FINDING DESCENDANTS OF YOUR ANCESTORS
©Copyright 2012 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
- Welcome and Introduction
- Finding Descendants of Your Ancestors
- Example: Lavina King (1838-1917)
- Important Websites and Records for Descendancy Research
- Finding Immigrants
- Finding Living People
- Conclusions
This page was last updated 2012-06-15.
Return to the Utah Valley Technology and
Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's
Class Listings Page .
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
- Instructors are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
, dmsnow34@gmail.com ) of Provo
and St. George, Utah.
- These notes are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
with all the links, so you don't have to type them in yourself.
You can set up an icon on your desktop to click on to go to them
directly. Tip: Hold down the Ctrl key when you click on a
link and the link opens in another tab so you keep these notes open
where you were.
- Announcements
- Don and Diane's talks coming up
- Thu 2012-08-02, 11 am - noon -- FAMILY
HISTORY BOOKS ONLINE -- at BYU
2012 Conference on Family History and Genealogy, 31 Jul -
3 Aug 2012, Provo, Utah
- Fri 2012-08-03, 11 am - noon -- FREEWARE
AND SHAREWARE FOR FAMILY HISTORY -- at BYU
2012 Conference on Family History and Genealogy, 31 Jul -
3 Aug 2012, Provo, Utah
- Sat 2012-09-15, 10 am - noon -- WHAT
TO DO WITH A LETTER COLLECTION USING ERASTUS SNOW'S FAMILY
LETTERS AS AN ILLUSTRATION -- at Riverton
FamilySearch Library, Riverton, Utah
- 1940 US Census was released recently (2 Apr 2012) and anyone 72 or
older and in the US in 1940 should be in it. Images are posted
several places including http://1940census.archives.gov/
-- To find people before the index is finished you can first find
the Enumeration District at http://www.stevemorse.org
. Everyone can help index the 1940 US Census by signing up
at
http://the1940census.com/?cid=fsHomeT1940Plt and the indexing
of it is already half done.
- Today's class will discuss finding descendants of your
ancestors -- descendancy research
FINDING DESCENDANTS OF YOUR ANCESTORS
- Several reasons to do descendancy research, e.g. it
helps you understand and flesh out your genealogy, it may
provide clues to extend your pedigree further back, and it
makes the FS FT database complete and accurate -- see https://help.familysearch.org/publishing/779/102053_f.SAL_Member.html
- Keep track of what you find with the sources in your genealogy
records management program so you have the information and can add it
to FamilySearch Family Tree (FS FT) later
EXAMPLE
- PowerPoint presentation about LAVINA KING (KLFW-T9P, 1838-1917),
wife of William Franklin Hunter, and sister to Elizabeth Breedlove
King, Diane's 2ggrandmother
IMPORTANT WEBSITES AND RECORDS FOR DESCENDANCY RESEARCH
- FamilySearch Family Tree on http://www.familysearch.org
and New FamilySearch on http://new.familysearch.org
- Affiliate programs to use with FamilySearch
- Get My Ancestors -- http://www.ohanasoftware.com/GetMyAncestors
-- freeware to download ancestors and/or descendants from FS FT --
can set the number of generations up and/or down -- downloads FS FT
data in PAF format which can then be changed to GEDCOM
- All My Cousins -- http://www.allmycousins.com
-- finds and downloads ancestors and/or descendants from FS FT --
free version does several generations up, but just one generation
down from each; commercial version ($20/year) does as many
generations back and/or down as you want -- also gives lists of
people in various relationships to you, e.g. 1C3R -- downloads FS FT
data in GEDCOM format
- Census records are very helpful to put families together-- available
in Historical Records on FamilySearch
, Ancestry, and on Heritage Quest Online at home with your public
library card
- Death Records -- Social Security Death Index -- http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/ssdi/
, cemetery records, and obituaries on websites like
http://www.findagrave.com ,
http://www.billiongraves.com
- City directories -- see Don's notes on Using
City and Other Directories
- Surname search on FamilySearch Catalog on https://familysearch.org
- http://www.mocavo.com --
searches many free genealogy websites all at once
- http://www.google.com -- for
name searches use quotation marks around the name to get only
results for that person
- http://www.rootsweb.com
- http://ancestry.com -- go to a
FHC to use this free
- Church records, including parish registers
- Vital records and indexes
- Military records, especially pension records
- County histories -- many online for free at HeritageQuest Online
- Immigration indexes
- Probate and other court records
FINDING IMMIGRANTS
- To find where immigrants entered the U.S. check http://ellisisland.org/
and http://castlegarden.org/
first since 90% of U.S. immigrants came through New York City -- http://www.stevemorse.org/
has "One-Step" entry forms for both of these at once
- To find where immigrants went in the U.S. check the ship
manifest since that sometimes showed where they were going in the
U.S.
- US 1900 through 1930 censuses have year of immigration,
native language, and source country
- Ancestry has an immigration index -- use it free at a FHC
- Naturalization records are helpful since they tell where person
was living and application may give previous addresses and names
used -- no central index of naturalization records in the U.S. and
they could have been naturalized in many different courts
- For more information and references see Don's notes on Tracing
Your U.S. Immigrant Relative
FINDING LIVING PEOPLE
- You may want to contact living descendants for family
information, artifacts, and reunions
- Note who is interested in the genealogical records, e.g. in FS
FT note who entered the information and click the "Watch" button
to be notified of people making changes
- Online family trees usually require the name and email address
of the submitter, e.g. Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource File,
RootsWeb, etc.
- Ancestral
File Submission sheets -- 606 microfilms of the hardcopy
submissions of notes and sources to the Ancestral
File when the submission was sent in on hardcopy --
films are available at FHL, BYU, and elsewhere, are little
known, but have lots of FH data sources and documentation and
who sent them in
- Outdated information may be helpful since you can type it,
or part of it, into a search engine to see where it occurs and
find a more recent email or snail-mail address or phone
- Internet Archive's The
Wayback Machine may be helpful since it has "snapshots"
of the entire Internet at times past
- Some helpful websites for finding living people -- may
be able to find enough information for free without having
to pay for full results on the commercial sites
- 1940 census is a big help in finding living descendants
-- indexing is about half finished already and for states
not indexed yet you can use http://www.stevemorse.org/
to find the Enumeration District
- Steve Morse's website also has "One-Step" entry forms
for several vital record indexes and directories -- can
find the birthday of most people in a few minutes
- http://www.anywho.com/whitepages
- http://www.veromi.com/
- http://www.whitepages.com/
- http://genealogy.about.com/cs/findpeople/a/people_search.htm
CONCLUSIONS
- Descendants research frequently provides clues for
ancestral research since related families frequently came
from the same location and lived nearby
- Many resources are now available to help you find
descendants of your ancestors and living people
Return to the
Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Users Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .