One of the best resources available to a genealogist is other genealogists. The problem is how do you find the ones who are interested in the same areas or surnames that you are? The answer is mailing lists. Rootsweb started as a mailing list (roots-l) some years ago and has become the quintensential mother of all list providers. There are others such as Onelist which has now been acquired by Yahoo and others, some private, but they all work the same. You must Subscribe or Join the list and then post data to it. People are not going to just send you the information you want without you asking for it first. The secret to getting data from other researchers is in a clear and consice post that is as short and to the point as possible. Rootsweb has a list of FAQs and posting procedures (see below) which everyone should read but most don't. Many just post however they feel like and this can cause many problems to the recipients of the list which I will discuss below.

Most lists have their own method of subscribing and unsubscribing. Private lists usually need a message sent to the list requesting to be subscribed or unsubscribed. Automated lists such as Onelist/Yahoo, have a web page that you sign into using a user name and password that you had previously set up using their initial setup, and then pick which lists you want to subscribe to or unsubscribe. Rootsweb has the same procedure for all of their lists and is fairly easy to remember. To subscribe to any Rootsweb list, send a message to Rootsweb addressed to the name of the list followed by "-request@rootsweb.com" and the word subscribe in the body of the message and nothing else. If you want to include it in the subject line that is fine but the only place it needs to be is in the body of the message.

Let's suppose you want to join the Rootsweb list for Berks Co, PA. If you do not know the name of the list, you can go to Rootsweb's home page at www.rootsweb.com and find the link under the "Mailing List" section for Index (browse all lists) and then find your list by following the links for surname, state, coutnry, etc.. and then narrowing it down until you find the list you want. Through this process, you will come to a page that lists many things you can do with that list including, subscribing, un-subscribing, browsing, searching, etc. If this is a list you will want to be actively searching on, I would bookmark that page for easy reference.

Now we know the name of the list for Berks Co, PA is named PABERKS-L. To subscribe to PABERKS-L, we need to send a message addressed to PABERKS-L-request@rootsweb.com with the word "subscribe" in the body of the message. The address and body is not case sensitive so you can use all caps if you wish but generally all addresses are converted to lowercase by the server. To un-subscribe to the same list is the same process except that the body of the message will contain the word "unsubscribe". Spelling is important. Do not add a hyphen to the word "unsubscribe."

A lot of people do not realize that every rootsweb digest mode message includes the procedure for subscribing and unsubscribing in the heading of the message under an area called "Administrivia:". Each list has what is referred to as a list moderator or manager who oversees the list and makes sure people stay on subject and do not fight or use foul or abusive language and do not use the list for commercial or advertising use as well as a lot more administrative duties. The people who refuse to follow the correct procedures for unsubscribing are eventually removed by the list manager but this is not as immediate as the correct procedure mentioned above. It should be noted that those people add to the already burdensome task of the list manager and it would be nice to not see the Unsubscribe messages that one would never see if the correct procedure were followed. Subscribing and unsubscribing is something the user can do himself and not have to ask someone else to do unless a list specifically requests it.

As an afterthought, the last week of February, 2001 saw Rootsweb doing a complete shut down of their site and a restructuring of their servers. During this time, some requests for subscribing and unsubscribing were not performed. If you have followed the above procedure to the letter and are still not removed from the list, wait a few daya to make sure Rootsweb is not experiencing a problem then try again. There is also a Rootsweb page that you can use to see what lists you are subscribed to. This can help to make sure you are not inadvertantly subscribed to a list twice resulting in duplicate messages. It can be found at http://passwordcentral.rootsweb.com/. This is called Password Central and when requested Rootsweb will automatically email you a list of all lists you are subscribed to. See the section on changing your e-mail address for further discussion on requesting your lists and changing your email address on Rootsweb. See the section on List Adminstrators if you are still experiencing a problem and nee to contact them.

Now that you have found your list and are ready to subscribe, which mode is best for you? It really depends on the size of the list and how immediate is your need to see an answer to your post. In "List" mode, you get one message for every message sent to the list. When you send a message to the list at say, PABERKS-L@rootsweb.com, everyone on the list who subscribed in List mode will immediately be sent a copy of your message. many people subscribe in this mode and cannot understand why they are receiving tons of new email from people they do not know. Expect a large amount of new email when you join a list in List mode. If the list is small, which some obscure surname lists are, it doesn't matter what mode you are subscribed in. You may not get more than one message a week or month. Other lists such as PABERKS, and some other popular surnames such as Johnson, may see twenty or more posts a day especially when a popular subject is brought up.

If you are searching in more than one area and more than one surname then you may want to consider Digest mode. What this is, is a way to get many posts a day in one message instead of individually. The messages are collected by the server and automatically sent out to everyone subscribed in digest mode as one message. You may get more than one message a day depending on how many posts are made and the size of the file. The message will have a header which gives a short list of the subject lines and senders in chronological order which can be scanned easily to see if it is of interest to you. I belong to at least thirty lists for both location and surnames so it is important to me to receive these all in Digest mode or I would never be able to handle the amount of email traffic each day. Now I can just scan the header of the message and if it doesn't look like something I'm interested in, delete it. To Subscribe or unsubscribe in digest mode, follow the same example above for List mode but substitute the 'L' with 'D' for Digest. For example, to subscribe to PABERKS-D, which is the Digest mode of PABERKS-L. send a message to PABERKS-D-request@rootsweb.com with the word "subscribe" in the body of the message. use the word "unsubscribe" to unsuscribe from the list.

Many people get double copies of the list. This is usually because they subscribed twice, maybe once in List mode and another in Digest mode. To undo this, Just unscubscibe once, to whatever mode you are getting a duplicate in, and the problem should clear up.

E-mail has subject lines, use them. This is what one looks at to see if the post is of interest to them. Many lists use part of the subject line for the name of the list so when you respond to the list you might have to massage the subject line to get rid of extra information not pertinent to your reply. When responding to a post, you should always make sure the subject line contains a reference to the subject you are responding to. If you are subscribed to a list in Digest Mode, then responding to the message will not have the subject of the messgae you are responding to, but will contain the name of the list, the date and sequence, or other data that the list automatically generates when sent in Digest mode.

It is the responsibility of the sender to cut and paste the subject of the one they are responding to. If you are posting information about surnames, include the name in the subject line, preferably in all caps. If you are posting many surnames, such as when asked for by a list manager, then include the ones you are most interested in in the subject line and leave the rest for the body of the message. Keep it to four or five in the subject depending on their length so when the digest mode messages are sent out, they will be able to see the names without having them cut-off. For Example if I was posting to PABERKS-L and looking for information on the Scheurers, Baders, Kirbys and Adams surnames my subject line would look like "SCHEURER, BADER, KIRBY, ADAMS" and nothing else.

It is not necessary to include the location as it is already specific to the Berks Co. area by the name of the list. If you need to include a more specific topic like the township, do it in the body of the text. If you are looking for a specific person then by all means include something like "Ulrich SCHEURER in Richmond, Twp." as the subject line. No need to be overly textual, just short headings that tell the person what you are looking for. If you have a question like a request, include that in the subject such as "Lookup, Berks Co. Will Book." The subject is the most important part of the message as most people will either read or delete a message based on the subject line.

Messages should be as short as possible. No one wants to read someone elses complete descendancy chart unless it was specifically asked for and in that case it should be done privately and not to the list. When trolling for data on a specific person, keep the information to that persons immediate family. If you are looking for Joe Blow's mother, then include his date of birth, location and his father, marriage date, and any info on the mother if it exists. Don't send the grandchildren and great grandchildren as that does not help in finding the person. When trying to locate someone, the important things are dates, names, locations including where they lived, where they were born and where their parents came from. Publishing their complete life history does not help in the initial search. You can clarify those points in a followup message.

Keep to the subject. If you go off subject, change the subject line. Do not maintain a subject of "John Blow, Richmond Twp." and be talking about his nephew Phineas Bogg of North Carolina. Threads should be related to the initial subject. If they are not, they should be a new thread. Threads are determined by responding to a message with the same subject line.

