Getting (and keeping) Organized in Genealogy!

You're going to be dealing with a TON of paperwork, photos, documents and files (if you aren't already) you need to keep organized .

It won't take long before you see how organization is critical to your success in family history.

What follows are my recommendations for keeping organized in your work:

 Step 1:Choose a software program to do your work in.  Previously the church used Personal Ancestral File (PAF) however, that has largely gone by the wayside.  I recommend spending a few dollars on a bit of software to work on your family tree on, or you can download a free version (I prefer Legacy Family Tree Software because it is visually the most friendly of the ones I have tried using for me, but you be your own judge).  Some software sites are located on the right of the screen as well as a link to compare software kits.

Step 2: BACK UP YOUR WORK! NOW!
(Not after you lose it) I have several hard drives attached to my computer.  When I finish doing work on a session, I copy it to one of the other hard drives every time.   You're going to put a lot of work into this and re-doing it can be exhausting – sometimes impossible!! You can also set up a separate email account and email yourself your work from one email to the other when you're finished so your work is also stored online.  I've already had a hard drive crash and would have lost hundreds of hours of work had I not backed it up.

Additionally, there are cloud storage services you can subscribe to as well to move files off your computer hard-drive, and even Google has Google Drive with free limited (but pretty darned large for getting started) storage for your genealogical files.


 
Organizing Files
You're going to be dealing with multiple families with their own files.  Every time I start a new branch of the family tree I create a folder with that last name of the branch – i.e. Wilson, Millican, Smith, and so on.  I save any files related to that family in that folder so it is always easy to find.  Files related to unmarried women go under their maiden name.  Once they marry, I file under their married name.  If you wish to make folders for countries or states to further consolidate your work, that may help as well.

"Original" Sources

Any time I come across a source of information on the internet – if I can save a picture of it or take a screen-shot of it - I do.

Its faster, easier and more reliable than transcribing and taking notes.  I don't make mistakes, nothing gets forgotten or lost, everything that was in the source is now saved.





Sometimes the source won't be an image but you will want to make an image of it. An example would be a Death Index record off Ancestry.com

1) Open a paint program such as Microsoft Paint.

2) Go to the image you want to save on your screen and press CTRL+PRINT SCR(Control, Print Screen)

3) If needs be, expand your screen by pressing F11, press F11 when you're done to return the screen to normal

4) Go to the paint program and press CTRL+V (Paste) and paste the screen shot in there. 

5) Crop and save it so you have a screen-shot of the original.  VOILA! Original info – no errors made by you and was done quickly!

IMAGE FILES
There are various formats to save an image in that you create off the web.

When dealing with documents, detail is critical so you can decipher ancient handwriting.



 DOCUMENTS
When scanning and uploading your own documents, scanning in a .pdf format is preferred.  PDF stands for “Portable Document Format”.

PDF allows certain programs to interact with the text and read the document you scanned.  If possible, it is the ideal format for document scanning.





BMP - Bitmap. This is generally medium-high quality but produces larger file sizes and is good for simpler graphics.  If you save a file in a bitmap image you're likely to lose data.

Bitmap image blown up = loss of data

JPG, JPEG. (Joint Photographic Experts Group). Became popular with the invention of the digital camera.  High quality images and huge compression allows for big resolutions but small file sizes. This is the most common image format, especially for photos (Family photos?).  However, the compression means that some detail is “lost” when you blow it up and this can make reading some documents difficult at close zoom.  However, this is the file you want to use if you have to email stuff because it will compress the picture down so it isn't too large for an email program.

Getting close on JPEGS reveals distortion

GIF. (Graphics Interchange Format - 1987)
This format was created mainly for internet uses, mainly for its small file size, however it has lower quality though it can be used in animation images. I don't recommend saving in this format.
Or doing either of these activities.

 PNG. Portable Networks Graphic. PNGs produce very high quality images with high resolution but do produce large file sizes. There is one file type that has zero resolution lost, but most genealogy programs will allow PNG while not all allow the TIFF file, though this is changing.  If you have to, go PNG in order to upload stuff, but otherwise.....

pretty....

