Backing Up Just in Case

2022 update: Currently using BackBlaze for automated background backups and Apple's Time Machine for local backups to a hard drive on my desk. I have another hard drive for digitized family history photos and other genealogical documents and images. Backing up every day is a way to keep these valuable genealogy materials safe! 

Typealyzer Says DOER

Just put my blog through the Typealyzer test, to see how the system classifies the blog's writing persona (similar to Myers-Briggs personality model). The result: A Doer, which is fairly accurate except that I follow through with great persistence (illustration from Typealyzer Doer, above, is NOT accurate for me). Try it and see what your blog's persona turns out to be.

DOERS: The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Genealogy Blogs - search on Geneabloggers

2022: Geneabloggers maintains a wonderful list of genealogy blogs. I use Feedly to subscribe to favorite genea-blogs and I also joined the Geneabloggers page on Facebook. On Twitter, follow the group here: @GeneaBlogTRIBE. As of 2022

More mystery photos

Today the mystery is: Who are these two handsome men in uniform, circa WWII, related to Wood family of Cleveland? Anybody recognize them?

Graves and Obits Online 2022 update

The Ancestor Hunt has links to obituaries and BMD records--for free! Plus downloadable (free) guides showing how to search. A highly recommended site for 2022 and beyond.

Of course Find A Grave is well-known for grave memorials. I found many of hubby's ancestors in Ohio cemeteries listed on Find a Grave, complete with photos of cemetery and plots. Also I've been linking my ancestors to their relatives with memorial pages, and requesting to be the manager of ancestral memorial pages.

Plus Family Search, Ancestry, and MyHeritage have links to obits and more. I'm using them all to search out info about my ancestors.

Twitter Genealogy

#GenChat, #AncestryHour, and many other organized chats are a fun and informative way to use Twitter to connect with other genealogy folks, ask questions, share info, and more. (2022 update)

Names, names, names

What's in a name? 2022 Update: Here's an excellent guide from the University of Delaware library, discussing how to think about names as we conduct genealogical research.

I also like lists such as this one, showing popular baby names (from Soc Sec, going back decades).

Costumed mystery ladies

Being photographed in a studio wearing fun or impressive getups was a favorite activity of my ancestors in early 1900s New York City. 

No names were on the back of this, although I believe one of the ladies is Margaret Mandel, a cousin on my Farkas side. 2022: Still no identification of two of the three ladies.

Cousin Larry and the Wood family

Thanks to Cousin Larry, we know a lot about my hubby's Wood ancestors. He's a meticulous researcher and doesn't let up even when the going gets tough. Surprisingly, he found out that a distant cousin of his and hubby's (who married into the huge Foote family of Wethersfield) lived and died in my town. So now I can do some local research the old fashioned way--in my local library--instead of mousing around the web.

UPDATE in 2022: I was never able to find this Foote ancestor's grave, despite searching locally and in the state library. 

National Archives and Family Historians

Browsing the National Archives site, I found "Resources for Genealogists and Family Historians." Lots of "how to" links explaining use of the archives, plus genealogy tips, info on upcoming events, new data and old-reliable collections often searched by people climbing their family trees (like me). Just bookmarked this for fast future reference.

Old Abbreviations Describing Death

Searching online for genealogy blogs, I ran across Life of Riley, which has a very useful post today about old abbreviations. A sample, copied from today's post:

• d.s.p.l. - died without legitimate issue
• d.s.p.m.s. - died without surviving male issue
• d.s.p.s - died without surviving issue
• d.unm - died unmarried

2022 update: Unfortunately, this blog is no longer active. Instead, I've bookmarked the History Detectives site which has common abbreviations plus many well-known terms defined.

Linkpendium has more than 10 million links?!

UPDATE 2022: One reason I like Linkpendium is its categorization of genealogy links, by state, by worldwide surname, etc. Every month it adds new links. So many links, so little time. There are well over 10,000,000 links to family history resources at this time! 

Twitter Genealogy

2022 update: For fun and informative Twitter chats about genealogy, try #GenChat (alternate Friday evenings, US time), #AncestryHour (Tuesday afternoons, US time), and several other live chats that take place only on Twitter.

Watch for the tags #Genealogy and #FamilyHistory for tweets about these topics.

I'm on Twitter as @MarianBWood - see you there!

Google Your Family Tree

Dan Lynch's book is now out of print, but Google Your Family Tree was a wonderful reference tool when I was digging deeper into online searches for ancestors, ancestral communities, and specific aspects of family history. UPDATED 2022.

Online Searches for Family History Topics

2022 update: The author of Google Your Family Tree was speaking at a local genealogy club in 2009, and I was in the audience. Last time I heard that talk, his Google tips helped me find my first cousin, living only 100 miles away. 

I learned a lot about using search operators. Here's my 2017 post about that topic, explaining the use of:

AND

OR

"" (quotation marks)

- (minus sign)

* (wild card)

AROUND(insert number here).