What about having a family reunion ?

A family reunion would be a wonderful opportunity to get together with your living relatives, and also to do plenty of family history research.Make sure you have plenty of Family Group Sheets on hand to get everyone to fill out all they know about their family. I've spoken to people on the telephone and by email, and they promise to provide information, but only about 20% of people actually do it unless you continually follow them up. Make sure you get everyone to bring old photo's and documents and other family history stuff with them as this will all help in your search for your ancestors, and will make a wonderful exhibit for other family members to view on the day. It's a great way to get people talking!

Now as anyone knows a whole lot of organizing and planning is going to be required to have a successful family reunion. I'll outline a few basic things for you to think about before you start something that gets completely out of control. Naturally it would be great if you have someone in the family who is a fantastic organizer!

Some basic considerations are:-

• How many people can we handle coming to this reunion?
• How far back should we go, descendants of G.G Grandfather or G.G.G Grandfather and so on?
• What percentage of people will actually attend?
• Do you want it to be a day event or perhaps a 2 day event?
• Should we book out a restaurant or have a barbecue in the park or at home?
• What type of activities should we have to keep them entertained and bring them all closer together?
• Where can everyone stay overnight or the weekend?
• Perhaps get an organization committee together at least 6 to 12 months before the event. The more helpers the better, but make sure someone is in charge!
• How much can we charge people to cover costs? People can be a bit funny when it comes to money. These are just a few things to consider before you jump into holding a reunion event.

Software and Reunion Help.
A website that is really dedicated to helping you with your family reunion is Family-Reunion.com , they specialize in getting you prepared for the big day. They even have family reunion software to make it that much easier for you to keep track of what you are doing.

Setting up a Website
You can even setup a website for the event, so that people can check the progress and direct missing relatives to it, you could include access to the family tree, and perhaps include a directory of people with names address etc, include old photo's and stories and invite others to send in any interesting photo's and stories that they have.

Make sure you promote the event, and get your relatives actively involved in tracking down those long lost relatives. You will find that most people will look forward to the event with great anticipation.

Most importantly make sure that you enjoy yourself on the day. A well organized event will mean that it will run smoothly for you!

Good Luck!

See you again soon.

Were Any of Your Ancestors in the Military ?

Military records are another great source of information when researching the family history. Most people would have a father, uncle or grandfather who served his country at one time or another. I know that I had my grandfather who served in WW1 and I had several uncles who served in WW2, it is tremendous to be able to view military records in relation to their service.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission or CWGC have a database known as the "Debt of Honour Register" which lists the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth Forces who died serving their country in the two world wars and the 23,000 cemeteries and memorials worldwide where they are commemorated. This register has a search engine where you can type in the details of the person or even a surname to get a result. This is yet another great free genealogy resource which you can make use of, to find an ancestor.

In the USA the best place to search for military records is at Ancestry.com who have a huge collection of military information going back to 1775.

Other places to search for US Military Records are:-

• The National Archives
• Ancestor Search - US Military
• About.Com - US Military
• Online Military Indexes and Records

You can also do a Google search on a term like "US military records" and check the results.

In the UK you can check out a site called Find My Past  they also offer a 14 day free trial and another site called  Military Genealogy is also well worth looking at.


In Australia you should check the following which are all great resources:-

• The National Archives of Australia 
• World War 2 Nominal Roll
• Australia War Memorial - Research and Family History
• Australia War Memorial - Database
•  Australian People Records - Military
 

I hope that this has again been useful for you, and if I have not mentioned your part of the world, I do apologize, but you should just try a Google search on "Your Country Military Records" and naturally change the Your Country to the name of your country. 

See you next time!

Peter Annett

 

Cemeteries - As a Genealogy Resource to Find Your Family

I guess like most genealogists, I've spent my fair share of time wandering around cemeteries looking at headstones. There is no doubt that this is a great way to find out information on family history if you know where family members are buried. I guess that in my own family history search I was lucky that most of my family lived and died in a particular area in Western Victoria here in Australia, so I probably only had to check out about 20 cemeteries to gather a lot of my information.

