As I reflect on the fresh start a new year brings, I am excited about my personal genealogy goals, as well as the goals our company has for the future of Legacy Family Tree. (If you read closely, you will find some never-before-seen surprises.)

Find Samuel Miller BROWN
I have a few good leads on Samuel Miller BROWN, Asa Clark BROWN's younger brother. Asa BROWN is the main person in the Legacy Family Tree sample database. Using Legacy's Split Screen View, it has been easier to compare the known Samuel BROWN with the potential match I located in Nebraska. Click here for a side-by-side comparison of the two. The proven Samuel BROWN is on the left. The Samuel BROWN I located in Nebraska is on the right. What do you think? Are they a match?

To use Legacy's Split Screen View, click on the View menu, and click on Split Screen View.

Index 15,000 names in FamilySearch Indexing
On April 10, 2007, this Legacy News blog announced that the FamilySearch Indexing project was now available to the public. This is one of the most exciting advances in genealogy technology ever. Huge progress has been made, thanks to over 100,000 volunteers. Indexes of the 2.5 million rolls of microfilm will be made available to search at no cost at www.FamilySearch.org. Completed projects are currently accessible via http://labs.familysearch.org. This year I indexed 13,922 names (only 38/day). In 2008 I hope to reach 15,000. For more information about FamilySearch Indexing, or to volunteer, visit http://www.FamilySearchIndexing.org.

Try to enjoy the 2008 Legacy Genealogy Cruise to Europe
It's one of my mandatory job requirements. I have to travel to England, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Finland, Estonia, and Sweden with nearly 200 enthusiastic genealogists, including internationally-known speaker, DearMYRTLE. The toughest part of the job will be to decide which of the 13 restaurants to eat at. If you are considering joining us, be sure to bring two sizes of clothing - one for the beginning of the cruise, and a bigger size for the end. For more information, visit www.GenealogyCruise2008.com.

Make room in my office to hang one of Legacy 7's new wall charts
Although it is not yet available to the public, I had to test Legacy 7's new wall chart feature. I created a beautiful, full-color family descendancy chart that I gave to my parents and wife's parents for Christmas. I was stunned when I received the printed chart from our chart printing service. I knew it would look good, but honestly did not know it would look as great as it did. Click here for a small version of the chart.

Clean up and standardize my sources with Legacy 7's new source templates
If you are like me, then you too may have started doing genealogy without being the best recorder of sources. When I started entering my sources, I was not consistent about how I entered them. So I created some templates on paper to follow, which we published here to help other Legacy users attain consistency.

Then Elizabeth Mills published her book, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, a huge book (885 pages) with lots of good information, but it was still difficult to achieve the desired output. At the time of this writing, we are nearly done developing source templates that adhere to genealogical standards. I am so anxious to start using these templates for my own research I can hardly contain my excitement. With these new templates, you no longer have to wonder what information should be recorded for a source to be thorough. Legacy 7 gives you the exact fields and hints on how to fill them out. All you have to do is enter the information, and Legacy shows you what the bibliography, footnote/endnote, and subsequent footnote/endnote will look like.

Click here for a preview of what the citation and bibliography looks like using a death certificate found online (using Legacy 7, yet to be released).

Contain my excitement for Legacy 7's biggest new feature
If you thought wall charts and source templates were big, wait until you hear about Legacy 7's biggest new feature....We haven't leaked the news to anyone yet....and I didn't get permission to do it here....

There you have it - a few of my personal goals, a few company goals, and a couple of glimpses of what the future holds. From everyone at Millennia, we wish you a happy new year.

Question from Michele,

Is there some way to search by age? Let's say I want to search for everyone in my file that is still marked as living that is age 70 or older (to help me come up with a list of persons I need to check whether or not they are still living).

Good question Michele. Follow these step-by-step instructions to create such a list.

1. Click on the Search icon in the main toolbar, then click on the Detailed Search tab.
2. Add the following conditions, and click on the Create List button.

The resulting list will contain everyone in your file that is both marked as living, and was born more than 69 years ago.

'Twas the night before Christmas
When all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,
Not even my spouse.

The dining room table with clutter was spread
With pedigree charts and with letters which said...
"Too bad about the data for which you wrote;
Sank in a storm on an ill-fated boat."

Stacks of old copies of wills and such
Were proof that my work had become too much.
Our children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.

