New Online Irish Genealogy Magazine

A new online genealogy magazine has debuted.  It's called irish lives remembered.  The first issue is focused on County Cork research, from where a lot of immigrants came.

You can get the issue here.


Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

A Newspaper Article about Margaret Du Bose Intrigued Me

Martinez Daily Standard,  8 Aug 1917, p 4, col 3

    I have been working on an every name index of the Martinez Daily Standard and in the process read a lot of the newspaper to find names to index.  Today an article about a woman, Mrs. Margaret Du Bose, intrigued me.  She was a seamstress from Stege who came up with an idea for adjusting the waistband of women's overalls.  A San Francisco manufacturing company awarded her a $500 bonus and an offer for $100 per month job.

    This article was in the Wednesday, August 8, 1917 issue on page four.  The original newspapers are housed at the History Center, an archive of Contra Costa County, and run by the Contra Costa County Historical Society.

    So I decided to do some research on Margaret Du Bose.  First I found that Stege was located near Richmond, on the southern end, which today is the triangle of land between Interstate 580 and 80.  I decided to check the city directories of Richmond.  I found two on Ancestry.com:  R. L. Polk and Co.'s Richmond, Martinez and Contra Costa County Directory 1916-1917 and 1918, but I did not find any Margaret Du Bose or any other close spelling such as Du Boise, Du Bois.

     Ancestry.com also has San Francisco city directories,  Crocker-Langley San Francisco Directory and I checked 1918, 1919, and 1920, but found no Margaret.

     I also did not find Margaret in the 1920 San Francisco Co federal census nor the 1910 Contra Costa Co federal census.  I do not know her husband's name.  Only that he has died and she was a widow.  I searched the 1905-1929 California Death Index on FamilySearch.org but did not find a man dying in Contra Costa Co before 1917.

     So why am I not finding her?  There are several things that could be impeding this search:

1. Her name is completely wrong.  Newspapers are notorious in having spelling errors.  I did do some creative spelling searches for Du Bois, Du Boise, Dubois, etc.
2. She lived in Contra Costa County only a short time, not long enough to be in a city directory at Richmond.  
3. Her husband did not die in Contra Costa County.  See #2.
4. She remarried before the 1920 census.

    So what's next?

1. Research clothing manufacturing companies in San Francisco to see who made women's overalls.  This will help me find her new employer.
2. Research places near Stege who might have hired Margaret.  Of course she could have been an independent worker, though she did not show up in the directory under seamstresses.

    If anyone has any other ideas, please comment.  I welcome any input!

Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

How to search for an address in Ancestry City Directories

Ancestry have added a lot of city directories. To find them, open the card catalog -> Schools, Directories & Church Histories -> City & Area Directories -> U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 (Beta) .

Ancestry also allows you to search by an address. The search is not well documented by Ancestry. Below is an example on how to do it.

Example:

Who lived at the 614 Palisade Ave, Jersey City, New Jersey between 1900-1910.

1) Do not set any name!

2) Set Lived In to "Jersey City, Hudson, New Jersey, USA"

3) Set Keyword to "614 Palisade Ave"

4) Set Residence Year to 1905+-5 and set exact only

Click search and you get all people who lived at that address.

Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Annual Meeting & Installation of the Board

Thursday, May 10, 2012 was the annual meeting and installation of the 2012-2013 Board of Directors.  Following the short general meeting and refreshments, several members shared some of their exciting finds in their research.

2012-2013 Board Members

Refreshments & Visiting

Refreshments & Visiting

Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday: California Blogs

Are you interested in California genealogy? Want to learn more about local genealogy and historical societies in the state? Then check out the California State Genealogical Alliance's blog post entitled "What California Blogs Do You Follow?" They created a great list of blogs focusing on California topics. We are included, too!
To see their list, click here.  From their blog post, you can then click to other blogs about California.

Copyright © 2012 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday -- Organizing Family Photos in 8 Easy Steps

I follow the "The Armchair Genealogist" blog, written by Lynn Palermo.  She writes great articles about the writing process and just finish hosting the Family History Writing Challenge during the month of February.