TIFF - Tagged Image File Format - zero loss, largest file size, but ideal for genealogy so you don't lose any info.

prettier!

 I would recommend saving images in the TIFF format, but for this demonstration, if you don't know, here's how to save an image in TIFF (same for PNG, or JPG, or BMP)

To save an image in TIFF:
1) Right-click on the image and then click “Save image as.”
2) On the file type select “TIFF Image” and click “save”- if this is not possible, select “All Files”
3) Name your file and put the extension “.tiff” on the end of it
4) click “Save.” VOILA! High quality image saved! It won't be higher quality than you got it – but you won't lose much data either.

NAMING FILES!!!!

Some types of files are going to be more common than others such as censuses, draft cards, obituaries, marriage certificates etc.

When you accumulate a large amount of work, being able to quickly find what you're looking for is necessary, so standardizing the names of your files so you can quickly find what you need will help significantly.

Here's one way to do it.

Say you have a census from 1900 for a husband (George W. Sebecki) and his wife & you know her maiden name (Amelia M. Neugebauer) and where the census was taken - you might name the file thusly:

• Census 1900 George W and Amelia Magdalene Neugebauer Sebecki and family, District 32, Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, Unitedstates.tiff

Now you know what, when, where and who is in the file without even having to open it and can verify that Amelia was alive with George in 1900 in Portland and can do "research" from your files without even having to open them up to look at them! (note the file extension names with the documents).

A draft registration?

•  WWI Draft Registration George Sebecki Dallas, Polk, Oregon.tiff

Obituary?

• Obituary William Burton Millican 1953 Oregonian Newspaper Portland, Multnomah, Oregon.tiff

Marriage?

• Oregon marriage index 1946 Albert and Arlene Hazel Lippert Millican, Portland, Multnomah, Oregon.tiff

Then when it comes time to search for a particular file, date, individuals, you can quickly scan your files to find what you need!


Here's an example of my files:

As you find people and are able to document the information sufficiently and verify it, enter it into your family tree software.  Some programs will allow you to attach photographs and documents to the trees as well, though I found this sometimes troublesome if I had to use the program from another disk, the software couldn't find the location of the files, so I just quit attaching them and kept saving them and storing them as mentioned earlier.

 

Original Sources (Books, Certificates, etc.)– Hard Copies!

I don't do as much research from original sources as much now that things are digitizing and people are scanning and indexing them. However, if you do get information from an original source or can scan a document from it, make sure your files or notations include:Title, Author, Publisher, Year, Volume,Page and where you got the source in case you need to go back so you can quickly locate the original or corroborate it if needs be.If the source is a book such as “Families of New England: 1620-1750” note where the author's source is from the back of the book for their info.   This isn't just for you.  You're going to get to a point where others start asking you for copies of your research so you're going to be helping others as well.  Treat it like a college bibliography and document your sources!!!!

Name your file just as you would any other file so you can find it.

Beware that photocopying documents/items can damage them and exposes them to chemicals which can be harmful to delicate documents - whereas scanning only occurs once and the data is more easily duplicatable.  If possible - SCAN!

Consider making a timeline/chronology to keep yourself organized.  Most genealogy software programs will generate a timeline for you.  Consider putting world events in your timeline to help you gauge the political winds and trends that can be a clue in further research.  It can also help you keep track of where you are. This can be done by hand until you figure out where you want to go with software and such if you desire.

CHECK CHECK CHECK CHECK CHECK!!!!

I do not recommend putting anything in your family tree as hard fact that you haven't had a chance to verify and prayerfully consider yourself.  You will find people online often put dates, locations and names but don't cite a source or verify their own work.  You can use their dates and information to check and conduct your own research, however, I find often the information is incorrect.  Even if I find the work has been done before I got there, I check their sources to verify the work before I move on.  This can be a major help to organization because, believe me, going back to undo work makes for a very disorganized mess.

