Join Angela Walton-Raji this Wednesday in a free webinar entitled Best Internet Resources for African American Genealogy. Angela is a founding member of AfriGeneas.com and specializes in information for beginners via daily and weekly online genealogy chats at AfriGeneas. The webinar will be live on Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 2PM ET.

Webinar Description

Internet sites are often sought when beginners start exploring family history. The challenge is where to turn to when researching African American ancestry. This webinar examines resources that provide guidance for the unique problems facing descendants of slaves. The webinar begins with a full introduction to Afrigeneas, the oldest continually operating African American genealogy website. From daily online chats and over 20 message boards, the visitor to this site finds a community of volunteers to provide assistance with their beginning research problems. Afrigeneas provides unique resources such as the slave database and a searchable archived message database that retrieves African American genealogical queries back to 1997. Popular subscription sites like Ancestry and Footnote are among useful sources for primary source documents such as emancipation records, service records of US Colored Troops and more. But free sites provide good resources like Cyndi's List and USGenweb which provide sound links to other African American sites and one extremely useful resource is found on the ever popular FamilySearch. AfriGeneas has also joined the genealogy blogging community. Blogs are continually surfacing reflecting personal research journeys, while weekly columns and podcasts provide advice for research challenges. In addition one can also find basic instructional videos for African American research as well. There are many options to be found online, and the African Ancestored researcher will have an abundance of resources to offer a hand in providing tips, suggestions, and instruction.

The live webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, August 31, 2011, so register today to reserve your virtual seat. Registration is free but space is limited to the first 1,000 people to join that day.

Add it to your Google Calendar

With our brand new Google Calendar button, you will never forget our upcoming webinars. Simply click the button to add it to your calendar. You can then optionally embed the webinar events (and even turn them on and off) into your own personal calendar. If you have already added the calendar, you do not have to do it again - the new webinar events will automatically appear.

Webinar time

The webinar will be live on Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at:

• 2pm Eastern (U.S.)
• 1pm Central
• 12pm Mountain
• 11am Pacific/Arizona
• 6pm GMT

Or use this Time Zone Converter.

Here's how to attend:

1. Register at www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp today. It's free!
2. You will receive a confirmation email containing a link to the webinar.
3. You will receive a reminder email during the week prior to the webinar.
4. Calculate your time zone by clicking here.
5. Click on the webinar link (found in confirmation and reminder emails) prior to the start of the webinar. Arrive early as the room size is limited to the first 1,000 arrivals that day.
6. Listen via headset (USB headsets work best), your computer speakers, or by phone.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

I loved Dan Lynch's post to his Google+ page today:

On this day in 'tech history' . . . Windows 95 was released after lots of consumer hype and 'midnight madness' events.

On another non-tech note, the people from Pompeii are still digging out 1,932 years after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

If you haven't "circled" him yet, he's a great one to follow. Here's his page. Dan was one of our presenters in last week's Google+ the Next Big Thing webinar. He is also the author of the award-winning book, Google Your Family Tree. Dan also publishes the Google+ for Genealogists blog.

James Tanner's new book, The Guide to FamilySearch Online, PDF Edition, is now available for the first time ever in digital format from our online store for the introductory price of just $19.95 (a savings of $5). Its 369 pages provides detailed instructions to using all of the current FamilySearch websites.

FamilySearch cannot be ignored by knowledgeable genealogists. During the past few years, FamilySearch has grown into one of the largest and most important genealogical resources on the Internet. The Guide to FamilySearch Online will take you on a tour of all of the fabulous collections of records and resources. You will find insights into features and information you likely did not know existed.

The Guide to FamilySearch Online is the first book to cover all of the current FamilySearch websites:

• FamilySearch.org
• New.FamilySearch.org
• Wiki.FamilySearch.org
• Forums.FamilySearch.org
• Indexing.FamilySearch.org
• and many more.

Click here to view the entire Table of Contents.