And I at my table was ready to drop
From work on my album with photos to crop.
Christmas was here, and such was my lot
That presents and goodies and toys I'd forgot.

Had I not been busy with grandparents' wills,
I'd not have forgotten to shop for such thrills,
While others bought gifts to bring Christmas cheers,
I'd spent time researching those birth dates and years.

While I was thus musing about my sad plight,
A strange noise on the lawn gave me such a great fright.
Away to the window I flew in a flash,
Tore open the drapes and yanked up the sash.

When what with my wondering eyes should appear,
But an overstuffed sleigh and eight small reindeer.
Up to the house top the reindeer they flew,
With a sleigh full of toys and 'ole Santa Claus, too.

And then in a twinkle, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of thirty-two hoofs.
As I drew in my head, and bumped it on the sash,
Down the cold chimney fell Santa--KER-RASH!

"Dear" Santa had come from the roof in a wreck,
And tracked soot on the carpet, (I could wring his short neck!)
Spotting my face, good 'ole Santa could see
I had no Christmas spirit you'd have to agree.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work
And filled all the stockings, (I felt like a jerk).
Here was Santa, who'd brought us such gladness and joy:
When I'd been too busy for even one toy.

He spied my research on the table all spread
"A genealogist!" He cried!  (My face was all red!)
"Tonight I've met many like you," Santa grinned,
As he pulled from his sack a large book he had penned.

I gazed with amusement--the cover it read
Genealogy Lines for Which You Have Plead.
"I know what it's like as a genealogy bug."
He said as he gave me a great Santa hug.

"While the elves make the sleighful of toys I now carry,
I do some research in the North Pole Library!
A special treat I am thus able to bring,
To genealogy folk who can't find a thing."

"Now off you go to your bed for a rest,
I'll clean up the house from this genealogy mess."
As I climbed up the stairs full of gladness and glee,
I looked back at Santa who'd brought much to me.

While settling in bed, I heard Santa's clear whistle,
To his team, which then rose like the down of a thistle.
And I heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight,
"Family history is Fun!  Merry Christmas!  Goodnight!"

--Author Unknown

from Ancestry.com:

Provo, UT – December 19, 2007 – FamilySearch and The Generations Network, Inc., parent company of Ancestry.com, today announced an agreement that provides free access of Ancestry.com to patrons of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and the 13 largest regional family history centers effective today.

With this new agreement, full access will be provided to more than 24,000 Ancestry.com databases and titles and 5 billion names in family history records. In addition to the Family History Library, the following 13 regional family history centers have been licensed to receive access to Ancestry.com:

• Mesa, Arizona
• Los Angeles, California
• Oakland, California
• Orange, California
• Sacramento, California
• San Diego, California
• Idaho Falls, Idaho
• Pocatello, Idaho
• Las Vegas, Nevada
• Logan, Utah
• Ogden, Utah
• St. George, Utah
• Hyde Park, London, England

“We’re excited for our patrons to receive online access to an expanded collection of family history records on Ancestry.com,” said Don Anderson, director of FamilySearch Support. “Ancestry.com’s indexes and digital images of census, immigration, vital, military and other records, combined with the excellent resources of FamilySearch, will increase the likelihood of success for patrons researching their family history.”

The Generations Network and FamilySearch hope to expand access to other family history centers in the future.

FamilySearch patrons at the designated facilities will have access to Ancestry.com’s completely indexed U.S. Federal Census Collection, 1790-1930, and more than 100 million names in passenger lists from 1820-1960, among other U.S. and international record collections. Throughout the past year, Ancestry.com has added indexes to Scotland censuses from 1841-1901, created the largest online collection of military and African American records, and reached more than 4 million user-submitted family trees.

Free access is also available at Brigham Young University Provo, Idaho, and Hawaii campuses, and LDS Business College patrons through a separate agreement with The Generations Network.

“FamilySearch’s Family History Library in Salt Lake City is one of the most important physical centers for family history research in the world, and we are happy that patrons to the Library and these major regional centers will have access to Ancestry.com,” said Tim Sullivan, President and CEO of The Generations Network, Inc., parent company of Ancestry.com. “We’ve enjoyed a ten-year working relationship with FamilySearch, and we look forward to continued collaboration on a number of family history projects.”