Genealogy Sources & Resources

So you've started with yourself and are ready to branch out!   Now, what?  Where?  WHO?

Well, the "who" and "what" are up to you.

Who do you want to work on?  Who do you feel you should work on?  Who is going to be the easiest?

There's tons of genealogy to go around, and in terms of getting ordinance work done, I always recommend starting with the easiest people first - the ones who have the most info on them. Start with prayer.

Then when you have decided that, working on the internet is one of the easiest places to start that allows the most work for the least effort.  Although there are times when gathering actual research is necessary and desirable, internet research is one of the easiest places to start.

First you need to know there are holding periods on certain documents that you won't easily have access to right away - for example, censuses are released 72 years after they've been compiled. In the State of Oregon, all birth records have a 100 year restriction on them, meaning unless they were born 100+ years ago, you won't be able to get them, and death records have a 50 year restriction on them. (Click here for other states' rules)  Neither of those are really a problem because we can't submit names for those born less than 110 years ago unless we are the closest living relative.

So where do we start?  All of the following links are on the right of the page so you don't have to go through here again to find them.  I recommend bookmarking these on your web browser to make it easier to find them and use them.


Probably the best and most versatile resource for family history that you will pay for.  An excellent investment. Costs ~$150/year or ~$23/month for access to US records, more for overseas (But VERY worth it!!!! Every penny!) Available for free at LDS family history centers.
*Allows you to download photographs of documents
*Order copies of the original documents
*Print documents
*Link to others' works on your family tree
*Create a family tree others can see online.

New Family Search often will have links or trees of you family already completed by others who've done work before you.  There are also a host of other records available for free.

While I find I upload more into New Family Search than I download, I have had some fantastic success with New Family Search – both on the research side and on the temple records side. To access the research side click “Family Search Web Site” on the main page.

Rootsweb is primarily a message/research board that allows genealogists to connect with one another and post info.  Great place when you're stumped to post a question and find some info, also you can sign up for mailing lists by surname so you are notified anytime someone has a find related to a particular family/branch/name.

More information than you can possibly sort through.  (HUGE!  You *will* get lost in here it's so large and comprehensive and huge and huge and huge and huge and HUGE!)‏ Free – BUT may cost money to access links. It links to the resources that store the info you're looking for – (e.g. Maryland Vital Records, Tillamook County Historical Records, personal published family trees)

The United States Newspaper Program is a cooperative national  effort among the states and the federal government to locate, catalog,  and preserve on microfilm newspapers published in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present.  Your local library may have collections of newspapers as well.  Definitely try the Multnomah County Library link at right.

OBITUARIES – Obituaries are an excellent source of info as they list churches, family, occupations, where born, where died, years of immigration and much much more! land recordedStuck?  Try an obituary! Definitely try the Multnomah County Library Link at the right.






LAND RECORDS!  Land records can help you establish time lines of residence, and other family life events & locations including schools, cemeteries, work – you name it!  People “lived” around where they lived! Got one of your immigrant family members who claimed they came to the US to meet a brother on 5th street in Chicago that nobody can find anything on? (I do!) Land records can help you with things like this! (Heck, you can build a legacy just off land records alone!)


The National Archives specifically has veterans records on file that you can request.  You can order medals – you name it!  In addition there are other genealogical resources, historical documents and more.  Another invaluable resource to use online or at one of the centers (If you're near DC, Atlanta or Anchorage).

There are no records of Indian genealogy before American record keeping began.  At some point in your genealogy, if your family has been in the US for any length of time, you're likely to come across a branch going back into “Indian Territory.”  While going “back” may not be possible, you can “branch forward” and “out” - it needn't be a “dead” end.

Looking to find what happened to your family in the civil war?  Civil war records can provide insight into pensions and family benefits and can be an indirect link to other family members.  Also if you can find where someone may have been killed in the war, you might find where they were buried.  You can also find survivor's records and enlistment papers.  A veritable smorgasbord of info!