This week she wrote an article called "Organizing Family Photos in 8 Easy Steps" about how to organize your family photos.  We're talking about those paper photos you have either thrown in a box, stored still in their original envelopes, or placed in various non-archival photo albums.

She broke it down into 8 easy steps, which basically are to gather, scan, label & sort, and then organize on the computer.  She used a FlipPal scanner, but any scanner could be used.  Her suggestion is to do this while watching T.V.  The FlipPal works well for this because it is small.  I have my flatbed scanner on the coffee table in our living room so I can scan while watching television, too.

What I loved best was what to do with the photos after being scanned.  That was my dilemma.  They usually went back into the original box and then I would not remember whether I had scanned them before.  Sorting the photos into labeled envelopes is just the solution!

Do take a look at her blog post for the complete list and great photos of how she did it!

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday -- Organizing & Sharing Digital Images Webinar

Legacy Family Tree at their website has a wonder webinar called "Organizing & Sharing Digital Images" given by Geoff Rasmussen.  I attended the webinar live and learned a lot. Geoff demonstrated:

• how to get the photos off your camera and organize them on the computer
• organizing the photos on the computer using Photoshop Elements and Picassa  
• how you can share your photos with others and put them into the Legacy program

He did all of this live.

The webinar will be free for viewing on their website for about 10 days.  Give it a try!


Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Report on General Meeting - Feb 9, 2012

We had a very good turnout for our General Meeting on February 9, 2012.  Janice Sellers gave a wonder talk on using online newspapers.

She spoke about why newspapers are helpful to genealogists and that you can find more than birth, marriage, and death information from them.  Other types of information include school news, legal notices, business news, social news, and military news to list a few.  She described the types of newspapers one can find from national, large local, small local, and ethnic papers.

She gave us a list of the online sources that are free to use at LDS Family History Centers: NewspaperArchive.com, Fold3.com, 19th Century British Newspapers, Ancestry.com, WorldVitalRecords.com, and 19th Century US Newspapers (through Godfrey).  She gave us a nice list of other libraries in the area that have newspaper subscriptions, other subscription databases, free databases such as Library of Congress Chronicling America and the California Digital Newspaper Collection, and some portals such as Cyndi's List and Wikipedia to help you find other newspapers.

Lastly she gave us some database basics.  In describing how searches work, we saw screen shots of the actual databases and the newspaper articles that she found.

It was a wonderful talk and I heard many people say upon leaving that they couldn't wait to get home and try some of it out.

Thank you, Janice!


Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Accomplishments in the Past Year

Some of us board members were commenting about how we don't do much business in our board meetings.  Our President, Yvonne Adams, made a list of all of the accomplishments members of our society have done in the past year.  It is a pretty impressive list and we should all be very proud of ourselves.

1. Increased our publicity using newspapers, online sites, and a table at the Peddlar's Faire.
2. Cleaned up our Standing Rules
3. Created name tags for our members to wear at General Meetings
4. Resumed research trips
5. Changed our General Meeting format to encourage more member sharing
6. Resumed the Teaching Moment
7. Increased dues so we could increase the stipend for speakers
8. Continued with donations to Toys for Tots and the Food Bank
9. Created Inventory Sheets for Officers for a smoother transition
10. Created Blue Books for Officers with a list of duties and a timeline
11. Created a Refreshment Committee
12. And lastly created a display case at the Pleasant Hill Library which will be on display the month of February 2012.  Below is a photo of the display case.

Display created by the Contra Costa County Genealogical Society at the Pleasant Hill Library

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

General Meeting -- Feb 9, 2012

Coming up this month will be professional genealogist, Janice Sellers, who will speak about Online Newspapers.  Her summary is:

Using Online Newspapers for Genealogical Research

      Newspapers are valuable in genealogical research because you can find information about births, deaths, marriages, moves, business, naturalizations, court cases, and more. Millions of pages of the world's newspapers are now accessible online, but there is no one place to find them all. This class gives an overview of what isavailable online and techniques to help improve your chances of finding information about your relatives.