Anyway having to walk around cemeteries could soon be a thing of the past, as some cemeteries are now making their burial registers available on the internet! Much of the information is being gathered by volunteers, and then being placed on the internet, some of it even includes headstone transcriptions! This is a wonderful idea, and will help many people research their family in the future. If your local cemetery has not yet started to do this, you should suggest it!

Interment.net is a free online library for historical and genealogy research and contains thousands of burial and cemetery records from all over the world. Here in Australia the best links are at Australian Cemeteries and  South West Victorian Cemeteries .

Please make a comment or suggestion if you have any useful information on gathering research material from cemeteries.

All the best, until next time!
Peter Annett

Family History Research - Births,Deaths and Marriages

Virtually every country will have records of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the archives somewhere. In the USA you can do an online public records search at Search National Records to find out all sorts of vital information including Births,Deaths,Marriages and Criminal Records. If you find someone of interest you can then get a "Comprehensive Public Record Report" for $29.95 (Usually $59.95) or a "Basic Public Record" report for $14.95 and then for an extra $9.95 you can get a 1 year unlimited search pass. I think this $9.95 search pass is the best value for money search you'll find!

Other options are to veiw the Social Security Death Index at RootsWeb SSDI which is a great resource to know about, where you can search over 86 million records!. If you are interested in ordering Birth, Death and Marriage certificates online please go to Order Certificates Online!

I'm from Australia, so I will let my fellow Australian's know where they can get great information from also.

The New South Wales state government has a website for Births,Deaths & Marriages and it also has a section called "Family History" where you can do a free online search of births(1788-1909) and deaths(1788-1979), the search result will give you a name a year, registration number, mother's name and father's name and the name of the district it was recorded in. This is very useful information, and you can get an actual copy of the certificate for $28.00. They also have some early church records, which could be worth looking in to!

Here are some useful links for Births,Deaths and marriages for the rest of Australia:-
Victoria
South Australia
Western Australia
Queensland
Tasmania
Northern Territory

If you are looking for Births,Deaths and Marriages information in the UK the best place to go is UK BMD they also have Census records and various church records.

If you are looking for Canadian records you may want to try the Vital Statistics Office and also they are part of a wonderful program called Births, Deaths and Marriages Exchange which is a free information resource for genealogists to share information contained on birth, marriage and death certificates. This sounds like a really great idea!

Sorry if I haven't mentioned your part of the world here, if you like just do a Google search on "My Country births, deaths and marriages information" and you are bound to find what you are looking for.

If you have any comments or great ideas you'd like to share, please make a comment as it is always appreciated.

See you again soon.

Peter Annett

Family History Search - Continuing the Free Online Ancestor Hunt!

I'm still trying to keep the wallet in your pocket for a little bit longer by finding some free stuff! As I previously mentioned there are many sites willing to let you do searches and give you a little information for free, but as soon as you click on the "More Information" button you will find that a fee is involved.


Ancestor Hunt is a great site to use when doing free searches for ancestors. It has a large list where you can do numerous searches from free online genealogical data base's. One of the oldest and largest free databases supported by Ancestry.com is RootsWeb, much of the information has been accumulated over the years through the submission of genealogical data from the community.World Connect is where people submit their family tree as part of the huge RootsWeb data base, and this contains over 575 million names! Every chance you'll find some ancestors amongst that lot!

When researching family history, a great source of information are old newspapers. Did a member of your family do something which made the newspapers ? Something you will always find in newspapers are events like births, deaths and marriages. We'll look at this option in more detail shortly.

Remember to enjoy the search for your family history. It's a bit like being a detective, putting together all the evidence which you are accumulating and coming out with an end result. You have probably already discovered a few family secrets which have been hidden for generations. I guess you can even research history to find out if any criminals are part of your family, you may find out all sorts of juicy information.