When responding, the worst thing you can do is include the entire message from the previous post. This can contain irrelevant data from previous posts and for those who just hit the respond key, type a message and send, especially those receiving a digest mode message, will be posting messages multiple times with no bearing on the subject. A good practice would be to cut out the extraneous information and only leave the information you are responding to. Many respond in the body of the message they are responding to and this is fine but a little hard to follow. Most lists filter out all HTML prompts and convert the message to basic ASCII code so responding by changing the color of your text, the style or attribute to make it easier to read is a waste of time. A short reminder of what you are responding to in your own text makes it easier to follow the meaning of your reply.

Many people on the list are inexperienced and can be extremely sensitive to criticism. Many lists have too much extraneous postings to things not related to genealogy. Inexperienced users are usually to blame. If you decide to help someone or correct them on the proper procedure, do it privately. No one likes to see themselves corrected in front of a group of people. Any subject not related to genealogy should be kept off list. If you make contact with a person who looks like he/she might be able to shed some light on your research, take the conversation off list unless the data you are posting will benefit everyone.

Roll Calls are a no-no. Some lists allow them and in those instances, it should always be up to the list manager whether a Roll Call is started. Just the word "Roll Call" in a subject line starts an onslaught of people posting data thinking that a Roll Call has commenced and also negative postings saying how much they dislike Roll Calls and this perpetuates more and more negative messages unrelated to genealogy. Rootsweb's policy is they do not want Roll Calls. Some lists have tackled this problem by periodically asking people to send their surnames to an address set up by one of the list members who has taken it upon themselves to compile this list and then post the results to the list for everyone to see. This is a prefferred alternative. Some lists do not use the term "Roll Call" but use "Surname Request" or some other title to keep the negative messages to a minimum. Remember it is always best to ask before blindly calling for a Roll Call. if you value your status on a list, this is the fastest way to gather hate mail and get a bad reputation. If you are on the receiving end of a Roll Call, it is best to ignore the urge to post your feelings on the subject. Just delete the messages, unsubscribe for short while or re-subscribe in digest mode, or just ignore it. It won't last more than a few days at most and every new post about it, tends to drag it out that much longer.

Jokes, Poems, Virus warnings, and holiday greetings are frowned on. If it has nothing to do with genealogy, then use good judgement and keep it off the list. Most people on the list belong to many other lists and have access to other sources of information so although noble to want to let everyone know about a new virus, they probably already know about it. Rootsweb lists are not prone to virus attack and one can not receive a virus from Rootsweb as all attachments are removed. There are hackers that have used email names they have retrieved from Rootsweb lists as well as other lists but they could get those e-mail address almost anywhere on the internet and only use those addresses to try to make people feel it is a valid message. No message ever sent from Rootsweb will ever contain an attachment. If a message is sent to you that looks like it came from a Rootsweb list and contains an attachment, delete it immediately and do not try to open the attachment. It is a good rule of thumb to not open any attachments, but most find them a great way to exchange large files and will continue to use them. Just be careful who you accept them from and never open an attached file with a "vbs" anywhere in the name. That is a suffix for a Visual Basic Script which is a common way for inexperienced hackers to spread their dirty work. There are others as well so always be suspect of attachments and never open one unless you first check with the sender to it's content.

If you get a great source of information and are willing to do lookups, by all means, let everyone know on the list that you are willing to do lookups especially if the source you have is specific to the list you are a member of. Be prepared for an onslaught of people asking for lookups. The amount of people starving for information will astound you. It is naive to think only a few people will ask for lookups. One idea that I have reapetedly tried to spread, is to prepare for the onslaught before you announce your intentions to do lookups. Create an email account just for the purpose of answering lookup requests. It is very easy to throw up your hands and say no more lookups before some people, especially those in Digest mode, have jad a chance to even see your offer. Listing a unique email address that you have created at Yahoo, Hotbot or some other service, will allow you to keep the requests from clogging up your personal e-mail account and allow you to log on and only do those requests that you can handle and then put the rest off until you get more time. Make sure that when you say you will do lookups, that you will not be able to respond immediately but you will try to get to all the requests. This works very well and keeps the requests off the list. If you want, you can respond on the list so the data gets archived for those that may be looking for it in the future.

If you are asking for a lookup, then unless the data you are including is valuable to the list as a whole, do so privately. There is no reson to clog up the list with requests of this nature. Chances are the data will be posted to the lists by whoever did the lookup as this is the real data that you would want archived in the first place. Every situation is different so you will want to use good judgement when posting a request.

Every list has the ability to be searched and browsed. Browsing involves accessing the List's page through Rootsweb and choosing the year and then choosing the messages you want to view. Very simple. The Interactive Search is also fairly easy. The first thing you need is the name of the list. If we wanted to search the Archives of PABERKS-L, we would access the Interactive Search page at Rootsweb at http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl. Enter the name of the list in the query box and hit search. It is not case sensitive and it doesn't matter if you enter the "-L" or "-D" in the name. "PABERKS" works just as well as "PABERKS-L." if the list is not found, you will have a chance to enter the Mailing List page and search for the correct location and spelling. You can also access the Interactive Search page through each lists web page but I like to just bookmark the main search page and enter the name of the list. It is a lot faster than bookmarking each list's web page and then cursoring down to get to the Search link. Once you have entered the name of the list succesfully and hit Search, you will be rewarded with a page giving radio buttons for every year that is archived for the list. Choose the year and enter your search criteria in the space provided and hit Go. If the search found anything, you can then browse through the hits and view the associated messages that met your search criteria.

Your search might consist of just a surname or it might include a place or first name. The more information you search for, the narrower the results, but expect varied results as every piece of the message is searchable and that includes the name of the person who posted the list, their address, the message body, the subject line and any referenced and quoted prior message that was part of the post. You may end up with thousands of hits if you look for a place and first name. Even if you search for "John Smith", the chances are you may get many hits for John Jones and Abigail Smith in the same message or John Jones whose occupation was Blacksmith. Learning how to use the search tools is something better left to experimentation and experience. You will develop a knack for searching for your data after using it for a time if you don't give up all together. It can become frustrating but just as creating a great subject line for a mailing list post is important, the search phrase is just as important and can be even more daunting of a task.

The list administrators have a tremendous responsibility to keeping order and making sure the list operates efficiently. I will not go into detail on their responsibilities other than those previously mentioned, but if anyone is interested in seeing exactly what their job involves, the following link explains their duties and responsibilities and ways they resolve disputes and other problems. http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/help/listutil.html.

If you need to contact the list adminstrator for any reason you can do so without posting a message to the list. You can reach any RootsWeb mailing list administrator by using the following address, but substituting the listname for the xxx. xxx-admin@rootsweb.com

One of my pet peeves is list members who refuse to learn how their browsers work. Almost every list has those people who insist on letting everyone know they just deleted the message and now need it back so would they please repost the message. This is ridiculous. Every browser has a way of restoring deleted messages. They are usually sent to a trash folder that you can then go into and view the contents. Some people immediately flush that folder or "empty the trash" so then the message will be gone, not completely but beyond the ability of most novices to retrieve. For this situation, one need only to go to the List web page and browse the messages to find the one they want. This is true of ALL rootsweb lists and should be common knowledge. There is no reason to request reposts of messages. It usually takes a little while for messages to appear in the archive search so browsing is the best way to immediately retrieve a message.

Another common mistake is repost the complete message they are reponding to including previous messages in the thread. As I previously stated, this makes it very hard to read the message and get to the heart of the subject but it does one more thing that most people don't realize. It fills the archives with tons of redundant information. Every message gets archived and when the same data is repeadetly sent to the list, this causes the data to be archived over and over and over. Those who use the Interactive Search tool will agree that when looking for data and getting many hits with the same data, it is frustrating and time consuming. Strip that extra data from your posts and resist the temptation to ask for reprints. utilize the list tools to find the data you need and if it becomes necessary to ask for a reprint, do so privately so that the data does not get archived from the list.

If you are subscribed to just one or two lists, this might not be a big help but for those who get many lists, in List mode or Digest mode, it may be a lifesaver. Instead of letting all of your e-mail come into your inbox where you have to sort through every message before deciding to save it, delete it, or move it to another folder, most browsers have a feature where you can redirect the messages to pre-defined folders based on identifying features of the message.