Janice M. Sellers is a professional genealogist who specializes in newspaper and Jewish research. She is the editor of two genealogy journals and a member of APG, Genealogical Speakers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and CGS. She has volunteered at Oakland Regional Family History Center for eleven years.

The meeting begins at 7 pm and the location is the LDS Church at 1360 Alberta Way, Concord.  All are welcomed!

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday -- 6 Steps to Writing Your Memoir or Family History Book

I have completed two family history book projects in the past ten years, most recently a 3-generation story of Swedish immigrants called The Nilsen Family: From Jönköping to America.  It was hard work but very satisfying to share the completed book with family.

I have since created a presentation on writing about your own family and presented it to Digging For Your Roots seminar in October 2011.  I am still on the look out for ways to write and create family histories.

Well today I found a blog post at Family History and Memoirs blog of Stories to Tell website that explains in six steps how one can take a writing project from inception to completion.  This is a commercial company but their website has lots of  instructional posts about writing, editing, and printing your book.  I think that the hardest thing about starting a project is thinking it will be take a long time and be hard to do.  By breaking your project into smaller steps will make your project seem less daunting and very doable.

Give their website a try and see it you can't start on your own project.


Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday -- Genealogy Sites Pressured Into Removing SSDI

There has been a lot written about the removal of the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) from Rootsweb.com.  The index can be viewed behind the pay wall of Ancestry.com (the parent owner of Rootsweb.com) but the deaths in the last 10 years have the Social Security number removed.

Kimberly Powell of About.com has written a further update on the issue.  View it here to see her summary of the status of the SSDI.

It is a real shame to remove an index that was created to prevent fraud because of some incidences of fraud in tax returns.  Hopefully those in power will finally see that.

Lisa Gorrell
Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday -- The Top 5 Reasons I Listen to Webinars

Marian Pierre-Louis is a genealogist researching primarily in the New England area.  She also enjoys researching the history of houses.  She has presented in her blog, Marian's Roots and Rambles, on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011, 5 great reasons to watch/listen to genealogy-related Webinars.

What is a Webinar?  It is basically a seminar presented over the Internet.  They are becoming very popular as a new medium to present genealogy topics.  You can view them live and participate, or view them as a download to watch when you want to.  You hear the speaker's voice, see their slide show, and often receive handouts.

I have watched/listened to some great Webinars produced by Legacy Family Tree including lecturers Marian Pierre-Louis, Thomas MacEntee, Maureen Taylor, Lisa Alzo, and Daniel Lynch, and by Michael John Neill.  Many are free and some have a nominal price.  It's a great way to hear the lecture from a well-known genealogist who seldom comes out West.  It's a great way to hear a lecture in your own time-frame.  You don't have to get dressed up to go to a seminar.  You can watch at your own leisure in your PJs if you want.

So give a Webinar a try!  I'm sure you're like them.

by Lisa Gorrell
Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

ArkivDigital for free Nov 12-13 2011

 ArkivDigtal is free during the Swedish Archival Days Nov 12-13. The images in ArkivDigital is in color and photos of the original documents. Not a microfilm copy. ArkivDigital is my first choice when I read Swedish church books.

For more information see Arkiv Digital for free  .

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

General Meeting - Thursday, Nov 10, 2011 - Vera Boyles

Vera Boyles will give a presentation on "Tips to Make Your Research Easier."  This is sure to be a very interesting talk.  Everyone can use tips to make their research easier and faster.  The meeting begins at 7 P.M.  The location is the LDS Church at 1360 Alberta Way, Concord.  Guests are welcome!

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday -- Legacy Family Tree Webinar

Today, Mary Hill presented a webinar with the Legacy Family Tree.  Her webinar is available for free viewing until November 14.  Here is the writeup about the webinar:

FamilyRoots Organizer System.  Researchers need a simple way to organize genealogy records. The FamilyRoots Organizer System is easy to understand, simple to set up, and simple to use. Join us to learn the system and find out how using Legacy you can color-code your families to coordinate with your paper files.

