GENEalogy and Family HiSTORY: The Beginning Story

From my teenage years I have been interested in learning about my family, both ancestors and what came to be my posterity.  It all started when my mother began preparing a four-generation pedigree chart with associated family group records in the late 1960's to submit to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah at the request of Church leaders.

For my undergraduate work I went to Brigham Young University.  One Sunday afternoon I went to the library which was open for genealogy research.  I had had no success that day, but a lot of fun, searching for our immigrant ancestor, Matthias Corwin.  We believed he had come to Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1633 but had not found how he got there, or the town from which he emigrated.

The library chimed that it was time to leave. I picked up my papers and began sauntering out.  Walking through two stacks I saw (and can still see it today!) a thin red leather volume that called out to me.  I pulled it out and thumbed through it.  It was a book of passenger lists.  There on the page was Matthias Corwin, his brother George, and his sister  Martha (I think)!  They had come from Sibbertoft, Northamptonshire, England.  That was the information I had been seeking, and there it was.

That hooked me!

Sadly, I did not record the name, etc of the book so I do not have an actual source record, just my memory.  Memory being what it is, well, I am trying to locate that book now after all those years.  Maybe with online options, I will find it.

For all the years since that day, I have been learning and teaching genealogy and family history principles.  In fact tomorrow I will be presenting to the local Rotary Club.  I have a very short slide presentation. Because I imagine these men and women will be meeting on their lunch hour, I need to be fast. I will speak briefly about myself and background as I was asked, talk about what a genealogist does, show a little video, then show a minute part of FamilySearch.org.

We shall see how it goes.

Genealogy Today: Software can be a bear....

In the last few months I have been introduced to several pieces of software that are purported great for use in genealogical and family history research, recording, and sharing.  What a great idea!  Sadly, at least one piece of the software may be beyond my capabilities.

Those new-to-me software packages are Evernote, Camscanner, and Flipboard.

Evernote is an application that I acquired more than a year ago and only used briefly at the time I downloaded and set it up.  I liked the idea but did not do much.  Recently I have found, and begun using, the Evernote Web Clipper.  It is fantastic!  Just a perfect help for all things online.  I love it.

Camscanner is a little app which I use with the iPad Mini that Dear One gave me when he was moving on to something else.  I do like this app.  I have been mostly successful with it, taking photos of documents and doing a bit of cropping, but nothing fancy. I believe there is more to the app for me to learn, and I probably will.

Flipboard is a much more recent find, and so far, totally escapes me.  I have one magazine set up but cannot see how to set up another one on a different subject. I also do not see how to add content to the hopefully-new-magazine.  Watching tutorials on YouTube so far I have not yet mined the information that I need. 

I do hate to have technology get the better of me.  I am not planning to be defeated by it, so will spend more time.  I think it can be a useful tool in gathering online data on a particular subject in one place for easy access.  At least, that is what I understand I should be able to do, but....not so far!