If your digital photo collection looks like this, you are in need of a Digital Photo Collection makeover.

Using photo organization software, you can locate any picture by date, subject, or even by the name of the person in seconds.

Imagine trying to find a specific picture of the family's 1987 vacation to Disneyland. It'd be easy if that was the only picture you've ever taken in your entire lifetime. But this picture resides in a crammed file cabinet, along with thousands of others you've taken over the years. Once digitized, locating any picture is a breeze.

Once your pictures are on your computer, you will need to install photo organization software. Your digital camera or scanner may have bundled the software with your purchase. Some software, including Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition and Google's Picasa can be used for free.

I've used PhotoShop Elements for years, which combines the organizational software with powerful editing tools. Using its Tags and Collections feature, I can assign a tag to each individual picture. Once tagged, I can filter all of the pictures to just show me those that are tagged.

For example, I created a "Legoland 2007" tag, and applied it to all 357 pictures of our Legoland vacation. Whenever I want to view/locate these pictures, all I have to do is click on the Legoland 2007 tag, and immediately my 8,000 plus digital pictures are filtered to only show me these 357. Within these pictures, I could click on the tag I created for my 7-year-old, and instantly, the 357 pictures are filtered to show me only those of my 7-year-old.

I have created tags for vacations, individual family members, sporting events, and even one for pictures of Santa Claus. I have to be careful when showing these to my kids, because when I filter all my pictures to just show Santa Claus, it becomes obvious that his appearance changes every year.

Heritage Collector Suite is organizational software for digital images designed specifically for genealogists. It can import all of the pictures linked to your Legacy family file so you don't have to manually add them to a collection. It can even add Hot Spots to pictures as shown in the image below.

If you're still contemplating your New Year's resolutions, getting digitally organized is certainly an achievable goal.

The following article is from GenealogyBank - the Official Blog and is copyright 2007 by Thomas Jay Kemp. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the blog is available at http://genealogybankblog.blogspot.com/

Did you get the fruitcake yet?

Families have lots of traditions - especially Christmas traditions. Often these get written up in stories that appear in local newspapers across the country.

Back in 1919 the Macon (GA) Telegraph reported on a Christmas family tradition that had been going for more than 50 years. In fact the Macon (GA) Telegraph repeatedly wrote about the annual tradition of the Crouch family of Virginia that had a 57 year tradition of giving a fruit cake - a 12 pound fruit cake - to the Holt family of Macon, Georgia.

A family tradition that started during the Civil War and was carried on as a way of remembering the kindness of a doctor and his wife for a wounded soldier during the war.

It began in 1862 when Charles Crouch, MD was treating wounded soldiers at his hospital in Petersburg, VA. A.T Holt was wounded near Gettysburg while serving with the 2nd Georgia Battalion, Floyd Rifles and taken to the Ladies' Hospital in Petersburg. The doctor moved Holt to his home where he and his family cared for him for two months. When he was ready he returned to his unit and to the war. The Crouch family kept in touch and every year they sent him a 12 pound fruit cake.

According to the articles that appeared annually in the Macon (GA) Telegraph after the doctor and his wife died, this tradition was carried on by their daughter Mattie Crouch and when A.T. Holt passed away she continued to send a fruit cake to Charles C. Holt, a son of A.T. Holt who was named for the good doctor.

Maybe your family's traditions were written up in the newspaper too! Search GenealogyBank now and see.

The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2007 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.eogn.com. Dick was our featured speaker on the 2007 Legacy Cruise to Hawaii.

Just in time for the holidays - all family tree Add-On Software is 15% off until December 12.

If you've been waiting for the right time to create amazing graphical wall charts, print maps of ancestral homes, create shareable CDs, or organize your digital photo collections, this special sale is for you.

No coupon codes required. The discount is automatically applied at checkout.

