FUN WITH YOUR GENEALOGY
©Copyright 2008 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
This page was last updated 2008-05-05.
Return to the Hyde Park Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page
or Don's Class Listings Page.
WELCOME AND WHAT THIS CLASS IS ALL ABOUT - Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R. and Diane M. Snow of the England London Mission, Hyde Park Family History Centre (snowd@math.byu.edu, dms34@juno.com)
- These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group website http://uvtagg.org under Class Outlines , in Don's Listings , and are linked on the Hyde Park Family History Centre website http://www.hydeparkfhc.org under Events . Many other class notes for family history are linked on both sites also.
- This class will discuss a few things you can do with your genealogy data just for fun and to use for family discussions and reunions.
FAN CHARTS AND IDEAS FOR USING THEM - PAF Companion -- inexpensive program that works with PAF and GEDCOM data and will produce many kinds of charts
- Can download basic version for free from http://www.familysearch.org , but it
will only show 3 generations unless you upgrade to the full version
- Can print or publish to pdf
- Will show up to 10 generations on one A4 sheet, but type is very small -- if printed with a laser printer and you have you can read it with a magnifying glass
- Shows at a glance where your genealogy data has "holes"
- Makes nice table decorations for family gatherings
- Pedigree Viewer on FamilySearch Labs -- http://www.labs.familysearch.org -- is a viewer to see
large pedigrees by uploading a GEDCOM
- GEDBrowser -- http://misbach.org/gedbrowser/ -- freeware
program to show large pedigree charts
- Ancestral Quest -- http://www.ancquest.com -- free trial
version will generate fan charts
SIGN GENERATORS
MOSAICS WITH FAMILY HISTORY DATA - Montage-a-Google -- http://grant.robinson.name/projects/montage-a-google/
- You type in words you want, e.g. Erastus Snow Family Association
- It selects 20 photos from Google images with those keywords and forms a montage
- Click on any of the small tile images of the mosaic to see that photo full-sized
- Zumyn ("Zoom In") -- http://www.zumyn.com/
- Uses your photos or theirs or a combination of both and forms a montage
- Click on any of the small tile images of the mosaic to see that photo full-sized
- Free to use - only charge is to order a high-resolution print of the mosaic
GAMES WITH FAMILY HISTORY DATA
MAPS - Map of where you or one of your ancestors lived -- can do them with http://www.maps.google.com
- Migration map of where your ancestors lived and where they moved
CHARTS FOR WALL OR DISPLAY - One Page Genealogy -- http://roots.cs.byu.edu/pedigree/
- Download the free program, open your GEDCOM in it, set it for what you want, and it generates a pdf file of a large chart
- Can view the pdf or send it to them and for a charge they will print it on a large page and mail it to you
- Makes large charts of pedigrees, descendants, can include timelines of years to show who were contemporaries
- PAF will make a wall chart that you can tape together
from A4 sheets
MISCELLANEOUS - For family
- Role play stories from your ancestors -- can write
them into the notes of your PAF database and identify with keywords so you can
search on those keywords and find them all in your database
- Write a child's book with a story about one of your ancestors -- example: Snuggle Pup Story book by Diane M. Snow
- Make a child's coloring book with outlines of things about your ancestors, their homes, farming methods, etc.
- Make a quilt with blocks representing each family
or branch of your pedigree
- Events during a lifetime
- Visuwords -- http://www.visuwords.com/ -- shows graphically the relationships between words
- Use your data to answer questions like, "What was the
average age of your ancestors?", or "How many of your ancetors had more than 5 children in their family?"
-- may have to use a third-party program to get the answers to these questions from your data
- Form a webpage of your data by using
PAF or another genealogy program and look at it in a browser (You don't have to
post it online.) -- You will notice different things because it's in a different format.
- Post pictures on the web -- there are many
free sites; can set up a family website so only your family
can see it
CONCLUSIONS - Just finding family history information is fun and exciting, but you can also use your data in other ways.
- Some of these items may give you new ways of thinking about your genealogy and may help you share your information with family members
ASSIGNMENT - Make a mosiac with Google images of some key words from your geneaogy. Try varying the number of squares, etc., and make one you like. Do a printscreen of it to save a copy, but it won't be as high a resolution as you would get if you paid for it
- Make a 5- or 6-generation fan chart of your ancestry to see where the "holes" in your data are.
- Think of some saying from your family and make a sign with that on it. Do a printscreen o fit to save for your family records.
- Make a word puzzle with data from your family history, e.g. enter the names of the people and use clues such as "Who was born on dd-mmm-yyyy?", "Who was born in Lincolnshire?".
Return to the Hyde Park Family History Centre Home Page or the Events Page or the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page
or Don's Class Listings Page.