope with my list of classes that I pre-registered for, a syllabus on CD, a lanyard, nametag, and my first CONFERENCE RIBBON!!!

                                        

My ride mates let me borrow one of their copies of the bound syllabus so I could choose my classes. They always get two copies – one to keep for their personal library, and one to take back to the local history library. This book is ginormous! I don’t think I will be taking it with me to the conference.

After we got checked in and got our registration materials, I headed over to Jim & Nick’s BBQ to meet with some fellow bloggers and FamilySearch staff to learn about what they have in the works for this year’s NGS conference. 

I shared a table with Linda McCauley from Documenting the Details, Greta Koehl from Greta’s Genealogy Bog, and Cullen Brimhall from FamilySearch; I met Kimberly Powell from About.com, Jennifer Woods from Climbing My Family Tree, and Dick Eastman from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.  Some new faces (to me at least) were Audrey Collins from The Family Recorder, Liz from My Tapley Tree, Cheryl Cayemberg from Have You Seen My Roots, Paula Stuart Warren from Paula's Genealogical Eclectica and Denise Brimhall, who is just getting started. Check out some photos Linda McCauley posted here. 

I also got to talk to David Rencher from FamilySearch who will be visiting Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina next week to research his Rencher ancestors.

After dinner and socializing, I learned about some GREAT new things that FamilySearch has been working on:

1)      In honor of the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War, FamilySearch is releasing millions of online records including Confederate and Union army service records, pension records, the 1890 Union Veterans Census, and many more

2)      To commemorate the rich history of South Carolina, who is hosting this year’s NGS conference, FamilySearch is releasing their newest collections of South Carolina Probate Records, Files and Loose Papers, 1732-1964, and South Carolina Probate Records, Bound Volumes, 1671-1977, both of which have links to original digital images viewable online

We received in our FamilySearch press release packets a button that says “Enlisted,” invoking two different meanings: first to highlight the heroism of our ancestors who participated in the Civil War 150 years ago by enlisting and second as a “call to arms” of volunteers of 2011 to enlist and index more Civil War records so that everyone may have access to these records and learn about their ancestor’s role in this event.

Will you Enlist and do your part?

What a great start to the Conference week. Now I’m off to read the first day’s offerings of lectures, pick my classes, check in with Twitter, check in with our other genealogy society members we are meeting here, check in with my distant “cousin” I am meeting here, and pack my bag for my first day of class! Oh and did I mention that NGS has a challenge going on? - Check it out!