Using my own Netscape Browser as an example, I set up a folder specifically for genealogy. In that folder I set up sub-folders for each list I belong to and every surname I am researching. Netscape has a feature called "Message Filters" that allow you to identify messages by contents of their sender, subject, body, date, etc., and then redirect them to a message folder that you have created or that exists from the initial installation of the browser. Lets use PABERKS-L again as an example. I am subscribed in digest mode so I created a "New" message filter called "PABERKS-D". The name is not important but the direction filter is. You can add one or more filter attributes and direct the message based on any or all of the attributes. For a Mail list you only need one attribute. From the pull down, choose "Sender" as the field to search and for the attribute pulldown you want to choose "contains" and then in the field provided add the name "PABERKS-D". It is not case sensitive. The resulting line would appear as "the SENDER of the message CONTAINS PABERKS-D."

The next attribute tells you where to direct the message. From the pull down, choose "move to folder" and then in the box to the right, browse the directory of lists and find where you created a folder for PABERKS-D by whatever name you gave it, and choose the folder. At this point you can enter a description to further help you identify the filter but the description adds nothing to the filter's action. Now save the filter. The result should be when the next message arrives from PABERKS-D, it will be moved automatically to the new folder you created. You will be alerted by whatever method you have selected to alert you of incoming mail, and the name of the folder you created will be Bolded (highlighted) so you can see that there is new mail in that folder. Clicking on the folder will reveal what new messages that have arrived and you can decide to read then then or read them later. Other browsers and mail programs may call the process something other then "Message FIlter" and work a little diferently, but most have this feature. It will be up to you to investigate your own browser to see how to set this up if it is not Netscape.

With disk drives so cheap anymore, and the large sizes of the disk, I do not see any reason to delete your mail everyday. I just let the mail build up in the folders and read them at my liesure. I usually do that once a day so I do keep on top of what is coming in, but I also do not delete any email. I collect the lists because it is faster for me to search through a folder on my machine than it is on Rootsweb or other List servers. I can also search all lists at once instead of one at a time. Once a year I go in and delete the messages from the prior year for the list folders. This way if I need something older, I can rely on the Rootsweb Archives, but for newer posts, I have the ability of a better search tool than is provided by Rootsweb. I usually do this purge in March so I have three months of a new years worth of list messages to search.

While I am on the subject, I never ever delete email that has been sent to me on a surname that I am researching. As I previously stated, I keep individual folders for each surname and when a message comes in, I move it to the appropriate folder. I then can search for data I have previously received and see what I have been discussing and who I have talked to on any subject in the past. This includes my "Sent" folder. I wan't to see what I said to people and not rely on their including my previous post in their message. Many don't do that so it is important to see what you said so you don't inadvertantly resend data or repeat prior mistakes. This has been indespensible to me. With this, there is no need to print out every message you get from everyone.

Many of you will be saying, "what happens when your hard drive crashes?" Well it's simple. I keep backups. One thing that Netscape allows you to do is save any message or groups of messages as an ASCII file. In addition to my periodic backups of my Netscape user folders where the messages are kept, I have another disk where I keep backup copies of my previous mail folders. You can go into each folder and select all the messages, all for one year, or any combination, and save those as one file to disk. This allows me to save all my sent messages to one file and periodically delete a previous years data from the folder so the searches do not take a long time. I can always edit those files and do searches on the messages anytime I want. If you are really paranoid, you can choose to print this entire file after you have backed it up for archival purposes. Don't use a laser or inkjet printer for this or you will be spending a fortune in paper, ink and toner supplies. I keep an old dot matrix printer just for this purpose. Some of the folders can print out a hundred or more pages so I just start it and let it go. Then take the report and file it away. I have never had to go to that report for anything but it is there just in case. I have had disk failures where I have lost my messages but by backing it up to a seperate disk drive, I have always been able to retrieve the data. These ASCII files are not very large so saving them to a floppy and then storing that along with the paper reports is always a good idea. I have never had a computer problem where more than one disk has been trashed. A fire or explosion might take everything out and in that case make sure your archived disks and reports are kept off site or in a fire proof safe or lockbox.

The following are Rootsweb links for their Mailing List FAQs and Help:

• What is a Mailing List?
• Subscribing/Unsubscribing
• Subscriber Questions
• General Questions
• Problem Solving (including spam)

Rootsweb USGenWeb Project

Finding a Site

Finding a GenWeb site couldn't be more easier. From any GenWeb site there are links to the main sites. For the United States, the main site is http://www.usgenweb.com. From that site you can select a specific states genweb site by three methods, a clickable graphical map of the states, a table of the state or a text listing of the states. There is also links on the main site to the WorldGenWeb Project for accessing the sites outside the United States, the Search engines to search the entire USGenWeb Project, Archives or individual States, links to other USGenWeb Projects such as the Census project etc.

Specific help at the USGenWeb level can be found at: http://www.usgenweb.org/researchers/problems.html.

USGenWeb's State Pages

From a State's GenWeb page you can find data that is specific to each state that would not be particularly specific to any one county. From the State page, you can access the individual counties. At the State level you begin to see differences in the webmaster's style. Each state has their own look and feel and although they all have some commonalities, how they approach the overall user interface can vary greatly from one state to the next. Some states include both a graphical map of the counties that may or may not be clickable, but they all include some table of the counties. Some give you information on the formation of the counties, dates and from what counties they were created. The other information on a state page is entirely up to the webmaster but they usually include a link to the state archives, the states Rootsweb location mailing List, and links back to the USGenWeb Project's site. They also usually include links to other State resources.

This is the link to Rootsweb's USGenWeb Project State page where you can choose which state to explore: http://www.usgenweb.org/thestates.html.

USGenWeb's County Pages

At the County level, the variation between sites is even greater. Although the USGenWeb Project lays down certain rules to follow, they are not so rigid as to prohibit creativty in a site. Some County sites are part of a network of other counties and may share programming efforts between them. This helps as you get a consistant look and feel from one county to the next but some are very different and are either programming masterpieces or a bare bones site without much to be found. I don't want to name favorites, but two sites that are outstanding are the Somerset Co., PA pages and the Fauquier Co., VA pages. Both show what a committed webmaster can do to gather and present data to the user in a way that makes it easy and fun to do research in those counties. A pat on the back to those involved, you know who you are. Most of the county sites include the GenConnect Query system to allow users to post data. The Query boards, or GenConnect Boards, allow general queries about research in the county, Wills, Obits, Marriages, Bios, Deeds, Bible Records, etc.

Extra effort may be made by some County pages to include their own projects for townships which is not part of the USGenWeb project. I host the Township Project for Muskingum County, OH and Somerset Co., PA also has their own township project. Some include projects for individual towns, villages and burroughs. You can find a wealth of information at the county pages and the ability to contribute to it's data through the Query Boards. Most people don't realize there is usually a County USGenWeb site that corresponds to the Rootsweb County Mailing List. They both may be administered by the same person. Before you post a query on a county mailing list, you should always check the County Page to make sure the answer cannot be found there.

Tying it all together

The archives for all the county and state pages are all on one server so it is easy to navigate from one to the other if you enter from any point. The Search Engine makes it easy to search for specific places, surnames or other references. The USGenWeb sites are so easy to use it would be not worthwhile hear to discuss how they work. Go to the main USGenWeb site and start exploring. You are bound to find information you didn't think existed and new data is being added all the time. Lastly, it is important to note that there are not webmasters for every county in the country. There are opportunities for someone to still adopt a county although the more populated ones are mostly taken, but there are always people who decide they no longer want to manage a site so if your interested, get your name in and get on a list and you never know, the site you like may become available.

GenConnect Boards

As previously stated the GenConnect boards hold a lot of promise of data and in concept are a great idea. The only problem is they need people to post their data there. Some sites like Fauquier Co., VA, actively promote the boards on the mailing list and request people to submit their data. For this reason, they probably have more data on the boards than other states and counties. For most sites, the boards see little action but are still worth checking out. You probably will not find complete listings as people generally only submit data related to their specific family but they are worth a look.

