The Genealogy Gems Podcast with Lisa Louise Cooke - Your Family History Show

The Genealogy Gems Podcast with Lisa Louise Cooke Episode #203 This episode features a special interview with renowned Canadian expert Dave Obee. He shares his favorite tips on researching the Canadian census—his insights are fascinating whether you have Canadian ancestors or not! Also in this episode: an inspiring adoption discovery, DNA testing news at 23andMe, a tip for incorporating family history into a wedding, and a brand-new resource that can finally help you solve one of genealogy's most perplexing questions. NEWS: ATLAS OF HISTORICAL COUNTY BOUNDARIES UPDATE Atlas of Historical County Boundaries Google Earth for Genealogy (and more on Google Earth Pro) LINK: https://lisalouisecooke.com/free-google-earth-for-genealogy-video-class-by-lisa-louise-cooke/ NEWS: 23andME DNA TEST UPDATES Click here for the full news and Diahan's comments MORE recent DNA news: Family Tree DNA enhancements:Click here for the full story, with comments and step-by-step instructions on updated myOrigins tool Get help with DNA testing at both these sites with these quick reference guides by Diahan Southard: Understanding 23andMe Understanding Family Tree DNA NEW! GENEALOGY GIANTS GUIDE by Genealogy Gems Editor Sunny Morton Click here to watch the presentation that inspired this guide: a popular RootsTech 2017 lecture comparing the four major genealogy records websites: Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. LINK: https://www.shopgenealogygems.com/collections/genealogy-guides/products/genealogy-giants-quick-guide Available in print or digital format This comprehensive quick reference guide explains: How knowing about all four websites can improve your family history research How the sites stack up when it comes to the numbers of historical records, names in trees, DNA profiles, site users, site languages and subscription costs Unique strengths of each website and cautions for using each What to keep in mind as you evaluate record content between sites Geographic record strengths: A unique table has an at-a-glance comparison for 30+ countries How to see what kinds of records are on each site without subscribing How family trees are structured differently at these websites—and why it matters Privacy, collaboration and security options at each site How DNA testing features differ at the two websites that offer it What you can do with free guest accounts at each website Subscription and free access options MAILBOX: LIZ ON FINDING CHUCK'S BIRTH FAMILY Click here to learn more about Diahan Southard's genetic genealogy video tutorials—and a special discount price for Genealogy Gems fans. LINK TO: https://www.yourdnaguide.com/genealogy-gems-dna-tutorial Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search historical records on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. In the works: soon RootsMagic will be fully integrated with Ancestry.com, too: you'll be able to sync your RootsMagic trees with your Ancestry.com trees and search records on the site. Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/Lisa MAILBOX: THANKS FOR 1940 CENSUS TIPS Kate Eakman shares tips for understanding the 1940: click here to read them or click here to listen to them on Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 201 MAILBOX: WEDDING TIP Before a wedding: start an online family tree and invite each family member to add what they know! Share family history this summer: Reunions, weddings, BBQs, etc Genealogy Gems Pinterest Page: Incorporating Family History Ideas into Your Wedding Go to: https://www.pinterest.com/lisalouisecooke/incorporating-family-history-into-your-wedding/ Our sponsor for this episode: StoryWorth Give Mom the gift of StoryWorth this Mother's Day Visit www.StoryWorth.com/Lisa to get $20 off Visit: www.StoryWorth.com/Lisa INTERVIEW: DAVE OBEE Continuing our celebration of Canada's 150th birthday! Dave Obee is an internationally-renowned Canadian journalist, historian and genealogist. Dave is a columnist for Internet Genealogy and Your Genealogy Today (formerly Family Chronicle). Dave has also written about family history for Canada's History and Your Family Tree in the United Kingdom. Put Dave's books on your shelf: Finding Your Canadian Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide Counting Canada: A Genealogical Guide to the Canadian Census Destination Canada: A Genealogical Guide to Immigration Records Making the News: A Times Columnist Look at 150 Years of History Canadian census tips from Dave Obee: The 1901 census is his favorite because it says for the first time where people had come from He starts his searches on Ancestry.ca but census databases are free to search on Library and Archives Canada website Marital status may not have been totally accurate. They only captured single or married or windowed. Divorced was not captured. There are two different types of enumerations: de facto and de jure, and the rules were different. This means your ancestor could be enumerated in multiple locations Lisa Louise Cooke Googled the Canadian Census Enumerator Instructions for 1901: At Library & Archives Canada Original instructions digitized at Archive.org More on Canada genealogy research: Claire Banton in Genealogy Gems Podcast episode #199 Blog post on Canadian Censuses 1825-1921 Search Canadian Passenger Lists for Free at Library and Archives Canada Canadiana: Canadian Digital Archive and Portal to the Past Google Earth for Canada and Genealogy Our Sponsors: Start creating fabulous, irresistible videos about your family history with Animoto.com. You don't need special video-editing skills: just drag and drop your photos and videos, pick a layout and music, add a little text and voila! You've got an awesome video! Try this out for yourself at Animoto.com. MyHeritage.com is the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it's free to get started. BONUS CONTENT for Genealogy Gems App Users If you're listening through the Genealogy Gems app, your bonus content for this episode is EXTRA special! It's an exclusive conversation between Your DNA Guide and Cece Moore of DNA Detectives on researching adoption or unknown parentage. Don't miss it! The Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users. GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB Our featured genealogy book club author this month is Miss Fannie Flagg! The Whole Town's Talking by Fannie Flagg Read more tips on discovering the historical context of your ancestor's lives: Tell Your Ancestor's Story: Use Social History for Genealogy Social History for Genealogy and the Colored Farmer's Alliance PRODUCTION CREDITS Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer Sunny Morton, Editor Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide, Content Contributor Lacey Cooke, Service Manager Vienna Thomas, Associate Producer

The Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 202 Lisa Louise Cooke Highlights of this episode include: AncestryDNA's new Genetic Communities: An Interview with Catherine Ball, Ancestry's Chief Scientific Officer; Meet contestant Joe Greer from Relative Race, the genealogy reality show; The new Genealogy Gems Book Club featured title: a novel from an internationally best-selling author A botched reference to the 1950 census in a Stephen King novel—and 5 tips for counting down to the 1950 census release in exactly 5 years Naming traditions tip from a listener Lisa's Google search strategies: search operators, YouTube and more NEWS: ANCESTRYDNA GENETIC COMMUNITIES Ancestry.com rolls out AncestryDNA Genetic Communities FREE VIDEO: Introducing AncestryDNA Genetic Communities Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 201 about new AncestryDNA study NEWS: MYHERITAGE CONSISTENCY CHECKER Access by logging in to your MyHeritage account and find this tool under the Family Tree dropdown menu: Thank you to our sponsor: The tool searches for different kinds of potential errors or inconsistencies in your tree: A Similar Tool: RootsMagic Problem Search In RootsMagic, find it under the Tools menu. Select Problem Search, then Problem List to select the different kinds of problems you can have RootsMagic identify for you and to choose what age ranges you decide are out of bounds for a new father or mother. Thank you to our wonderful sponsors: MAILBOX: NAMING TRADITIONS Norwegian naming traditions tip from listener Irish naming conventions mentioned in this Q&A with Irish expert Kate Eakman Mexican Genealogy Guide by David A. Fryxell (Use promo code GEMS17 for 10% off this great product. Good through 12/31/17.) 2 more places to find naming traditions: Google search: for the name of the country or ethnic group, plus naming traditions FamilySearch Wiki MAILBOX: GOOGLE SEARCH OPERATOR TIP: "Oppenheim the butcher, NOT the bomb!" FREE VIDEO TUTORIAL: Speak Google's Language: Google Search Operator Basics The Genealogist's Google Toolbox, 2nd edition by Lisa Louise Cooke MAILBOX: STEPHEN KING AND THE 1950 CENSUS To search inside books in Amazon: INTERVIEW: JOE GREER ON RELATIVE RACE Meet Team Black: Joe and Madison Greer of Portland, OR Relative Race: "What happens when genealogy meets reality TV? Using their DNA as a guide, contestants embark on the ultimate road trip across America, completing challenges and meeting unknown relatives along the way." Click here to watch past episodes online for free. The last two episodes of season two, 9 & 10, will air back to back respectively at 7pm MT/9pm ET and 8pm MT/10PM ET on Sunday, April 30. Click here to learn more about the show BONUS CONTENT FOR GENEALOGY GEMS APP USERSFree PDF summary of 8 top genealogy TV shows from the past several years and where you can watch them online—a few of them for free, including Relative Race. The Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users. INTERVIEW: Catherine Ball, Chief Scientific Officer, Ancestry.com About Catherine Ball: Chief Scientific Officer at Ancestry FREE VIDEO DEMO: Introducing AncestryDNA Genetic Communities Study using AncestryDNA data identifies group migration patterns Thanks to Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard for joining us to talk about this new development in genetic genealogy. Click here to learn more about Diahan's how-to DNA video tutorials and personal consultation services for solving your family history mysteries with DNA. GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB New featured title: The Whole Town's Talking by Fannie Flagg A multi-generational novel about a Swedish immigrant and the town he builds in the American Midwest by luring other Swedish settlers and a mail-order bride. As characters die, they take up residency in the local cemetery and continue to comment on the activities and people of the town. Also recommended by Fannie Flagg: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion New from past Book Club authors: The Missing Man by Nathan Dylan Goodwin, a novella in his popular Forensic Genealogist series Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave is now available in paperback PROFILE AMERICA: THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE PRODUCTION CREDITS Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer Sunny Morton, Editor Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide, Content Contributor Lacey Cooke, Service Manager Vienna Thomas, Associate Producer

