Thank You for Attending This Webinar, Which Is Part of the Jamboree Extension Series (JES) Produced by the Southern California Genealogical Society

Thank you for attending this webinar, which is part of the Jamboree Extension Series (JES) produced by the Southern California Genealogical Society.

The JES webinars meet one of the most important goals of the Society: to offer educational programs for our members and for family historians and genealogists everywhere.

Our webinars are offered to the public, free of charge, on the live (first) broadcast. As a benefit of membership, SCGS members are able to access the webinar archive at any time of day.

The Society does incur costs for conducting the webinars, including speaker honorarium, use of the GoToWebinar software, as well as valuable volunteer time.

SCGS is committed to offering these sessions as long as we are financially able to do so. Please consider supporting this effort by joining our Society as a member, or by making a contribution to our education fund.

Online Membership: http://tinyurl.com/SCGSmembership

Online Contribution: http://tinyurl.com/SCGScontribution

Of course, members enjoy a number of other benefits which are summarized elsewhere in this packet. We encourage you to join us, even if your family hasn’t made it to California yet. You’ll be glad you did!

Thank you again for your participation, and for your continued support of the Southern California Genealogical Society.

GENEALOGY HACKS Tricks to Crack the Top Genealogy Web Sites By Rick Crume Southern California Genealogical Society Webinar June 20, 2012

If you regularly return to the same Web sites and repeat the same old searches without finding much, it’s time to give your search an overhaul. These tips and tricks for effectively mining some of the Internet’s most-frequented family history stops will help you get out of that rut—and finally find your ancestors.

The 1940 U.S. Census Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com are creating The 1940 U.S. federal census was released to the their own indexes. public on April 2, 2012. You can view a blank 1940 Until the records are indexed, you need to census form at www.census.gov/history/www browse by enumeration district to find your ancestor /through_the_decades/questionnaires/1940_1.html. in the 1940 census. Ancestry’s browse feature is The 1940 census is available for free on the probably the easiest way to do that. Also, Ancestry following websites: has enumeration district maps at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3028. 1940census.archives.gov And you can use the National Archives’ tips at This site is the result of a contract between the www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/start- National Archives and a genealogy company, research.html. Archives.com. ELLIS ISLAND Ancestry.com ellisisland.org Ancestry is creating a basic name index first, but Finding your relatives’ names in ships’ passenger will create a more-detailed index later. The 1940 lists is exciting, but not always easy. It’s a myth that census will be free through the end of 2012. Ellis Island immigration officials purposefully changed immigrants’ names. The volunteers who Archives.com transcribed passenger records to create the database may have made the occasional mistake, though, or censusrecords.com had difficulty interpreting handwritten records. This site is owned by brightsolid, which also Finding your relatives may require some creative operates the British genealogy sites searching methods and taking advantage of all your findmypast.co.uk and Genes Reunited. options for searching the database. If you can’t find a passenger, maybe the FamilySearch.org name is there, but not spelled the way you expect. The site doesn’t support wildcards, but you don’t MyHeritage.com/1940census need to spell out the whole first name. The basic If you have a family tree on MyHeritage.com, the search finds first names that begin with what you site will automatically match it to the 1940 census as enter in the box. Search on Joh and matches include it is indexed and notify you of relevant results. Joh., Johann and John. Names are transcribed as they appeared in It may take several months to index the 1940 census. the original records, even if they were abbreviated. FamilySearch, Archives.com and findmypast.com So try Chas for Charles, Eliz for Elizabeth, Geo for are collaborating on an index. You can volunteer to George, Jas for James, Jno for John, Joh for Johan help create the index at https://the1940census.com. or Johann, Jos for Joseph, Patk for Patrick, Thos for

