Is Your Genealogy Blog in the Wayback Machine?

During #AncestryHour on Tuesday, participants discussed how to preserve digital info, including blog posts. Then someone came up with the bright idea to check the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

As shown above, my genealogy blog was saved 111 times in the past decade. (I began blogging in 2008 but the Wayback Machine apparently didn't save my posts for the first few years.)

Pick a date and click

I picked one of the dates in the timeline, and a calendar popped up, highlighting the days when my blog was saved as a snapshot in the Wayback Machine. If I click on a specific highlighted date, I can see exactly what my blog's home page looked like then. 

For instance, the image at right shows the top of my blog on November 24, 2011, Thanksgiving Thursday. 

The Wayback Machine also included in its snapshot that day's post and blog posts going back to November 2, 2011, all of which were visible on the home page. 

(This design shows what my blog looked like before I inserted ancestor landing pages and other elements.)

Try it, you'll like it

If you have a blog, do enter the URL in the Wayback Machine's search box and see how many times (and when) your blog was saved by this wonderful digital resource.

Then take a trip back in time by clicking to see what your blog looked like on that date.

Plus feel good that some of your blog entries have been archived for the public, to be preserved and available into the future!

"Preservation" is this week's #52Weeks genealogy challenge prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

Free: Finding Capt. Slatter in the Internet Archive

After watching Thomas MacEntee's talk on the Internet Archive during THE Genealogy Show, I returned to this data-rich resource with fresh ideas of what was available and how to search. 

Not only is the Internet Archive entirely free, it has some scanned resources from places that I would otherwise have to visit and research in person. See for yourself at https://archive.org.

Searching for John D. Slatter

Because Canadian collections are well represented on the Internet Archive, I began with a new search for Capt. John Daniel Slatter (1864-1954), my husband's great uncle. At the turn of the 20th century, Capt. Slatter was renowned as the leader of the internationally-known Kiltie Band, the 48th Highlanders of Toronto. 

From previous searches, I knew this ancestor was often mentioned in news items and in city directories as John D. Slatter. That's how I searched for him in text contents (see above) of Internet Archive. I didn't limit my search by date or by collection, but I did put his name in quotes to search only for that phrase. Some searches take a few moments longer but it's worth the wait.

New finds for free! 

On the first page of results, I found John D. Slatter in the text of a calendar from the Toronto Conservatory of Music for the 1914-1915 term. 

He was listed as Bandmaster, 48th Highlanders, and a teacher of cornet, French horn, slide trombone, euphonium, and tuba. Our family never knew this ancestor played tuba, and we never knew he was on the faculty of this institution.

Also I found calendars for the University of Toronto, for the period 1913-1917. John D. Slatter was listed in the university materials as being on the faculty for the Conservatory of Music in those years. The Conservatory had an affiliation with the university, listing faculty for both institutions. It's a small thing, but we didn't know about it.

Next, I'll plug in more Slatter names, because Capt. Slatter had two bandmaster brothers also in Canada. With luck, one or both will be in the Internet Archive.

UPDATE: I found new results for Captain Albert Slatter and more results for Capt. John D. Slatter! Nearly all out of copyright (check rights document by document) and available to post here and on my family trees. Below, Capt. John Slatter at center of front row, leading the U of Toronto band in 1937.

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"Free" is this week's #52Ancestors prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

Local Knowledge, Part 3: Free Big Apple Directories

Easy access to free New York City phone books via stevemorse.org

Knowing that May 1 of every year was Moving Day in New York City helped me understand the timing of moves for siblings of my paternal grandfather, Isaac Burk (1882-1943). That was Part 1 of my series on local knowledge of Big Apple genealogy resources.

In Part 2 of my series, I used free NYC Municipal Archives tax records to find clear b/w photos of the buildings where ancestors lived in 1940.

Now for Part 3. I wanted to look up my grandpa's New York-based siblings in 1940s phone directories, relying on local knowledge for free access.

New York Public Library's Virtual Resources

The New York Public Library is a fabulous source of genealogical resources, not only for researching New York ancestors but well beyond. Many of its resources have been digitized and posted online, available for free without a library card on a 24/7 basis.

The library's digital collection includes New York City directories, which it has been scanning and posting in recent years. This makes valuable genealogical info widely available to anyone, anywhere, who wants to search for a person or a business in the Big Apple, going back as far as 1786. These directories also feature interesting advertising and street maps of the time (context!).

Actually, the library's virtual collection includes both city directories (pre-telephone era) and phone directories--the latter for the five boroughs (Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island).

Not all borough directories are posted and not all years are available, but this an excellent source to tap if your ancestors lived or worked in New York City.

Steve Morse's Super-Easy Search 

My favorite way to search 1940 NYC phone directories for free is through Steve Morse's One-Step access to the books, borough by borough (snippet at top shows a sample from my research).

If you use this one-step access, select a borough on the drop down menu at top left of the search screen. Then click the arrows to progress through pages, or do a name search, or skip to the proper alphabetical page for the name you want.

The snippet shows my search for grandpa Isaac's brother Max Birk, who lived in Brooklyn in 1940. I specified "Brooklyn" as the borough and typed in "Birk" as the name. Steve Morse's super-easy search tool brought me to the page showing Max Birk at 602 Avenue T in Brooklyn, NY. This is the correct address for that time, as it matches Max's 1940 Census location.

By the way, I searched the 1940 Bronx phone book for Paul and Jennie Salkowitz (Jennie was Max and Isaac's sister). They weren't listed. Why? The light bulb went on: According to the 1940 U.S. Census, Jennie and her husband were boarders in somebody else's apartment. No way to have a phone of their own! They moved shortly afterward (on Moving Day, May 1, I'm willing to wager) and had a phone number in later directories.

Internet Archive: Browse Page by Page

There's a third way of accessing some NYC phone directories for free: via Internet Archive. The collection here is more limited. Happily, I did find a 1941 Brooklyn, NY phone directory for free.

Shown here is Max Birk's entry in this Brooklyn phone book, located by browsing page by page. Note the directory's specific date: August, 1941. That's a clue to check the dates on your sources, especially fast-changing phone directories in fast-growing cities like New York. More about dates in Part 4 of my series.

Beyond "Google Your Family Tree"

I was lucky enough to be in the audience when Dan Lynch talked about the 6 most important search commands needed to "Google Your Family Tree." Having seen Dan speak a number of years ago, and having read his book cover to cover (it's now out of print), it was very educational to hear him update this important topic.

One of the Google "operators" (commands for searching) was new to me, not even mentioned in his book. (BTW, a command he used to advocate using, the tilde, is no longer a Google operator, so he suggested we not bother using it.)

Dan showed how to filter the millions of search results to focus on the most relevant genealogy results by using these key search commands, alone or in combination:

AND

OR

"" (quotation marks)

- (minus sign)

* (wild card)

AROUND(insert number here).

Here's what was new to me: AROUND(#) instructs Google to search for a word or phrase in proximity to another word or phrase by defining the number of words between them. 

To try this kind of search yourself, first do a search for "Google" and go to the Google search home page of your choice. I usually use the US home page, but if you want to search in another country or language, start on that home page (such as Google Canada).

The point is to go fishing in the Google ocean closest to where you would like Google results. Of course, Google often presents results from many countries and in many languages. But by starting on the home page of the nation you particularly want to search, it's more likely that results from that nation will be closer to the top of the list.

Next, choose two phrases (such as names or a name and a place) and choose how many words should separate those names or phrases. Above, my search executed on the Google Canada home page. I'm looking for hubby's great uncle, Captain John Daniel Slatter, who was the long-serving bandmaster of the 48th Highlanders regiment of Toronto.

This search is very restrictive because I'm telling Google to look for highly specific results--only results that have the exact phrase "John D. Slatter" within 4 words (no more than that) of the exact phrase "48th Highlanders." If the words or phrases are 5 words apart, they won't appear in my results. If the words or phrases are 3 or 2 words apart, they will be in my results.

Doing this search, Google tells me I have "around 2,150 results" which sounds more reasonable to check out than, say, 150,000 results or 1,500,000 results. Of course, I already know enough about Capt. Slatter to know he was part of the 48th Highlanders. In this search, I'm trying to locate new material about his role in that regiment.

In reality, Google filtered my actual results even further, omitting results that were very similar to the ones presented on the two pages of results I actually saw. This is typical, and I'm sure you often see that as well. We always have the option to click and repeat with duplicate or similar entries included in the results. Dan hammered home the point that we should always, always click beyond the first page of results. You just never know when an important nugget will be at the bottom of page 2 or even page 5.

In my example, the entire first page of results consisted of entries in my own blog, plus two "we found John Slatter" entries trying to get me to click for his phone number, etc.
However, the second page of results had an entry I'd never seen! It was for the Toronto Conservatory of Music year book of 1914-15, posted for free on the Internet Archive (https://archive.org).

I clicked and then, to save time scrolling and scrolling for the highlighted text, I searched within the book. Capt. Slatter appeared twice. The first appearance was in a listing of lessons being offered to students. Here it is, in the wording and typeface as it appeared in the year book:

         TUBA— John D. Slatter, Bandmaster 48th Highlanders 15.00 

This is how AROUND(#) works. It found me something I hadn't found in the past. I'm going to experiment with different versions of Capt. Slatter's name and different number of words for proximity with his regiment, his wife's name, and other family members.

Have you tried searching the Internet for your ancestors using the AROUND(#) operator? If not, go ahead and give it a try!

PS: Don't forget to look at image results. Maybe you'll get really lucky and find an ancestor's photo.

PPS: This post is the most popular of all-time on my genealogy blog, as of 2019!

Tuesday's Tip: The Internet Archive

I just stumbled across genealogy records available (for free) on the Internet Archive, a repository of Internet info that chronicles changes on the Web and stores all kinds of historical and cultural data. Want to see a video of old Commodore 64 video games? You can find 'em on the Internet Archive.

The link to the genealogy holdings takes you to holdings shared by the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Robarts Library at the University of Toronto; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library; the National Library of Scotland; and the Boston Public Library. 

Info ranges from publications about Mayflower descendants to Passenger and Crew Vessel Lists for NYC, 1910 and 1940 and other years.

Check it out! Maybe you'll find something you were looking for. 

2022 Update: I've had great luck using the Internet Archive to access phone directories and find home addresses for ancestors who are in the 1950 US Census.