See you next time!

Peter Annett

Continuing the Online Genealogy Search for Your Family

By now you should have found lots of free genealogy information out there to keep you amused for a day or two.

There is every chance that you will have discovered that another branch of your family has already been researching the family history, if so this will make your search that much easier. Make contact with any such people to find out how they are going and if they are interested in sharing some of the information they have already gathered, as I'm sure that they in turn will be very interested in what you have to offer in return.

Again if you find any genealogy sites offering a free trial period, you should definitely make the most of it, as you can do a fair bit of research in a 7 or 14 day period, try the 14 Day Free Trial at - Ancestry.com . Another free source of information you may have already discovered is Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet, virtually everything to do with genealogy is listed, I think I'm even there somewhere!

Short and sweet today, catch you again tomorrow!

Peter Annett

Where do I start my online genealogy search ?

Hopefully by now you have installed your genealogy software, and entered all the known facts about your family into it. The great thing about most genealogy software these days is that you can upload photos as well, so when you are collecting all the information and stories on your ancestors, please check if someone also has a photo of them, because it adds so much more to your end result.

When trying to search for your ancestry it is always a good idea to start out with the options that are out there which you can access for free. I'll let you keep your wallets in your pocket for at least one more day! Here are some of the free options available:-

1. Google search on your name/surname or subject. It is surprising how much information you can find. I'll use my surname of "Annett" as an example. If you type in a search like "Annett family tree" or "Annett genealogy" without the "" it is surprising what is out there! Here are a few more popular terms people are using at the moment when doing genealogy searches, ancestry, genealogy, ancestry search, family ancestry, family history library, family history research, family history search, family name history, family tree, find ancestors, find my ancestors, find my family, find your ancestors, genealogy charts, genealogy records, genealogy research, genealogy search, genealogy tree, genealogy websites, mormon genealogy and my ancestry.These are just a few of the possibilities you can use, I'm sure that you will come up with some good ones of your own!
2. Don't just use Google, use many of the other popular search engines, Yahoo is the other big one. You can get a good list of search engines including search boxes at 20 Search , or just try a Google search on "Best Search Engines List" to choose for yourself.
3. There are a number of sites offering free information, some you'll find will give you a little bit for free, then they'll let you know that you need to pay to get further information Ancestry.com who created the software Family Tree Maker is certainly worth looking at as they do provide some initial free information and 14 Day Free Trial of products and memberships. Archives.Com say you can search 1 Billion Records which is pretty impressive and well worth investigation and I think they were offering a 7 day free trial period(please use banner at top of page).Onegreatfamily.com also have a massive data base and offer a 7 day free trial period.Others to look at are Family Search, Search for Ancestors, Ancestor Hunt, and My Heritage they are all worth looking at. If you do a Google search on Free Genealogy Search you will find lots of information to excite you!

I hope that you have again enjoyed my posting, and I look forward to hearing from you, comments are always greatly appreciated and if you can direct the followers of this blog to some more great free stuff, please let us know.

Regards,
Peter Annett

 

 

 

Genealogy Software - Do I need it ?

The answer to this question is a simple YES!  I'll explain why shortly.

After gathering all of the information from your immediate family and friends, you will now hopefully have plenty of "Family Group Sheets" full of great genealogy records ready to be entered into a genealogy software program. I know that many people will think that you can just use a spreadsheet to record it, but you really do need software as your family tree keeps growing. I have seen people create massive spreadsheets which they have spent hours and hours updating, and it has still ended up as a mess at the end of the day.

If you don't have any cash to spare and want a basic free program that will get you started Personal Ancestral File known as PAF is a great one to begin with. It has been created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and it was the one that I used when I first started.

I will review genealogy software in more detail in a future blog, however the one that I currently use is Family Tree Makerby Ancestry.com which you'll find very user friendly with loads of special features and very reasonably priced at US$39.95 for the 2010 version.