About the author

James L. Tanner has 30 years of experience as a research genealogist. He practiced law as a trial attorney for 37 years and is now nearly retired. He is also a professional photographer and writes blogs on genealogy and photography. His genealogy blog, Genealogy's Star, has been selected as one of the Top Forty genealogy blogs by Family Tree Magazine. He has been a featured Blogger at genealogy conferences and was most recently a featured blogger at the RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has been very involved in teaching and using the FamilySearch websites for years as a volunteer at the Mesa Regional Family History Center in Mesa, Arizona. He is the father of seven children and 31 grandchildren.

A reminder that today at 1PM Eastern U.S. time, Maureen Taylor will answer your questions about photo-related matters from early daguerreotypes to digital imaging in her free teleseminar. Sign up at www.askmaureentaylor.com. (Although this live event has now passed, she does the teleseminars monthly. Sign up on her website.)

If you miss the teleseminar the recordings are available for purchase through her website. Here are last month's questions:

Here are last month’s questions.

• Is it harder on your photos to scan or use a copier?
• Are DVDs a good way to preserve photos?
• What is the best way to digitize and share with siblings grandmother's photograph and scrapbook albums?
• Would a food dehydrator work for drying photos,etc?
• What is a good way to store the negatives of photos?
• Can you use kitchen baggies for storage of photographs and family items?
• Are those space bags (the ones that you use a vacuum cleaner with) good for storage?
• Do you recommend using a special kind of cleaner on photos, such as is sold by companies that also sell acid & lignin free preservation/storage products?
• What can I do with my old glass negatives? Can I get an image from them?
• My question was how can I tell if 2 pictures I have that were taken years apart are the same person?

Maureen Taylor is an internationally known photo identification expert. She combines her expertise in genealogy, history, and costume to solve family picture mysteries. Taylor has been recognized in The Wall Street Journal, NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s The View, and NPR. She is the author of a number of books and magazine articles including The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation (Kent State University Press) and Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles 1840-1900 (Picture Perfect Press).
Watch her videos at www.maureentaylor.com and on Vimeo. She is also the presenter of Google Images and Beyond and Preserving Family Photographs.

For a limited time, Drew Smith's 129-page soft-cover book, Social Networking for Genealogists, is available at 25% off.

Click here to purchase for just $14.21. Regular price is $18.95.

This book describes the wide array of social networking services that are now available online and highlights how these services can be used by genealogists to share information, photos, and videos with family, friends, and other researchers. Each chapter guides you through a unique category of social networking services using genealogy-related examples. From blogs and wikis to Facebook and Second Life, author Drew Smith shows you how to incorporate these powerful new tools into your family history research.

Specifically, you'll find chapters devoted to the following social networking services:

• Blogs
• Collaborative editing
• Genealogy-specific social networks
• General social networking (Facebook)
• Message boards & mailing lists
• Photos & video sharing
• Podcasts
• RSS feeds
• Sharing personal libraries
• Tags
• Virtual worlds
• Wikis

Destined to become a classic, this 129-page book is about the type of social networking that has been made possible by the development of international computer networks, the availability of network access to most homes (especially broadband access), the creation of websites dedicated to particular kinds of networking (posting photos, viewing and commenting on videos, seeing what books friends have in their libraries, etc.), and the ease of participating in these sites without having to be a computer expert. More to the point, this book is inteded to identify those kinds of social networking sites and services that will be of the most interest to genealogists.

Click here to purchase for just $14.21. Regular price is $18.95.

Our 9th annual Legacy Genealogy Cruise, to be held in May 2012, will visit Norway, France, Ireland, England, Scotland, and Denmark. You'll get to visit your ancestral homelands AND attend genealogy and Legacy classes on the days at sea.

If you are interested in attending, you need to act quickly. Since this is Royal Caribeean's only British Isles sailing in 2012, it is filling up quickly. Here's how you can learn all about it:

• Watch our Cruising with Legacy in 2012 webinar. In this webinar, our cruise coordinator, Christy Downing, shows all the places we will visit, and gives an overview of a cruise experience.
• Read all about it on our cruise website.
• Call our cruise coordinator, Christy, at 1-888-505-6997.
• Email Christy at [email protected].

Hope to see you on board!

Today's webinar, Newspapers for Genealogists: Using GenealogyBank.com to document every day of yours ancestors' lives, is now available to view in our webinar archives. Tom Kemp reminded us that there is so much more to find in newspapers than just obituaries.

