The Family History Project, sponsored by The History Channel, is a Web filled to the brim with informative ‘how-to’ tips for people interested in their British and Irish ancestry. Here you will find useful articles that will help you accomplish your research (for example, Tracing Emigrant Ancestors); expert advice (for example, Search the 1901 Census); video training clips (for example, Army Records); and genealogical events in the UK and Ireland. In additional the Web site provides a place for your personal Web page where you can build and store your family tree as well as features useful links to the National Archives, the Royal British Legion and the Imperial War Museum and more.

This site is well-worth visiting if your ancestry originated in the British Isles! Please point your browsers to:
www.thefamilyhistoryproject.co.uk

This Quick Tip is also available as a free video.

Have you ever searched the records of a town, only to find nothing about your ancestor? In these situations, good genealogical methodology suggests to search the records of nearby towns. Legacy Family Tree’s Radius Search tool will provide you with a list of localities within a given distance from the original location.

Step 1. To use the Radius Search tool, first you’ll need to make sure that you have installed Legacy’s Geo Location Database. This database is a collection of nearly three million current locations worldwide divided into six regions: Pacific Islands, United States, Africa, Americas (non-USA), Asia, and Europe. Each location includes the name of the city, the county or province, the state, if any, and the country name. Along with this information the latitude and longitude coordinates are also included.

For step-by-step instructions on installing this database, from Legacy, click on the Help menu, then click on Search for Help On. On the Index tab, type in this phrase: Geo Location Database Setup, then click Display. Follow the instructions to complete the setup. You’ll then be able to use the Radius Search tool.

Step 2. To use this tool, click on the Tools menu, then click on Geo Location Database. In the appropriate fields (city, county, state/province, country) type in the name of the known location, then click on the Search button. See the example below:

Step 3. In the example above, Woodstock, Windham County, Connecticut is the known location. To find a list of surrounding locations, click on the binoculars button in the far lower right.

Enter the desired mile radius, and click OK. Legacy then searches the Geo Location Database for all locations within the radius. In the example below, there are 18 known locations within 5 miles of Woodstock. Your search can now continue into the records of these towns.

This Quick Tip is also available as a free video.

DearREADERS,

This is the lineup for this week’s show:

• Holly T. Hansen, President http://www.myancestorsfound.com, Editor of Everton’s Genealogical Helper Magazine.
• Evan Eastley, producer of PRF Magnet
• Elizabeth Powell Crowe - www.vitalrec.com, Library of Virginia, WV vital records online

Click here to listen to the show.

Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt
DearMYRTLE,
6023 26th Street West PMB 352
Bradenton, FL 34207
http://www.DearMYRTLE.com

The Encyclopedia of Genealogy serves as a compendium of genealogical tools and techniques. It provides reference information about everything in genealogy except people. Look to the Encyclopedia of Genealogy to provide explanations of how to look up your family tree, explanations of terms found in genealogy research, including obsolete medical and legal terms. It will describe locations where records may be found. It also will describe how to research Italian, German, Polish, French-Canadian, Jewish, Black, Indian and other ancestors. In short, the Encyclopedia of Genealogy will serve as your standard genealogy reference manual.

NOTE: This encyclopedia is not a place to find all the ancestors of John Doe or all the descendants of John and Mary Smith. The World Wide Web already has many online message boards and databases that perform that function well. Instead, the Encyclopedia of Genealogy serves as a clearinghouse of genealogy techniques: where to find records, how to organize the data found, what the terminology means and how to plan your next research effort.

The Encyclopedia of Genealogy is created by genealogists like yourself. In fact, YOU can help by adding content: your own knowledge and expertise can help others. If you see anything in this encyclopedia that is incorrect, YOU can change it! If you see anything that is incomplete, YOU can add to it! If you note anything that is missing, YOU can add it! This encyclopedia will succeed because people like you contribute nuggets of information. When enough “nuggets” are added, the Encyclopedia of Genealogy will become a gold mine.

Visit the Encyclopedia now by clicking here.

MapYourAncestors at http://www.mapyourancestors.com will generate a Google Earth Map from the family tree and photos you provide, and they will do it free!

The MapYourAncestors home page displays the family tree and map for President George W. Bush. There are also links for his Life Chronology map and Ancestor Chronology map. MapYourAncestors provides downloadable Excel spreadsheets for you to fill out and directions for emailing them when completed.

One spreadsheet is for beginners and the other is for advanced family historians. Allow MapYourAncestors 48 hours to generate a map and your family tree will be plotted on Google Earth Maps. Currently this service is free; however, they request support through donations and ad clicks.