The following are Faqs and Help links provided by Rootsweb related to the GenConnect Boards:

• General FAQs
• List: GenConnect-Help Mailing List
• Support Board: User FAQs

Internet Maps

United States Geographic Survey maps

Known as USGS, this mapping service is based on the topographic maps created by the government and are a great source of information for the genealogist. Information such as church and cemetery locations, land features for identifying where your ancestors lived, and much more are part of this system. The USGS site can be accessed at http://mapping.usgs.gov/ or you can go directly to the interactive search page at http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/gnisform.html.

Help and Faqs can be found on the USGS main page. To do a search is as simple as choosing the state you want to research, the county if known and what feature you are looking for. You do not have to enter a feature but it helps in cutting down the number of pages resulting in your search. The results will include the name of the feature, what geographic area it is found near, and the longitude and latitude of the feature. The column marked "USGS 7.5' Map" can be deceiving as it suggests that the feature is located near that geographic area. That column is the name of the larger USGS map that it can be found on and has nothing to do with the feature being located near that town or village. The maps use that name just as a way of identifying it by the prominant town on the map. It is also known as a Quadrant map. The latitude and longitude is really the only way of telling where the feature is by looking at the list of results. Once you have seen a map of the area, you should be able to go back to the list and choose other features near where you are looking based on their relative Latitude and Longitude.

The one draw back is that when viewing the map, especially for smaller features such as cemeteries, you only see the one you have chosen. You cannot see the locations of the other features in relation to the one you are interested in. Printing the page helps but you can zoom in and see more features such as streams and roads that will help in locating it. The closer you zoom in, the more accurate the map. I find it useful to use another service such as www.mapquest.com or www.mapblast.com, open in another browser session so I can easily find the feature and identify nearby roads, streams and rivers.

Let's walk through a typical search for a cemetery. We want to find the location of Heidelburg Cemetery in Berks Co., PA. First we go to the search page listed above and enter three pieces of information. From the State pull down menu we choose Pennsylvania and in the County block, enter "Berks." From the Feature pull down menu we choose "Cemetery" and then hit "Send Query." We will be be presented with a list of what cemeteries are on file. Note that not all cemeteries are listed. These are just the ones identified by the USGS service and is by no means a complete list of cemeteries. The results should look like this:

Query Results BERKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA -- CEMETERY 23 Feature records have been selected from GNIS.* Feature Name St County Equivalent Name Type Latitude Longitude USGS 7.5' Map Aulenbach Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 401945N 0755350W Reading Birch Hill Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402828N 0755755W Temple Caernarvon Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 400925N 0755329W Morgantown Charles Evans Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402121N 0755548W Reading Fairview Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 401754N 0755813W Reading Fairview Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402010N 0753832W Boyertown Forest Hills Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 401846N 0755320W Reading Frantz Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402659N 0761640W Bethel Heidelberg Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402139N 0760755W Womelsdorf Host Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402533N 0761143W Strausstown Huff Union Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402653N 0753727W East Greenville Immaculate Conception Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 401523N 0754757W Birdsboro Lesher Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402340N 0754532W Fleetwood Mountain Marys Grave PA Berks cemetery 402355N 0754123W Manatawny Pine Grove Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 400941N 0755049W Elverson Pleasant View Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 401835N 0760222W Sinking Spring Reeds Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402234N 0761253W Strausstown Saint Michaels Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 401543N 0754740W Birdsboro Stump Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402521N 0760702W Bernville Union Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 401940N 0753831W Boyertown Union Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402206N 0753749W Boyertown Viewpoint Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402913N 0755928W Temple Weller Cemetery PA Berks cemetery 402406N 0753913W Manatawny

Click on the link for Heidelburg Cemetery and you will be presented with the following screen:

Feature Details Feature Name: Heidelberg Cemetery Feature Type: cemetery State: Pennsylvania County: Berks USGS 7.5' x 7.5' Map: Womelsdorf Latitude: 402139N Longitude: 0760755W View USGS Digital Raster Graphic (DRG) covering this feature from TerraServer. A DRG is a digitized version of a USGS topographic map. Visit the USGS Digital Backyard for more information. View USGS Digital Orthophoto Quadrangle (DOQ) covering this feature from TerraServer. A DOQ is a black-and-white, aerial photographic image map. Note that images are not available for all locations. Visit the USGS Digital Backyard for more information. Show Feature Location using maps produced from the U.S. Census Bureau's Tiger Map Server. Find the Watershed for this feature using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Surf Your Watershed site.

This gives us some more information on the feature but not much. It does give the links to the maps that will locate the feature for you. The one we are interested in right now is the link marked Show Feature Location. The others will take us to the Watershed project or to the Terraserver project which we will discuss later. Click on the link marked "Show Feature Location." You will see another screen that looks like the following:

National Mapping Information Map Server Location of Heidelberg Cemetery, Pennsylvania The following maps are produced using a direct map request from the Tiger Map Server at the U.S. Census Bureau. Location in United States Location in region surrounding Heidelberg Cemetery, Pennsylvania | Zoom In | Zoom Out |

From this page you can choose to Zoom in closer to the feature to see more identifying attributes of the area. NOTE: if you are going to print this page, only print page two. The first page is the map of the country and is not usually necessary as it is very general. If you zoom in, the resulting pages will not have the map of the US and with those you will only want to print the first page as the second page will be wasted on needless data. Just trying to help you conserve your printing resources.

That's about it for the operation of the USGS mapping service. One thing I would do is once you get a list of the features, use you right mouse button to open the link in a new browser session. It will help by not having to reload the list everytime you back up which will save quite a bit of time. You can also use this method to view more than one map to help compare the locations of the features you are looking for. Of the other links mentioned above, the one marked "View USGS Digital Raster Graphic (DRG)" will take you to the Terraserver project page and point you to the features general location on the topographic map. The link marked "View USGS Digital Orthophoto Quadrangle (DOQ)", will take you to TerraServer's Aerial photograph of the same area. I will discuss these maps in detail below.

Terraserver Project

Terraserver is a project brought to you by your friends at Microsoft and Encarta. It makes use of the Topographic and Aerial photography the government had used to create the maps for the USGS service. The maps have been digitized and are indexed and contain much more than just the topographical data. They contain Church locations, cemeteries, and even show the homes, buildings, roads and other features that other maps do not include. You can zoom out to a view of 168km or about 8mi/inch or zoom in as close as 2km or 200 yards/inch. The Aerial photographs allow one more level to 1km or 100 yards/inch. They are fairly easy to use. From the USGS mapping service, you can just click on the link already provided and be taken to either a topographic or an aerial map of the area. Sometimes those links don't work so I always just go to TerraServer's page and do a new search.

The main page is located at http://www.terraserver.com/. Terraserver, as of April 2001, was undergoing some construction on their site and the main page was no longer functional. This will change but in the interim you can go to the following link to get to their main search page: http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/advfind.asp?W=0 The easiest way to get started is to enter the area you are looking for in the box marked "Find a specific place" and hit the "GO" button. Keep the search to county and state or just state. You will be able to zoom in and follow roads, rivers and cities to navigate to where you want to go. If we wanted to look at Berks Co., PA just enter "Berks Co., PA" in the box and hit "GO." YOu can enter cities or towns if you know them. The more detail you specify, the closer you will get. Multiple hits are possible when you get duplicate entries. "New York" will return about 21 links so it is best to identify the county if possible. Our search for Berks Co., PA would give the following results:

FIND RESULTS       PLACE NAME AVAILABLE IMAGE 1 Berks, Pennsylvania, United States USGS Topo Map 1 Jul 1983 USGS Aerial Photograph 16 Aug 1995

Choosing the links provided will take you to either a topographic map or an aerial map of the selected area. Some areas also have a Satellite image available which may or may not be better than the Aerial photograph. In this case lets select the Topographic map. I will not display that screen here but I have made the links above active and they will open up the pages in a new browser session. Try opening both links and choosing between each session. You should see obvious details that show up on both maps. They should both be at the same zoom level and focused on the same point.

It is very hard to follow the aerial photographs unless you really know the area and even then things can be obscured by trees and foliage. What I suggest is to always use two browser sessions and when navigating on the topographic map, mimic the same commands and actions on the Aerial map. If you click to go west, also click to go west on the Aerial map. That way they will stay in sink.

