PGS Educational Events for the Week of 1-7 March 2015

Monday, 2-Mar-15 at 9:30 AM--Memorial Park Cemetery Canvass—9:30-11:30 AM. Meet at the south parking lot at 5750 49th Street N (intersection of 49th St. N. and 54th Ave, west side). Bring your digital camera and sun protection. Water and other refreshments will be provided. Wear your PGS shirt if you have one. Please RSVP to Debbie Schuler: deborah.e.schuler@hotmail.com, (727) 470-9967. Memorial Park Cemetery, 5750 49th St N, St. Pete

 

Monday, 2-Mar-15 at 2:00 PM--The Swedish Research Interest Class will look at several of the databases that provide helpful hints on vocabulary, history, customs, and some transcriptions of vital records.  Gwen Stuler will provide a handout and introduce a web site that provides answers to individual queries.   Anbytarforum -  (http://aforum.genealogi.se). Charest, LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Monday, 2-Mar-15 at 6:00 PM--Family Tree Maker 2012/2014 Basics--Part 6. Smith, LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Tuesday, 3-Mar-15 at 6:00 PM--GENEALOGY PHOTOS: ORGANIZING, MANAGING AND ENHANCING -- This class will demonstrate how to organize and manage your digital genealogy photos so they can be easily found and how to enhance their appearance. This includes cropping, straightening, one-touch fix, removing blemishes, adding captions and text to the photo, making a collage, and much more. All this can be done using Picasa, the powerful free program from Google. Bryan, LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Wednesday, 4-Mar-15 at 10:00 AM--Ancestry.com--Level 1…Basic search techniques for getting the most from this huge collection of databases. Bryan, LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Saturday, 7-Mar-15 at 10:00 AM--Family Tree Maker User Group--Questions & Answers and Demonstration of how to use the Family Tree Maker genealogical database software. Hosmer/Bryan, Jenkins C, Largo Library.

The WPA Historical Records Survey

This reference is not for the feint of heart. The link will take you to an online digitized book titled “The WPA Historical Records survey: A Guide to the Unpublished Inventories, Indexes, and Transcripts.”

This is an inventory of WPA era work products that, in the end, were not published. It will tell you state by state what records were covered by the WPA and where they exist in archives across the country.

This information may guide your genealogy trip planning for the future. The list starts at page 9, but the pages before that will give you a history of the project.

The WPA Historical Records Survey : a guide to the ... . - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library

Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records & Obituaries

The post before this one gave you a link to online death indexes and records for Canada. This one focuses on the United States.

The links are organized by state, and then by county. Both fee and free sites are listed, and noted as such.

Joe does a great job keeping the links updated and continually adds to them. Put this link in your favorites and visit it frequently.

Online Searchable Death Indexes, Records & Obituaries

Canada Death Records…Indexes

This is a great site by Joe Beine. It is a list of links to online death indexes and records for Canada, organized by province. You will find both free and pay sites listed, but the list warns you which is which before you commit to the URL.

As advertised, the links lead to indexes as well as records when they exist. Joe does a good job of keeping the list updated as well.

Check it our at:  Online Death Indexes and Records for Canada

Godfrey Memorial Library Databases Available to Largo Public Library Genealogists

Recently the Genealogy Center at the Largo Public Library subscribed to the online databases of the Godfrey Memorial Library. Those databases are now available to patrons in the library using personal computers, terminals, or their own laptop.

The Godfrey Memorial Library is located in Middletown, Connecticut, and its collection focuses mainly on New England states. Some of its databases, however, include other states and even roam occasionally to foreign countries. The collection also offers  material that is not available elsewhere on the Internet. The home page gives you the choice of doing a word search or browsing the individual collections. Instructions on how to access the Godfrey collection are located next to each workstation in the Genealogy Center, and consultants are on duty to provide assistance as needed.

The following is a list of the principle databases in the Godfrey collection:

• American Genealogical and Biographical Index (AGBI)
• Biographies – alphabetical surname list of published genealogies
• Cemeteries – Ed Laput Cemetery Project; indexes alphabetized by state (mostly Connecticut); cemetery records listed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Italy (only a few)
• Church records – indexes and record books
• Directories – alphabetized by state
• Funeral Home Records – indexes and record books
• Genealogies – alphabetized lists of books, family charts and journals
• Godfrey digital content on World Vital Records – digitized books
• Helpful Websites – table of links organized by state and by topic
• Maps – alphabetized by states
• Military – Books in three categories: Revolutionary War, Civil War, Spanish American War
• Newspapers – 19^th century US Newspapers
• State and Local Histories – Alphabetized by state
• Vital Records – alphabetized list by state (mostly Connecticut and Massachusetts)

The Godfrey collection is the second new addition to the Largo Library genealogy databases in the past several months. The other is Fold3, a comprehensive collection of online military indexes and actual records ranging from the Revolutionary War to the present.

Plan to stop by the Genealogy Center and see if these new resources are helpful in your research.

Chicago Maps Online

If you have ancestors from the Chicago area, you may be interested in this site. It offers a collection of historic as well as current Chicago maps.

Once you decided on a map to view, you are given controls to pan and zoom.

Check it out at: Chicago in Maps

PGS Educational Events for the Week of 15-21 February

Today at 7:43 AM

Here is what's going on at PGS this week:

Monday--LIBRARY IS CLOSED

Tuesday, 17-Feb-15 at 1:00 PM--Italian Genealogy Interest Group (GIG), LeConte, LH Room, Largo Library

Tuesday, 17-Feb-15 at 6:00 PM--RootsMagic-3, Part 3 of the series on how to use this popular genealogy database program. Summers , Jenkins C, Largo Library.