Thanks for dropping in, see you next time, where we'll discuss some online options to find your ancestors, and to assist you in your genealogy search.

Peter Annett

Family History - What does my family already know ?

Interview Your Family
It's a good idea during this initial phase of your family history search, to actually interview the members of your family that you already know. Write down the information you gather, ensuring that you record who provided this information. You will always find that there are conflicting versions of the family history, as some members get people and events mixed up. Perhaps put a question mark next to things which differ, as a reminder to investigate it further at a later time. Part of the fun of researching your family is finding out the truth when faced with conflicting versions.

At this early stage of your research it is a good idea to make sure that you have all the facts documented and sourced in a meaningful format that you can understand. Make sure you remain organized! It is a great idea to either create a "Family Group Sheet" or you can Download a Free Sheet from this link where you can enter the details of a specific branch of your family tree.

This sheet should contain the following details:-

• Husband - First Name, Last Name, Birth Date, Birth Place, Marriage Date, Marriage Place, Death Date, Death Place, Buried, His Father's Name, His Mother's Name
• Wife - First Name, Last Name, Birth Date, Birth Place, Marriage Date, Marriage Place, Death Date, Death Place, Buried, Her Father's Name, Her Mother's Name
• Children - Name, Male/Female, Birth Date/Place, Marriage Date/Place, Spouse, Death Date/Place, Buried

 The great thing with this sheet is that you can use it to record information yourself, or just hand it out to your relatives, and get them to fill it in themselves. I remember mailing it out to everyone in Australia who had my surname, which I think was about 200 at the time.

We will have a look at Genealogy Software tomorrow!

Anyway I hope you enjoyed today's Blog and that it gave you some good ideas, remember your comments are always appreciated, and I'd love to hear from you.

See you soon!
Peter Annett

Getting Started with Family History and Genealogy

Family history and genealogy have become really popular in recent times due to all the advancements and developments on the internet. Also older people are now more capable and willing to embrace this new technology and want access to it. Genealogy has definitely become a boom industry in the last 10 to 15 years.

Like any new project, it is probably a good idea to draw up a plan which you can refer to, so that a degree of order can be maintained in what you are doing. It is very easy to get distracted, by jumping from one thing to the next. There is a huge amount of information out there, so let's not try to take it all in at once! If you do you could suffer from information overload!


My own interest in genealogy began in 1998 after my father suddenly passed away. I guess I felt that a record of our family history needed to be kept, and that with my father's passing a lot of that history had already been lost forever. It was time to get actively involved in finding out all I could about our family while there were still elderly members of the family with good memories still around. I was annoyed that I had not thought to start this project earlier, as 8 months before my father passed away, his mother had also passed away at the age of 108, and she had a great memory right up to the end. Anyway it was pointless to dwell on what may have been, and it was time for some positive action.


Getting Started
I started my crusade by digging out old photo albums and old documents and letters which had been in the family for many years. I went through all these firstly with my mother, as she was able to identify many of the people in the photographs, then with other elderly relatives and family friends.

You find that most elderly people love to go back in time when looking at old photo's, and that seeing these photos jolts the memory and they are able to recall many interesting stories about the people in them. It is a good idea to note down all the information on who is in each photo. Also write down or even record by video or audio the many stories told to you about events and the history of the photo and the people in them. If at all possible you should scan the photo's that are of interest to you, so that you can have them stored on your computer to be viewed and used at a later time.


Even if you don't intend to get involved in your family history at this time, it is still a good idea to get the people in your old photo's identified while there is still someone around to do so!



We will have a look at what information your family already has access to tomorrow, and we'll have a look at Genealogy Software on the following day.

Anyway I think that this is enough for most people to make a start in researching their family history. I'll be back again soon with further tips and steps which can be followed.


If you have any comments or tips of your own, I'd love to hear from you!

Best wishes,
Peter Annett