A trick that I have discovered is that the only difference in the URL between the topographic map and the Aerial map is one character, which tells it which "type" of map to display. The coordinates are exactly the same. the following is the url for both. See if you can locate the difference.:
Topographic URL:
  http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.asp?T=2&S=14&X=131&Y=1398&Z=18&W=0&mscssid=
Aerial URL:
  http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.asp?T=1&S=14&X=131&Y=1398&Z=18&W=0&mscssid=

If you saw that "T=1" and "T=2" was the difference you are correct. You can use this to speed up the process of switching from one map to another. Instead of duplicating your actions on another browser session, find the area you want to explore on the topographic map. Zoom in, make the map bigger, or whatever you want to do until you get to the point you want to see the aerial map. Then copy the URL for the current browser page, and open another session and paste the URL in the Browser's location field. Then change the "T=2" to "T=1" and hit enter. You should be presented with a screen that is identical in position and zoom level to the topographic map except of course it will be the Aerial view. The topographic maps will identify cemeteries, churches and some other prominant features and then using the Aerial map, you can zoom in even closer to see houses, driveways, and other features that will help you identify the area.

I can't stress enough how useful these maps are. It helps you see what geographic features might have helped decide why your ancestors chose that spot or why they followed a certain path. Sometimes, especially in any of the mountain states, you will see why areas only a few miles apart can be so totally isolated from the other due to Rivers, Mountains, and other formidable land features. I have one ancestor in Somerset Co., PA that was thought to be related to a similarly named person in the next township. One area was on one mountain, the other on a neighboring mountain. Only a few miles apart as the crow flies, but since these are the two highest peaks in PA, the total mileage to get from one point to the other over the winding roads needed to get down one mountain and up the next was over 15 miles and that was using modern roadways. Those two people ended up not being related and the distance was one factor among others in determining that. Imagine what it was like in 1790 when the only paths and river fords were those made by the Indians. These maps help you see what those pioneers might have been up against. They have a number of uses and I am sure you will find some of your own once you start using them.

One quirk that needs to be mentioned about TerraServer is that every page seems to refresh itself after a few seconds on the screen. This can be annoying when trying to navigate as you start to look at the map and it refreshes automatically taking you back to the starting point again. If you are fast enough with your clicking, you can beat the process and rapidly navigate north, south, east and west before the server refreshes the page. A little practice will help you overcome this pratfall.

Toposerver

I will not go into detail on this site located at http://www.topozone.com, but it may be a little easier to use than TerraServer. It appears like a combination of both USGS and Terraserver. You enter an area your looking for in the "Place Name Search" and choose the state form a pull down, and hit search. The search item needs to be a specific item you are looking for. Names of counties and townships do not work. If you entered "Kutztown" and chose "PA" then you would get two hits, one in Berks Co., PA and the other in Lebanon Co., PA. Choosing the Berks Co., link would take you immediately to a map of the area that you can adjust to size and zoom level. There are not as many zoom levels as the TerraServer site and they do not have any Aerial photography, but the map appears to be based on the same source as for TerraServer.

If you use this tool often, it is suggested you bookmark the "Find Place: page at http://www.topozone.com/findplace.asp instead of the main page. This page is similar to the USGS page in which you can further qualify your search by feature type, State and County as well as a Feature Name if known. If multiple hits are found, like if you had requested cemeteries in Berks Co., PA, then you would be presented with a page that has almost the exact information that one would have gotten from the search at USGS. The only thing different here and, it is a sticking point for me, is that they display the Longitude in minutes west and the maps all use minutes east. It is very confusing when you are trying to find a feature using the Latitude and Longitude. Other than that, this mapping service has some obvious benefits over the other as it is a little faster than USGS and reduces the amount of steps needed to find a feature.

MapQuest, MapBlast, Yahoo maps, etc.

These services have some obvious advantages as you can enter an address and get to a map rather quickly and see many more street names than what is available on the topographic maps listed above. I will not go into detail on these except to mention that each has it's own peculiarities and strengths. You will find one you like better than the others and will end up using it exclusively. Some have a larger map area, some have better detail, but they all show only modern features and contain no historic features like the topographic maps and USGS.

Wrapping up

You will probably end up using all of these to some degree. I have had times where I have had a USGS map, a topographic map, an aerial map and a MapQuest map all open at the same time as they each had something the other didn't that would help me identify the area I was looking for. You will also find times where one is not enough so try them all out and see which work best in each situation. They will help you in more ways than you can imagine.

Sources

What is a source?

Literally a source is where you found the information. It could be a person, a book, a gravestone, your own research or any other document or place where data may be found. Sources are important to genealogists as they are the only thing we have to prove that the data is accurate or at least where it came from. Some sources are more original than others and therefore more accurate. Data that comes from a first hand source may not always be accurate and even data from very reliable sources may not be accurate so it is important to not stop with just one source of information. Gather as many sources that do not refer to the same origin so that your data can be proven beyond the shadow of doubt. Treat your data as if your life depended on it. Would you trust your life on someone elses word? Memories get clouded or obscured. Original documents get destroyed and transcriptions or copies may not be as accurate. Consider you are building a fort to protect your data and your sources are the building blocks that make up that fort. Would you stop with just a wall in front of you or would you continue until that wall encircled you and met the other walls and fit so they left no gaps for someone to get through? This example may seem extreme but it is what you want to accomplish. Support your data so that no one else can poke a hole in it. Usually three sources that agree with one another is enough to substantiate a piece of data. Sometimes it may be reffered to as a Citation. A Citation is just the reference to the source itself.

An example of good sources are, a cemetery record that includes the name, date of death and date of birth or age in years, months and days; A birth certificate giving a date that agrees with the cemetery record; a Death certificate that agrees with the date of death and possibly an obituary that might agree with all of them. Not all of these are primary documents and every one is susceptible to errors but if enough primary or secondary sources agree, then it becomes a pursuasive argument which is really all you can hope for.

What constitues a good source?

A good resource is one that does not rely on another source to support it. An original document would be considered a prime source. A birth or death certificate is a prime source that has the authority of the government that issued it. They are very reliable as far as dates go but not always reliable for the name. Birth records are more accurate as it is the name as it appeared at birth. The Death record may contain what the person was known as at the time of death. The name may have changed legally, the person may be known legally by a nickname or married name and it is not beyond possibility that the person recording the death mispelled the name or worse, guessed. Wills and probate records are usually very accurate but also depend on the person being truthful about the data recorded. Census records are good original sources of information but contain many errors and mispellings and the dates are only accurate in terms of what has been reported. A person's vanity may keep them from giving their true age or it may not be known. These records are good for coming close and should always be supported by other documentation. Some census records were given by neighbors which accounts for many glaring errors. Not everyone trusted the census takers.

Sources that rely on other sources for their content would be considered secondary sources. An example of this would be the transcription of a record or compilation of records from other sources. Transcriptions can be different from one person to the next especially when the original document was hand written. An obituary is a compilation of other sources usually from the personal accounts of the family. One person usually gives this information to the Funeral home who then disceminates it to the newspapers. There are lots of steps here where errors can be made. The person giving the information may not be accurate, the funeral home may write it down wrong and the Paper may make a mistake or edit things to their own purpose. They are great for identifying data but should also never be used as a primary source.

Books that rely on conjecture and personal accounts are great for adding a personal feel to an ancestor but should not be used as a reliable source. Maybe a history book gives an account of your ancestor being with Daniel Boone when he blazed a trail over the Cumberland Gap and also gave his wife and son's name helping you identify the person as your ancestor. As great as this is to the reputation of that ancestor, it really provides little in the way of genealogical data. If a history of an area gives your ancestors arrival, contributions to the community and even some birth's and death dates, the person who compiled the book got these from other sources. This type of data should never be treated as primary documentation. Go to the original documents whenever possible and in the case where the original no longer exists, a copy, or abstract should be considered as a primary source but not given as much surety as the original. Surety is a subjective amount that you place on an items reliability as a source. Are you sure, or are you very sure? Some genealogy programs allow you to assign a surety amount to a source so that you may identify, by some amount, that some sources may be more reliable than others. It is entirely up to you as to what constitues surety of a source. The longer you research, the more you will be able to make that type of judgement. Those programs that do provide a surety measure do not require you to use it. Is is just another measure of a sources reliability.