I loved one attendee's comment - just before signing off, I reminded everyone that "life is short - do genealogy first." She wrote,

"How did you know I was sitting here thinking 'I have to get all these other things done before I can let myself do genealogy,' when you made the comment that life is short so let everything else go and do genealogy today!  : ))"

In my defense, I don't think I suggested to "let everything else go," but what a fun life it would be if all we had to do was genealogy (and of course spend time with our living relatives every now and then). So get started by watching or re-watching what Tom had to teach us.

View the recording

If you could not make it to the live event, the 1 hour 40 minute recording of Newspapers for Genealogists is now available to view in our webinar archives. Visit www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp to watch.

GenealogyBank.com discount expires August 31, 2011

Thanks to Tom and his team at GenealogyBank.com for the special offer they extended to our webinar viewers. This 20% off discount on a yearly subscription is open to anyone through August 31, 2011. Just visit www.genealogybank.com/legacy.

Congrats to the door prize winners

Thanks to GenealogyBank.com for donating:

• 2 - 1-year subscriptions to GenealogyBank.com

Other door prizes included:

• Watch Geoff Live: Adding an Obituary webinar-on-CD
• Google+ the Next Big Thing webinar-on-CD

Special discount coupon

The special discount coupon of news that was offered during the webinar is valid for 10% off anything in our online store through Monday August 22, 2011.

Register for our upcoming webinars (free)

• Best Internet Resources for African American Genealogy with Angela Walton-Raji - Wednesday, August 31, 2011
• Watch Geoff Live: Adding a Census Record - Wednesday, September 7, 2011
• Facebook for Genealogists with Thomas MacEntee - Wednesday, September 14, 2011
• Exploring FamilyLink.com and WorldVitalRecords.com with Paul Allen - Friday, September 16, 2011
• Researching Your Connecticut Ancestors with Marian Pierre-Louis - Wednesday, September 21, 2011
• "Ah hold your whisht and tell me the true story": Uncovering your Irish Family History with Jennifer Geraghty-Gorman
• A Close Look at Google+ with Dan Lynch - Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Click here to register.

Yesterday's webinar, Google+ the Next Big Thing, presented by an all-star lineup of Paul Allen, Dan Lynch, and Mark Olsen, is now available to view in our webinar archives. They brilliantly explained how to use Google+, its implications for the genealogist, how hangouts work, and we even had an appearance by a couple of Google's executives.

View the recording

If you could not make it to the live event, the 2 hour recording of Google+ the Next Big Thing is now available to view in our webinar archives. Visit www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp to watch. It will be available there until at least August 25, 2011.

Congrats to the door prize winners

Thanks to FamilyLink.com for donating:

• 5 - 1-year subscriptions to WorldVitalRecords.com

Other door prizes included:

• Dan Lynch's Google Your Family Tree book
• Maureen Taylor's Google Images and Beyond webinar-on-CD
• Thomas MacEntee's Google Forms for Genealogists webinar-on-CD
• Thomas MacEntee's Google Docs for Genealogists webinar-on-CD
• Thomas MacEntee's Google for Genealogists webinar-on-CD

Pre-order the webinar-on-CD

Own your own copy of Google+ the Next Big Thing by purchasing the webinar-on-CD for just $9.95. It includes the recording of the class and the complete Q/A session. 2 hours. Click here for more information or to purchase.

Special discount coupon

The special discount coupon of google that was announced during the webinar is valid for 10% off anything in our online store through Tuesday, August 16, 2011.

Register for our upcoming webinars (free)

• Newspapers for Genealogists with Tom Kemp - Wednesday, August 17, 2011
• Best Internet Resources for African American Genealogy with Angela Walton-Raji - Wednesday, August 31, 2011
• Watch Geoff Live: Adding a Census Record - Wednesday, September 7, 2011
• Facebook for Genealogists with Thomas MacEntee - Wednesday, September 14, 2011
• Exploring FamilyLink.com and WorldVitalRecords.com with Paul Allen - Friday, September 16, 2011
• Researching Your Connecticut Ancestors with Marian Pierre-Louis - Wednesday, September 21, 2011
• "Ah hold your whisht and tell me the true story": Uncovering your Irish Family History with Jennifer Geraghty-Gorman
• A Close Look at Google+ with Dan Lynch - Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Click here to register.