with Lisa Louise Cooke In this episode, I chat with Angela Walton-Raji, expert in U.S. and African-American research, about tips for interviewing relatives and taking your African-American family tree back to the era of slavery. Other highlights of this episode include: A RootsTech 2017 recap, with info on archived streaming sessions; Great news from Findmypast about its new Catholic Heritage Archive; A ground-breaking study from AncestryDNA that identifies specific migration patterns among genetically-related clusters of people; Follow-up mail from Lisa's Episode 200 celebration; An expert Q&A on finding relatives who don't appear in the census where you expect them to; A teaser clip from the upcoming Genealogy Gems Book Club interview with Annie Barrows, author of The Truth According to Us. ROOTSTECH 2017 RECAP Genealogy Gems booth streaming sessions are on the Genealogy Gems Podcast Facebook page. "Like" our page, and then scroll down to Videos and click See all (shown here). You'll find: Lisa Louise Cooke: Google search methodology for genealogy, using Google Earth for genealogy and creating memorable, easy family history videos; Diahan Southard: Understanding your DNA ethnic pie chart; Amie Tennant: Digital journaling and scrapbooking; Sunny Morton: Jogging your memories and "Genealogy Jackpot" (on researching her ancestors' survival of the Great Johnstown flood of 1889. POPULAR ROOTSTECH STREAMING LECTURE "THE BIG 4" NOW ONLINE Watch "The Big 4: Comparing Ancestry, FamilySearch, Findmypast and MyHeritage" by Gems Editor Sunny Morton and catch a summary of its main points Catch our future free Genealogy Gems streaming sessions on Facebook! "Like" and follow the Genealogy Gems Facebook page. GENEALOGY GEMS APP BONUS MATERIAL If you listen through the Genealogy Gems app (FREE in Google Play) and $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users), your bonus material for this episode is a short video clip showing a time-lapse perspective on RootsTech 2017 from the exhibitor hall. NEWS: FINDMYPAST CATHOLIC HERITAGE ARCHIVE Catholic Heritage Archive at Findmypast.com In the Boston Globe: Archdiocese of Boston and New England Historic Genealogical Society plans to bring 10 million+ parish records online MAILBOX: Robin mentioned she's learned so much from Lisa on these topics: Evernote, Google Books for genealogy, Newspaper research, How to use an iPad for genealogy, How to organize electronic files (see the free Family History Made Easy podcast, episodes 32-33) Google Drive Scrivener software for writing family history Start creating fabulous, irresistible videos about your family history with Animoto.com. You don't need special video-editing skills: just drag and drop your photos and videos, pick a layout and music, add a little text and voila! You've got an awesome video! Try this out for yourself at Animoto.com. Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/Lisa. INTERVIEW: ANGELA WALTON-RAJI Angela Walton-Raji instructs the African-American Genealogy Research Essentials webinar. Purchase it with this link and use coupon code GEMS17 for 10% off, valid through 12/31/17. Angela's oral history questions: What to ask your elders Did they happen to know anyone who had been born a slave when they were a child? Who was the oldest person that you remember when you were a child? And did that person ever talk about anyone who may have been enslaved? What do you know about where the family was from? (Were we always from Georgia, or, were we always from Pennsylvania, or was there a time when we came from another place? (Read more about the Great Migration she mentioned.) Why did we move? Who remembers that journey? Were people involved in the Civil Rights movement, in the Garvey era, with the Freedom Riders, or other important events in their lifetime? What kinds of things did they see? Who in the family participated in the military (in World War II, I, the Spanish-American War)? African-American military units through the mid-20th century were still referred to as Buffalo soldiers. (She mentioned the Triple Nickel, a unit of all-black World War II paratroopers. MyHeritage.com is the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it's free to get started. Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search WebHints on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. Soon RootsMagic will also be able to search records and even sync your tree with Ancestry.com, too. EXPERT TIP ON FINDING ANCESTORS "MISSING" IN CENSUSES Read their Q&A: Kate Eakman takes on a Gems listener question from someone who has already done a lot of work trying to locate a relative in the 1940 U.S. census Legacy Tree Genealogists provides expert genealogy research service that works with your research goals, budget and schedule. The Legacy Tree Discovery package offers 3.5 hours of preliminary analysis and research recommendations: a great choice if you've hit a brick wall in your research and could use some expert guidance. GENEALOGY GEMS EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Go to www.legacytree.com/genealogygems and use coupon code GEMS100 to save $100 off your purchase of research services (expires 4/30/17). YOUR DNA GUIDE DIAHAN SOUTHARD: ANCESTRYDNA STUDY BREAKTHROUGH There is no doubt that this is an exciting time to be a genealogist. Here at Genealogy Gems, we are announcing new record collections online every month, advances in genealogy databases and their ability to retrieve the information we are looking for, and of course, DNA testing. There really has been no time in history where such a wealth of information about our past has been so readily available to so many. In another ground-breaking development in the DNA world has been a recent publication in a scientific journal by the scientific team at AnccestryDNA. It is titled, "Clustering of 770,000 genomes reveals post-colonial population structure of North America." Or, in more understandable terms, "Your DNA can tell us where you came from in America in the last 500 years." Wow, right? So how did they do this? Well, the power really is in the numbers. In this particular paper they used 770,000 people, but now that they are approaching having testing 4 million people, you can bet the same principles will be applied to a larger data set and we will see even more as a result. But even though it takes a large data set to accomplish this, it really all still comes down to the relationship of two people. To start, Ancestry determines how just two people are genetically related. Then they find how those two are related to a third, again, looking only at pairs of people. This goes on and on and on until everyone in the group as been compared. Then we use a graph to plot those relationships, with those more closely related clustering around each other. Then the real key, the point where we see the marriage of genetics and genealogy: they add in the family history information for each of these individuals in the cluster. What they found was astounding. They have displayed the data in Figure 3 in the paper: Distribution of ancestral birth locations in North America. Summary map from Nature Communications; click to see article with full explanation of map data. Image used with permission of Ancestry.com. It is a map of the United States with colored dots scattered across the landscape. The location of the dots corresponds to the genealogy of those tested, while the color of the dots relates to their genetic clustering. Those who clustered closest together are the same color. The result is a nearly perfect rainbow, with each color holding its respective spot on the map, with very little overlap between groups. (There are actually two maps in the paper, just to make things easier to see.) We might be tempted when looking at the maps to think, oh, well, of course there is a large population of European Jews in New York, everyone knows that, no breakthrough there. But it IS!! This isn't their family history, or their accent or their culture that is telling us this, it is their genetics! As if that wasn't exciting enough, further on in the paper they describe how we can trace migration patterns of different groups over just a few generations. In the paper they specifically mention French Canadians and Cajuns/Acadians, but this same principle can theoretically be applied to dozens of other groups. For example, let's say you have an ancestor in Texas about 4 generations ago, but you aren't sure where she came from. If technology like what is published in this paper ever reaches your testing company, your DNA could tell you that you fit into the Lower South group, meaning that your ancestor likely hails from, well, the South! This is just a glimpse into what the advances in genetics are bringing to your genealogy toolbox. So hang on to your hats, and keep tuned in here at Genealogy Gems for all of the latest updates. GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB The Truth According to Us by internationally best-selling author Annie Barrows It's the summer of 1938, and wealthy young socialite Miss Layla Beck is now on the dole as a WPA worker, assigned to write a history of the small town of Macedonia, West Virginia. As she starts asking questions about the town's past, she is drawn into the secrets of the family she's staying with—and drawn to a certain handsome member of that family. She and two of those family members take turns narrating the story from different points of view, exploring the theme that historical truth, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. Annie Barrows is also the co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. This novel takes place after World War II in a London recovering from the Blitz and an island recovering from German occupation. At the heart of Guernsey is an unlikely love story and the inspiring tale of a community that took care of each other in their darkest days with humor, compassion and good books. Click here to see more Genealogy Gems Book Club selections and how you can listen to Lisa's upcoming exclusive conversation with author Annie Barrows about The Truth According to Us. PRODUCTION CREDITS Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer Sunny Morton, Editor Amie Tennant, Content Contributor Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide, Content Contributor Lacey Cooke, Service Manager Vienna Thomas, Associate Producer Hannah Fullerton: Production Assistance FREE NEWSLETTER: Enter your email & get my Google Research e-bookas a thank you gift! Subscribe to the Genealogy Gems newsletter to receive a free weekly e-mail newsletter, with tips, inspiration and money-saving deals.

The Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 200 with Lisa Louise Cooke Listen below: It's finally here—the 200th episode of the free Genealogy Gems podcast, also celebrating its 10th year. In this special episode, Lisa invites Professor Mark Auslander to share his discoveries about a mother and young daughter separated by slavery. Learn how he pieced together their story from a poignant family heirloom found at a flea market. Throughout the episode, you will hear from several listeners, past podcast guests, Gems staffers and supporters in the genealogy industry with congratulations, memories, stories, and favorite Gems tips. Listen for the DNA success story of an adoptee who never gave up his search for his biological roots. Thanks to all listeners and friends who sent congratulations! Among them are: Allison Dolan, Publisher, Family Tree Magazine. She mentioned the Family Tree Magazine Podcast Bruce Buzbee, RootsMagic family history software DearMYRTLE, veteran online genealogy educator and author of the award-winning DearMYRTLE blog. She mentioned Lisa's Family History: Genealogy Made Easy podcast; her all-day seminars at societies; and classes at her booth during conferences. Geoff Rasmussen, Legacy Family Tree webinars, and author of Kindred Voices: Listening for Our Ancestors Jim Shaughnessy, Findmypast.com Mary Tedesco, host and genealogist on PBS' Genealogy Roadshow, founder of Origins Italy, co-author of Tracing Your Italian Ancestors and a guest on Genealogy Gems Podcast episode #175, talking about Italian research and her work on Genealogy Roadshow Steve Luxenberg, author of Annie's Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret. Listen to Lisa's conversation with him in The Genealogy Gems Podcast episodes 120 and 121. This book and interview planted the seed for the Genealogy Gems Book Club! Yev Pusin, Social Marketing Marketer, Backblaze online computer backup service, also celebrating its 10th anniversary NEWS: FAMICITY KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN Famicity Kickstarter campaign: see several options for contributing, including options that come with a Famicity Premium subscription as a reward. Pledges will only be collected if they reach their Kickstarter goal, and subscriptions become active in the summer with the official launch. Tip: the Kickstarter page gives contributions in British currency. Google currency converter to see a tool for converting those amounts to your currency. ROOTSTECH 2017: IN PERSON AND STREAMING CLASSES IN PERSON: If you're attending RootsTech on February 8-11, 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah, come by the Genealogy Gems booth for exclusive 30-minute classes on the hottest topics; prizes at every class AND a Saturday Grand Prize drawing; great Gems product specials and a new and wider selection of products we love. Click here to learn more. LIVE STREAMING: Lisa will be live-streaming marked sessions (above) via the free Periscope app. Get it in Apple's App Store or Google Play. Sign up for a free account and follow Lisa Louise Cooke to tune in. Sign up for notifications in Periscope, and your phone will "ping" whenever Lisa starts streaming! Broadcasts stay in the Periscope app for 24 hours. Like and follow the Genealogy Gems Facebook page to hear about more streaming sessions. RootsTech offers a few free live-streaming sessions; click here to see the full schedule. Gems editor Sunny Morton will be streaming on Friday, Feb 10 at 3:00 pm Mountain Time with "The Big 4: Comparing Ancestry, FamilySearch, Findmypast and MyHeritage." MAILBOX: LISA AND SUNNY The following were mentioned in listener emails and voicemails: Family History: Genealogy Made Easy Podcast by Lisa Louise Cooke. This is a FREE step-by-step series for beginning genealogists—and more experienced ones who want to brush up or learn something new. One listener mentioned the series on naturalization records in episodes 29-31. The Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast by Lisa Louise Cooke. Monthly episodes—and the full archive of past episodes—are available to Genealogy Gems Premium website subscribers. This podcast takes what you love about the free Genealogy Gems podcast and goes deeper, broader and more exclusively into topics of interest for U.S. and international audiences. The Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users. Using Evernote to organize your family history research: free tips and great resources to help you make the most of this free app (or its Premium version) to keep all your genealogy research notes and links organized and at your fingertips. Netvibes computer dashboard tool and mobile apps for genealogy Computer backup story from Kathy: "I was robbed! They took the computer AND the backup drive!" Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/Lisa. DNA WITH YOUR DNA GUIDE DIAHAN SOUTHARD Diahan's series of how-to videos, available to Gems fans for a special price. Diahan's series of DNA quick guides, available in print or as digital downloads IMAGE Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search WebHints on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. Soon RootsMagic will also be able to search records and even sync your tree with Ancestry.com, too. MyHeritage.com is the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it's free to get started. INTERVIEW: MARK AUSLANDER Mark Auslander is an Associate Professor and Museum Director at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA and the author of The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding An American Family. "Slave Mother's Love in 56 Carefully-Stitched Words" Mark's path to the probable family of this artifact used these techniques: Look closely at all clues from the artifact: the fabric, stitching, colors, facts conveyed in the text, etc. Look at both the historical clues and the artistic or symbolic aspects of it. Create a profile for the people mentioned based on what is known. Probable age for Ruth Middleton in 1921, etc. Use contextual and social history clues to hypothesize a scenario. The inclusion of "South Carolina" hints that the seamstress didn't live in South Carolina, so he guessed that she was part of the Great Migration of millions of African-Americans in the early 1900s who headed from the rural South to the industrial Midwest and other urban cities. Take advantage of unusual clues. Rose is a common name for an enslaved woman, but not Ashley. Look through all available records. Possible census listings for Ruth Middleton in 1920 didn't seem likely candidates. He dug through marriage records for Northern states until he found a woman named Ruth who married a man named Middleton who fit the profile he'd created. Use specialized sources for African-American research, especially records created by and about the slaveholder that relate to the holding, sale or transfer of enslaved people. Mark says that some researchers describe the search process as "guided by some force larger than yourself that keeps you going through those endless hours in microfilm rooms or online. But it does connect us all in very profound ways to those who came before and those who come after….Through genealogical work, in a sense we can triumph over death itself and we can move back and forth in time in the most remarkable way." Coming up next month in The Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 201: An interview with Angela Walton-Raji on finding African-American ancestors. She shares tons of resources! Even if you haven't found any African-Americans on your family tree, the challenges and rewards of African-American genealogical research are both fascinating and moving to learn about. Legacy Tree Genealogists provides expert genealogy research service that works with your research goals, budget and schedule. The Legacy Tree Discovery package offers 3.5 hours of preliminary analysis and research recommendations: a great choice if you've hit a brick wall in your research and could use some expert guidance. GENEALOGY GEMS EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Go to www.legacytree.com/genealogygems and use coupon code GEMS100 to save $100 off your purchase of research services (expires 4/30/17). CONVERSATIONS WITH MORE GEMS Amie Tennant Lacey Cooke Vienna Thomas Amie Tennant, Gems Content Contributor: see the Genealogy Gems blog Lacey Cooke, Gems Service Manager Vienna Thomas, Associate Producer and Audio Editor; she mentioned a favorite Genealogy Gems Book Club title and interview were with Chris Cleave, author of Everyone Brave is Forgiven GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB The Truth According to Us by internationally best-selling author Annie Barrows It's the summer of 1938, and wealthy young socialite Miss Layla Beck is now on the dole as a WPA worker, assigned to write a history of the small town of Macedonia, West Virginia. As she starts asking questions about the town's past, she is drawn into the secrets of the family she's staying with—and drawn to a certain handsome member of that family. She and two of those family members take turns narrating the story from different points of view, exploring the theme that historical truth, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. Click here to read an introduction to using WPA records for genealogy. Annie Barrows is also the co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. This novel takes place after World War II in a London recovering from the Blitz and an island recovering from German occupation. At the heart of Guernsey is an unlikely love story and the inspiring tale of a community that took care of each other in their darkest days with humor, compassion and good books. Click here to see more Genealogy Gems Book Club selections and how you can listen to Lisa's upcoming exclusive conversation with author Annie Barrows about The Truth According to Us. Music from this episode is from the band Venice The song played at the opening was "We're Still Here," from the album Born and Raised. The song played at the closing was "The Family Tree" from the album 2 Meter Sessies; click to purchase the album or download the song as a single. FREE NEWSLETTER: Enter your email & get my Google Research e-bookas a thank you gift! Subscribe to the Genealogy Gems newsletter to receive a free weekly e-mail newsletter, with tips, inspiration and money-saving deals.

The Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode 199 with Lisa Louise Cooke In this episode, Lisa celebrates Canada's 150th anniversary with Clare Banton from Library and Archives Canada. You'll also hear how Lisa will be marking another anniversary in 2017: the 10th year of this Genealogy Gems podcast. More episode highlights: An inspiring follow-up email from Gay, whose YouTube discovery Lisa shared in episode 198, and a great conference tip from Barbara just in time for RootsTech. Genealogy Gems Book Club Guru Sunny Morton announces the new Book Club title. Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard shares thoughts about DNA testing with kids. JOIN THE CELEBRATION! 10th ANNIVERSARY AND 200th EPISODE You're invited to send in well-wishes and win a chance at a prize! Email Lisa by January 31, 2017 at genealogygemspodcast@gmail.com OR call her voicemail line at 925-272-4021. Share your first and last name, email address and where you live (your last name and email address won't be shared on the podcast); Share a memory of listening to this podcast, such as: When did you start listening? What's one of your favorite things you've learned from this show? Lisa will randomly select one response to receive a free year of Genealogy Gems Premium membership. Thanks for helping all of us here at Genealogy Gems celebrate 10 years of doing something we love! NEWS: ROOTSTECH 2017 RootsTech will be held on February 8-11, 2017 in Salt Lake City, UT: learn more and register. Genealogy Gems events at RootsTech Lisa will be live-streaming FREE sessions the marked session via the free Periscope app. Get it in Apple's App Store or Google Play. Sign up for a free account and follow Lisa Louise Cooke to tune in. Sign up for notifications in Periscope, and your phone will "ping" whenever Lisa starts streaming! Broadcasts stay in the Periscope app for 24 hours. Like and follow the Genealogy Gems Facebook page to hear about more streaming sessions! NEWS: FAMICITY KICK-STARTER Famicity is a free, private website for families to share pictures, videos, memories, family activities and the family tree. The company has been very successful in France where it was launched, and the founder is working to bring the new English platform to the United States. He's launched a Kickstarter campaign to support their U.S. launch. Click here to support it. Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search WebHints on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. Soon RootsMagic will also be able to search records and even sync your tree with Ancestry.com, too. Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/Lisa. MAILBOX: YOUTUBE DISCOVERY FOLLOW-UP Remember the YouTube success story from Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 198? Gay as a young woman attended a dedication ceremony for the saline water treatment in Freeport, Texas—and with Lisa's tips she found video footage on YouTube. Gay wrote back to send us more about that, including this page from her diary that day and this news clipping. Check out the news clipping to see why that plant was so important, Pres. John F. Kennedy gave the dedication speech. (See what newspapers can tell you?!) Find your own family history on YouTube. Click here to learn how or read an entire chapter on YouTube in Lisa Louise Cooke's book, The Genealogist's Google Toolbox, 2nd revised edition. Click here to learn how to turn family stories and artifacts like these into videos to share with relatives. Learn to find articles such as this one that can put your family's story in context—locally and even nationally. Read How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers by Lisa Louise Cooke. MAILBOX: BARBARA AT NGS Speaking of that book, Barbara gave a thumbs-up to Lisa's book, How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers, which helped her find an obituary for someone. She was very excited! Barbara shared a great idea, too: make your own genealogy calling cards. She loves meeting new people at genealogy conferences and likes to be able to follow up with them. She trades business cards. What would YOU put on a genealogy calling card? What about your name and contact information, family surnames and locations, other special research interests and your genealogy blog or website (if you have one). INTERVIEW: CLAIRE BANTON, LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA (LAC) Claire Banton obtained her Masters of Library and Information Studies degree in 2006. She has worked in Reference Services at LAC for 10 years, where she has enjoyed learning something new every day. She is currently Chief, Orientation Services, where she works with an awesome team who help people search for information. She loves being an information detective and helping people overcome their research challenges. Claire's tips for genealogy research with LAC: LAC is very different from the average library. It is both a national library (search the library catalog here) and a a national archive (search the archival catalog here). You don't have to have an account to search. Start with the LAC website (genealogy resources page) whether you are visiting in person or not. There are loads of free databases and some unindexed digitized records. The Topics page will tell you what they do and don't have. There was no border control from the US to Canada prior to 1908, so there are no Canadian records of earlier crossings. [Tip: see border crossings to the US, 1895-1956 at FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com.] Call LAC directly for quick answers. Schedule a Skype call with a genealogy expert to get more in depth answers: provide background information ahead of time. Click here to explore (and join) Canada's 150th birthday celebration. GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB The Truth According to Us by internationally best-selling author Annie Barrows (co-author, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and author, Ivy and Bean, children's book series) It's the summer of 1938, and wealthy young socialite Miss Layla Beck is now on the dole as a WPA worker, assigned to write a history of the small town of Macedonia, West Virginia. As she starts asking questions about the town's past, she is drawn into the secrets of the family she's staying with—and drawn to a certain handsome member of that family. She and two of those family members take turns narrating the story from different points of view, exploring the theme that historical truth, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. Click here to read an introduction to using WPA records for genealogy. Click here to see more Genealogy Gems Book Club selections and how you can listen to Lisa's upcoming exclusive conversation with author Annie Barrows about The Truth According to Us. DNA WITH DIAHAN: DNA TESTING FOR KIDS?! I was talking with a fellow mom the other day about all the demands that are placed on kids' time today. They have school and homework, many have after school sports and clubs, religious meetings, some have jobs or at least chores at home, not to mention all the time required to text, check social media, and hang out with friends. As parents and grandparents, we want our children to spend time on things that matter, things that will prepare them for their future lives and mold them into their future selves. According to a 2010 study out of Emory University, if we want to encourage kids toward an activity that will positively impact them, we should steer them toward family history. The researchers reported that "children who know stories about relatives who came before them show higher levels of emotional well-being." Now, I know I don't need to convince you of this. You are already sold on genealogy. But I share this in the hope that it will push you over the edge and this will erase any hesitancy you have about sharing this love with your children and grandchildren. Now, since you know this is me, the genetic genealogist talking, you can probably guess what I'll suggest for getting kids interested in family history. DNA testing is a great way to personally and physically involve them. First of all, there is the tangible process of taking the sample at home, and the marvel at how such a simple act can produce the amazing display of our ethnicity results. Since each of us is unique, it will be fun for them to compare with you and other relatives to see who got what bit of where. This will naturally lead to questions about which ancestor provided that bit of Italian or Irish, and wham! You'll be right there to tell them about how their 5th great grandfather crossed the ocean with only the clothes on his back, determined to make a new start in a new land. If there are parts of the ethnicity report that you can't explain, use that as a hook to encourage them to start digging and to find out why you have that smattering of eastern European or south east Asian. Taking them for a tour of the DNA match page you can show them how they share 50% of their DNA with their sister (whether they like it or not!) and how they share 25% with you, their grandparent! DNA test results give kids a totally unique look at their personal identity with technology that is cutting edge. Looking at their DNA test results can turn into a math lesson, a science lesson, a geography lesson, a lesson on heredity or biology, a discussion on identity—wherever you want to go with it! DNA is the perfect introduction to the wonders that genealogy can hold, especially for children who are so good at wondering. Click here to learn more about Diahan's series of how-to videos, available to Gems fans for a special price. Or start your DNA journey with two guides that will help you get started with kids' genetic genealogy: Getting Started: Genetics for the Genealogist Autosomal DNA for the Genealogist PROFILE AMERICA: ELLIS ISLAND Click here to watch the official, award-winning documentary shown at Ellis Island—free online at YouTube. PRODUCTION CREDITS Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer Sunny Morton, Editor Amie Tennant, Content Contributor Diahan Southard, Your DNA Guide, Content Contributor Lacey Cooke, Service Manager Vienna Thomas, Associate Producer

This episode's got a bit of holiday sparkle! Lisa Louise Cooke welcomes Genealogy Gems Book Club author and Victorian lifestyle expert Sarah Chrisman to the show to talk about Victorian holiday traditions, some of which may still live on in your own life. Following that conversation, Lisa shares a fun description of Victorian-era scrapbooking: how it's different than today's scrapbooking hobby but also how it reminds her of modern social media. More episode highlights: Three success stories from Genealogy Gems listeners: a Google search with great results, a brick-wall busting marriage record and yet another YouTube find for family history (people keep telling us about those!). Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard chimes in with what she likes so far about MyHeritage's new DNA testing service. An internationally-themed German research conference and a makeover for the Scotland's People website. NEWS: GERMAN-AMERICAN GENEALOGY PARTNERSHIP CONFERENCE First-ever German-American Genealogy Partnership Conference: Minneapolis, MN, July 28-30, 2017. 70 presentations over 3 full days on the theme, "CONNECTIONS: International. Cultural. Personal" Topics will include major German-speaking regions; social networking opportunities each day for those with common interests in specific regions For the full scoop, at www.GGSMN.org and click "2017 GAGP Conference" Trace Your German Roots Online by Jim Beidler. Click here to purchase the book and use coupon code GENEALOGYGEMS15 to save an extra 15% through 12/31/ 16, which even works if the book is on sale. NEWS: SCOTLAND'S PEOPLE The newly-relaunched ScotlandsPeople website has several exciting new features: Mobile-friendly web design and an enhanced search function; A quick search option for searching indexed records by name and an advanced search for specific types of records; Free access to several records indexes; More than 150,000 baptism entries from Scottish Presbyterian churches (other than the Old Parish Registers of the Church of Scotland) have been added and more are coming, as well as marriages and burials; More types of records held by National Records of Scotland are coming, including records of kirk sessions and other church courts; Explore the site for free, including handy how-to guides for using Scottish records such as statutory records, church registers and census returns. MAILBOX: GOOGLE SEARCH SUCCESS STORY From Joan: "I used one of the handy hints from your presentation at the South Orange County California Genealogical Society's all day seminar in Mission Viejo, CA. I entered some of my common named ancestors, used the quotes, added a time frame and included some key words, like locations. Most of what I found were my own queries and posts. That shows it works!.... One thing I was amazed at was a multi-page article I found: 'The Lincoln Kinsman,' written in 1938. It included a lot of information on the Bush family [which is another of her family lines]. The article even included what I think is my ancestor Hannah Bush Radley." (Click here or on the image above to see a copy of "The Lincoln Kinsman" at Internet Archive.) Listen to a free 2-part series on cold-calling distant relatives or others as part of your genealogy research: "Family History: Genealogy Made Easy podcast, episodes 14 and 15." BONUS CONTENT for Genealogy Gems App Users: A handy cheat sheet with 14 tips from that series on cold-contacting distant relatives. It's updated with brand-new suggestions, including ways to find potential relatives' names during the research process. The Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users. MAILBOX: VONDA BLOGS A MARRIAGE RECORD DISCOVERY Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 197 that inspired her discovery Vonda's blog post on her discovery: "Right Under Your Nose, or at Least, Your Fingertips! Dickey Family about 1909" MAILBOX: YOUTUBE SUCCESS STORY Gay entered "Freeport Texas history" in YouTube and found historical newsreel footage of the opening ceremony of a local water treatment plant. She and the women in her family were seated on the front row. Here's a screenshot from that footage: maybe this is a stylish young Gay in sunglasses? (Watch the video here.) Another amazing YouTube family history find in an old newsreel: Gems Editor Sunny Morton finds an ancestor driving his fire truck—with his dog Lisa's book The Genealogist's Google Toolbox has an entire chapter on discovering family history gems such as these on YouTube. More tips and success stories on using YouTube to find your family history in moving pictures: A woman found her dadding racing his 1959 El Camino 6 ways to use YouTube for family history Find historical documentaries about your family on YouTube Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search historical records on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. By the end of 2016, RootsMagic expects to be fully integrated with Ancestry.com, too: you'll be able to sync your RootsMagic trees with your Ancestry.com trees and search records on the site. Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/Lisa. INTERVIEW: VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS WITH SARAH CHRISMAN Sarah Chrisman lives her life every day as if it's the Victorian era. Her clothing, household, pastimes, chores and more all reflect the time period. Listen as Lisa and Sarah talk about the Victorian Christmas tree; gift-giving, crafts, decorating and things that might surprise us about holiday celebrations during that time. Books by Sarah Chrisman: This Victorian Life: Modern Adventures in Nineteenth-Century Culture, Cooking, Fashion and Technologies, a memoir Sarah's everyday life. The Book Club interview in December will focus mainly on this book. Victorian Secrets: What a Corset Taught Me about the Past, the Present and Myself; True Ladies and Proper Gentlemen: Victorian Etiquette for Modern Day Mothers and Fathers, Husbands and Wives, Boys and Girls, Teachers and Students, and More; First Wheel in Town: A Victorian Cycling Club Romance. This is from her series of light-hearted historical fiction set in an era she knows well! Sarah Chrisman joins me again later this month on the Genealogy Gems Premium podcast episode 142 to talk about what it's like to live every day like it's the late 1800s. Don't miss it! Not a Premium member? Click here to learn more about the perks of membership! Legacy Tree Genealogists provides expert genealogy research service that works with your research goals, budget and schedule. The Legacy Tree Discovery package offers 3.5 hours of preliminary analysis and research recommendations: a great choice if you've hit a brick wall in your research and could use some expert guidance. Click here to learn more. GENEALOGY GEMS EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Go to www.legacytree.com/genealogygems and use coupon code SAVE100 with your purchase of research services. MyHeritage.com is the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it's free to get started. GEM: VICTORIAN SCRAPBOOKING The Victorians coined the phrase "scrapbooking:" they literally pasted paper scraps into books. As an embellishment, those who could afford to bought "relief scraps," such as the ones shown here. These were like the precursors of modern sticker sheets or die cuts, printed just for the scrapbooking hobby. You could buy colorful images of everything from flowers or children to animals, or angels or Father Christmas. These images were raised or embossed on the paper, which is why they called them reliefs. Relief scraps could be used as embellishments around other items on scrapbook pages, but sometimes they were the only decoration on a page, arranged in pretty patterns. This Ladies Home Journal magazine from May 1891 at HathiTrust Digital Library describes quote "a Sunday Scrap-book…as a source of almost unlimited pleasure and profit to children who can read and write." Victorian Scrapbook Gallery at the Library of Birmingham DNA WITH DIAHAN, Your DNA Guide I don't think there is any dispute that the four major online resources for genealogy include Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Find My Past, and My Heritage. Of those four, only Ancestry.com has attempted any real integration of DNA test results into traditional genealogy. That is, until recently. On May 19, 2016 MyHeritage announced that they will be adding a DNA matching service to their offering, and then on November 7th announced they would be conducting DNA tests themselves. Now, MyHeritage has enjoyed partnerships with 23andMe and Family Tree DNA for quite some time now, but those partnerships have been woefully underutilized and are little more than an affiliate service, where MyHeritage provides a discounted rate to test at those companies. There is no question that the launch of DNA Heritage fully into the genetic genealogy market is exciting news. In fact, it is something I have been pushing for – we absolutely need someone to challenge AncestryDNA. Competition is good. In September they began to provide matching results for individuals who had uploaded their results. As of today, uploading your results is still free, so if you have been thinking about it, you may want to take advantage sooner rather than later. As expected, the matches are only as good as the depth of the database, and it is early in the game, so their database is small, but even now we can get an idea of what to expect from MyHeritage as they take their first steps into genetic genealogy. One of the most exciting elements of their November 7th announcement is their development of a Founder Population project where they have handpicked individuals to represent their reference population for calculating ethnicities. They plan to launch with 25 population groups, but will likely increase to 100 in a fairly short amount of time. This is a far more advanced ethnicity report than is currently offered anywhere else. After you have figured out how to download your raw data from your testing company (see my instructions here: http://www.yourdnaguide.com/transferring), and then managed to add it to My Heritage (you have to add a family tree to MyHeritage to do this, see further instructions in their May press release), and waited the requisite time to process, you will receive a notice that you have new DNA matches. For a full review of the features and ins and outs of where to click and what to look at, please refer to the September blog post from MyHeritage. As for my favorite features, I like how they list all the possible relationships that make sense between you and your match taking into account multiple factors like your age, gender, and your genetics instead of a simple, generic range like 2nd-4th cousins. The accompanying chart that visually shows you all possible relationships is also very helpful. You can access it by clicking on the little question mark icon next to the relationship suggestions. I like that these suggestions remind us that our genetic relationships have different genealogical interpretations. Meaning that genetically, a 2nd cousin once removed, a first cousin twice removed, and a second cousin, all fall within a similar genetic range and it is impossible to determine your exact relationship based on the genetics alone. I also like that they are providing all three genetic descriptors of your relationship: total amount of shared DNA, how many segments are shared, and the size of the longest piece of shared DNA. While this more of an intermediate to advanced piece of your results, it can be important as your relationship analysis becomes more involved. One unique claim made by MyHeritage in their press release about their matching feature addresses a main concern that genetic genealogists have: the lack of pedigree information provided by their matches. MyHeritage claims that 95% of their DNA samples have pedigrees attached. That is remarkable! However, from my own quick calculation of my matches, the number with pedigrees is more like 60%. They also indicated that they will soon be doing a bit of pedigree analysis for you by providing a list of shared surnames and locations between you and your match based on the pedigrees you have both submitted. This will certainly be a welcome addition. According to the November 9th Q and A they haven't decided yet if the ethnicity features will be available to those who only transfer, and they hint at many more features they have in the works that may only be offered to those who purchase their test. In short, the MyHeritage site is currently functioning much like the top three genetic genealogy sites (Ancestry, Family Tree DNA, and 23andMe) and like the free tool Gedmatch, offers a meeting place for those who have been tested at one company to meet those who have tested at another, with the added bonus of a promise of new features on the horizon. PROFILE AMERICA: A DICKENSENIAN TALE PRODUCTION CREDITS Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer Sunny Morton, Editor Amie Tennant, Content Contributor Vienna Thomas, Audio Editor Lacey Cooke, Additional Production Support

Episode 197with Lisa Louise Cooke Download these show notes This episode celebrates the most recent family history there is—our own. A chat between host and producer Lisa Louise Cooke and Gems editor Sunny Morton explores the meaning and memories behind heirlooms in Lisa's home. They comment on the larger value, for self and others, of recording our own memories in honor of Sunny's new book, Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy. Also in this episode: A spotlight on new marriage records online for the U.S. and around the world. Lisa walks a listener through several tips for learning more about her immigrant ancestors (a mother and daughter). Lisa shows how to use today's technology tools to help with traditional research skills such as locating passenger lists, immigrant society records and naturalization. Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard talks about organizing your DNA matches so you can get the most out of them. Genealogy Gems Book Club featured author and Victorian lifestyle expert Sarah Chrisman describes what it's like in her home—which doesn't use electricity—as the days grow shorter and the darkness comes earlier. LISA SHARES HER RECENT DISCOVERIES The original photograph of her grandmother: The writing on the backside of the photo. Can you read he second line? NEW RECORDS ONLINE: Marriage Records New York City Marriages: a new index to more than 3 million marriage licenses for recent New York City marriages (1950-1995) Free FamilySearch marriage record collections recently added or updated include: Arkansas Church Marriages, 1860-1976 Nebraska, Box Butte County Marriages, 1887-2015 Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2013 Tennessee, County Marriages, 1790-1950 Washington, County Marriages for 1855-2008 Washington, Marriage Records, 1854-2013 California, County Marriages, 1850-1952 New Zealand, Civil Records Indexes, 1800-1896 Belgium, Antwerp, Civil Registration, 1588-1913; Belgium, East Flanders, Civil Registration, 1541-1914; Belgium, Liège, Civil Registration, 1621-1914; Belgium, Limburg, Civil Registration, 1798-1906 Nicaragua Civil Registration, 1809-2013 Russia, Tatarstan Church Books, 1721-1939 Argentina, Cordoba, Catholic Church Records, 1557-1974 Sweden, Gävleborg Church Records, 1616-1908; index 1671-1860 Learn more about marriage record research: Listen to Using Marriage Records in Family History: Episode 24 in Lisa Louise Cooke's free step-by-step podcast, Genealogy: Family History Made Easy. BONUS CONTENT for Genealogy Gems App Users: Finding Copies of Images Online with Google on Your Mobile Device If you're listening through the Genealogy Gems app, your bonus content for this episode is an exclusive step-by-step tutorial PDF that shows you how to use your mobile device and Google to locate copies of images online. Remember, the Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users. MAILBOX: Finding a Female Immigrant Ancestor Question from Jo: "I have been fortunate to find information about most of my great-grandparents. I have hit a wall with my maternal great grandmother who immigrated from Switzerland to the US in the 1880's when she was 8 years old. I was hoping that by upgrading to International records on Ancestry that I could find the ship and where she and her mother came from. The curious thing for me is that she and her mother travelled solo to the US and went to Cincinnati, Ohio. I've been to Cincinnati and have searched there and have found directories with addresses but no profession is listed like other people. I didn't find any ship records either. Where might you suggest that I look or search to find more information?" Tips for searching passenger arrival lists: Consider what ports would have been the most logical point of arrival for an immigrant ancestor based on the time period and the U.S. location in which you find them. Cincinnati, Ohio, was reachable by rail by the 1880s from major ports, as well as by water via the Mississippi River for southern ports, so that doesn't narrow things down much. According to an Ancestry.com article, more than 80% of immigrants arrived at the Port of New York by the 1890s, so Jo might scrutinize those New York passenger arrival lists for the 1880s again. Free New York City passenger arrival databases at Castlegarden.org Major U.S. Immigration Ports (Ancestry.com) New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 (Ancestry.com) New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891 (FamilySearch.org; New York City, NARA M237) New York Passenger Lists & Arrivals, 1846-1890 Search multiple NYC passenger lists simultaneously at Steve Morse's One-Step web portal For "deeper" searching at Ancestry.com or other sites with powerful, flexible search interfaces: do a "nameless search" (without any name) for girls around age 8 for arrivals in particular years. Try additional searches with various combinations of name, place of origin (Switzerland) or "Swiss" in the keyword field, which will bring up that word in the ethnicity or nationality column. That column doesn't have its own search field in Ancestry.com but it is indexed, so use the keyword field to search it. Research Swiss immigration to Cincinnati during that time period. Who was coming, why they were coming and where they were coming from? Click here for free tips about researching historical questions such as these. The Swiss in the United States at Internet Archive Swiss-American Historical Society and Swiss Center: Genealogy Tips for researching records of immigrant societies: In the U.S., the time between an immigrant's arrival and naturalization is often documented in records of ethnic organizations such as fraternal benefit societies, immigrant aid and colonization societies. These kinds of community groups often existed in cities and towns where specific immigrant groups had a strong presence. Germans in Hamilton County, Ohio (FamilySearch wiki) Finding aid for the Swiss Benevolent Association (Cincinnati, Ohio) records, 1871-2011 Swiss Benevolent Association, Cincinnati, OH Cincinnati Library's Genealogy and Local History Department Hamilton County Genealogical Society Become an expert Google searcher (for genealogy and everything else you want to find online) with The Genealogist's Google Toolbox, 2nd edition, by Lisa Louise Cooke. Or click here to get started with basic Google search strategies you can use now. Tips for researching naturalizations: Naturalization records from that time period won't reliably tell you where an ancestor was from. But they're still worth looking for, especially if census or other records indicated that the person naturalized. When looking for women's and children's naturalization records, remember that during this time period, they automatically became naturalized if their husband or father did, so individual records for married women and minor children won't exist under their own names. But a woman could apply on her own, too. Click here to read a free article on women's naturalizations. Learn more in a free, 3-episode series on immigration and naturalization records: episodes 29-31 in the free, step-by-step Genealogy: Family History Made Easy podcast. GET THE RIGHT GENEALOGY DATABASE: Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search historical records on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. And in the near future, RootsMagic will be fully integrated with Ancestry.com, too: you'll be able to sync your RootsMagic trees with your Ancestry.com trees and search records on the site. BACKUP YOUR GENEALOGY: Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/Lisa. INTERVIEW: Sunny Morton on recording your own life stories Story of My Life "Some people about writing their life stories like I do about going to the gym. I put off going, but once I do I remember how much I enjoy it—and how much good it does me." -Sunny Sunny asks Lisa about this photo and her memories... Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy available as a writeable PDF ebook or as a full-sized softcover workbook GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB: Sarah Chrisman This Victorian Life Featured Genealogy Gems Book Club author Sarah Chrisman describes what it's like when the days get shorter and the darkness comes early—in a house without electricity. Legacy Tree Genealogists provides expert genealogy research service that works with your research goals, budget and schedule. The Legacy Tree Discovery package offers 3.5 hours of preliminary analysis and research recommendations: a great choice if you've hit a brick wall in your research and could use some expert guidance. Click here to learn more. GENEALOGY GEMS EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Go to www.legacytree.com/genealogygems and use coupon code SAVE100 with your purchase of research services. MyHeritage.com is the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it's free to get started. DNA WITH DIAHAN SOUTHARD Parents spend a good portion of their parenting time ferreting out the real story from their children. One time when Henry was in Kindergarten he was playing outside with another little boy. I was in and out of the house watching him and checking on other things. Hours later I noticed that his bike had been spray-painted black. When confronted, he claimed he had no idea how such a thing could have happened. Unfortunately, I jumped to conclusions and blamed the other kid (you have to give me credit, at six Henry was such a good boy and had such an angelic face with his blue blue eyes and blonde blonde hair). But as I was on the phone with my husband telling him about the issue I looked over at Henry and I saw it- that guilty look and my stomach sank, recalling the things I had said to the other boy's mom. "I'll have to call you back," I told my husband. As genealogists, we spend our time trying to ferret out the real story from our ancestors, or at least from the records they left behind, because they're not sitting in front of us with guilty looks on their faces. We are constantly checking family stories against, say, the information on a census record, then comparing it to the family will, then making sure it all agrees with what's in the military records. And even if we have total agreement, which isn't always, more information often comes along, like in the form of DNA testing, and we may find even more apparent discrepancies. I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a reporter, Cameron McWhirter, who talks about finding just that kind of discrepancy between his family lore and his DNA. He even goes so far as to say, "I am descended, at least partially, from liars." And he makes the point that "many immigrants reinvented themselves when they arrived here (the United States)," which could be a nice way of saying they had a chance to INVENT a new legacy, not just reinvent it. His assessments are certainly interesting, and worth reviewing, to help us see how DNA testing can affect the way we look at family stories and traditional research results. McWhirter may be the classic modern genealogist, never having set foot inside a courthouse or scanned through microfiche, relying instead entirely, he reports, on internet research. Now before you roll your eyes, just stop for a minute and appreciate how exciting this is. Here is a man who never gave his family history a second thought, yet because of the death of his parents started to tinker around a bit, and then due to the large volume of information online "was quickly pulled into the obsessive world of modern genealogical research." I say, score one for the genealogy world! What he found was that while his dad was proudly and solidly a self-proclaimed Scot, the records and DNA revealed his heritage was actually from Ireland and eastern Europe. McWhirter says that his "father hated Notre Dame, but judging by my results he could have been one-quarter to one-half Irish. He spoke dismissively of people from Eastern Europe, but part of his genetic code likely came from that region." McWhirter's evaluation of his genetic report includes only his ethnicity results, which as you can hear, were meaningful to him in the way they flew in the face of his father's prejudices and assertions of his own identity. But the ethnicity results fall short of the point of testing for most genealogists. He might even more powerfully transform his sense of family identity if he took a look at his match list and saw an actual living cousin, for example, a third cousin perhaps who was also descended from his German great-grandmother, who maybe never mentioned that she was also Jewish. Connecting with other cousins who also have paper trails to our ancestors serves to provide further confidence that we have put all of the pieces together and honored the right ancestor with a spot on our pedigree chart. It's like we multiply our own research efforts by finding more people like us—literally—who are descended from the same people and interested in finding them. As long as they're as diligent in their research as we are, of course. At a recent conference I met a 5th cousin. Even with a connection that distant it was exciting, and it made we want to look again at our connecting ancestors and pause for just a minute to marvel how my DNA verified my paper trail back to them, and that part of them was around, in me, and in my new cousin. To me, THAT's a bigger picture I want to see—when the paper trail comes together with the DNA trail and turns into real live cousins, even if they turn out to be a little different than the stories and sense of identity that were handed to us when we were young. Maybe you're something like Cameron McWhirter: you've taken a DNA test, been intrigued (or disappointed) by the ethnicity results, but haven't yet fully explored all your matches on your list. I'm telling you, you may be seriously missing some opportunities. If that's you, I may actually have written my new DNA quick guide just for you. It's called "Next Steps: Working with Your Autosomal DNA Matches." This guide will teach you how to leverage the power of known relatives who have tested. You'll get an intro to chromosome browsers and their role in the search process, and access to a free bonus template for evaluating the genealogical relationship of a match in relationship to the predicted genetic relationship. This guide also gives you a methodology for converting UNknown relatives on your match list into known relatives, which is what we're going for here. So check it out, either as a solo purchase or as part of my Advanced DNA bundle, which comes along with my new Gedmatch guide and a guide expressly for organizing your DNA matches. PROFILE AMERICA: Lights Out PRODUCTION CREDITS Lisa Louise Cooke, Host and Producer Sunny Morton, Editor Amie Tennant, Content Contributor Vienna Thomas, Audio Editor Lacey Cooke, Additional Production Support FREE NEWSLETTER: Enter your email & get my Google Research e-book as a thank you gift! Subscribe to the Genealogy Gems newsletter to receive a free weekly e-mail newsletter, with tips, inspiration and money-saving deals.

The Genealogy Gems Podcast with Lisa Louise Cooke In this episode, expert Kate Eakman from Legacy Tree Genealogists joins us with some tips for those starting to trace their Irish ancestors into Ireland. She shares some great websites for Irish research and places to look for that elusive Irish home county;and an exclusive coupon code for anyone who could use some expert help on a tough research problem. Additional episode highlights: Gems listeners respond with strong opinions on sharing gossip about our ancestors; Genealogy Gems Book Club surprises: a past featured author has a new book out—and something different for the new Book Club pick; Mark your calendars and make some plans for big conferences in 2017; Organize your DNA test results and matches to help you get the most out of them, now and in the future. Listen now - click the player below: NEWS: 2017 Conferences RootsTech 2017 open for registration FGS 2017 hotels are open BOOK CLUB NEWS: NEW FROM NATHAN DYLAN GOODWIN British author Nathan Dylan Goodwin, featured in the past on the Genealogy Gems Book Club with his novel The Lost Ancestor has a NEW novel out in same forensic genealogy mystery series. The Spyglass File: Hero Morton Farrier is back, and he's on the trail of his client's newly-discovered biological family. That trail leads to the fascinating story of a young woman who provides valuable but secret service during World War II—and who unknowingly became an entry in the mysterious Spyglass File. The connection is still so dangerous that Morton's going to have bad guys after him again, and he may or may not be kidnapped right before he's supposed to marry the lovely Juliette. Meanwhile, you'll find him anguishing over the continuing mystery of his own biological roots—a story that unfolds just a little more in this new book. MAILBOX: School Records Suggestion Responding to Genealogy Gems Podcast episode #194: "For those that have these old school records, consider donating them (even a digitized image) to the school from whence they originated. I shared class photos taken in the 1940s with my parents' grade schools. The school was so appreciative! I hope another researcher down the road benefits from the pictures as well." - Laura MAILBOX: Passing on the Gossip Blog post with Jennifer's letter, my response, and several more comments Here's a link to a post about the stamp pendant Jennifer sent me Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search historical records on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. In the near future, RootsMagic will be fully integrated with Ancestry.com, too: you'll be able to sync your RootsMagic trees with your Ancestry.com trees and search records on the site. Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/Lisa. INTERVIEW: Kate Eakman and Getting Started in Irish Genealogy GENEALOGY GEMS EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Go to www.legacytree.com/genealogygems and use coupon code SAVE100 to save $100 on your purchase of research services. Legacy Tree Genealogist specialist Kate Eakman shares tips about getting started in Irish genealogy. Here are the highlights: Q: Where would you recommend the hobbyist start their Irish search? A: Not a lot of Irish records are available online for free. Top sites for Irish records include: FamilySearch.org (click here for their Ireland landing page), National Archives of Ireland, Irishgenealogy.ie and Findmypast.com (click here for their Ireland page). Q: What does a researcher need to know before crossing the pond? A: Where the person was born in Ireland. The county. Find out if they were Protestant or Catholic. Click here for an interactive map of Irish counties, including those of Northern Ireland. Q: Where do you recommend they look for that info in the U.S. crossing the pond? A: Death records, marriage records, church records (keep an eye on extended family), passenger lists, naturalization papers. Keep an eye out for extended family members who may have come from the same place. Be aware of traditional Irish naming conventions and patterns. Q: At what point in the Irish research process do hobbyists usually get stuck? A: Common names regularly recycled, so it can be tough to sort out who is who. Also, a huge fire at the Public Records Office in Dublin in 1922 destroyed the bulk of government records. Click here for a description of what was lost and what surviving fragments are coming soon to Findmypast.com. Q: How does it work to work with a professional genealogist at Legacy Tree Genealogists? A: Here's the process. A manager calls or emails the client to discuss their needs and parameters. They identify the goals and determine what the client already knows. A goal is settled on and then a researcher is assigned to the client. A written report of the research conducted is provided. GENEALOGY GEMS EXCLUSIVE OFFER: Go to www.legacytree.com/genealogygems and use coupon code SAVE100 to save $100 on your purchase of research services. The Legacy Tree Discovery package provides for 3.5 hours of preliminary analysis and research recommendations. It's a great way to get started if you've hit a brick wall in your research and could use some expert guidance. Click here to learn more. This episode is sponsored by MyHeritage.com. the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it's free to get started. DNA GEM with Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard: Organizing Your DNA I can tell whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher by the state of the silverware drawer. If either of the boys have done it (ages 13 and 11), the forks are haphazardly in a jumble and the spoon stack has overflowed into the knife section, and the measuring spoons are nowhere to be found. If, on the other hand, it was my daughter (age 8), everything is perfectly in order. Not only are all the forks where they belong, but the small forks and the large forks have been separated into their own piles and the measuring spoons are nestled neatly in size order. Regardless of the state of your own silverware drawer, it is clear that most of us need some sort of direction when it comes to organizing our DNA test results. Organizing your matches entails more than just lining them up into nice categories like Mom's side vs. Dad's side, or known connections vs. unknown connections. Organizing your results involves making a plan for their use. Good organization for your test results can help you reveal or refine your genealogical goals, and help determine your next steps. The very first step is to download your raw data from your testing company and store it somewhere on your own computer. I have instructions on my website if you need help. Once that is complete, we can get to the match list. One common situation for those of you who have several generations of ancestors in the United States, you may have some ancestors that seem to have produced a lot of descendants who have caught the DNA testing vision. This can be like your overflowing spoon stack, and it may be obscuring some valuable matches. But identifying and putting all of those known matches in their proper context can help you realize these abundant matches may lead to clues about the descendant lines of your known ancestral couple that you were not aware of. In my Organizing Your DNA Matches quick sheet I outline a process for drawing out the genetic and genealogical relationships of these known connections to better understand their relationship to each other and to you. It is then easier to verify that your genetic connection is aligned with your known genealogical paper trail and spot areas that might need more research. This same idea of plotting the relationships of your matches to each other can also be employed as you are looking to break down a brick wall in your family tree, or even in cases of adoption. They key to identifying unknowns is determining the relationships of your matches to each other, so you can better see where you might fit in. Another helpful tool is a trick I learned from our very own Lisa Louise Cooke, and that is Google Earth. Have you ever tried to use Google Earth to help you in your genetic genealogy? Remember that the common ancestor between you and your match has three things that connect you to them: their genetics, surnames, and locations. We know the genetics is working because they are showing up on your match list. But often times you cannot see a shared surname among your matches. However, by plotting their locations in the free Google Earth, kind of like separating the big forks from the little forks, you might be able to recognize a shared location that would identify which line you should investigate for a shared connection. So, what are you waiting for? Line up those spoons and separate the big forks from the little forks, your organizing efforts may just reveal a family of measuring Spoons, all lined up and waiting to be added to your family history. GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB: Sarah A. Chrisman Author spotlight: Sarah A. Chrisman, living icon of the Victorian age. Sarah and her husband Gabriel live like it's about 1889. They wear Victorian-style clothing and use a wood-burning stove and antique ice box. Sarah wears a corset day and night Gabriel wears 19th century glasses. No TV, no cell phones—and Sarah isn't even a licensed driver. For this Book Club, you can take your pick of Sarah's books! Which would you like to read? This Victorian Life: Modern Adventures in Nineteenth-Century Culture, Cooking, Fashion and Technologies, a memoir Sarah's everyday life. The Book Club interview in December will focus mainly on this book. Victorian Secrets: What a Corset Taught Me about the Past, the Present and Myself; True Ladies and Proper Gentlemen: Victorian Etiquette for Modern Day Mothers and Fathers, Husbands and Wives, Boys and Girls, Teachers and Students, and More; First Wheel in Town: A Victorian Cycling Club Romance. This is from her series of light-hearted historical fiction set in an era she knows well! In honor of the Book Club theme, Genealogy Gems is going Victorian! From now through the end of the year, you'll find Victorian-inspired crafts, recipes, décor, fashions and more on our Instagram and Pinterest sites, which of course we'll link to regularly from the Genealogy Gems website, newsletter, podcast show notes and Facebook page. Nobody does sumptuous holiday traditions quite like the Victorians, and we look forward to celebrating that. BONUS CONTENT for Genealogy Gems App Users If you're listening through the Genealogy Gems app, your bonus content for this episode is a PDF with instructions on accessing the new free Guild of One-Name databases on FamilySearch.org. The Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users. Receive our FREE Genealogy Gems Newsletter: Enter your email & get my Google Research e-bookas a thank you gift! Subscribe to the Genealogy Gems newsletter to receive a free weekly e-mail newsletter, with tips, inspiration and money-saving deals.

The Genealogy Gems Podcast with Lisa Louise Cooke In this episode, I'm celebrating the 100th episode of another podcast I host: the Family Tree Magazine podcast. So I'll flashback to one of my favorite interviews from that show, an inspiring get-in-shape conversation for your research skills: how you can strengthen your research muscles and tone those technology skills to find and share your family history. More episode highlights: News on Chronicling America and Scotland's People; Comments from guest expert Lisa Alzo on millions of Czech records that have recently come online; A YouTube-for-genealogy success story from a woman I met at a conference; An excerpt from the Genealogy Gems Book Club interview with Chris Cleave, author of Everyone Brave is Forgiven; Diahan Southard shares a DNA gem: the free website GEDmatch, which you might be ready for if you've done some DNA testing. Listen now - click the player below: NEWS: Genealogy.coach Genealogy.coach NEWS: GENEALOGY WEBSITE UPDATES Scotland's People Findmypast.com: Scottish records Chronicling America Chronicling America: New state partners join the program Chronicling America: Expanding its current scope MyHeritage Adds DNA Matching NEW RECORDS ONLINE: FREE CZECH RECORDS AT FAMILYSEARCH.ORG Czech Republic Church Records 1552-1963 Czech Republic Land Records 1450-1889 Czech Republic School Registers 1799-1953 On browse-only records: Though not fully indexed, the new Czech browse-only records number over 4 million. Click here learn how to use browse-only collections on FamilySearch.org. Lisa Alzo, Eastern European genealogy expert and author of the new book The Family Tree Polish, Czech and Slovak Genealogy Guide comments on the significance of these records coming online: "These records are a real boon for Czech researchers because at one time the only to get records such as these was to write to an archive and taking a chance on getting a response or spending a lot of money to hire someone to find the records or to travel there yourself to do research in the archives. The church records contain Images and some indexes of baptisms/births, marriages, and deaths that occurred in the Roman Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, and Reformed Church parishes, as well as entries in those registers for Jews. Land transactions containing significant genealogical detail for a time period that predates parish registers. The collection includes records from regional archives in Opava and Třeboň and from the district archive in Trutnov. School registers contain the full name for a child, birth date, place of birth, country, religion and father's full name, and place of residence. While researchers should keep in mind that not everything is yet online,and FamilySearch will likely add to its collection, having these records from FS is an amazing resource for anyone whose ancestors may have come from these areas. And hopefully there are more records to come!" GENEALOGY GEMS NEWS Celebrating 2 million downloads of the Genealogy Gems podcast and GenealogyGems.com named as one of Family Tree Magazine's 101 Best Websites for 2016 Story of My Life by Sunny Morton, life story-writing journal available as a print workbook and as a writeable pdf e-book Diahan Southard will be at the Back to Our Past conference in Dublin, Ireland, October 21 to 23, 2016 Genealogy Gems app users: For those of you who listen to this show through the Genealogy Gems app, your bonus handout is a PDF document with step-by-step instructions and helpful screenshots for Google image search on mobile devices. The Genealogy Gems app is FREE in Google Play and is only $2.99 for Windows, iPhone and iPad users Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search historical records on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. And in the near future, RootsMagic will be fully integrated with Ancestry.com, too: you'll be able to sync your RootsMagic trees with your Ancestry.com trees and search records on the site. Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. Learn more at http://www.backblaze.com/Lisa. Review your search results—especially those that pop up in the Images category. MAILBOX: Robin's YouTube Success Story YouTube video with Robyn's father: Cleves, Ohio: Edgewater Sports Park The Genealogist's Google Toolbox, 2nd edition has an entire chapter on using YouTube to find family history in historical videos YouTube for Family History: Finding Documentaries about Your Family MAILBOX: FEEDBACK ON THE PODCASTS Free, step-by-step podcast for beginners and a "refresher" course: Family History: Genealogy Made Easy Genealogy Gems Premium podcast SHAPING UP WITH SUNNY MORTON Family Tree Magazine Podcast celebrates 100th episode Sunny Morton has get-in-shape advice for us—from strengthening research skills to toning tech muscles--from the article "Shaping Up" featured in the March 2010 issue of Family Tree Magazine. More resources for genealogy education: Genealogy Gems Premium membership Family Tree University National Genealogical Society Educational Courses Boston University Programs in Genealogical Research Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree annual conference GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB: Everyone Brave is Forgiven, the best-selling novel by British author Chris Cleave. A love story set in World War II London and Malta. This story is intense, eye-opening and full of insights into the human experience of living and loving in a war zone—and afterward. Everyone Brave is Forgiven is inspired by love letters exchanged between the author's grandparents during World War II. Video: Chris Cleave on the U.S troops coming to Europe in World War II Click here for more Genealogy Gems Book Club titles MyHeritage.com is the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it's free to get started. GEDMATCH WITH DIAHAN SOUTHARD, YOUR DNA GUIDEThe genetic genealogy community has a crush. A big one. Everyone is talking about it. "It has such great features." says one. "It has a chromosome browser!" exclaims another. "It's FREE!" they all shout. What are they talking about? GEDmatch. GEDmatch is a mostly free online tool where anyone with autosomal DNA test results from 23andMe, FTDNA, and AncestryDNA can meet and share information. All you need to do is download your data from your testing company and upload it into your newly created GEDmatch account. GEDmatch is set up just like your testing company in that it provides two kinds of reports: ethnicity results, and a match list. Remember that ethnicity results, meaning those pie charts that report you are 15% Italian and 32% Irish, are based on two factors: a reference population and fancy math. GEDmatch has gathered data from multiple academic sources to provide you with several different iterations of ethnicity reports. This is like getting a second (and third and fourth, etc) opinion on a science that is still emerging. It is a fun exercise, but will likely not impact your genealogy