Other people's data is not a good source. On my own web site I list a disclaimer that not all data is accurate or proven and that a person should always research and prove the information on their own. Not everyone does this but you should assume that no one elses data is accurate. If they give you a source or sources and you can go to them and prove the data is accurate, then you are ahead of the game. Too many people borrow other people's data without even letting them know they are doing it. If you post your data on the internet, this is going to happen to you. Your data will turn up in the most unlikely places with a reference to you or no reference at all. These people tend to work in numbers, trying to accumulate the largest collection of data they can and with no sources in site. Some may contain sources but these "borrowers" don't know the accuracy of the data and perpetuate bad data by again publishing their data for some other borrower to collect and pass on. All we can do is try to be as accurate as possible and list as many sources when sharing data as we can.

Types of sources

Here is a run down on sources that may be a handy guide as you gather them for your research.:

• Primary sources are records created at the time of the event. They are first-hand evidence or accounts, acquired through direct experience. Examples of primary sources are:
  • Public records (censuses, birth and death registers)
  • Eyewitness accounts of events
  • Church records
  • Wills, account books, letters
  • Autobiographies and diaries
  • Speeches
  • Contemporary maps
  • Contemporary cartoons
  • Results of social surveys, including censuses
  • Works of literature, including poems and novels
  • Works of art, including films, paintings, and music
  • Laws, court decisions
  • Lab reports
  • Artifacts (shards, clothing, instruments, tools, and bones)
  
  
• Secondary sources are second hand because they comment on and interpret primary sources. Examples of secondary sources are:
  
  • Newspaper accounts
  • Interpretations of eyewitness events
  • Biographies
  • Other works about writers, including evaluations and reviews
  • Discussions or interpretations of survey results or test reports

The list above is subject to scrutiny and some people break down the primary source definition even more by saying that works of art, literature, biographies, cartoons and such should not be considered primary because they rely on the subjective nature of the subject and the possibly biased opinions of the author. One could probably go on to say that no source is completely reliable but without them we have no way of shoring up the premise of an actual event. All we can do is try and find as many sources as possible and hope that the preponderance of data will lead one to the conclusion that an event is legitimate.

There are many places we can find discussions on sources. It has been suggested that the Daughters of the American Revolution may be a good place to brush up on your source knowledge. To join their organization requires you to provide primary sources to back up your application. The process may be an eye opener for some as to what is expected as far as primary sources go. Many colleges offer courses that included evaluating sources and how to organize and report them. Anyone who has taken a course like this in College is well on their way to being a good genealogist because sources is what genealogy is all about.

Organizing Your Genealogical Data

Piles, Piles everywhere

One of the first things you will learn in genealogy is that it uses up a lot of dead trees. Even if you store much of your information electronically in a database program on your computer as well as images of data and text files full of information, you are still going to accumulate a lot of paper. It is always best when starting any venture to decide how you are going to handle the documentation necessary to support it. Too many genealogists find out too far into their research they don't have a valid idea of how to organize their research, hence the piles of paper. Don't be embarassed, you not in the minority.

As with anything you must adhere to some type of regiment to maintain order. That regiment must start with a filing system. Fortunately what one has learned on the computer can be related to the real world. After all the computer was based on a real world of filing and storing data so those who are raised on the computer and never had the chance to work in a paper environment should not find it hard to understand the basics of a good filing system. Directories and Folders are after all the same thing and in this discussion I will use the word folder in place of directory as it applies to both the physical and computer filing system. Those starting out on the computer who already have a good physical system wont find it hard to relate that to the computer.

Where to start

The first thing to do is to visualize how you will be looking for your data. You don't want to be sifting through many different files for one piece of data. You must be able to seperate your data into specific categories. Does it relate to one surname or many? Does it relate more to a place where many people lived or to an event? Do you want to look for events by type or as they relate to the person or place? Let's start by setting up some rather simple folders for holding our information. This can relate whether this is for a real file or a computer one.

First create a main filing cabinet or folder that you will store your genealogy data in. This could be a real file cabinet or a computer folder called "Geneology." In this filing cabinet we are going to set up some large folders (empty for now) that are labeled, "Surnames", "Census", "USA", "Military" and "Ships". These are just an example of the possible folders one could have and these could very well be seperate drawers of a filing cabinet or seperators in a drawer. For this discussion let's assume they are expandable folders so that they may hold all the data we may be shoving in there later on. Additions to the contents of these folders will be added as you add data that needs a new division of the data beyond what you have. For instance, in the USA folder, we wouldn't want to create seperate folders for each of the fifty states as I doubt anyone will have data on their ancestors that exists for every state in the US. However if we have ancestors and their descendants that lived in PA, VA, MD, OH, IN, IL and KS, we might have folders in the "USA" folder for those states. If you find data for a new state, just create a new folder in the USA folder.

State Level Documentation

What data would we put in these state folders? Well the state folders serve two purposes. They will hold information we have that is not specific to any county but is specific to the state. Say we have maps of Ohio that show what the early state looked like during the stages of county formation. Unless we had a specific main folder called "Maps", I would put these maps and any other data like them in the states individual folder.

County Level Documentation

If I had data that was county specific, like a township map of Muskingum Co., OH, then I would create a folder in the Ohio folder for Muskingum Co., creating an Ohio folder in the USA folder if it did not already exists, and place any county specific data there. A list of all churches or cemeteries in a county would be a good example of data that would go in a county level folder.

Township, Burough, Town Level Documentation

If we have data that is specific to a township, town or burough, then inside the county folder, we would create a new folder for that division and place the data there if we have enough data on that division to warrant a seperate folder. If you only have one or two pages on the subject, don't bother with the additional division, just label them accordingly and keep them in the more general location folder. Remember that towns and buroughs reside in townships so they would be another divsion of folders to create unless of course a city is large enough that there is no township like New York City or Cleveland.

You get the idea now that you better invest in a lot of folders for your physical filing sytem and make a lot of them the large expandable kind especially for the areas you do a lot of research in. In the physical file, you might decide to relegate any of these divisions to a larger folder or drawer at some point as you get more information. With the computer this will never happen as folders will have no constraints on how many sub folders you create in them. You will only be limited by size of the disk and with disks getting bigger and cheaper that should not be an issue.

Surname Documentation

Let's drop back to our "Surnames" folder. In this we want to create a folder for every surname you have information on. If you have multiple spellings, and within those alternate spellings you have a lot of data specific to that spelling then create folders within those surnames for those alternate spellings. Why not just create a new folder under the "Surnames" folder for the alternate spelling instead of within a specific surname? You can, but if you are searching a specific name especially in the computer, it is much easier just to point to one folder and start searching through it instead of searching through all of your surname folders when only one or two need to be searched. Unlike the physical world, you cannot direct a computer search to only search two directories. It is all directories under one folder or none.

It is up to you how you decide to do this but I would suggest the one folder per family approach. An example of this is my surname is SHIRER. To me all my family are SHIRERS no matter what the spelling. I refer to my database as the SHIRER database so even though one of my 5xgreat-grandfather's son's changed his spelling to SHIRAR, his line has a seperate folder under SHIRER called SHIRAR. Also the SHIRERS were originally SCHEURER so within my SHIRER folder I have one specific to SCHEURER.

What do we put in these SURNAME folders? many genealogists keep a seperate folder for each family. If you create seperate folders for each person this would become impossible to manage all the folders and besides how much information do you have on each person? A better approach would be to create a folder for a family and keep all the information in that folder for each member while they are a member of that household. When they start their own family, create a new folder for them and keep the data on that family in it's own folder.

At this point you probably want to give the folders specific names with dates so you can identify them easily in a chronological fashion as well as by name. You may never accumulate enough data on a family to warrant this approach and most of the data may already reside in a computer program so there is no need to keep hard copies of it, but this helps as a place to keep all your primary sources, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage license and certificates, etc. If you want to store data sheets on the family here then you can see that there might only be one or two pages per family so there may not be a reason to create so many physical folders but since the computer doesn't have the same space constraints, you might as well just to keep everything easier to find. It is always a good idea to scan those primary sources and keep the resulting image file in the appropriate folder.