Thomas and Wm for William. Also, try foreign the First Name search box, you won’t get any versions of names, like Pierre or Pietro for Peter, and matches. To search on more than one given name, nicknames like Ed, Tom and Will. use FamilySearch Beta, FamilySearch Record If a last name can be written as more than Search or Ancestry.com. one word, try searching with and without the space, as in Dewitt and De Witt. ▪ Browse by ship’s name If you can’t find a match searching on a passenger’s ▪ Use the One-Step Web Pages by Stephen P. name, but you know the ship’s name, use Morse to do advanced searches EllisIsland.org’s new ship search feature to browse This third-party site provides some search functions passenger lists by ship’s name. Select “Search by that are unavailable on EllisIsland.org. You can Ship” from the Passenger Search menu, the first choose from two One-Step search forms—White and letter of the ship’s name, an alphabet range and the Gold—to sort through the Ellis Island database. The ship’s name. Then you can browse lists by port of Gold form is usually the better choice because it lets departure and date of arrival. you search on similar-sounding first names and towns, traveling companion, marriage status and ▪ Browse by date of arrival exact date of arrival. The field for Port Name refers If you can’t find a match searching on a passenger’s to the ship’s port of departure. name, but you know the ship’s date of arrival, use Both the Ellis Island and One-Step sites let Ancestry.com’s New York Passenger Lists, 1820- you search on just a middle name or initial if you 1957, select the “contains” option. A search on a first name www.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7488, to starting with Joh matches Joh, John and Johann. A browse passenger lists by date of arrival. In the search on a first name containing J matches John W “Browse this collection” on the right side of the and William Joseph. screen, select the year, month and day of the ship’s The Ellis Island site ignores periods, so a arrival and then click on a ship’s name. search on J or J. finds J. and John. The Gold Form searches on a period, so a search on J. finds J., but FAMILYSEARCH.ORG not John, and a search on J finds both J. and John. www.familysearch.org The Ellis Island site’s First Name search box The site’s new homepage has tabs for doesn’t allow spaces, so if you enter a first name and Records, Trees, Catalog, Books, Learn and Indexing. a middle name or middle initial, you won’t get any matches. The One-Step Gold Form allows spaces, so Records you could get matches if you enter “John W.” or “C. Millions of historical records are already Randall” in the First Name box. If you want to online and you can search all of them at once from search on both a first name and a middle name or the FamilySearch.org homepage. Since the church middle initial, use the Gold Form. began microfilming genealogically useful records in When you select the “sounds like” option 1938, its collection has grown to 2.4 million rolls for names on the Gold Form, it uses the Daitch- with 3.5 billion record images. You can access them Mokotoff Soundex, an improved version of the at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City or standard American Soundex. The option to find through FamilySearch Centers worldwide for a phonetic matches on a last name also finds similar- small fee, but most of the records are not indexed. sounding names, but greatly reduces the number of Now FamilySearch has taken on the daunting task of false hits. digitizing its entire microfilm collection and making To search for every passenger from a the images available online. Putting FamilySearch’s particular place, use the Gold form and specify the huge collection of records online, with indexes, will town name, but leave the last-name field blank. truly revolutionize genealogy.

Some collections have just indexes or ▪ Search on a middle name transcriptions, while others are linked to digital You can search EllisIsland.org by either a first name images of the original records. Sometimes digitized or initial or by a middle name or initial, but not by records go online before they are indexed. more than one name or initial. If you put a space in

