Part 2 - Checking the Top Genealogy Library Catalogs

A while back, a post, here, discussed the best genealogical repositories beyond our nearby libraries. Now, we're going to investigate what you can get from "the nation's best." To come up with this list, FamilyTree Magazine's ranking was considered, along with that from FamilySearch. In addition to this post, the "Genealogy's Star" blog has a good post on the subject which emphasizes actually GETTING the relevant item.

• Anyway, the list below has the following characteristics considered
• They are part of worldcat dot org. One worldcat trick that is handy for genealogical searching on worldcat is to make the "best libraries" also your "favorites." 
• They have an online catalog
• There is a way for a nonresident to borrow materials without going there in person

North Beach Genealogical Departed Members

Our members come and go. Sometimes members move away and continue their interest in genealogy. Sadly, sometimes their days simply run out. This collects some of those departures. Mostly going from newer to older communications:

From a post on 21 March 2024: Michael Dindinger Family Travels

Michael & Carole Dindinger

Michael Dindinger has been a major inspiration to my genealogical efforts and helped our NBGS Society and this blog immensely. Our society has had membership turn over so many didn't meet Michael at our meetings, but some older "inquiring minds want to know!"

I was somewhat at odds on how to describe the adventures of Michael Dindinger, his wife Carole and our past president Anna. Instead of trying to summarize it myself, it seemed better to simply include excerpts from  some emails. These follow below, including one from earlier this week.

Ocean Shores FamilySearch Center has new directors

Steve & Anita at Center

News - Feb 2024 -  Steve & Anita Johnson have just been installed as new directors of its FamilySearch Center in Ocean Shores. Michael and Elizabeth Turner are departing for a mission in Nauvoo, Illinois. The FamilySearch Center remains in the church at 928 Albatross Street, Ocean Shores WA 98569. While a comprehensive comparison awaits, it looks like the FamilySearch Center has pretty much all the resources it had before the pandemic and some new ones as well. Our previous post, here, provided a descriptive list, here. Michael and Elizabeth Turner remain at mlturner351 at gmail dot com.

Names of Foreign Places

 Hello all,

Last year, Michael Dindinger made an excellent post on place names. Mostly, the rules he cites are valid for foreign and domestic places. That post may be reviewed, here. Later in the year, Steve Averill made a presentation on place names. That post is here - the slides discussing place are 14 through 34. During the presentation, Diane Carter made the excellent point that different lineage societies have different requirements about how to record place names. Notes and detail comments can accommodate these differing requirements without confusing people looking at the family history.

Today, we take a look at a specific example of foreign place names - in this case, Sweden. The same principles would apply to Czech or English or Norwegian place names. In particular, I look at the case of Anna Eleonora Eriksdotter (American name was Anna Elenora Erickson and later, Anna Norland).

Finding a Needle in a Haystack on FamilySearch

At his workshop in February, Michael Dindinger presented a workshop on FamilySearch records. One of the less well understood aspects of doing this involves finding unindexed records.

As of November 2019, there were 1.73 billion digital images published only in the FamilySearchorg Catalog. This compares to 1.4 billion images published in the searchable FamilySearch Historical Records Collections. As you can see from these numbers, there are many records in the FamilySearch Catalog that are waiting to be indexed. Just because a record is not indexed, it does not mean that the record is not searchable. True, indexing makes the records more readily available but unindexed records have been searched by genealogical researchers for years.

Hidden FamilySearch Feature

FamilySearch has about a gazillion records. Some, however, are not available to the researcher at home, except under specific circumstances. This is often due to licensing restrictions on providing images to researchers or other reasons. However, these pages are pretty easy to identify, as may be seen on the two graphics below. The upper one identifies a record for which images are available at a FamilySearch Affiliate Library or FamilySearch center, while the lower one identifies images only available at a FamilySearch center such as the one in Ocean Shores on Albatross Street.

Saving Files to a USB

When using online library databases at a local library or Family History Center, various images and text files appear that the researcher will want to save for documentation purposes. The first choice is simply to use a personal computer or tablet on the library Wi-Fi and save files normally. However, sometimes that is not possible (desktop as a personal computer come to mind), or because licensing requires that the online database can ONLY be accessed using a library computer. This post outlines how to download files and screen images onto a USB Flash Drive for later use. The post assumes the library has a Windows computer. While schools often use Macintosh computers, libraries almost never use anything except Windows computers. The post uses FamilySearch as an example. In most regards, other online services found at a library will be similar.

FamilySearch Map Page

Michael Dindinger notes that the first FamilySearch "hidden page" is the Map Page

The first of these hidden pages is not the Timeline. However, this link on every person's detail page is usually ignored. The actual hidden page is on the Timeline page but unless you go to the Timeline page, you are not likely to ever see this "hidden" page and use it.

Hidden FamilySearch Pages

"Secret" Link to "Hidden" FamilySearch Pages

There are quite a few "hidden" pages on the FamilySearch.org website. What I mean by "hidden" is that these pages are not in any of the easily discovered pull-down menus. They are also only marginally publicized by FamilySearch. Usually, after the initial blog post announcing the new page and perhaps a few pop-up notices on the main startup page, these pages go invisible to the casual user and even those who use the program almost daily, they soon fade into the background of things we once knew about but have forgotten to use.

FamilySearch Guided Help

Michael Dindinger then relates that the second FamilySearch "hidden page" is its Guided Help

Searching Books for Family History

Four major places (and there are many more, including Worldcat) you can search for genealogy books of interest at home FOR FREE include:

• Google Books - our series about Google Books starts here
• FamilySearch - Michael Dindinger often mentions FamilySearch in his Family History Learning Moments
• Archive dot org - our page about the Internet Archive is here
• HeritageQuest (home use requires a library card or subscription - see places here - including Timberland Libraries)

Michael Reads the Newspapers

by Michael W. Dindinger, via email on September 17, 2019

FAMILY HISTORY LEARNING MOMENT
Michael's main sources for this post:

The Family History Guide
FamilySearch Research Wiki

Since digitizing and storing thousands of images of newspaper pages on the Web is expensive, free online collectons of digitized historical newspapers are rare. However, modern day newspapers are increasingly found for free online. Free access to “historical’ databases can often be found at local libraries in larger communities.

New Records on FamilySearch

Michael Dindinger recently forwarded information about new records on FamilySearch that were added this last May. The article was published on June 3, 2019 by Laurie Bradshaw

Regional Library Access

There has been a fair amount of concern/discussion about paid versus free genealogy sites. Many feel that the "big" sites want to get as much money out of the researcher as possible. However, these are not simply "big businesses" that run television commercials. Most of them offer free access to people using libraries that subscribe to the services. Almost all of them offer free access to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That organization estimates this is a value to its members of around $900 per year. In short, you can spend a lot of money on research sites, but you can also access the information inexpensively, or even for free.

FamilySearch Center Portal

Ocean Shores FamilySearch Center

Information updated in February 2024

FamilySearch has arranged for several premium online research services to be available at our Ocean Shores FamilySearch Center. The special access that FamilySearch centers have been granted to these databases only works when the online services are accessed through a computer in a FamilySearch Center. Please note that entering the web sites of these providers through their regular, public URLs will not provide access to the full versions that have been authorized for FamilySearch center use. This is what is available to you free: