Tip of the Day: Information Collaboration!!!

That's right folks, today we will learn how to SHARE!!!  Let's spell that out together, ready?  S-H-A-R-E, share!!  Do YOU know how to share?  If not, I will give you a few pointers and information on why it is so important!!!

Why people share:

1. Sharing provides for a good way to get to know one another
2. By giving something up of yours that means a lot to you, people are able to see just how much you love and trust them.  In return, they will generally give back an equal or greater amount of their important things that may bless and benefit you!!
3. Sharing is caring, duh!!!
4. If you don't share, some people may talk bad about you and call you a "meanie stinker head" behind your back.  That's not cool.
5. The more you share, the better you feel!!
6. The better you feel, the more you share!!!
7. Endless loop of feeling great and spreading the love!!

So there are the top 7 reasons why you should share.  If you don't share things, then people won't like you and you'll become a smelly hermit who lives under a rock of anti-sharing bullies, that simple.

"So Sterl, what does sharing have to do with my dead ancestors?"

I'm glad you asked!!  If you share your family history research with others, they will be more apt to return to you the knowledge and research to see how the families tie together!!  Sharing is a HUGE blessing and effective research tool when it comes to gathering information about a family you know about or want to know more about.  If you share, that shows you care.  If they share back, then they care too!!  If you both care, then you will stay in contact with one another and share many, many more things as time unfolds!!  SO SHARE!!!!

Some simple examples of how to share family history:

• Going to Ancestry.com and finding a public or private family tree someone has posted.
• Doing a google search for your person's name with quotes ("") around it (ex. "William Kopping") and seeing what people post about that individual.  If you need to be more specific, add information outside of the quotes!!  Try it with and without middle names, that helps too :) :)
• If you are LDS then you can find someone's contact infomation who has worked on an individual on New.FamilySearch.org.  That is usually located in the Details tab on the far right, labeled "Contributors."  Just click that and email/write/call away to your heart's every whim!!  You'll be surprised on how much information some of the people you will meet may have.
• Just get the name out there!!  Someone you may or may not know could randomly say "Oh hey, I remember that name!!" and BOOM!! you have a conversation about family history.  I have met a few people who I am directly and indirectly related to because I pop a few names who I am researching here or there, and you would not believe the information I received from such a simple action!!!  SUPER HELPFUL!!!

So that's it for today!!  It's been a while since I posted and I totally forgot to talk about sharing your family history research and work with others until just now.  Now I can sleep easy, knowing that I updated my blog and taught people to share finally.  Remember, sharing is kindness insurance!!!  The more you share, the less people will be apt to talk negatively about you :) :)

Tip of the Day: Searching under variants of someone's name and its effects

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

OH MY GOSH!!!!  I found some AWESOME information today on William Henry Kopping (William Bennett Kopping's father) and his records!!!!  What I stumbled upon is his immigration record to the USA, I have been looking for this information FOREVER!!!  Well, not really for-ev-er since I have only started my search about 6 months ago, but STILL!!!  Those of you who are younger like me, you know how I feel :-p

So, back on topic after my excitement has been over joyously depicted in massive letters :)  How did I find this beautiful declaration of intention?  Well, here's the story (and what you will learn from it will be VERY helpful):

We were always told in training to "think outside the box."  It's VERY important to do so, because you never know what you'll find (such as today)!!  In search of William Henry Kopping, I noticed that his original marriage record was in 1903 (as noted in an earlier post I think) once with Gitta Nelson (who eventually died a few months later from pregnancy issues), and then later with Eva Grace Robarts (NOT Roberts!!) in 1906, with whom he had children with a few years following.  Well, on the first marriage record to Gitta, William's name is listed as Wilhelm Kopping!!  Note this: William and Wilhelm = same person.

Today I was just searching around, typing in William Kopping and similar ways to spell it on Ancestry.com and all the sudden I think to myself, "Hey Sterling, shouldn't you do a search for Wilhelm Kopping?"  So I go ahead and do it!!  I had NO idea that what I would soon find would throw me back on my seat, literally!!

Upon completion of the search, the first record to pop up was a naturalization record to the USA from 1911.  For anyone who knows what a naturalization record contains, you can see why I'm excited; for everyone else, I'll be glad to explain!!  A naturalization record to the USA (or anywhere else, I bet) may and most likely does contain the following information: the person's name, birth place, birth date, emmigration place and port, immigration place and port, parents and mother's maiden name, spouses and children (with locations and dates of births, marriages, etc.), physical description, and many, many other wonderful research aids for future searches!!!

So there you have it, today's lesson!!  ALWAYS be sure to search for not just the person's direct name, but similar versions the way is spelled AND other forms of names that sound or look alike to it!!!! 

So now you learned an invaluable lesson that could save you tons of time researching and looking for someone!!  And don't forget, if you ever have any problems, be sure to stop by the Mesa Regional Family History Center!!  We have a plethora of subscription websites you can access for free, plenty of search experts who could help you with virtually anywhere in the world, and an epic huge selection of books!!  Oh yeah, AND IT'S ALL FREE!!!!

There's my little shpeel for the day, I am very content and can go home happy :) :)  Someone's looking out for me and helping me find the wonderful deceased in this world, that's for sure!!

Day 3: When to do the "RE" search!!

Okay, some of you may know (because you are my family or friends who I have told) that I have learned a new purpose behind research.  But first of all, I must get this off my back:

BLOGGING IS TOUGH TO KEEP UP WITH!!!!  I'm going to just start blogging randomly when I have some time or whatever, no more distinct schedule as I kind of screwed that part up a few times already.  So just check back weekly, I'll be sure to have something new here for you.  But no more promises for daily, but I'll do my best :) :)


Whew!!!  I feel better now :)  Now to the logistics!!

On Friday before the FHC closed, something new caught my eye.  I was just catching up on creating another PAF file for the Kopping family and re-gathering all my information (remember, I deleted ALL mine and the Kopping's family history records before) when I decided to check out Washington State's Digital Archives.  Now, some of you have probably heard this before, so I'm going to say it again.  BE SURE TO CHECK EACH STATE'S DIGITAL ARCHIVES, THEY PROBABLY HAVE ONE!!!!!  Anyway, I was back on there collecting a bundle of digitized and super awesome records for the Koppings when I stumbled upon an interesting marriage record that wasn't there a few months back.  So I decided to click, it wouldn't hurt to just see what free information is out there, ya know?

When I clicked the image, I was dancing with happiness as the following screen revealed something critical about the Kopping family that I did not know.  Behold, William got marriade BEFORE I found his first marriage record!!!  So why did this record not come up months earlier when I first did his family history research on that website?  Because, just as the FHC's website (FHC = Mesa Regional Family History Center for short) has an evergrowing database of digitized and searchable books to read, so are other websites with their archives and digitized records!!  So between a few months ago and now, I have finally unlocked the answer to the mysterious question that has bogged me down for a few months: Why did William take out his papers in the USA twice?  I knew of his "first" marriage (it even says first on the document) which is when he took out his papers the second time, but what happened for the first?  I found it!!  Alas, William Kopping had TWO wifes and nobody knew about it!!!

Of course, I was resolute to find out more about his real first wife.  Upon a little more research and tampering with a different surname spelling (very helpful!! NEVER BE FIRM ON ONE NAME SPELLING!!!), I quickly found Gitta Nelson's death record.  She passed away a few months after their marriage from pregnancy!!!  So therefor, the marriage was most likely annuled because it's been less than a year from the marriage and he remarried a few years later in 1906 to Eva Robarts.

TA DA!!!!!  Now back to my lesson for today:  It is critical that you check up on unknown information every once in a while when you tangent to other names and families to search as you never know when you'll find something important that wasn't there before!!  In my case, I found William Henry's REAL first wife, Gitta.  I then searched for her on New FamilySearch and saw that she is nowhere on there!!  I rushed to register her and now her sacred ordinances are ready to be done!! AWESOME!!!! I'm sure that Gitta had a part in this as I found her exactly 104 years after her death date.  She must have asked Heavenly Father to have someone do her temple work for her on earth, but that would require a sacrifice on my part (in this case, accidentally deleting all my family history research before I would go back and find her).  That is my new explanation of why my family history was all deleted and I consider it to be a worthy cause for such a wonderful result.