MapYourAncestors’ stated mission is to “bring genealogy to life by providing a means whereby the hard work you put into genealogical research can be enjoyed to its fullest by you, your family, and your friends. We hope you enjoy your Free web site as you trace your ancestors’ paths and zoom in on the satellite images of your great-great-great-grandparents’ back yard. Enjoy your Journey back in time and around the globe!”

Hey, you can also use this web site to plot your next research trip to the places your ancestors lived!

It’s been 1 year, 9 months, and 20 days in the making — On Thursday, September 8, 2005, at the FGS Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, Legacy Family Tree 6.0 will be officially released! The wait will definitely be worth it.

Visit us in booths 229 and 328 to be one of the first to see it. Admission to the exhibit hall is free. Held at the Salt Palace Convention Center, the hall will be open on the following days:

• Thursday, September 8 - 9:30 AM to 6:30 PM
• Friday, September 9 - 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
• Saturday, September 10 - 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM

What’s New in Legacy 6?

Research Guidance - Legacy’s Research Guidance helps you locate records that may contain information about your ancestors. It does this in four steps: 1. Legacy helps you review the ancestor’s timeline, to be certain that you’ve already recorded everything you know about the ancestor. 2. Legacy suggests preliminary survey sources to help you learn if the research is already in progress by another researcher, or if it has been published. 3. After selecting your goals, Legacy provides a list of prioritized suggestions to help you accomplish them. 4. Finally, Legacy organizes the sources into a To-Do List.

Publishing Center - This new feature lets you select one or more reports and combine them into one large book report. All the information from the various reports are indexed and sourced together and a master Table of Contents is generated. You can also add a Title page, Preface page, Dedication page, Copyright Notice page, Introduction Section, and Abbreviations page to the beginning of the book.

Legacy Home - The new Legacy Home tab on the main screen of Legacy brings you important information about your family file and also gives you a global view into the world of genealogy. It includes daily genealogy and Legacy News, To-Do item reminders, birthday and anniversary reminders, statistics about your family file, links to update Legacy, technical support links and much more. The built-in browser lets you browse the Internet without ever leaving Legacy.

Timelines - This feature lets you select historical timeline files containing events from certain localities, and add them to the Chronology View and reports as background information to show what was happening during a person’s life. Timeline files can be created and edited by the user.

DNA - Legacy now lets you record DNA marker test results from several different companies.

Forms Center - (Reports > All Reports > Forms Center) or Report button > Books/Other tab > Forms Center) New forms will be added on a continuing basis. These new forms will probably be available online in various packets for those who want to download them.

Potential Problems List Format - The list of all the problems found are now presented in a grid list that is retained from session to session (until rebuilt by the user). From the list you can edit the affected individuals and correct the problem or exclude it from future checking.

Global US County Verification - This new feature checks your entire family file to verify that the US counties you have used were in existence for the time periods you are using them.

Location Prepositions - On the Add/Edit Location screen (reached from the Master Location List), there is a field for the location preposition. This defaults to “in” but can be changed to other prepositions like near, around, outside, northwest, etc. These prepositions are then used when building report sentences.

Sources - You can now connect source citations to: This individual never married (individual screen), This couple didn’t marry, This couple didn’t have children, To Do Items

Note Fields - There are now Font styles buttons allowing you to bold, underline, italicize, and superscript parts of the notes. The changes show in the notes instead of just showing printer codes as in the past.

And much more . . .

If you will not be in the Salt Lake City area during FGS, stay tuned to our web site: www.LegacyFamilyTree.com

News: At 2:21:34 p.m. EDT on August 11th, 2005, Anne Slane, a cataloger for Worthington (Ohio) Libraries, entered holdings information for the book The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the 60s Pop Sensation, becoming the one billionth holding record in the WorldCat database.

What is it? WorldCat is a worldwide union catalog created and maintained collectively by more than 9,000 member institutions. With millions of online records built from the bibliographic and ownership information of contributing libraries, it is the largest and most comprehensive database of its kind.

Access: The complete WorldCat database cannot be searched freely on the Internet. Instead, the user needs to go through a library that has purchased a subscription. Many libraries offer access to this database via the Internet with a library card. If, for example, you have a membership with the Godfrey Memorial Library, you can search WorldCat online.

Practical Use: W. Eguene and Joyce Cox published a new history of Washington County, Tennessee in 2001. I waited for the Family History Library to obtain a copy of it. By 2004, they still did not have it in their holdings. I then used the WorldCat database (with my $35 annual subscription to Godfrey) to locate a library that had the book. WorldCat gave me a list of 34 libraries worldwide that had the book. I printed this list, brought it to my local public library, and through their Inter-Library Loan (ILL) service, within a week, I had a copy in my home to use.

If you already have a library card for your public library, you may already have access to this great resource. Give your library a call — and you may soon have access to the collections of the world.