Daughters/Sons of the American Revolution are lineage based membership organizations for women/men who are descended from a person involved in the American war for independence.  Like other sources, this can be used to establish identity or secure more information to spread your search out.  Given that many revolutionary patriots were first and second generation Americans, these can take you back overseas and provide a missing link!  I've found some impressive pedigree information off of DAR/SAR applications often going back seven and eight generations.

Millions of Americans came to the Land of the Free through Ellis Island.  The Ellis Island Foundation has links to ship passenger lists, immigration lists and records of entry. Operation as an immigration inspection station began in 1892. Wanna find out when someone got here and how they got here, or where they came from and branch back overseas? Try the Ellis Island Foundation!

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS!  
Another resource on just about anything you might like to look up. This can even include historical documentation on notable persons in your lineage who might have records on file here.

Museums, Libraries and Historical Societies.
Many museums and libraries have genealogy libraries in them.  You will often find original documents from local history.  If you call a museum to ask what they have, ask if they know anywhere else to look in your quest.  I've even found artifacts on display that belonged to my family in some museums I've been to! 

 Bring cash to pay for copies, paper or a laptop to take notes, if you have a portable scanner that hooks up to your laptop – that's just fantastic!  Plan on spending some time and go early because you'll probably have to do your research there and you'll get sucked into the work.  Be prepared to make an appointment.  Other times, you'll meet others working on the same family line and can compare notes or the librarian can help you network resources. Often they have many books particular to the genealogy of the region that branch back into other parts of the world.  Some resources are available only at that library and may not be available online, so going to a museum or library can be a worthwhile trip.

Can be used to research topics or garner sources in greater detail on various historical events, places or people.  Statistically said to have fewer errors than Encyclopedia Britannica.  Use it to learn about censuses, towns you are researching, particular names, battles, events - Wikipedia is an amazing resource!

Is a volunteer program to put genealogy resources onto the web to make them easier to find for free.  more links to county, city and state genealogy resource websites for free.

Provides links to the state archives of each state – including adoption records, probate records, you name it!  You may have to pay for the resources once you locate them. But, once you receive a document – scan it – and put it out on the web for others!

And here's where you can put it! Consider documenting your progress on the world wide web and putting your research where others can find it. Blogger will allow you to create a free blog.  I write about progress on my family history, upload photos and other information here that are a bit more difficult to find. It helps me keep track of where I am if I set my genealogy aside for a while.  It also allows me to write things easier than I might be able to otherwise such as stories from my family. (www.blogger.com).

These are just a few of the resources to use and is by no means the end, this is just the start, but it should put you on your way!

Gemeteries & Gravestone Genealogy Work

Cemeteries can be one of the best places to do genealogy work.

Why?  Because information is "carved in stone" and often you'll find relationships even by proximity in the cemetery that can provide hints and clues.

On a spiritual side, I've often found inspiration while working in the cemeteries leading me to find graves and markers that otherwise couldn't be found.  Those beyond the veil are clearly vested in this work and I've often felt their spirits present while working in the cemeteries or while dedicating the resting places of the deceased.

One of my favorite online cemetery resources is Find A Grave (www.findagrave.com - also on the sidebar of the webpage).  Find A Grave contains virtual memorials of individual graves, photos of headstones and family members, obituaries, timelines and even has family relationships linked to other cemeteries - a sort of virtual / tangible family tree if you will.  You can request photos of gravesites if they are missing, or add photos if you wish and even leave a virtual flower or message if you wish on the memorials online.  You can volunteer and respond to photo requests and go locate graves that are on Find A Grave and then upload them for other genealogists around the world so they can do their work and I've found this work very satisfying. You can create a free "account" or login/register and create a profile and connect with other genealogists through this work.

You can search cemeteries with it, but beware, not all cemeteries are in it, neither are all interments.  While I've had tremendous success with Find A Grave, sometimes I have to do my own work.