Monday's webinar, "Google+ the Next Big Thing" has set new registration records - over 3,600 of you from 72 difference countries have registered. Terrific!

While our webinar software (GoToWebinar.com) allows unlimited registrations, it only has 1,000 virtual seats for the live session - so the first 1,000 to join on Monday will get in.

If you get a message that the webinar is full, you can watch it over at www.hangoutongplus.com - thanks to FamilyLink.com for making this happen.

I've had a small preview of what Paul Allen, Dan Lynch, and Mark Olsen will present and you are in for a real treat! This is one webinar you won't want to miss. So, here are the four ways to watch:

1. Live via GoToWebinar - register at www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp and click on the Join Webinar link in the email confirmation you receive after registering.
2. Live via www.hangoutongplus.com.
3. View the recording in the webinar archives at www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp a couple of hours after the live event concludes.
4. Pre-purchase the webinar-on-CD for just $9.95 (the live session is free and will be available in the archives for at least 10 days).

See you online!

Join these three leaders in Google technology as they get together to put on what we think will be one of the best webinars ever. Learn about Circles, Hangouts, Streams, Sparks and more. The webinar will be live on Monday, August 15, 2011 at 2PM ET.

Paul Allen, the Founder of FamilyLink.com and Ancestry.com has quickly become known as the unofficial Google+ Statistician. His expert use of posting in Google+ features, stats and using his own insider tricks have helped to make a huge impact on the initial success of Google+. Those who are part of Paul's Circles have already benefited from his expertise. Paul's fame has quickly grown and he currently has more than 22,000 followers on Google+.

Dan Lynch, a.k.a. "Mr. Google" is a technology marketing consultant, professional genealogist, and popular international speaker. One of the first to recognize Google's strengths for family history research, Dan authored the award-winning book "Google Your Family Tree", and is already helping the genealogical community understand the benefit of Google+ (see his blog at http://GooglePlusforGenealogists.com).

Mark Olsen is the Marketing Manager for FamilyLink.com and holds a degree in genealogy. Mark is another famous name on Google+ as he is currently hosting the longest ever Google Hangout, nearly one month of a continual hangout. Mark is one of the leading experts on Google+ Hangouts and has been learning how to better connect families and genealogists around the world. His current Hangout has been receiving a lot of positive press and has had visits from many well-known industry leaders.

We'll also be giving away fantastic door prizes:
5 one-year subscriptions to WorldVitalRecords.com, Dan Lynch's Google Your Family Tree book, and Thomas MacEntee's webinar CDs: Google for Genealogists, Google Docs for Genealogists, and Google Forms for Genealogists

The live webinar is scheduled for Monday, August 15, 2011, so register today to reserve your virtual seat. Registration is free but space is limited to the first 1,000 people to join that day. If you get a message that the webinar is full, it will also be broadcast live at http://hangoutongplus.com.

Add it to your Google Calendar

With our brand new Google Calendar button, you will never forget our upcoming webinars. Simply click the button to add it to your calendar. You can then optionally embed the webinar events (and even turn them on and off) into your own personal calendar. If you have already added the calendar, you do not have to do it again - the new webinar events will automatically appear.

Webinar time

The webinar will be live on Monday, August 15, 2011 at:

• 2pm Eastern (U.S.)
• 1pm Central
• 12pm Mountain
• 11am Pacific/Arizona
• 6pm GMT

Or use this Time Zone Converter.

Here's how to attend:

1. Register at www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp today. It's free!
2. You will receive a confirmation email containing a link to the webinar.
3. You will receive a reminder email during the week prior to the webinar.
4. Calculate your time zone by clicking here.
5. Click on the webinar link (found in confirmation and reminder emails) prior to the start of the webinar. Arrive early as the room size is limited to the first 1,000 arrivals that day.
6. Listen via headset (USB headsets work best), your computer speakers, or by phone.

We look forward to seeing you all there!