Wednesday, 18-Feb-2015    at 1:30 PM--Familysearch.org—the class will demonstrate how to search the vast databases available on this rapidly-expanding site made available from the LDS (Mormon) genealogy collection, Bryan. This class will be presented to the Charlotte County Genealogy Society, Port Charlotte, FL 

Wednesday, 18-Feb-15 at10:00 AM to 4:00 PM--England & Wales Genealogy, Vital Records, Part 1: Parish Registers:...How to access the Parish Registers of Christening; Marriage; Burials from 1538 to 1837. Participants in the morning lecture are invited to bring their laptops for an afternoon workshop (after a lunch break) to search for personal records with individual guidance. Pearson , LH Room, Largo Library.

Thursday, 19-Feb-2015 at12:30 PM--English and Welsh Census Records...1801 -1911, Pearson, Aging Well Center,  1501 N. Belcher Rd., Clearwater, FL

Saturday, 21-Feb-15 at 10:00 AM--Computers in Genealogy--Question and answer session on the use of computers in genealogy research and record keeping. Summers, Jenkins B, Largo Library

Saturday, 21-Feb-15 at 11:00 AM--Program Meeting, Jenkins B, Largo Library.

Proving Native American Ancestry

Here is an interesting article by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Meaghan Siekman about proving Native American Ancestry. Even if you are not in the position to do that, the article has examples of the use of DNA testing and how it can be used in this pursuit that can be of interest to all researchers.

It is also interesting to see how different tribes address the issue of requirements for tribal affiliation.

Check it out at:  American Indian Ancestry: Establishing Legal Proof - The Root

Ways To Up Your Productivity

This article from our friends at GenealogyInTime Magazine is a good review of things we should be doing, and it may include some items we have not thought of…at least not recently.

The article brings together some topics covered previously in the online magazine, such as the Top 10 Genealogy Websites, using their own Genealogy Search Engine, Searching Using Name Abbreviations, etc. This is a great review and well-worth a read.

Find the article at:  Simple Ways to Improve Your Genealogy Productivity

PGS Events for the Week of 8-14 February

Monday, 9-Feb-2015 at 9:30 AM-- Memorial Park Cemetery Canvass—9:30-11:30 AM. Meet at the south parking lot at 5750 49th Street N (intersection of 49th St. N. and 54th Ave, west side). Bring your digital camera and sun protection. Water and other refreshments will be provided. Wear your PGS shirt if you have one. Please RSVP to Debbie Schuler: deborah.e.schuler@hotmail.com, (727) 470-9967.Memorial Park Cemetery, 5750 49th St N

 

Monday, 9-Feb-15 at 6:00 PM--Family Tree Maker 2012/2014 Basics--A detailed explanation and demonstration of the many features of this most popular genealogy database program. Session 4 of 6 sessions. Smith, LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Tuesday, 10-Feb-15 at 6:00 PM--RootsMagic-2, This is the second session on the  use of this popular genealogy software program. It consists of four classes, each 1 ½ hours long, held for four consecutive weeks. It’s intent is to take the student from the basics of initial entry of family information to the more detailed topics of incorporating images in your family history, citing sources, and generating various reports. The class will be most effective if all sessions are attended in order. This is session 2 of 4. Summers, LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Wednesday, 11 Feb 15--SCHEDULE ERROR-- Liz Pearson’s class on England & Wales Genealogy, Vital Records, Part 1: Parish Registers will be given on 18 Feb—NOT on 11 Feb as erroneously shown on some printed schedules and the web page.     

 

Friday, 13-Feb-15 at 10:30 AM--French Canadian & Acadian Discussion Group, Grandmaison, Jenkins C, Largo Library. NOTE THE NEW LOCATION!

 

Saturday, 14-Feb-15 at 8:00 AM-4:00 PM--Annual Seminar--Four main lectures by John Phillip Colletta plus three breakout sessions. See http://goo.gl/4UctX4 for details--Jenkins A, B, C, Largo Library.

Sharon, CT Tombstone Information Online

This website provides tombstone information from the community of Sharon, Connecticut. No less than sixteen burying grounds are listed. Just click on the “Genealogy” tab at the top of the Sharon Historical Society & Museum home page to go to the cemetery information.

While you are at the site, take a moment to look around and you will find other useful genealogical data relative to the area.

Home – Sharon Historical Society & MuseumSharon Historical Society & Museum

Maps on the Web

This site offers an eclectic collection of maps. There is a search field on the home page where you can look for a key word, but if you are stumped about what to search for, try the “Tag Cloud.”

Every map is tagged with one or more terms based on what the map relates to, and you can see all of those terms in a unique way. They are all listed alphabetically, but the font of the those tags used more frequently is larger.

See the maps at:  Maps on the Web

PGS Educational Events for the Week of 1-7 February 2015

Monday, 2-Feb-15 at 2:00 PM--Swedish Genealogy Interest Group, Charest. LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Monday, 2-Feb-15 at 6:00 PM--Family Tree Maker 2012 Basics--Part 3, Smith. LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Tuesday, 3-Feb-15 at 6:00 PM--RootsMagic-1. This class explores the use of this popular genealogy software program. It consists of four classes, each 1 ½ hours long, held for four consecutive weeks. It’s intent is to take the student from the basics of initial entry of family information to the more detailed topics of incorporating images in your family history, citing sources, and generating various reports. The class will be most effective if all sessions are attended in order. Summers, LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Wednesday, 4-Feb-15 at 10:00 AM--Ancestry.com searching--the next level. This class will explore approaches to difficult searches--how to find them when they're not where they should be. Bryan, LH Room, Largo Library.

 

Saturday, 7-Feb-15 at 10:00 AM--Family Tree Maker User Group--Questions & Answers and Demonstration of how to use the Family Tree Maker genealogical database software. Hosmer, Jenkins C, Largo Library.