So how do you find where someone is buried in the first place?

Well, you can search Find A Grave for starters - provided you got the name and location right. 

If you know where in the world the person died, I've had tremendous success working through obituaries in the newspapers through the Genweb Obituaries (Also on the side of the webpage) as well as through the Oregonian Archives found at the Multnomah County Library Online (Also found on the side of the webpage - need a library card though, free, just go downtown to get it with your ID - *totally* worth it). Other times, I've just had to be persistent with Google until I "dug something up."

Obituaries are fantastic because they contain *so* much information in a narrative format including married names of daughters, occupations, places of birth, previous marriages, ,military service, emigrations and lastly - places of burial. 

Unmarked grave next to spouse

Even when you find a place of burial, not all graves are marked.  Oftentimes you'll find family members were poor and so they were interred without a headstone and the place recorded but otherwise, there's nothing there.  Sometimes stones get overgrown with grass and sink below the surface, other times they are vandalized or disintegrate due to ice/snow making them shatter and other times if the cemetery is anywhere near where flooding is a possibility, entire cemeteries can be moved/destroyed/buried by a flood (That's always interesting to work with).  Other times, the cemetery its self may be manually relocated with some loss of stones / documents in the process.

Sometimes I have found headstones by poking into the ground with my weed fork (See cleaning headstones) and then excavated and lifted them up to the surface and carefully re-placed them on top of the grave (make sure you follow etiquette when you do this - *don't* break a stone - *don't* leave a mess - *don't* interrupt or distract from a funeral or grieving visitors).

My recommendation is if you know where someone is buried and there's no marker, for documentation purposes, take a photo of the place anyways just so you know you got the photo and don't keep thinking you've never researched the spot.  An unmarked but known patch of grass can be meaningful as well to some people.  Or, if the spouse's (or other family member's) headstone is still standing and the person of interest's headstone is nowhere to be found, but geography of the cemetery indicates that they may have been buried next to them, take a photo of that gravestone with the space next to it.

abandoned cemetery

There are a few different types/conditions of cemeteries though.

There are abandoned cemeteries - their name aptly describing them.  Often on private land, or even government land, overgrown and forgotten, often undocumented, have fun with these.  I recommend saying a prayer when working with one of these because its about the only way to find your way around - and I have.

Untended cemeteries don't have a groundskeeper so to speak, they may be fenced off and occasionally mowed and be on private or government land, but they don't have an office or maintenance or sprinkler systems or anything, and may only (if you're lucky) have records in the form of an old forgotten book chained to some part of the cemetery - shot in the dark on these.  However, to visit these you might/might-not have to obtain permission from the land owner.  Be polite, do your research, follow etiquette and you should have no troubles with these. Usually I'm able to walk right into these without needing to ask permission.

Other cemeteries have groundskeepers and are constantly managing the land and have a records office and may even have hours when they are open or shut like Willamette National Cemetery in Portland.  Some may only allow flat headstones so they can just mow the place without having to go in between gravestones.

Some of the larger cemeteries may have records they allow you to search online, others like some Jewish Cemeteries may require you to have a membership to search interments.  Others may be on tribal lands and have their own special rules for access.  Others may not have any online records (hence the usefulness of Find A Grave et. al) and require you to go to the office during working hours, drop your names off and come back in two hours after they find them.  Sometimes, if the interment is a child and is recent, they will not disclose the grave location without immediate family permission.  I've not yet had any charge me to look up an interment. 

BONUS - some of the larger cemeteries not only have the files of the interments but will sometimes carry additional information related to the cause of death, death certificates, the funeral service and other info and will provide you with copies of them at your request.

