Google Books

There is one type of genealogy resource that helps us move beyond the names and dates of our ancestor's lives. This resource is a wonderful place to find wills, obituaries, family stories, land ownership records and much more. These resources are in old books found in Google Books.

Google Books has lots of county histories. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was a push for county histories and biographical compilations. These books have geographic, social, economic, political and religious notes about specific areas. In the second half of the books are biographical sketches about prominent people in the area and these sketches may include relevant dates, lists and information on family members, and stories about these people.

Google Books is a collection of digitized books and magazines from around the world. Many are out of copyright and in the public domain. Some books you may only have a snippet view of the book, but there are many books that you can view the entire book and even download them as a PDF. For those books that only allow a snippet view, Google does help you find places where you may purchase a copy or even find a copy in a library near you.

You can search Google Books by your ancestor’s name and town or county where they lived. There are even books on court records, patents, and military books from the area you are searching. There are books about churches and congregations that my list your ancestors as attending these churches. By clicking control and f, you can do a search in these books for specific names or information you are researching.

First, go to Google Books (books.google.com), and you can start with a narrow search for books with your family names. As an example, I always start my search out with the family surname I’m looking for and add genealogy (Brinkerhoff family genealogy). I might even include the state, county, or town where they lived. Then look for ‘Tools’ at the top of the page. Click on it and choose ‘Any books’ from the drop-down menu. Next click on ‘Any books’ and from that drop-down menu choose ‘Free Google Books’ to get the books that you can read its complete version.

Next time you are researching, be sure and give Google Books a try! These books are great for finding information that may not be elsewhere.

Newspapers

Newspapers contain a variety of information that is useful to genealogists. Often, they are the last item that we check when searching for our ancestors, but they should be what we check next when vital records do not give us the information we need. Family Trees need the details that are found in newspapers.

Obituaries give us death dates, burial locations, and often provide information about the family such as spouse, children, siblings, and parents. Obituaries may provide biographical information about the deceased.

Birth announcements may contain the name of baby, birth date, place of birth, and parent’s names. Many times, they included the names of grandparents and other children in the family.

Marriage and engagement announcements give the name of the bride and groom and the date of marriage. These announcements may contain information about the wedding day such as what family and friends attended the wedding. You may be fortunate to have a photo of the couple included in the announcement.

You can find legal records in the newspaper. Probate records and court cases contain information about the ancestor such as names, relatives, and places of residence.

Many passenger lists are in newspapers. Many times, if you cannot find a passenger list for the ship your ancestor arrived on, it will be in the newspaper.

Photographs of your ancestor may be in the newspaper. You may find obituaries, weddings, birthdays, and family reunion photos in newspapers.

Even the advertisements can be useful for genealogists. The advertisements give us a glimpse into the styles of the day, the type of appliances that were popular or new and other social information that will help us understand how our ancestors lived. We may find the advertisement for an ancestor’s place of business.

Chronicling America (chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) is a great free website from the Library of Congress. It has newspapers from 1789-1924.

The Ancestor Hunt List of Newspaper Research Links (theancestorhunt.com/newspaper-research-links.html) contains a list of links by state of free online historical newspapers.

Elephind.com allows you to search over three million newspapers across the country. They add collections regularly so if you don’t find what you need now check back later.

Searching for your ancestor in a newspaper can be overwhelming, but with the help of free websites like those listed above, your search can be more manageable. Don’t forget to search in newspapers when looking for information about your ancestors.

Family Trees on Ancestry.com

There are many resources out there to aid us in our search for our ancestors. One resource that many overlook is Family Trees on Ancestry.com. There are many ways to use Family Trees, but I will cover two important uses in this article.

First, there is a lot of research information that is available in these trees. When you start researching a name the first place to look is the Family Trees section on Ancestry. About 75% of all research is duplicate research. By searching for your particular research name or family in this section, you can see who is also researching those ancestors. This search also gives you names of those who may be researching the same line as you and you can contact them and hopefully work together and share information.

Not all Trees are alike. The valuable ones are the ones with sources attached to verify the information in their tree. These sources can save you lots of hours of research time because someone has taken the time to find them for you. Be sure and verify each source for accuracy though.

There are treasures in these trees too. I have found lots of photos, newspapers articles, and histories that are from private sources and only found in these trees. One great find was portraits painted of ancestors from the 1700s. People have been generous in sharing their information.

Another use for Ancestry Family Trees is to upload your tree onto Ancestry and let Ancestry research for you. Those shaky leaves are a significant help in locating documents and other information that will aid your research. Ancestry does link to Family Search, and you can upload your tree from FamilySearch into Ancestry. Ancestry only uploads four generations at a time, and so you will have to go to the end of the line and upload four more to get your bigger trees onto Ancestry.

The records you find on Ancestry can be sourced to your tree on FamilySearch through a free browser extension from recordseek.com. Recordseek has step-by-step instructions on how to attach your sources. This an excellent resource for those using both sites.

The first thing one should do when starting their research is to check to seek if someone else has also researched those same ancestors. Take advantage of all that Ancestry Family Trees has to offer. Have fun researching with those shaky leaves!

Audacity

Heraclitus’ statement “The only thing that is constant is change” is an excellent description of the world today. The world has changed so much in just the last fifty or so years. Remember the days when our music was played on vinyl records, then came the 8-track tapes. Cassette tapes were the big hit because not only could you play your music, you could also record your own stuff on them. Today everything has gone digital so what do we do with all our previous collections? Many of us have recorded family events and interviews with family members on cassette tapes. Are those memories going to be lost when there are no cassette players to play them on, or when the cassette tapes eventually break? Luckily, we have Audacity to help us out.

Audacity is free software used for audio editing downloaded from www.audacityteam.org/download/. You will find the manual on how to use Audacity at https://ometra.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/audacity-manual.pdf. You will need a cassette player, audio cable, and your computer then you will be all set to convert those cassettes into mp3’s. There are many YouTube videos on how to use Audacity, and I would highly recommend viewing several. These YouTubes will give you an excellent visual and understanding of how it works. A Google search of “convert cassette tapes to mp3 with Audacity YouTube” should bring you up pages of beginner videos to get you started.

When you turn your cassette tapes into an mp3, you can then upload your information onto FamilySearch. By converting those old cassette tapes, you will preserve your audio treasures for all to hear and enjoy. My husband has a cassette recording of his Grandmother speaking in church right before he left on his LDS mission. She passed away a few months later. Wouldn’t it be nice if this recording could be saved onto FamilySearch for her posterity to enjoy? Others have recordings of Grandparents telling stories about their lives. Imagine how nice that would be to listen to their stories in their own voice and have it saved for all to enjoy.

If you are lucky enough to have valuable recordings on cassette tapes, it is crucial for you to save them to a format that can be used by FamilySearch and archived for posterity’s sake. The challenge of this technology-rich world is to keep our information up-to-date and keep valuable information available for future generations.