Don't give up!!  When you are searching and hit a brick wall, it's a good idea to take some time off for a breather.  But PLEASE, go back and try again later!!!  You never know what could have been added between then and now :) :) :)

Day 2: Basic Search Techniques

Sorry about not posting yesterday, I got distracted and never ended up posting!! :(  I'll try to keep it daily, but if I don't then don't hate me for it lol!

Okay, so now that we have our basic PAF created, what do we do next?  I'll give you a hint: it starts with St_ _ t Se_r_h_ _ g!!!!  If you guessed "Start Searching!!!!" then you are correct!!

"Okay Sterl, so how do I get on this search craze?"
I'm glad you asked!!  Here are a few basic sites that I will walk you through, one part of the day at a time (because I'm a busy many, you know!).  If it's not done yet, then you'll know I got distracted but I will continue from this post in a few hours :-p

1. Wiki.FamilySearch.org - This is a WONDERFUL site for finding places to research your ancestors when you've hit a wall and don't know where else to look!!  Like other wiki sites (Wiki is short for Wikipedia), the FamilySearch Wiki is a very large online database that keeps on growing where users can add, edit, and share research information for free on the web!!  To get started, you type in a place or thing you're looking for (NOT names!!) and when you click Search, articles that people have posted will show!!  This website is easily overlooked for Google.com, but is not indexed from them and therefor will not be seen by googlers.
2. Pilot.FamilySearch.org - This is another AMAZAZAZING website put on for FREE by the LDS Church which contains a wide variety of collections and databases around the world!  To get started, just type in someone's name (deceased, obviously) who you are looking for and all records that pertain to him or her (and similars) will pop up in the results!!  It's that easy!!!  And did I mention you can see the original image in almost all of the cases??  That's right!!  As indexing isn't always the most accurate (human error is inevitable, but we can minimize it!), you may enjoy what you see in the original records.  To see it, click on (if it's there) the dark gray paper with a fold icon on the far left of the person's entry.  If there is a blue paper with an @ sign, then that means you will be forwarded to a paid site where you will have to pay to see it (very rare!!).
3. Ancestry.com - A very popular and common choice is Ancestry!!  It is helpful, but I try to stay away from it as it's not free ($14.99/month).  But if you come to the Mesa Regional Family History Center (Mesa RFHC), Ancestry is free of charge to use, as well as all the other resources we have to offer!!  And visiting us is free, there are zero charges for coming in! :)
4. Footnote.com - My personal favorite of the two, Footnote has other documents that Ancestry does not have, and visa vesa.  Here you will find newspaper articles, Dawes Packets, FBI case files (SUPER helpful, whether you like it or not!!), city directories and more!!  Ancestry does NOT have these files, but specializes in census and other records.  Searching is free here and will bring you all the way to the picture, but if it's not free (called "Premium") then you will have to pay to see it.  Guess what??  At the Mesa RFHC, we also have this site for free!!  No charge to you, so write down how you found that search result and replicate it quickly here!  Now you didn't think of that idea, did you? ;)
5. Mesa Regional Family History Center - This is our website!!  Believe it or not, there are an EPIC ammount of helpful links, guides, tutorials, images, indexes, and I could go on and on located right here!!  We have a search utility that will search all of our books (not actual text, of course, but subjects included!), a microfilm/microfiche search (helpful for checking if we have it on us or you need to order), training documents and resources, Arizona obituary search, Arizona birth/death search (with images!!), and soooo many more!!  As you can tell, this is a gold mine waiting for your viewing!!!  DO NOT PASS THIS UP!!!!!