Oftentimes families will purchase a large plot ahead of time to be buried at.  So you'll head off to a quadrant and may find one giant monolithic headstone where the names of family members are etched each time someone dies with smaller or headstones or none if they stack the coffins on top of each other in the ground.  I've not yet had family who have been wealthy enough to purchase a tomb complete with glass French Doors with everyone's coffins neatly stacked inside, though I've been to plenty of mausoleums in this work - both indoors and out. Mausoleums are nice because the photography is always easy as the sites don't weather as badly as gravestones do, though getting a photo of the final resting place can be challenging if the place is fifteen feet up in the air on the side of the wall.

Depending on the age of the cemetery (out west we generally don't go back beyond the 1830's - unlike back east or even in Europe) even if it is manned, some parts of the cemetery may not have been documented (or lost records in a fire/flood) and so they may not know where an interment is.  However again, if you know a spouse/family member, and they have a blank space next to the spouse, with a bit of prayer and consideration, sometimes you can make that leap of faith.  If you document it, document your leap-of-logic/deduction in your notes.

If you're going to go to the cemetery and have to work with office staff, be sensitive to and respect any differences in religion (I never bring mine up), be polite, ensure you go early enough to allow them time to help you out.  If you're planning on doing any photography, I recommend going early enough in the day that the light is good, and while you're there?  Photograph a few other headstones as well and create a memorial/ load them up into Find A Grave for someone else down the road.

I strongly recommend, if possible, taking your children with you as it can be a great family outing and allows a wonderful talk about gospel topics.  However, ensure that children are socially appropriate to the setting in all instances (mine run around in the abandoned cemeteries or as long as nobody else is there and they don't step on the headstones and show respect to the place - though if you're feeling particularly spiritually in-tune, I've found children bring a wonderful spirit with them to such a place) and make sure your work doesn't detract from the setting or any events that may be taking place in the cemetery that day.

Don't forget to look at the backs of the stones as well for any information contained on them (if they are standing upright obviously)!

If you feel really motivated, compile a spreadsheet of graves and cemetery layout if the cemetery doesn't have records and you can submit this to Find A Grave for that cemetery or even publish it on a genealogy blog.

Lastly, one of the greatest assets again is that headstones often contain additional family relationships or even personal info (military service) on them so they can really be a great boon to your work!  Don't just look at the gravestone you came for, look at the graves around them - often you'll find graves of infants who died in between censuses that you've never found before who are part of your ancestry.  Actually, very often you'll find far more of these than you would expect.  Try to learn the history of the cemetery you're working in before you go as well.  Many of them have a history that is associated with certain areas of their layout that will provide clues into other aspects of your work, such as the influenza pandemic that hit Portland in the early 1900's with many of the flu victims being buried in a particular part of the cemetery just in order to keep up with the burials.

While working in cemeteries is one of the gravest works I do with genealogy, I also find it one of the most satisfying because I get to work with something tangible and know that my ancestors and their friends stood where I am standing and I know why they were there and when it happened, and it gives me a bit of time to reflect on the plan of salvation.

Enjoy your work.

A Brief History of Temple Work & the Internet

GONE! (or...scarce...er...ing....ish...)

While nowhere near being exhaustively comprehensive, this is a basic overview of the progress of the technology involved in performing family history work for temple submissions. 

A long long time ago, way back before the internet, it was a much more tedious and difficult process to submit names to the temple for proxy work.

You would have to do your genealogy work at a Family History Center and would have to look over actual microfiche films that you could order from Salt Lake and look at for a period of two weeks or so on microfiche viewers at the history center (Obviously after horse-and-buggy days and this continued largely up until the 2000's).

You would have to order books or photocopies of the pages of books from various libraries, photocopy pages, research actual newspapers and correspond via mail or telephone and even have to dial with a rotary dial telephone - it was a very slow and difficult process.

Then when someone submitted a name to the temple, there was not really any way to verify whether someone actually had done the work right or if it had been done before. Consequently, some individuals have had their work done literally over several hundred times in the temples!

Then came computers in the 1980's on a larger scale in homes and businesses!  The church began using software such as Temple Ready where you would input your data into a computer program at the Family History Center, save it to a floppy disk which you would take to the temple and they would use that to print out ordinance cards for you and the work began to speed up some, but was still far from perfect.

