Genealogy in the Age of Technology - More advanced genealogy talk covering commercial products such as Ancestry.com as well as quality free sites like FamilySearch.org. Also covers social media use in genealogy.

1. Kathy Petlewski
Genealogy & Local History Librarian
Plymouth District Library
2013

2. 
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Commercial genealogy products on today’s
market
Sampling the best of the free sites…
Age of digital publishing – books and blogs
Role of social networking in genealogy.
Genealogy on mobile devices.

3. Largest commercial genealogy
product on the market today.
Over 7,000 databases and 200
billion images, including 15
countries outside of the U.S.
This includes censuses, vital
records, immigration records,
family histories, military records,
court and legal documents, city
directories, photos, maps, and
more.

5. 
Ancestry.com ~ Personal – You get Leaves!
•Over 11 billion searchable records.
•Over 44 million family trees
•Over 185 million photos, stories and
documents in family trees.

6. More than 50 million pages of
historical documents
Documents relating to the
Revolutionary War, Civil
War, WWI, WWII, and U.S.
Presidents
Some city directories &
historical newspapers
Owned by Ancestry…focus on
military information.

7. 28,000 digitized book
titles, including early family
histories and local histories.
PERSI index of over 2 million
genealogy & local history
articles.
Census images 17901940, but not all fully
indexed.
Revolutionary War Pension
files & Bounty-Land Warrant
application files

8. $199.99 per year
for access to all
resources.

9. Formerly New England
Ancestors Online.
Primary focus is on New
England area and New York
state.
Personal histories, town
histories, vital records &
digitized books such as The
Great Migration set.

10. 
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Pay-as-you-go or
subscribe – By the
month is $24.95.
Has a distinct British
Isles / Australia focus.
Wide collection of
British newspapers and
UK Parish Records.
Now expanding
coverage to U.S. and
Canada records.

11. 
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20 Million Irish family history
records including
Birth, Death, Marriage and
Gravestone records which are
not available anywhere else.
It costs €15.00 to view a
record.
Pricing: €25.00 - (175
credits plus 175 free pages
of search results) - Bulk
Saving
€45.00 - (350 credits plus
350 free pages of search
results) - Bulk Saving

12. 
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GenealogyBank currently
has 215 million
newspaper obituaries
and death records
covering over 320 years
from over 6,500
newspapers.
Currently running a
special - $55.95 for a
year’s subscription, but
also can pay by the
month.

13. 
New York Times Historic
◦ – dates include from 1851 through 2004.
◦ - full images, keyword searchable.

Detroit Free Press Historic
◦ - dates include 1831 through 1922.
◦ - full images, keyword searchable.

14. 
FamilySearch.org (LDS site)
https://www.familysearch.org/

17. 
Castle Garden - information on 11 million

Ellis Island – Search by passenger’s name or by
immigrants from 1820 through 1892 – New York
City
http://www.castlegarden.org/
name of ship – New York City
http://www.ellisisland.org/

18. 
Chronicling America – from Library of Congress
& Nat’l Endowment for Humanities (6,025,474
 newspaper pages available)
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
 Family
History Archive – 36,000 digitized items
from a variety of libraries
http://www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/index.php

19. 
Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet
- 327,218+ links for family history!
http://www.cyndislist.com/
 U.S.
GenWeb Project - http://usgenweb.org/
“Keeping Internet Genealogy Free”
Organized by state and then by county. Content
quality varies significantly!

25. 
Mocavo – world’s largest free genealogy search
engine. http://www.mocavo.com/

26. 
RootsWeb – supported by Ancestry.com
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http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
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The world's largest online genealogy community with over 17 Million
posts on more than 161,000 boards.
GenForum - part of Genealogy.com
http://genforum.genealogy.com/index.html
◦ Search by locality, by topic or by surname
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Post queries or answers to other’s queries.
Free services, but may lead to fee-based areas.

29. FamilySearch Research Wiki -
https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Main_Page

30. Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter-
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/

31. Genealogy Blog ~ http://www.genealogyblog.com/

32. 
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Re-connect with distant relatives or those
who share common interests.
Find Facebook versions of popular
databases/publishers
◦
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Facebook
Facebook
Facebook
Facebook
Facebook
Facebook
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Ancestry.com
Cyndi's List
Family Tree Magazine
Fold3.com
About Genealogy
FamilySearch

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geneabloggers
A passion for blogging about genealogy and
family history
5,565 followers
megansmolenyak
genealogical adventurer who loves to solve
mysteries
3,391 followers
footnoteMaven
A Photo Whisperer. Solving the mysteries of
genealogy, old photos ..
2,375 followers
FamilyTreeMag
We're a how-to genealogy magazine and online
community.
3,441 followers
Ancestry
37,239 followers
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rjseaver
Genealogy evangelist, husband, father,
grandfather, Christian, Chargers...
1,199 followers
marktucker
Software Architect. Silverlight, Windows
Phone 7 developer. UX. Scouter....
1,666 followers
worldvrecords
We help you succeed with your genealogy
and family history by providing...
3,080 followers
michaelhait
Pro genealogist - writer and lecturer
1,422 followers

38. Each family group is
$29.95 per year.

41. 
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Check with library or archives to see if you can use
a camera or hand scanner. Depending on the age
and condition of materials, you may be able to
make copies.
If so, a handheld scanner, a smartphone with a
camera, a tablet with a built-in camera, or a digital
camera are good tools to have.
Smart phone with GPS is handy for taking photos in
cemeteries since you can then document them
geographically.

42. 
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Reunion for iPad - $14.99 – must already have
Reunion 9.0 or 10.0 on your Mac.
Ancestry for iPad – free – connect to your
Ancestry.com account
FamViewer for iPhone - $9.99 – GEDCOM viewer
GedView for iPhone - $3.99 – GEDCOM viewer
BillionGraves Camera App – free
MyHeritage app for Android or IOS – used with
MyHeritage account.
Mobile FamilyTree Pro - $14.99 for IOS (Apple
devices)

45. 
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Digital Collections will continue to be
released online.
FamilySearch volunteers make more vital
records available.
Portable devices replace desktops so better
genealogy apps will appear on market.
Online publishing of family history books
makes it easy for everyone to put info out
there – some good…some not!

46. Thanks for attending tonight!