You can search on just a name or also names. Experiment with different combinations of specify an event (birth, marriage, residence or death) search terms. Remember, you don’t have to fill in and add a spouse’s name or parents’ names. Keep in every box. Here are a few search strategies: mind that you don’t need to fill in every box on the • An uncommon name. Just search on the search screen. Even the last name is optional. first and last name, like Dubois Cornish. Searching a specific record collection is a • A surname and a place. When you’re good way to focus on the most relevant matches. On trying to piece together information on a family, it’s the homepage, scroll down to Browse by Location often useful to gather information on everyone with and select a region of the world or All Record the last name in that place. You might search on an Collections. Select United States and you’ll get a list unusual last name and a state (McMorris and New of all the American record collections arranged York), a common name and a county (Robertson and alphabetically by place. You can filter the list further Otsego) or a common name and a town (Grant and by selecting a state, time period and record category. Hodgdon). Try separate searches for the last name The number of records is shown for each with the place entered as the birth place, death place collection, along with the date it was last updated. A or marriage place. camera next to the collection name indicates you can • A person and a relative. William White is view record images. If it says Browse Images, that a very common name, but searching on William means the collection hasn’t been indexed yet, but White with spouse Ruth Green focuses on just one you can browse the records. couple. The system automatically finds matches, Trees even if the spelling and years are a little different This collection consists of family trees with from what you entered. Click on the boxes to match millions of names submitted by researchers. Find an terms exactly. ancestor here and you might extend your family tree On the results screen, click on a matching back many generations at once. But unlike the name (shown in blue) to see more information on the Historical Records, which are derived from original person’s family. You can navigate around a family records and therefore highly reliable, the family trees tree by clicking on the names of parents, spouses and have been compiled from a variety of sources, children. including personal knowledge and family lore, You can submit your family tree by entering which are more prone to error. Many of these family your information in genealogy software and trees are quite accurate, while others exhibit some uploading a GEDCOM file. Enhancements in the guesswork. It’s well worth mining the family trees works include the ability to display family group for clues, but always try to verify the information records and pedigrees. with original sources. Ancestral File, one compilation of family Catalog trees in this collection, has 40 million names It will take many years to digitize and index submitted between 1990 and 2000. It does not the massive holdings of the Family History Library, include source citations. Names and addresses of and some items will never be available online. In the Ancestral File submitters were available on the old meantime, if you can’t visit the library, you can version of FamilySearch.org, but are not included in access most of the library’s microfilm and the new version. microfiche for a small fee through FamilySearch Pedigree Resource File, the successor to Centers (formerly called Family History Centers). Ancestral File, is the other major compilation of Click on the link for FamilySearch Centers at the top family trees here. It has more than 200 million of any FamilySearch screen for locations and hours. names. The online version now includes notes and Before visiting a FamilySearch Center, use sources, but you need to refer to the CD and DVD the Catalog to identify films and fiches you’d like to versions to get submitters’ names and contact order. You have several search options. information. FamilySearch Centers have the Use the place-names search to find records Pedigree Resource File on CDs and DVDs. and histories. Try searching on all the places where The Trees search screen provides many your ancestors lived, including towns, counties, options, including the person’s names, years and states and countries. Historically, many Americans places of birth, marriage and death and parents’ have owned land and other property which they 3 passed on to their heirs, so be sure to look for land Indexing and probate records, usually recorded at the county FamilySearch Indexing is an online system level. County histories mention fewer people, but that makes it possible for volunteers around the they often include detailed biographies of early world to index records. You don’t need any special settlers and prominent residents. Church records, the skills or to make a major time commitment. Just most important family history source in Europe, are register, sign in and download a batch of records. usually listed in the Catalog under a town or parish. Copy names, dates and other information from the Do a last names search to find family records into the corresponding spaces and then histories. Printed genealogies, published in large submit your index. It typically takes about an hour to numbers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth finish a project, but you don’t have to do it all at centuries, typically profile an immigrant and trace once. several generations of his descendants. Keep in mind To make the indexes as accurate as possible, that the last names search covers only the most every record is indexed by two people and an expert prominent last names treated in a family history, not arbitrator resolves discrepancies in the two indexes. every name. Indexers added 139 million names in 2009 and 186 The keywords search lets you scour entire million more in 2010. catalog entries for a combination of search terms. If There’s a need for more people who can you’re researching a common surname like Hall, you read foreign languages, but most records are in can zero in on relevant matches by adding a place, English. By indexing records, you’ll help to make like Wallingford. more records available online to all researchers for free. Books Search a collection of more than 40,000 HACKS AND SHORTCUTS family history, local history and county history Records and Trees books. ▪ You can use wildcards. An asterisk stands for any number of letters and a question mark stands for one Learn letter. Whether you need help researching a Civil ▪ The old version of FamilySearch let you narrow War ancestor, locating Welsh probate records or your search to a country, US state or a region of a reading German gothic handwriting, you’ll find help foreign country. The new version lets you search on on FamilySearch.org. any word in a place name, including counties, cities, FamilySearch.org’s Research Wiki works towns, townships and parishes. like Wikipedia, with information contributed by volunteers, but with a focus on genealogy. Building Records on a foundation created with the excellent research ▪ Matches automatically include similar spellings. outlines and helps from the old FamilySearch.org, Click on the box after a name or place to search on the Research Wiki already has more than 67,000 the exact spelling. articles. Many of them have links to items in the ▪ Use the filters to the left of your search results to Catalog and to external websites. To get help with show results for a specific category, such as a record your research problem, search for a country, a state collection or a year or place of birth, marriage, death or a topic like immigration, military records and or residence. heraldry. By sharing your own knowledge, you can make the Research Wiki a richer resource for all Catalog genealogists. ▪ If a book or record collection is online, the catalog If you learn best by watching a presentation, now has links to the online version. you’ll want to take in the free research courses on FamilySearch.org. You can also participate in many USGenWeb free discussion forums on research. www.usgenweb.org

