FAMILYSEARCH CATALOG, BOOKS, AND WIKI
©2015 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
- Welcome and Introduction
- FamilySearch Website
- FamilySearch Catalog
- FamilySearch Books
- Family History Research Wiki
- Conclusions
This page was last updated 2015-05-17
Return to the Utah Valley
Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's
Class Listings Page .
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
- Instructor is Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
) of Provo and St. George, Utah.
- These notes with the active Internet links are
posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
.
- Tips: (1) Put an icon on your
desktop for this (or any) URL by dragging the icon
from in front of the address in the browser to
your desktop. (2) To keep your place
in these notes while going to a link from them
hold down the Control key while clicking the link
to open the new page in another tab.
- Problem for today: Discuss the FamilySearch
Catalog, books on the FamilySearch website, and
the Family History Research Wiki
FAMILYSEARCH WEBSITE
- Website is https://familysearch.org
-- includes Family Tree, Memories, Search,
Indexing, Get Help, and many other things -- click
on Site Map (bottom of page) to see what's
included in each part
- The "classic" version of the FamilySearch
website can still be seen on the Wayback Machine
on Internet Archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20111026060614/http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp
- Get Help (button in upper right corner)
- Good 3-1/2 minute video "What's Your Story"
about FamilySearch; here's the link to it
directly -- http://bcove.me/6bfhta5f
- Under Questions and Answers are FAQ's and a
box to type in your own questions, e.g. "learn
about historical records" or "learn about
familysearch catalog" (without the quotes)
- Many helpful Tips and Tricks, videos,
tutorials, and lessons
- Clicking on the FamilySearch logo (upper left
corner) at any time takes you back to the
FamilySearch Home Page
- Search button (always at the top) has Records,
Genealogies, Catalog, Books, and Wiki -- the last
three are our topics for today
FAMILYSEARCH CATALOG
- To get to it go to Search > Catalog or go
to it directly at -- https://familysearch.org/catalog-search
- Now called FamilySearch Catalog (FSC); used to
be called the Family History Library Catalog
(FHLC)
- FSC lists all resources in the FH Library
including films (2.4 million), fiche, books
(both physical and scanned), periodicals,
genealogy CD's and DVD's, etc.
- Wiki article on Introduction to the
FamilySearch Catalog -- https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Introduction_to_the_FamilySearch_Catalog
- Since Jan 2014 all entries in the FSC are
included in OCLC
World Cat , a union listing of over 2
billion entries from more than 72,000 libraries
world wide
- Searches in the FSC
- Default search is Place (Location) search --
other searches are Surnames, Titles, Author,
Subject, Keywords, Book Call Number, or
Film/Fiche Number
- For Place searches the location needs a
comma, e.g. there are no results for "united
states massachusetts", but many for "united
states, massachusetts" (without the quotes)
- Place searches show records in the 30-40
Place Search Subdivisions, e.g. Almanacs,
Archives and Libraries, Cemeteries,
Newspapers, Vital Records, etc. -- see
complete list of subdivisions at https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Locality_Subject_Subdivisions
- Usually best to start searching broadly and
narrow down the categories as you go, e.g.
search for Place > Record Type > Time
Period > Name, e.g. United States >
Massachusetts > Woburn > Births >
1600s > Snow -- if you put in too much
information at the start you only get records
containing exactly that and miss things
indexed slightly differently
- Surname search gives articles and
books where that surname is prominent, but
does NOT show every book with that name in
it
- Can sometimes get good results by entering
all terms in Keyword search, e.g. do a Keyword
search for "Snow Woburn Massachusetts"
(without the quotes)
- To the right side of each search result
clicking on the word Add puts that entry into a
list that you can see and print later; e.g.
after selecting several catalog entries, click
Print to see the list and then print it to hard
copy or else print it to a PDF Printer to save
it as a pdf on your computer -- for information
on PDF Printers see my Freeware
Corner Notes on PDF Printers on my webpage
- On the right side of the screen are links to
WorldCat and Archive Grid -- WorldCat is the
union catalog of billions of library entries
from 72,000 libraries, including all the FSC
entries; Archive Grid contains links to more
than 4 million archive documents, family
histories, etc., in other libraries and museums
- these are additional archival FH items you
might be interested in
FAMILYSEARCH BOOKS
- To get to the Book Search page go to Search
> Books or else go directly to it at https://books.familysearch.org
- The Family History Library in Salt Lake City
is digitizing books and posting them online as
pdf's and presently (May 2015) has more than
200,000 out-of-copyright and permission-granted
FH books from several large libraries including
the FHL, BYU Library, and Allen County FH
Library (Fort Wayne, Indiana), and from personal
collections where people have signed an
agreement; more are being add daily
- Clicking on the Search button on the Books
page gives you search options for any word or
phrase in any of the 200,000 digitized books, so
you don't need to go through the book indexes
anymore
- If the book or film has been digitized and
posted, the FSC has a note in red: "To view a
digital version of this item click here."
- Most digitized books can be read and/or
downloaded by anyone anywhere
- Example: Valiant
in
the Faith: Gardner and Sarah Snow and
Their Family, 1990
- Example: A
Blanchard Memorial by Arthur William
Blanchard, 1935
- Some books are restricted to be read
and/or downloaded only at a FHC or FS
Lib, so take a flash drive and download
them there to take home -- Example:
The
Snow-Estes Ancestry by Nora
Emma Snow and Myrtle M. Jillson
- Downloading pdf's of books from FamilySearch
includes the text layer with the pdf, so they
are completely word-searchable for any name,
location, date, or word in the entire book --
Not the case when you download books from Google
Books
- For many other sources of FH books online see
my class notes Family
History Books Online on my webpage
FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH WIKI
- To get to the Family History Research Wiki go
to Search > Wiki or else go to it directly
at https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Main_Page
- The Family History Research Wiki contains more
than 80,000 articles about genealogy,
places world-wide, how-to's, finding
information, databases, computer programs,
videos, lessons, classes, handouts, and
much more
- "Wiki" means the articles can be edited by
anyone who is signed in and you can tell who
made the changes; all changes are listed and you
can easily set it back to a previous version, if
you think it should be
- On the Home Page are links for helps such as
New to Genealogy, New to the Research Wiki,
About the Wiki, Wiki Tools, Research Outlines,
Research Forms, and more
- If someone asks you a FH question, a first
response can be, "I wonder what the Wiki says
about that?", then look for it on the Wiki;
being a helpful genealogist doesn't always mean
knowing the answers, but knowing where to find
the answers
- The Wiki can be searched by place or
topic
- For places click on the map and narrow
it down or just type in the place, e.g.
Bunkerville, Nevada
- For topics type in a few words, e.g.
"descendancy research" or "Pandora's Hope
Chest"
- A good FH learning experience is to just
browse in the Wiki and look at some of the
lessons, classes, handouts, etc.
- Keep the Wiki in mind anytime you have a FH
question
CONCLUSIONS
- The FamilySearch Catalog, Books, and Wiki
are wonderful sources of FH information
including data and how-to's.
- FamilySearch helps you turn your heart to
your ancestors as you learn more about their
lives and who they were.
Return to the Utah
Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page
or Don's
Class Listings Page .