Need Umlauts?

If you need the codes to create a variety of diacritics, here's a list of the alt codes to create them http://usefulshortcuts.com/alt-codes/accents-alt-codes.php.

Plat Plotter

If you need a new site to try platting out properties in metes and bounds, give this a try. I've not really experimented with  yet, but it looks interesting

http://platplotter.appspot.com/lib/pp_about.html

Thanks to Peggy L-my Facebook friend for pointing me in the direction of this one.

Do You Always Believe Bibliographies and Inventories?

Catalogers are human and, being human, they occasionally make a mistake. A recent of online church records with which I was working indicated they only went to 1900.

It turns out there were entries from the 1910s as well.

If I had believed the inventory I would never have located entries from 1905 that were helpful in my research.

Jump Start Genealogy 2014

Genealogy Jump Start 2014!

Need to jump start your genealogy in 2014?? Note date change!

To help get your genealogy new year off to a great start, we are offering a series of three webinars on 10 January 2014, my "Genealogy Jump Start 2014."

All presentations are made using Gotomeeting--no software required. Handouts will be sent via PDF at least one day before the presentations. Join us and get your research jump started for 2014!

Day Time	Title and Description	Register
24 Jan 2014 at 11:00 am Central	Sourcing This presentation will discuss the elements of sourcing genealogical documents. Included will be a variety of example, starting with online census records and including a variety of original, microfilmed and digital material. The first fifteen registrants can submit one item to be used as one of the in-class illustrations. Geared towards advanced beginners and anyone who wants to learn more about the importance and elements of citation.	Sign me up for $6.00!
24 Jan 2014 at 1:00 pm Central	Correlation and Analysis of Information This presentation will discuss methods for putting together what you have already located, ways to analyze that information to maximize the clues it does contain, and the several different angles from which the researcher should look at every document and record. Geared towards intermediate level researchers--or beginners with some experience who are tired of getting stuck.	Sign me up for $6.00!
24 Jan 2014 at 3:00 pm Central	There is No Preponderance of Evidence Professional genealogists suggest we longer use this term in our research for some good reasons. We’ll discuss those reasons briefly. But more importantly we will see ways to handle those situations when information is not clear and convincing and how to best “make our case” when the answers we seek are not explicitly stated in records. This presentation will discuss two in-depth examples (from 18th and 19th century situations). Intermediate researchers.	Sign me up for $6.00!

Questions? Email Michael at mjnrootdig@gmail.com

The presenter:

Michael John Neill has actively researched his genealogy for thirty years in over twenty states and five foreign countries. He is an experienced online and onsite researcher, a college professor and has written on a wide variety of topics. Michael has given day-long genealogy how-to seminars across the  United States and has led a group trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake for eight years. He maintains the Genealogy Tip of the Day and Rootdig.com blogs. Michael's style is clear, down-to-earth, and informative. 

Don't Forget About CastleGarden.org

Sometimes the websites that have the images get to be addicting and it's easy to forget about those that "just" have indexes. CastleGarden.org is one of those sites. It has immigration indexes for the old Castle Garden in New York City for 19th century immigrants. I have a couple of ancestral families whose names have been transcribed correctly on CastleGarden.org and not so accurately on those other sites.

Missouri Plat Books

141 county plat books from Missouri have been scanned and can be viewed for free on this section of the Missouri Digital Heritage website--part of the Missouri Secretary of State's internet presence.

Linkpendium in Beta Testing

Linkpendium is still in beta testing (so there are some bugs), but if you've given this genealogical search engine a try, consider doing so at http://www.linkpendium.com/family-discoverer/.

If the resulting page does not come up, hit the link to view the cached page.