Thanks to volunteer efforts, USGenWeb has

grown into an immense free source of transcribed

records from around the country. The state pages are

jumping-off points to county pages, where you’ll Boolean operators: (Carr OR Hall) AND “South find tombstone transcriptions, indexes to wills and Bristol” would find pages that include South Bristol much more. Here’s how to scour USGenWeb for and either Carr or Hall. When searching for a name, mention of your family: try all the ways it might appear, such as “Henry • Check out the countywide search Hall,” “Hall Henry” and “Henry J. Hall.” engines. Many USGenWeb county pages have their • Use your browser to search a Web page. own search engines—be sure to read any tips for Your Internet browser can locate a word anywhere doing a search. Some search engines, such as on the currently displayed Web page. In Internet FreeFind www.freefind.com, support advanced Explorer, select Edit>Find (On This Page), or just search functions and work much like Google. For hold down the Control key and press F. Then type in example, you can search on an exact phrase by a word or phrase and click the Find Next button. surrounding it with quotes: “Jonathan Hall.” Use an Whether you’ve searched these online asterisk to find words that begin the same way genealogy standbys a few times or a zillion, don’t (Charl* finds Charles, Charlie or Charley), or insert assume you’ve tapped all there is to find. Try a new a question mark to substitute for any character search tactic, and you might be amazed by what (Ols?n finds Olson and Olsen). You even can use turns up.

RICK CRUME is a contributing editor for Family Tree Magazine . Contact him by e- mail at [email protected] and visit his Web site . Some of this material is based on articles that originally appeared in Family Tree Magazine .

2012 Jamboree Extension Webinar Series

Saturday, 7 Jan 2012 - 10am Pacific Saturday, 5 May 2012 - 10am Pacific Labor Day Special Linda Woodward Geiger, CG, CGL Kerry Bartels Saturday, 1 Sep 2012 - 10am Pacific Me and My Laptop: Getting the Most out NARA Resources in the Raw - Neither Denise Spurlock of your Laptop while Researching Onsite Microfilmed Nor Digitized Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker. Researching Your Ancestors’ Occupations Wednesday, 18 Jan 2012 - 6pm Pacific Wednesday, 16 May 2012 - 6pm Pacific Jean Wilcox Hibben, PhD, CG Thomas MacEntee Wednesday 19 Sep 2012 - 6pm Pacific The Two Sides of Interviewing Building a Research Toolbox Janet Hovorka

Saturday, 4 Feb 2012 - 10am Pacific Playground Rules for Genealogy on the Michael John Neill Saturday, 2 Jun 2012 - 10am Pacific Internet. Seeing the Patterns: Organizing Your Jamboree Preview Information Saturday, 6 Oct 2012 - 10am Pacific Wednesday, 20 Jun 2012 - 6pm Pacific Linda Woodward Geiger, CG, CGL Wednesday, 15 Feb 2012 - 6pm Pacific Rick Crume Hark! That Tombstone is Talking to Me! Jana Sloan Broglin, CG Genealogy Hacks: Tricks to Crack the Top The Key to the Courthouse Genealogy Web Sites Wednesday, 17 Oct 2012 - 6pm Pacific To be Announced St. Patrick’s Day Special: Saturday, 7 Jul 2012 - 10am Pacific Saturday, 3 Mar 2012 - 10am Pacific Ugo Perego, PhD Thanksgiving Special Michael Brophy Native American Ancestry: A DNA Saturday 3 Nov 2012 - 10am Pacific Irish-American Catholic Genealogy D. Joshua Taylor Standpoint Wednesday, 21 Mar 2012 - 6pm Pacific Online Resources for Colonial America Barry J. Ewell Wednesday, 18 Jul 2012 - 6pm Pacific Top 20 Lessons Genealogists Need to To be Announced Wednesday, 21 Nov 2012 Know No webinar due to holiday Saturday, 4 Aug 2012 - 10am Pacific Saturday, 7 Apr 2012 - 10am Pacific George G. Morgan Saturday, 1 Dec 2012 - 10am Pacific Lisa Louise Cooke The Genealogist as CSI Daniel Horowitz Turn iGoogle into your Personal Genealogy Sharing and Preserving Memories in a Research Homepage Wednesday, 15 Aug 2012 - 6pm Pacific Digital Era Gena Philibert-Ortega Wednesday, 18 Apr 2012 - 6pm Pacific Women’s Work Wednesday, 19 Dec 2012 - 6pm Pacific Janet Hovorka Schelly Talalay Dardashti Grandma’s Flak Jacket: Why Your Children Jewish Genealogy 101 Need You To Do Family History The Southern California Genealogical Society (SCGS) How do I sign up? launched its Jamboree Extension Series (JES) webinars in March 2011. SCGS was the first genealogical Step 1 society to offer regularly scheduled webinar sessions, Go to the SCGS web page for Extension Series: and the popular series will continue through 2012. http://tinyurl.com/scgswebinar2012. The series was developed to fulfill SCGS’s mission to You’ll also find a link on the main page of the SCGS share genealogical information; to deliver member- website at www.scgsgenealogy.com. Click on the JES ship benefits to SCGS members who live outside the graphic to go to the information page. LA area; to help researchers from around the globe; and to spread awareness of SCGS and Jamboree. Step 2