This is a great seminar for someone who wants to become better organized.  She shows how, with supplies purchased at your neighborhood office supply store, to create a file system so you can file and find your research results.  It's a color coded system: blue for your father's father line, green for your father's mother line, red for your mother's father line, and yellow for your mother's mother line.  Give the webinar a try!

http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/webinars.asp

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

Follow Friday -- 4 Easy Tips for Preserving Digital Photos

The Library of Congress has several blogs on their website and one, The Signal, is about digital preservation.  Each post is written by different employees.  This post, written by Butch Lazorchak, about the 4 easy tips to preserve digital photos is very informative.

"We’ve come up with four simple steps to start you on the digital preservation path: Identify, Decide, Organize, and Make copies (I.D.O.M. anybody?).

Click on the link "four simple steps" and it will take you to the Library of Congress Digital Photographs page with a nice tidy article on how to save your digital photos.

I found the four steps simple to follow and I hope you do, too.

Copyright © 2011 by Contra Costa County Genealogical Society.

"Where's the Proof" by Corey Oiesen

Corey Oiesen

Last night, Oct. 13, 2011, Corey Oiesen spoke to us about how to evaluate sources.  She showed some wonderful resources for reading up on evaluating sources, writing source citations, and following the Genealogical Proof Standard. (See below for a list of books).

She started with defining the difference between Original or Derivative Sources, whether the information in a source is primary or secondary information, and whether the information answers the research question (direct evidence) or can be paired with other information to answer the question (indirect evidence).  She showed wonder images that helped explain the concepts.

She also talked about the informant and that sources can have more than on informant.  For example, the death certificate has the doctor as the informant about the illness and cause of death, while the genealogical information is usually given by a family member.  (For more information on this subject, go here).

She spoke about conflicting evidence and how it is important to keep track of all of the evidence that you find and to write about why you think the evidence is conflicting.  This is for yourself as well as for future researchers.

Lastly she spoke about source citations.  These help show your research path and will enable a future researcher to find the sources you used.

Corey's informative presentation, with the many examples she used, made what could be a very dry subject, very entertaining.  She was a wonderful speaker.

Good reference books she showed were:

Professional Genealogy: a Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills.  Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2001.

The BCG Genealogical Stands Manual.  Board for Certification of Genealogists, Prove, Utah: Ancestry Publishing, 2000.

Evidence Explained, Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, by Elizabeth Shown Mills.  Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2009.

Follow Friday -- NARAtions: The Blog of the National Archives

I really enjoy reading the NARAtions (blog of the National Archives) because I learn something about the National Archives.  I think a lot of people think the National Archives is kind of mysterious.  What kinds of records do they have besides census, military, and land records?  So I'm always ready to learn of new records.

However, this blog post is about the 1940 census which will be released to the public April 2012.  "Family Tree Friday: Were You at Work?  The 1940 Census employment status (Part I)" at NARAtions.  It is written by Diane Petro, who is an Archives Technician in the Archives I Research Support Branch (RD-DC), Research Services, Archival Operations – Washington, DC.

She writes about columns 21 through 24 which addresses employment status. It's a nice write-up and there are images of the census forms, too. Take a look at the article and see for yourself.

General Meeting -- October 13, 2011

Last month, Lisa Louise Cooke gave a wonderful lecture on using Google.com as genealogical research strategies.  She talked about:

• Basic Google searches
• Advanced Search Operators, such as the tilde (~), asterisk (*), and numrange search
• Advanced search strategies such as Google's advance search, related searches, and site searches
• Google Books searches
• Google News Timeline

She has a wonderful book which explains this and much more.  The Genealogist's Google Toolbox.  Check it out at http://www.genealogygems.tv/GoogleforGenealogy.htm.

This month our speaker, Corey Oiesen will speak about “Identifying and Citing Genealogy Sources."  This is always a good topic.  Citing our sources is very important.  I'm looking forward to this lecture.