I think by now it is apparant how to set up and maintain your surname folders. The data that will get stored there will be data that is specific to a family or person. Do not store cemetery lists there or church records unless they are copies of primary sources. Lists of two or three people in a church baptismal record is better off somewhere else. Where that is is up to you. You may decide to set up a folder under "Genealogy" for churches, but how do you seperate them? You would have to set up a system similar to the USA folder with subfolders for states, counties, etc. Instead, I treat any place or building as a point I can pinpoint on a map. A person cannot be pinned down to one point but a church or cemetery can. It is easier to think in these terms than in terms of having many folders divided by location. This way if I have say a list of baptisms for a church that I have photocopied from a book or downloaded from the internet, I go to the USA folder, go to the folder for the state where the source is located, the appropriate county and then township. If the township or county is not known, then save the data in the lowest applicable folder that is known. If you only know the state, then that is where to put the data. Other data that may go under a location rather than a surname would be maps, lists of many people which also may include your one ancestor, pictures of the area, tax lists, etc. If you have nowhere else to put something and you know where it was, then the location folders are probably the best place to store it. If you also want to make a copy of the data that contains a reference to your specific ancestor and put it in his/her family's folder, by all means do it. It will create redundant data but this is, after all, your filing system and it should be flexible enough to find something no matter how you look for it.

Census Documentation

The Census folder will be set up similar to the USA folder and the reason we do not create seperate folders under the specific location folders in the "USA" folder for "Census" is because you may be storing lots of census records and it is easier to look for them all in one spot. We will have to arrange folders to separate them but we now have the addition of seperating them by year. I do things a little different than most as I have many databases for each specific year and location as I do a lot of transcription from the originals and I just found it easier to work that way. We do have to arrange then somehow, so the order will be up to you, but we should start by creating folders for each state you have census data for. Within those states you can subdivide then a couple ways, by county, township and then year; by county, year and township; or year, county and township; or you may decide not to create seperate folders for township. The decision is up to you. You can always give a file a descriptive name that identifies it by township. Lets assume we are taking a minimilist approach and forget the township division. Let's also assume we are going to subdivide by Year and then County. Now if we have an 1850 census record for Muskingum Co, OH we would place it in the folder under Genealogy named Census, then Ohio, then 1850, then Muskingum. If the census record was for Salem township then save it as a file named SalemTwp.txt or whatever extension and file type the document was.

If you are making use of a free trial at ancestry.com or other services and have access to the files for a specific census, and they span several pages then a good idea is to name them SalemTwp001.html, SalemTwp002.html, etc. This is of course assuming you are saving the entire page from your browser. If you are an experienced researcher and feel comfortable with cutting and pasting the data to a new file you created with a text editor or other program then by all means save it as one file without the sequence numbers. You will still want to add the descriptive name to identify the specific location. You may also consider creating a new folder anytime you have data for one location that spans mulitple pages. In the physical file you can staple them together or paper clip them but you can't do this in a computer.

If you are downloading or saving census data from a surname search of a database, then perhaps we should rethink the location of where to save the data. Since these files are usually specific to the whole state, doing a surname search and saving all the resulting pages may be better done at the state and year level and name the file with the resulting surname and sequence number if necessary. NOTE: I use three digit sequence nubers with leading seros because in a list of names you don't want them to appear as 1,10,2,20, instead you want them to appear as 001,002,010,020, etc. If you are not planning on saving over a hunderd pages, then by all means revert to a two digit sewuence number.

The Military folder should be set up with folders for specific conflicts, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish American War, etc. Within those folders you can set up folders for Army, Navy, Militia, or by state and location. The decision is up to you but how you decide will not only reflect on how you store the data, but also on how you can find it again. You may not have a lot of military information and in that case you may want to keep the records in the surname folder or the location folder depending on what they relate to.

Ships Documentation

The Ships folder again is up to you. You may decide to arrange it by location of where the ship arrived, departed, or the year it arrived, etc. I don't use seperate folders for years or locations but do use descriptive names like "LoyalJudith09241754" which tells me the name and year of arrival. If you want the computer to automatically sort these in order, you may decide to put the date first but make it year, month, day, name such as "17540924LoyalJudith."

I may also set up a folder for a specific ship on the computer so if a free ancestry.com database is available, say on the German Pioneers from PA, then I may start with the first page of a specific ship and save each page with a sequence number until I get to the end of that ship. Later I will go in and cut out all the redundant data and end up with one file from the multiple files created under the unique folder for that ship. Even if I create a new single file of that ship, I keep all the pages I downloaded. They don't take up that much space and may be useful at some point. That is just me and I doubt other people will feel this way. I just suggest it as a way of dealing with the downloading of multiple pages of related data. In the physical file, just one folder may be all you need as the printed pages will probably name the ship and multiple pages could be stapled together to keep them seperate from all the rest of the ships.

Mapping Your Documentation

It is important to map out how you store data in your filing system. It would not be a bad idea to make a roadmap of your physical and/or electronic filing system so in case something may happen to you, God forbid, or you just get senile and can't remember where you put things, this will help lead you or someone else to the correct place to find the data. Keep this folder list and instructions on it's use in the front of your folder or in the main "Genealogy" folder of your filing system. It will make it easy to find in case of emergency. Your physical system will not be able to be backed up and saved anywhere unless you plan on scanning everything and saving it on your computer as a backup. It's getting cheaper and easier to do this so it is an alternative to keeping your records in a fire proof filing cabinet.

Let's face it. we are generally lazy as a species so unless you want to keep your data in a another location that is fire proof, or off site, it is not going to be very logical to have your data far away from where you do your genealogy work. Luckily the computer version of your filing system is only a mouse click away so maybe those stacks of paper will accumulate while you are putting everything in the comnputer, but when you do decide to file them away, at least you have an idea now of how to do it.

The above system is just a suggestion of how you might set up a filing system and the ultimate perfect filing system to you will be one that you can remember easily how it works and is easy for you to find something. If it takes you more than a few minutes to find something, I would think seriously of changing your system to something like mine and keeping that map handy for emergencies unless of course you know excatly which pile that piece of data is in. Quick test. Where is your own birth certificate? I bet a copy isn't even in your genealogy filing system. Maybe a safety deposit box, or maybe that Nike shoe box in the attic next to 1975's tax returns. Develop a system and live by it. You'll thank your self many years down the road as it will be second nature to you by then.

Changing Your E-mail Address

One of the worst experiences you will have on the internet is when you have to change e-mail addresses. As a genealogist you need people to be able to contact you so you can exchange information. You post your email address each time you send a message to a list or to a GenConnect Board or someone's Guest Book. If you change your address how are people going to know how to find you? Well there is some good news and some bad. First the bad. You will never be able to change all the posts in the list archives at Rootsweb or any other list. You will not be able to remember each guestbook you ever posted your address to and you will never be able to contact all the people you have ever communicated with to let them know of the change of address. The good news? There is help for this process that will make it a lot easier to deal with, at least at Rootsweb and we will discuss this a little later.

First let's discuss why this happened in the first place. Maybe you changed providers. Maybe the provider was bought by another firm and you have no choice. Maybe you moved and your provider does not serve your area. This could have been avoided a number of ways. There are a number of free e-mail accounts that you could have used and then been able to access from anywhere in the country. Yahoo and Hotbot are two of the most common. It is always a good idea to keep an account on one of these services so you can get email even if you are out of the country. Another concept is buying an email account. Obviously this is not a free service like Yahoo but it does give you an account, that as long as you pay for it, will remain constant even if you move or change providers. You do not have to use the e-mail account your provider offers or you don't have to use it for genealogy but might consider using it just for personal messages. This is a pre-emptive option and any genealogist should think seriously about utilizing it. You would have to change your address at least once more but then, never again. You will have to investigate this option on your own as there are lot's of services available and you will want to find one that will allow your e-mail account to be the same even if they change hands.

I have discussed before how important it is to backup your browsers files along with your "sent" folder. If you inadvertantly trash your address book, you can get it back. If you have backed up your sent messages, you will be able to see who you have sent messages to in any given period and reassemble a list of who you want to contact about your change of address. It is simpler to do this from your address book if it is intact. If you arrange your address book well enough, you will be able to send your address change to only those people that need to be contacted. For instance, if you buy an e-mail account just for your genealogy communications, you would want to arrange your address book so that your genealogy contacts are grouped together. This discusion will not touch on how that is done but most mail programs allow some type of identification of this type.

