Thanks to everyone who attended the Family History Fair in Arlington. Below is the link to the PDF of presentation.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ozarkbranches/blog.pdf
Now that the 1940 Census has had some time to settle in and various organizations are indexing the rolls, I have noticed some of the earlier websites are not as practical as they were on April 2, 2012. Reports from Ancestry.com, Familysearch.org, and Archives.com (the official indexer) indicate these groups are all about half way finished with indexing. Some states are finished. Still, if you need to find a relative in the 1940 Census, http://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html is about as good as it gets. You still will be able to use the top buttons to pull up maps, get a list of census codes, and drill down to a specific city or area.
Still if you are having a problem finding your folks, you can always narrow your search area, by using some of the items listed below.
Happy hunting on the 1940 Census.
Billion Graves
Billion Graves (billiongraves.com) is a new twist on cataloging headstones in cemeteries. The free website relies on volunteers to photograph and upload their headstone photos from their smart phones or Ipads. The free app available on Itunes takes advantage of the built-in GPS software in the smart devices. The app will map out directions to nearby cemeteries and once at the cemetery, photo taken of the headstones can be immediately uploaded to the Billion Graves website. A minimal amount of transcription is still necessary to get the headstone properly cataloged. The website gives tips on how to get the best photos, as well as, how to organize groups for cataloging an entire cemetery. Plus, information is supplied on how to make the endeavor into a Boy Scout Eagle project.
I have found some cemeteries are sparely covered or not coverage at all. Plus, the information supplied is pretty much just what you see on the headstone photo, and this is sometimes all a researcher is seeking. The site is worth investigating.
When doing research, I have run across numerous images, documents or PDF files that I want to save a part of the page or document and not the whole thing. A really nice piece of software to doing exactly that and more is Snagit from TechSmith.
The TechSmith website offers 30 day free trial, and the Learning Center has numerous video tutorials to get you started. The cost of the software is less than $50. for a single user. Schools, government, and multi-license have various pricing options. It is a great research tool for collecting images, documents, or parts of a screen shot, and saving them in your personal achieves. 
Lindon, Utah – June 28, 2007 – Today Footnote.com announced the official launch of the company and its Web 2.0 historical social networking site. Genealogy Today
September 1, 2011 Footnote becomes Fold3.
In 2007 Footnote had partnered with the National Archives and Record Administration to scan and digitize millions of NARA’s documents. Creating a genealogical storehouse of military, Indian records and other U.S. government collections. It was not long until Ancestry.com made a bid and purchased Footnote. Ancestry.com has refocused Footnote to be the primary source for military records and renamed it Fold3. The Indian collections can still be found under ‘Other Collections’ as well as the 1896 Indian census, Dawes packets, Guillon-Miller documents, and other Indian records.
Although Fold3 is a subscription site, it cost nothing to set up an account and create or search Memorial pages. Quick searches revealed listing for the Kranc, Kenner, McClellan, Cannon, and Campbell lines. The records are basic information for the most part, but the viewer can add photos, comments, or stories, and other pertinent data. You can also put a ‘watch’ on the page to receive and email if the page is updated. Plus a nice feature is being able to indicate your relationship to the individual. Give it a try. I really like the ‘watch’ feature.
I have started to put together a family tree in a narrative style telling a story the best I can. McClellan family and the Cannon Family have a listing of people and need to be fleshed out to increase the enjoyment of reading about the families. There are probably many gaps here and there that it makes it difficult to follow. As time goes by, hopefully, I can fill in the gaps. My goal is others will find these pages in the future and will add more information. It would have been great to have done a Wiki, so everyone could contribute and it would be available immediately. Setting up a Wiki is beyond me… So, this is my best attempt at getting everything out there in a usable and easy to read format. One problem I have ran into is the formatting. WordPress, is not the easiest to format. I am attempting to do indention from father – mother to children and then the children’s children. That is not working out the best. Hopefully, you will be able to figure out the lines. Then my direct lines I just have to repeat their information to some degree to keep the line going and make sense as to who belongs to who or whom. I am hoping by using the names as tags, they will help other find these pages. We will see. Please use the comments to make any suggestions or add any info. Thanks.