With the advent of the internet becoming more widely available in the mid 1990's (which I personally believe personally was given specifically for this work and the building up of the kingdom) Temple Ready was able to begin checking work between temples but much was still left to be desired.

New Family Search, more commonly used in the 2000's was used as the next step up from Temple Ready allowed individuals to work via the internet at home on their temple submissions.  It allowed them to check who had work done for them already as well as release ordinance work for others to do.  It also allowed members to monitor the progress of ordinances almost instantaneously (what an amazing age we live in).

However, Family Search FamilyTree is the next version that eventually superseded New Family Search as of December, 2013.  Family Search Family Tree allows you to  attach documents and photos themselves to the LDS database, and has a heavy design emphasis on reducing duplicate ordinance work.  It also allows and may eventually require sources for work submissions so that errors are being minimized and valid and reliable work is being performed.  This in turn presses the members to complete ordinances for those who haven't yet been discovered.

President Hinkley in 1981 prophesied of the coming of an age of increased communication and that this was necessary for the growth of the church - let us put these blessings of the Lord to good use including the things for which the Lord has given them: the strengthening of families and building up the kingdom of God on earth in the last days.

This is a pretty sweet video about the church's efforts in genealogy and to preserve records for others to use.

Getting Started With You! (STEP 1)

to start your genealogy with yourself

Too often people start family history wanting to run down some long-forgotten obscure branch and find long-lost exotic names. Then they get lost, overwhelmed and frustrated and then quit doing the work. You will get there to the exotic and long lost places, I promise.  But looking through archives only reveals a fraction of the info and detail that can be gleaned from living people and memories, and this info often leads to the long lost and undiscovered branches!.

The first step is to start with YOU.  That's a pretty hard and fast rule of genealogy.

Without information from now, going back further is difficult if not impossible in many instances, so forget the fancy software and archives for a moment, those will come. 

SO!

You can even use a notepad or word processor for this part (or a quill pen and ink if you feel nostalgic).

Write down your  name, date of birth, place of birth,  marriage date & place, spouse, children and who you were named after.  Jot down where you've lived, grew up, went to school and worked!

NOW! Mom 'n' Dad too!
Write down your parents' names, their dates of birth, if they are deceased, write down  when and where they passed and if you know where they are buried, write that down too!  Write down their marriage info, where and when, if you have any brothers and sisters, their names, dates of birth, marriages, children, and any where's and when's related to each of these items!

Do you know your grandparents info?  If so, write it down!  If not? Who would know?  How do you get a hold of them?  Ask around your family!

Great Grandpa's Homestead Home....

Can you keep going?   Write down what you know on your great-grandparents as well.    Write down aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, step-children, adopted-children, get it all!

All done?  Not yet!  In terms of creating a historical record there is still much to do before you even need to start researching.

Do you have a photograph of where everyone lived?  How about a photograph of where they were married?  Photos of headstones?  Photos of schools?  Photos of work places?  Wedding photos?  No? Go get them or take them yourself! (Fantastic excuse for family outings!)

Newspaper clippings?  Any military records in your family in a box somewhere? Go find them!

Great Grandma's School

Are there any museums nearby with family history in them? Historical places nearby your family was involved with? High school trophies of note at the school or a college thesis on file at the college library?  Visit them! Photograph them! Grab a brochure! (Much of my family is photographed and documented in the Tillamook Pioneer Museum for example and I can see my ancestors' photos on the walls hanging up.)

Almost done!  Time to go talk to those who are still alive and ask them to tell you what REALLY happened and share additional info!

There are TONS of work you can do within your own family that are going to make future work much more successful.

So before you go running off into software and archives and then discover you needed the info you have right now anyways, start where you are!

Click this link to learn how digitize documents and organize your data.

Photographing & Working With Headstones

Generally, transcribing info in genealogy makes us prone to making errors and perpetuating them, or changing information over time like a modern game of "telephone" where each repetition of the message changes what was originally said until the original is lost.   This is why scanning and photography - especially of headstones - is so valuable.  We capture the original information that is present.