For contacting people, you will want to create a template or message that you can easily apply to everyone generically. There is no sense in emailing everyone seperately as that may take a long time. Better to just create a short message specifying the change of address and include all the people you want to contact in the "TO" area. If you know that the change is going to take place on a certain date, then you can pre-warn people to the impending change. This is a lot better and gives you more time as opposed to having to change your address aburptly and not being able to contact everyone before the change takes place. Plan enough time to let everyone know before if possible.

Rootsweb makes it fairly easy to change your address. The following is a list of addresses and procedures at Rootsweb and elsewhere that will help you in changing your e-mail address:

• Rootsweb E-Mail Address Changes
  • Address Changes - http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/FAQ/address.html#b2. This is the main place to start your change of address and the following can also be reached from this page.
    
    
  • Password Central - http://passwordcentral.rootsweb.com/. From here you can request that Rootsweb mail you a list of all mailing lists you are subscribed to.
    
    
  • Mailing Lists - You will have to unsubscribe to each mailing lists individually and subscribe again using the new email address. If you are unable to send a message from your old email account, then you will have to contact the administrator of each account and explain the problem so they csn manually change it for you. Do not post an email change to a list. You can reach any RootsWeb mailing list administrator by using the following address, but substituting the listname for the xxx. xxx-admin@rootsweb.com
    
    
  • GenConnect Message Boards - http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/FAQ/address.html#b1. You will have to follow the procedures listed at this address for each GenConnect Board you are subscribed to.
    
    
  • Post-It-Notes - You will have to manually log in using the password you supplied when you first posted the note and then change your address. If you forgot your password or want a list of all the post-it notes you have created, go to the above link for Password Central and request your Post-It-Notes be included in an email along with your passwords and mailing lists.
    
    
  • Rootsweb Review and Missing Links Newsletters - http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/FAQ/address.html#b4.
    
    
  • Rootsweb Surname List - http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/FAQ/address.html#b5.
    
    
  • World Connect Gedcoms - http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/FAQ/address.html#b7.
    
    
  • Temporary Address Changes - If you change your address temporarily you will have to follow the same procedure as if you changed it permanently and then again when you change back. I would only do this to your Mailing lists. You probably will not generate enough email from the other addresses to warrant changing them.

OneList, formerly E-Group is now owned by Yahoo. Before changing your address you will have to create an account at Yahoo if you do not already have one. Afterwards you can go to the address for OneList at http://www.onelist.com and request that your accounts be updated to Yahoo. You will need to know the e-mail account that they were created with, your old address, and the password you used when creating it. If you forgot your password they have a request that you can use to have your password sent to you. This requires your old e-mail address to still be functioning so think about this in advance as otherwise you will have to contact customer service to have the accounts re-set. This may take a while. Once you have transferred your E-Groups, OneList account to Yahoo, then go to Yahoo groups at http://groups.yahoo.com/mygroups and log in to your account id if you are not already logged in through the process of updating your account to Yahoo. Select the account you want to change by the link under the Group Name. From the next screen choose "Delivery Options." The next page will allow you to add or delete an email address to the Group. You can also unsubscribe at this point. You can also add an alternative e-mail address so in case your service goes down, your messages will still be sent to another email account, possible a work account or a temporary one you have set up on Yahoo, Hotbot or elsewhere.

If you are a member of Ancestry.com or some of the other services, you will have to contact their pages to individually update your e-mail accounts. Most of these services have a page where you can change your e-mail address easily. For services like GeoCities and others where you have created webpages, you will have to know both your email account and password used to set up the account. The individual pages will be up to you to change manually as all you are doing when you change your account address is saying how they can get in touch with you as well as the name of your account as it is usually related to your email address. It is very important to remember this and keep it somewhere safe as if you forget your password and request it be sent to you, it will be sent to your old address. You can't change your address until you log in and for that you need your password so it becomes a "Catch 22" situation. I have been trying to update an account on Geocities for a year after my last email change and still have not been able to convince customer service that the procedures they say to follow just don't work.

Preparing for the worst

As I stated above, creating an email account with someone other than your service provider is the best way to keep from having to change your email address at all. The other alternatives require some work on your part and should be planned for in advance. You may not be able to do anything about some of the places you have already posted, but here are a few things you can do to make some of them a little less painless.

• Save your passwords - This may seem like a no brainer for those people who use the same password for everything but you will eventually run up against a service where they require a password to conform to their format and yours may not fit the bill. It is a good idea to save all responses from the setup process from each service you join because it usually includes your new password and the instructions for changing or unsuscribing from the service. If it does not, then move the message to your drafts folder, edit it and add the password, save it and then move it to where ever you can find it again. A folder in your mail program just for passwords and ID's is a good idea.
  
  
• Make a list of every site you have visited and posted a message to that includes your email address. This might be as simple as saving the URL to your favorites or bookmark folder. Create a new unique folder just for this purpose. When you need to change your address, you will have a complete list of every place your address has been posted that you can not change yourself. You can attempt to contact the webmaster of those pages and request they change your address or just repost a new message containing your new address and some relation to your previous post.
  
  
• Backup your address book so that you always have the addresses of those you need to let know of your change of address. Some mail programs allow you to print out your address book. Take advantage of this periodically so even if you accidentally delete it and do not have a backup, you will have a hardcopy to fall back on.
  
  
• Consider creating an alternate e-mail account with any of the temporary services and include this in your Sig file. That way whenever you post a message somewhere, the sig file will contain both your regular account and your alternate account. If they can't reach you by the primary, the alternate should still work. Just make sure you check it periodically. (A Sig file or Signature File, is a small text file containing information you want added automatically to the end of your e-mail messages. It is usually used in genealogy for your name, email address, surnames and possible a message or URL to your webpage. See your browser's help section on creating one.)
  
  
• Take consolation that everyone will eventually go through this so you are not alone. We cannot foresee what is going to happen in the future. Technologies change and companies get eaten up by bigger conglomerates that may force you to change to their new method and address scheme. We cannot plan for what will happen but we can try to be ready for it when it does, and it eventually will happen to everyone.
  
  

Going through this process once will make you see things in a different light. You will want to do anything possible to eliminate the possibility of it happening again. For those who have lived through it, these tips may help you next time. For those about to go through the process, please evaluate the process thouroughly before just blindly jumping in. Consider the options here and make an informed decision so that you can ease the process and keep it from happening too many more times.

Census Records

I have been considering adding some help for reading and evaluating census records bu then found this site which does it much better. It even includes the actual instructions given to enumerators for the 1850-1990 census. Almost everything you ever wanted to know about the census can be found here. The page is sponsored by the University of Minnesotta, Minnesota Population Center as part of their Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS-98), and is found at http://www.ipums.org/usa/index.html. Though there is a lot of information found here, these are a few links to specific information on their site:

• Enumerator Instructions
• Enumeration Forms
• Census Questions
• History of the Census

These are just a few links and not all the data here is useful to genealogists and they even include a disclaimer for using their data for genealogical purposes, http://www.ipums.org/usa/gen.html, but don't let that dissuade you from exploring the site and using the information on the forms and enumerators.

There are no stories about the obstacles encountered by the enumerators but knowing the procedures they were supposed to follow may help in determining why they recorded the information they did. I may expand on this in the future but for now, they do a much better job than I could.

Another good source of Census tidbits and facts is Linda Haas' Learning Center found at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~haas/learningcenter/learningcenter.html. She has a wealth of information on many subjects including the Census, Land Records, Military Records, etc. Take the time to visit her site. She has done a wonderful job.

INDEX

This page has been accessed times.

This page authored and maintained by Denny Shirer < drdxneo.rr.com >.

Page established: Aug 1, 1998
Last revised: Mar 10, 2001

Search billions of records on Ancestry.com

   

Census Records | Vital Records | Family Trees & Communities | Immigration Records | Military Records Directories & Member Lists | Family & Local Histories | Newspapers & Periodicals | Court, Land & Probate | Finding Aids