I came across and unusual website today. It is called ‘Dead Fred‘. It is a great depository of old (pre-1965) photos and other family history information. First of all, it is a free site, even though the site ask for donations to help it stay alive. The site also has an excellent list of photographers and photography studios from the past. So, if you have that photo with a studio’s name on the back, this site might can help you narrow down who the picture could be of. Also, there is a ‘Mystery’ section. It is possible to search by geographic area for lost photos of your ancestry. If you have a photo that is a ‘mystery’ to you, it can be submitted with you filling in the info you have and then it is searchable for other to attempt to supply information about the photo.
I kept looking for a place to ‘register’ on the site, since I saw a ‘Login’ button. I could not find one; after I submitted a photo of an individual that was not in there surname database, I got an email with a login and password. So, if you want an account, send in a photo. Currently, the site only accepts JPEG format… which is what almost all of us have anyway. Plus, this seems to be a great depository of Annuals or Yearbooks dating way back. Try out http://www.deadfred.com and let me know what you think.
Come and Dig Up the Dead!
Where is that place?
Adding Longitude and Latitude coordinates to your research.
While gathering research, I have come across numerous townships, villages, or just ‘places’ that do not exist anymore. Well, the ‘place’ exist, it just does not show up on a map, or have anything around it that would be recognized as a village or community. It could be where paths crossed or water was available, a name was casually given to the spot. For example ‘Six Miles’ could have been just be a good place to stop to water or cool the horses or mules.
When you come across enough information from research, or conversations, or old maps, to be able to put a dot on a map it would be nice to be able to capture the Longitude and Latitude coordinates for your ‘spot’. With Google maps it really easy to do. The following are instructions on how to capture those coordinates for copy and pasting into a word processing document or put into your GPS device or smart phone.
Open Google Maps by going to www.google.com and click ‘MAP’ at the top of page.
Enter the name of a town close to where your final destination is located.
In my example I am looking for Cass Arkansas so I entered Fort Smith, which is close. Put your cursor in the general area of your village and right click. A dialogue box opens and towards the bottom you see ‘Center Map Here’. Click that. Now as you zoom in or out the map will stay centered on the cursor location.
Find the spot you believe your village was located, put your cursor on that exact location and right click “What’s here?’
When you click on What’s here?, the GPS coordinates will appear in the menu bar. Just copy and paste them to your document or enter them into your GPS device.
Easy as pie… now you can set out on your journey to your spot.
If you are an Ancestry member and have never used the ‘Card Catalog’, you are missing out on a very powerful tool! To get to the Card Catalog, reminds me of the old libraries where I would pull out the wooden draws and see hundreds of paper cards just asking to be inspected. The good thing is you do not have the cranky librarian looking over your shoulder making sure you got the card back in the right place. Where was I, oh, yea.. ok the Card Catalog is located under the SEARCH tab on the top row of tabs. You will see Home, Family Trees, and then SEARCH. Open that tab and go to the bottom. There at the bottom is the most powerful Card Catalog tab! Once you open it, you will see there are over 34,000 databases waiting to be explored. If you are only going to look in the USA, select USA or the state search. From here… explore! It is so exciting to see the numerous databases full of goodies. If you don’t have an Ancestry account, it is very possible the local public library or Family Search Center at the LDS church has an Institutional version free to the public. If you have a National Archives center near you, they too, will have a free Ancestry Institutional version available. What cool things have you found on Ancestry?
Ancestry Nav Bar - Search Click this Tab for Card Catalog
Tab for Card Catalog
Volunteering at the National Archives in Fort Worth has taught me one thing, and that is when people come in to start their search for their ancestors, they do not have a clue where to start. Some folks still believe they will be spending hours looking at microfiche or microfilm or think we have volumes of paper documents to thump thorough. Yes, NARA still has a large selection of non-digitized microfilm, but a large number of documents are available with a few clicks of a mouse. Searching with the use of the internet and digitized images has changed everything. For most people, they can make their first find within minutes.
I usually start people off with a search of the 1930 Census. That is, if the dates will work for their search. The 1930 Census are so complete that most people will be able to find one or more relative. It is that excitement of seeing a relative listed and all of the other family members listed there as well. Once that spark has been lite, then the fire to search for other ancestors is not far behind. So, if you are getting started, check out the 1930 Census first.