Well, that's it for today!!  Maybe I'll post a little more information later, so be sure to keep checking back and looking for what's new in genealogy!! :) :)

Step 1: Creating a Personal Ancestral File (PAF)

Alright everyone, I know who you are. You are that person sitting at the computer, after reading my first post, going "Wow Sterling, that all sounds tough. How do I partake of this AWESOMENESS?!?!?!" Hahahaha!!! Probably not, but that's how I'll hope you are!! So let's get started:

First, we need to create a PErsonal Ancestral File (PAF for short) of our family and other relatives. To do this, you'll need the following:

1. A PC (sorry Mac and Linux, Paf 5.2 is NOT supported. Consider googling GEDCOM files)
2. Personal Ancestral File version 5.2 (download link HERE, Portable version HERE, )
3. Any information on your family that you can remember (don't fill obligated to add everything at once)
4. Time and patience, it's not easy the first time around!!

Sweet, now we have our tools!! Wo what do we do with them? First, we need to install or open PAF 5. We are then greeted with a screen that tells us to search, open, create a new file, or exit. We want to create a new file. After choosing a destination to save the file to and its name (I recommend your name), we will see a bunch of squares. Double click on the square on the middle left, which will open up a new window. Just type in whatever information you want for yourself, as you will be number 1. ALL FEMALES USE THEIR MAIDEN NAMES ALWAYS!!!

After doing that, slick the save button. Then you can click the box similar to that right below it for your spouse (if you have one) and marriages will appear in the skinny middle box. The huge box at the bottom middle is for children. Your parents are on the right medium rectangles (just now noticed I've been calling them squares, how wrong of me haha!) with father on top, mother on bottom. The arrows by names are to put that person in the "main" position, which is where you first clicked.

That sounds intimidating and tough, right? Don't worry!! You just started, so play around with it a bit!! The worst you can do is screw up your newly created PAF file, which can't be a disaster at all, huh? Enjoy!! :D

Day 1: The Beginning...Again!! :D

March Third, Two-Thousand and Ten. It's a beautiful afternoon in a crowded family history center, allowing for my own concentration to kick in. The youth group that just came in is getting settled and the fellow adventurers are being introuced to what could be the most addicting and tremendous work that could ever exist: family history.

Now you may be thinking, "Okay, it can't be THAT tough, can it?" Well here I am to answer your question! It's not easy, it takes a long time, and sometimes you just can't continue researching a person for a day, month, or even years before something becomes available!! Now, what was your question again? ;)

Anyway, there's one main purpose of my blog that I just created on this warm, soft night. I want to inform myself - and the world - about my personal family history progress and how much of an adventure it can really be!!! :D I have been doing family history work for myself and others since day one of my mission, which is now exactly eight months ago, August 3rd, 2009. Isn't that crazy?! I've been out for 8 months now, holy cow!!!! Anyway, that's a topic for another day.

So why am I starting a blog now? Well, here's the short version. A couple weeks ago, I was helping a patron (someone who comes to the Mesa Regional Family History Center, or FHC for short) and I had to reformat my flash drive. Well, I'm ALWAYS making backups of my flash drive, so I knew that wiping the thing clean would cause me no harm, right? Right!! :D But when I went home I had to wipe my computer's hard drive for Windows 7, my laptop, and pretty much redo EVERYTHING technical-wise for my life. Well, there was one problem... I don't have an ONLINE BACKUP of my family history work, AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! *poof!!* All gone, just like that. So now I'm starting from the beginning, again!! :D

That just adds to the adventure and excitement of my work! I have nothing, so I'm starting from a clean slate. If Heavenly Father didn't want this to happen, He would find a way for me to have recovered my countless pictures and Personal Ancestral Files (PAF) and other documents that I had acquired over the months. Was it a lot of work to get all that? YOU BET!!!! But will I have learned something new as I start fresh, and will I hopefully get others interested in finding their ancestors? If that's the case, then I will gladly redo what I once had, and maybe this time, with even more accuracy.

Moral of today's story: BACKUP YOUR FILES ONLINE!!! Email yourself copies of your PAF 5 files often, log your research ON PAPER, and keep a physical file of what you have on top of your digital one!!!