Legacy Charting Companion (Download Only) Our Price: $19.95 Sale Price: $16.96 You Save $2.99! Create charts!  Hourglass, Bow Tie, Fan, Descendant, Ancestor charts, and much more. Print and publish your Legacy file in an incredible variety of colorful charts and reports. TreeDraw Legacy Edition 3.1 (Download Only) Our Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $33.96 You Save $5.99! This amazing charting program produces high-quality genealogy charts from your Legacy family file. Creates large wall charts - great for display at family gatherings. Map My Family Tree List Price: $49.95 Our Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $33.96 You Save $15.99! Because life is a journey, see your ancestors' lives on a map with Map My Family Tree. This software automatically geocodes your family tree in seconds so you can see where your ancestors were born, married and died. GedStar Pro (Download Only) Our Price: $24.95 Sale Price: $21.21 You Save $3.74! If you have a Palm device, GedStar Pro is the premier genealogy software for it! Imports your Legacy family file - no GEDCOM import needed. Pocket Genealogist 3.0 (Download Only) Our Price: $35.00 Sale Price: $29.75 You Save $5.25! Genealogy-on-the-go! Pocket Genealogist is the leader in genealogy software for PocketPC's and other "Windows Powered" mobile devices and offers the most extensive data support available in a handheld genealogy program. Imports data directly from Legacy - no GEDCOM necessary! Passage Express Deluxe Our Price: $54.95 Sale Price: $46.71 You Save $8.24! Passage Express creates high-quality, interactive multimedia presentations on CD and DVD for your family using your family's historical materials, pictures, videos, and even your Legacy family file. Passage Express Deluxe (Download Only) Our Price: $49.95 Sale Price: $42.46 You Save $7.49! Passage Express creates high-quality, interactive multimedia presentations on CD and DVD for your family using your family's historical materials, pictures, videos, and even your Legacy family file. Heritage Collector Basic (Download Only) Our Price: $49.95 Sale Price: $42.46 You Save $7.49! If you have digital pictures and other multimedia, this is the organizational software for you. Heritage Collector Basic organizes all of your pictures, and creates slide shows and presentation-quality CDs/DVDs for your family. Heritage Collector Suite (Download Only) Our Price: $94.95 Sale Price: $80.71 You Save $14.24! Looking for a more advanced or professional-level software program to manage your multimedia files? With Heritage Collector Suite you'll find easier ways to use, find, and work with thousands of multimedia files - specially designed to copy all the photos and related information from your Legacy family file. 3 programs in one suite - Heritage Collector Basic, Manager, and Professional. Also includes The Digital Family History Guidebook, a $19.95 value! GenSmarts 2.0 (Download Only) Our Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $25.46 You Save $4.49! GenSmarts analyzes the genealogy information you've previously recorded in Legacy, and creates a checklist of sources to search. GENViewer Legacy Edition (Download Only) Our Price: $19.95 Sale Price: $16.96 You Save $2.99! GenViewer adds more functionality, searching, and views of your Legacy family file. Preview large GEDCOM files before importing into Legacy. Search for criteria across multiple files at once. Automatically search the web's popular genealogy sites. Views: General, Individual, Family, Pedigree, Descendants, List, Highlighted, Islands, and Sources . . . much, much more GENMatcher (Download Only) Our Price: $19.95 Sale Price: $16.96 You Save $2.99! GENMatcher quickly compares your Legacy family file to other genealogy files for possible matches. Genelines (Download Only) Our Price: $19.95 Sale Price: $16.96 You Save $2.99! Genelines is a timeline charting companion for Legacy that lets you place the names and events of your family's past into historical context. It creates unique, customizable charts, including full descendant and time-based fan charts. Comes with a library of historical timelines. Personal Historian (Download Only) Our Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $25.46 You Save $4.49! Personal Historian is software which assists you in writing personal histories about yourself and your family. Lots of memory trigger questions, timelines, and even writing analysis to help make your history readable and interesting to others.

The household returns and ancillary records for the censuses of Ireland of 1901 and 1911, which are in the custody of the National Archives of Ireland (An Chartlann Náisiúnta), represent an extremely valuable part of the Irish national heritage. With this in mind the NA is digitising and making available online all these records at http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/

The records for 1911 are being digitised first, then those for 1901. Starting today (4 December 2007), the records for Dublin in 1911 are available. The order in which counties will be made available after this date is: Kerry, Antrim & Down, Donegal, Cork, Wexford, Galway, King’s County (now known as Offaly), Limerick, Mayo, Waterford, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Fermanagh, Kildare, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Londonderry (also known as Derry), Longford, Louth, Meath, Monaghan, Queen’s County (now known as Laois), Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Westmeath and finally Wicklow.

Thanks to Legacy user, Dermot McGlone, for letting us know about this great new resource.