Headstones are particularly valuable because the amount of work and checking that goes into the information on them is generally a bit more extensive than other sources.

( IF you have the right person.  IF they have a headstone.  IF you know where they are buried. )

Sometimes headstones only contain nominal information (initials, "Baby Hollinger") but when combined with cemetery records, obituaries, death certificates and the likes, they provide tangible "proof" that is less susceptible to error than documents and are a valuable resource to genealogy.

HOWEVER, I have (HAVE) found headstones with errors.  Below is a photograph of a family headstone that they didn't finish carving the death date into the mother's half of the stone so she was dead in "19" - just for example.  (on the right).

A suggestion when you go to a cemetery.  GO PREPARED!

1.  Buy a 1 gallon weed-killer sprayer.  You can get them at Wal-Mart for about $10.  You want the kind that will pressurize.  Mark it "WATER ONLY.  FOR TOMBSTONE CLEANING", so you will not accidentally use it for fertilizer or other chemicals.

2. Stiff bristle brush, NYLON.  The same kind you would use to clean your carpet.

3.  Shaving cream.  Cheapest kind, without gels and colognes in it.

4.  Squeegee  The rubber kind.  You want it to be flexible not stiff plastic.

5.  4-5 gallons of water (milk jugs with the screw on caps work well).

6. Camera with batteries, spare batteries, film, spare film or empty memory chip.

7.  Garden hand shovel – sturdy – able to lift small buried headstones and grave markers or able to shovel dirt off the edges or cut back the sod that overgrows the headstones.

8.  Manual grass clippers.  This is for trimming back grass from the edge of a headstone for photographing it.

9. Weed fork hand tool – used for probing for buried headstones that aren't visible anymore or finding the edges that you can't see anymore or....pulling up weeds!.   

10.  Small tarp or sheet of plastic if you don't want to kneel in the dirt.

11. Five gallon bucket for carrying everything in.

Brush off any dirt or mud using your hand or a brush. If the tombstone looks like it might be hard to read, mist it with water.  This sometimes is the only thing needed to make the information readable on the camera.

If misting it with water doesn't look sufficient, squeeze a SMALL amount of shaving cream on either the tombstone on the back of the squeegee and spread it on the tombstone.  Using the back of the squeegee helps keep the shaving cream from piling up on the gravestone.  This can help you see what is engraved on the tombstone for photographing.  Where possible, check for permission to do this.

Take a picture! (Step 1 – get close.  Step 2 – get closer! Step 3 – get closer! Step 4 – take picture! Step 5 – step back)  Later on, download the picture and file it and label it so you can find it!

Photographing headstones with the sun shining right on them can diminish the usefulness of the photos depending on how the stone is carved. 

Depending on the arrangements you may want to wait a while and allow the light to change before taking a photo for documentation purposes. Sometimes you may just want to do it on a different day.  Keep your shadow off the stone if you can.




After taking the picture of the tombstone, the shaving cream must be COMPLETELY WASHED OFF.  It will take less water if you brush it a little with the brush and then use the sprayer to wash it off.

It is very important to not leave the shaving cream on the tombstone.  Over a very short time it will attract particles from the air that will damage the stone.  That is why the pressurized sprayer comes in handy.  If use jugs of water to wash it off, it could take several gallons.  By using the sprayer, you can clean 5-10 stones with only a gallon of water.  There is enough pressure to clean off the cream but not enough to hurt most stones.

Under NO circumstances do you use bleach, flour, corn meal or any kind of acid on the stone. 

.Here's an example of some headstones having been misted and having the shaving cream used on them with a squeegee.

You can see how nicely the shaving cream looks on what could be difficult to see lettering....

freshly scrubbed and wetted to make an easy-to-see-photo

In the end, remember to DO NO HARM!  And be sure you are seen as doing no harm.