research very much. The more important match list does allow you to see genetic cousins who have tested at other companies. Of course, only those who have downloaded their results and entered them into GEDmatch will show up on your list. This means GEDmatch has the potential to expand your pool of genetic cousins, increasing your chances of finding someone to help you track down that missing ancestor. Many also flock to GEDmatch because they were tested at AncestryDNA and thus do not have access to a chromosome browser. A chromosome browser allows you to visualize the physical locations that you share with someone else. Some find this to be a helpful tool when analyzing their DNA matches (though in my opinion it is not essential). GEDmatch also has some great genealogy features that let you analyze your pedigree against someone else's, as well as the ability to search all the pedigree charts in their system so you can look specifically for a descendant of a particular relative. However, even with all of these great features, GEDmatch is still yet another website you have to navigate, and with that will be a learning curve, and certainly some frustration. So, is it worth it? If you are fairly comfortable with the website where you were tested, and you are feeling both curious and patient, I say go for it. It's too much to try to tell you right this minute how to download your data from your testing site and upload it to GEDmatch. BUT you're in luck, I've put step-by-step instructions for getting started in a FREE tutorial on my website at www.yourDNAguide.com/transferring. After you've done the upload, you may need a little bit more help to navigate the GEDmatch site because there are so many great tools on it. I recently published a GEDmatch Quick Guide, where I have condensed into four pages the most essential features of GEDmatch to get you started and help you make use of this tool for genetic genealogy. Using my guide is an inexpensive and easy way to get a lot more out of a free online resource. I will also be adding more GEDmatch tutorials to my online tutorial series later this fall, which Genealogy Gems fans get a nice discount on (click here for that discount). By the way, have you tried GEDmatch? I would love to hear about your experiences. You can email me at guide@yourDNAguide.com. DNA QUICK GUIDE BUNDLES: NEW AND ON SALE Advanced DNA Quick Guide Bundle by Diahan Southard: GEDmatch: A Next Step for your Autosomal DNA Test Organizing Your DNA Matches: A Companion Guide Next Steps: Working with Your Autosomal DNA Matches SUPER DNA Quick Guide Bundle by Diahan Southard with ALL 10 Guides Getting Started: Genetics for the Genealogist Autosomal DNA for the Genealogist Mitochondrial DNA for the Genealogist Y Chromosome DNA for the Genealogist and Testing Companies: Understanding Ancestry: A Companion Guide to Autosomal DNA for the Genealogist Understanding Family Tree DNA: A Companion Guide to Autosomal DNA for the Genealogist Understanding 23 and Me: A Companion Guide to Autosomal DNA for the Genealogist and Advanced Tools Next Steps: Working With Your Autosomal DNA Matches Organzing Your DNA Matches GEDmatch: A Next Step for Your Autosomal DNA Test Genealogy Gems Podcast turns 200: Tell me what you think?As we count down to the 200th episode of the free Genealogy Gems Podcast, what have been YOUR favorite things about the podcast? Any particular topics, interviews or segments of the show? What keeps you coming back? What would you like to hear more of? Email me at genealogygemspodcast@gmail.com, or leave a voicemail at (925) 272-4021, or send mail to: P.O. Box 531, Rhome, TX 76078. FREE NEWSLETTER:

The Genealogy Gems Podcast with Lisa Louise Cooke Did you know you can use Google to help identify images, to find more images like them online, and even to track down images that have been moved to a different place online? Find these great Google tech tips in this episode, along with 10 tech-savvy tricks for finding an ancestor's school records. You will also hear how to create a family history photo decoupage plate: a perfect craft to give as a gift or create with children. This blast from the past episode comes from the digitally remastered Genealogy Gems Podcast episodes 11 and 12 (originally recorded in 2007). They are now interwoven with fresh narration; below you'll find all-new show notes. Google Image searches: Updated tips Click here to watch a short new tutorial video on using Google Images to find images for your genealogy research. Conduct an initial search using the search terms you want. The Image category (along with other categories) will appear on the screen along with your search results. For images of people: enter name as search term in quotes: "Mark Twain." If you have an unusual name or if you have extra time to scroll through results, enter the name without quotation marks. Other search terms to try: ancestral place names, tombstone, name of a building (school, church, etc.), the make and model of Grandpa's car, etc. Click on one of the image thumbnails to get to a highlight page (shown here) where you can visit the full webpage or view the image. If you click View images, you'll get the web address. To retrieve images that no longer appear at the expected URL: Click on View image to get the image URL. Copy the image's URL (Ctrl+C in Windows) and paste it (Ctrl+V) into your web browser to go to that image's page. When you click through, you're back in Web view. The first few search results should be from the website with the image you want. Click on a link that says "cache." A cached version is an older version of the website (hopefully a version dated before the image was moved or removed). Browse that version of the site to find the image. NEW Tip: Use Google Chrome to identify an image and find additional images showing the same subject, such as a place, person or subject. From the Google home page, click Images. In the Google search box, you'll see a little camera icon. Click on it. If you have an image from a website, insert the URL for that image. If you have an image on your computer, click Upload an image. Choose the file you want. Google will identify the image as best it can, whether a location, person, or object, and it will show you image search results that seem comparable. Click here to watch a free video tutorial on this topic. GEM: Decoupage a Family Photo Plate Supply List: Clear glass plate with a smooth finish (available at kitchen outlet and craft stores) Sponge craft brush Decoupage glue Fine paper-cutting scissors (Cuticle scissors work well) Small bottle of acrylic craft paint in a color you would like for the back A flat paintbrush Painter's tape Brush-on clear acrylic varnish for a glossy finish on the back of the plate A selection of photos (including other images that complement the photos) Assembling your plate: Lay out your design to fit the plate Add words if desired. You can draw directly on the copy or print it out and cut it to fit. Put an even coat of glue on the front of each photo. Don't worry about brush strokes, but be careful not to go over it too many times which could cause the ink to run. Apply the photos to the back of the plate, working in reverse order (the first images placed on the plate will be in the foreground of the design). Glue the edges firmly. Turn the plate over to check the placement of images. Smooth using craft brush. Brush glue over the back of each photo. Turn the plate around so you can see the image from the front and work out the air bubbles. Continue to place the images until the entire plate is covered. Let it dry 24 hours. Use painters' tape to tape off the edges before you apply the acrylic paint to the back of the plate. Paint the back and let dry. Apply a second coat. Let dry. Apply an acrylic varnish for a glossy finish on the back. Let dry. Lisa Louise Cooke uses and recommends RootsMagic family history software. From within RootsMagic, you can search historical records on FamilySearch.org, Findmypast.com and MyHeritage.com. And soon, RootsMagic will be fully integrated with Ancestry.com, too: you'll be able to sync your RootsMagic trees with your Ancestry.com trees and search records on the site. Keep your family history research, photos, tree software files, videos and all other computer files safely backed up with Backblaze.com/Lisa, the official cloud-based computer backup system for Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems. GENEALOGY GEMS BOOK CLUB Our current book is Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave. Follow the story of Mary North, a wealthy young Londoner who signs up for the war effort when the Great War reaches England. Originally assigned as a schoolteacher, she turns to other tasks after her students evacuate to the countryside, but not before beginning a relationship that leads to a love triangle and long-distance war-time romance. As her love interest dodges air raids on Malta, she dodges danger in London driving ambulances during air raids in the Blitz. This story is intense, eye-opening and full of insights into the human experience of living and loving in a war zone—and afterward. Everyone Brave is Forgiven is inspired by love letters exchanged between the author's grandparents during World War II. Video: Chris Cleave on the U.S troops coming to Europe in World War II Click here for more Genealogy Gems Book Club titles GEM: Top 10 Tips for finding Graduation Gems in your family history Establish a timeline. Check your genealogy database to figure out when your ancestor would have attended high school or college. Consult family papers and books. Go through old family papers & books looking for senior calling cards, high school autograph books, journals and diaries, senior portraits, fraternity or sorority memorabilia and yearbooks. Search newspapers. Look for school announcements, honor rolls, sports coverage, end-of-year activities and related articles. Updated tips and online resources: Ancestry.com has moved the bulk of its historical newspaper collection to its sister subscription website, Newpapers.com. Search your browser for the public library website in the town where your ancestor attended school. Check the online card catalogue, look for a local history or genealogy webpage, or contact them to see what newspapers they have, and whether any can be loaned (on microfilm) through interlibrary loan. Search the Library of Congress' newspaper website, Chronicling America, for digitized newspaper content relating your ancestor's school years. Also, search its U.S. Newspaper Directory since 1690 for the names and library holdings of local newspapers. FamilySearch.org online catalog Contact local historical and genealogical societies for newspaper holdings. Consult the websites of U.S. state archives and libraries: click here to find a directory of state libraries State historical and genealogical societies. In addition to newspapers, state historical and genealogical societies might have old yearbooks or school photograph collections. For example, the Ohio Genealogical Society library has a large (and growing) collection of Ohio school yearbooks. Local historical and genealogical societies may also have school memorabilia collections. RootsWeb, now at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Check the message board for the county and state you're looking for. Post a message asking if anyone has access to yearbooks or other school info. TIP: Use Google site search operator to find mentions of yearbooks on the county page you're looking at. Add site: to the front of the Rootsweb page for the locale, then the word yearbook after it. For example: Search for online yearbooks at websites such as: Old-Yearbooks.com Classmates.com Ancestry.com now has a large yearbook collection Yearbookgenealogy.com and the National Yearbook Project, mentioned in the show, no longer exist as such US GenWeb at www.usgenweb.org. Search on the county website where the school was located. Is there anyone willing to do a lookup? Is there a place to post which yearbooks you're looking for? Call the school, if it's still open. If they don't have old yearbooks, they may be able to put you in touch with a local librarian or historian who does. TIP: Go to www.whowhere.com and type the school name in "Business Name." Call around 4:00 pm local time, when the kids are gone but the school office is still open. ebay: Do a search on the school or town you're looking for to see if anyone out there is selling a yearbook that you need. Also search for old photographs or postcards of the school. Here's my extra trick: From the results page, check the box to include completed listings and email potential sellers to inquire about the books you are looking for. TIP: Don't be afraid to ask – ebay sellers want to sell! And if all else fails, set up an ebay Favorite Search to keep a look out for you. Go to and check out Episode #3 for instructions on how to do this. MyHeritage.com is the place to make connections with relatives overseas, particularly with those who may still live in your ancestral homeland. Click here to see what MyHeritage can do for you: it's free to get started. FREE NEWSLETTER: Enter your email & get my Google Research e-bookas a thank you gift! Subscribe to the Genealogy Gems newsletter to receive a free weekly e-mail newsletter, with tips, inspiration and money-saving deals.