In 2011, we reached genealogists from 48 US states Review the list of sessions. To sign up for a session, and 7 Canadian provinces, as well as England, Wales, click on the link for the webinar you want to watch.

Ireland, France, United Kingdom, Algeria, Uganda, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. Step 3 The link will take you to an registration page. Enter your name and email address and answer a couple What’s a webinar? of questions. You will get a confirmation of your registration. You’ll also receive reminders before the Don’t be daunted by the name. A webinar is an edu- webinar. The reminder email will have information on cational class. (That’s the “-inar” part, as in the word accessing the handout material. “seminar.”) It’s led by a professional or specialist in the topic and is delivered over the Internet. (That’s Step 4 the “web-” part.) Speakers typically provide a hand- On the day of the session, click the link that you out or article to accompany the slideshow. Sessions received in your invitation to GoToWebinar.com for include a Q&A period and some include special your session. You may also phone in to the session offers or drawings for door prizes. and listen to the presentation. You won’t be able to see the screen but you will be able to hear the speaker. Long distance charges may apply. How much does it cost?

The live broadcast of each session is open to the How do I watch a webinar? public and FREE to all everyone (space is limited to 1000 attendees). Webinars are recorded, archived, To watch the speaker’s material and listen to the and available for the next twelve months day or presentation, you will need computer equipment night, in the members-only section of the SCGS web- with speakers and a broadband Internet connection. Southern California site. A 1-year individual membership costs only $35 Review the technical requirements to verify whether and affords access to all JES webinars. your computer will work to watch the webinar. If Genealogical Society you have broadband (DSL or cable) you will have a We welcome personal, foundation and corporate much better experience. and Family Research Library contributions of any amount to help fund this popular program. Donations can be made online Technical requirements include: www.scgsgenealogy.com or through PayPal. Those PC-based attendees 417 Irving Drive Required: Windows 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server who wish to donate by check or money order may ® Burbank, CA 91504-2408 send their contribution to: Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer 818 843.7247 phone

Although most people use their computer or iPad to 818 843.7263 fax Southern California Genealogical Society see and hear the presentation, it is possible to listen 417 Irving Drive, Burbank, CA 91504 to the discussion by phone. Telephone attendees www.scgsgenealogy.com www.scgsgenealogy.com 818.843.7247 won’t be able to see the presentation but will be [email protected] able to listen. [email protected] Benefits of Membership

Join today and take advantage of the many benefits of membership in the Southern California Genealogical Society

Collaborate, consult and build a sense of community with others who share our passion for family history and genealogy.

Access to proprietary content Educational Opportunities on the SCGS website  Monthly Lunch and Learn  24/7 access to archived Jamboree  Webinars, seminars, workshops Extension series webinars and live-  Field Trips to area repositories streamed Jamboree sessions  Guided research trips to  AccessNewspaperARCHIVE from Salt Lake City and Ft. Wayne home  Interest groups for computer software users, writers, and Free in-Library use of valuable ethnic geographic research online resources  Ancestry Library Edition Substantial Discounts on:  ProQuest Obituaries  Research team assistance  Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com)   American Ancestors (NEHGS) SCGS publications  Online Historical LA Times  Registration to the Society’s  Heritage Quest annual Genealogy Jamboree  World Vital Records  Family Tree DNA testing  FamilySearch  Other affiliate programs

Southern California Genealogical Society and Family Research Library 417 Irving Drive, Burbank, CA 91504-2408 818.843.7247 phone 818.843.7262 fax www.scgsgenealogy.com [email protected]