Don’t think of July as a hot and humid nightmare, but rather as an opportunity to find a comfortable place under the air-conditioner vent to get some work done on your family research! FamilyTreeMaker users will be happy to know that not only does it connect to your Ancestry family tree, it will also connect to FamilySearch. RootsMagic users also have Ancestry connections with their new TreeShare feature. Mac users aren’t left out either – FamilyTreeMaker and RootsMagic have both Windows and Mac versions of their software.
The one thing worse than the heat of July in Florida is the heat of August. That, and the fact that many members spend August in cooler places is one reason why the society does not have a meeting in August. Fortunately, SAGS Support is open 24/7 and can be accessed from just about anywhere. Not only will you find the latest genealogy news and updates, you can connect with other members to get help, share a eureka moment or just chat. Here’s a quick tour of some of the things available to society members:
Take advantage of the Online Events Calendar to find upcoming online webinars, hangouts and online meetings. If you aren’t familiar with webinars and how they work, make sure you don’t miss September’s member meeting. It’s our annual “Hands-On” meeting where you can get tech advise as well as research tricks. There will definitely be a table discussing webinars and how to participate.
Make sure to visit – and bookmark – the Library section of the site. This is where you’ll find speaker handouts, member guides and past issues of our monthly Ancient City Bulletin. We’re also building a Digital Library to help your research efforts. This “library” is actually more like a directory pointing you to online articles from a broad range of sources. Some examples include the State Research Guides at Ancestry.com and Surnames: Family Search Tips and Surname Origins at Family Tree University. NOTE: If you have discovered a useful online publication, article or blog post to add to our library, tell us about it by commenting in the Leave a Reply box at the bottom of the page.
Members doing local research will find the Archives section interesting. SAGS member Mac Wills has spent years transcribing historical area records and you will find many of them here. The page also tells you how to use the site’s search feature to find specific names or dates.
SAGS Support is not a one-way street. The WordPress platform this site runs on also includes an impressive commenting system. You’ll notice the Leave A Message box at the bottom of just about every page. For email subscribers, there’s always a big “Comment” button at the bottom of your email delivery. You can use these to ask questions, share tips and connect with other members. The Help Desk page has more information on how it all works along with information on using the free WordPress app. The app makes it easy to follow SAGS Support – and other interesting sites – without overloading your email Inbox. It’s also easier to keep up with comments and the conversations they generate.
Find A Grave has opened the beta preview of their new site design. You can check it out now by clicking the “See a preview now” link just under the title. The site has a new look along with an improved search feature. You can now search cemeteries outside the U.S. by city. They have added a new upload tool that makes it possible to upload multiple photos at one time. Once uploaded you can preview, rotate or delete them from the site.
Yes, there will be some glitches. This is a beta site and its purpose is to find and fix them. You can help by reporting any issues you encounter.
The Digital Library of Georgia has created a new historic newspaper site. According to the DLG Blog:
The GHN includes some of the state’s earliest newspapers; important African-American, Roman Catholic, and Cherokee newspapers; and issues from Augusta, Atlanta, Columbus, Fayetteville, Houston county, Louisville, Thomson, Sandersville, Waycross, and Waynesboro. The latest additions bring the total number of newspaper pages available free online through the DLG to 825,000 pages. Like the older DLG newspaper sites, GHN provides newspaper issues that are full-text searchable and can be browsed by date and title.
You’ll find the details at the Georgia Historic Newspapers site.
From Chris Paton at British GENES comes this interesting news item:
The National Library of Scotland has completed its coverage of the 25 inch county map series for England (1841-1952), with some 85,279 sheets now available online. The completely free to access maps are available to consult at http://maps.nls.uk/os/25inch-england-and-wales/index.html.
Final Notes
Each new post published at SAGS Support is automatically emailed to member subscribers and/or delivered to their newsreader. Research Notes is published every Monday morning and other articles may be posted during the week. Subscribers have the option to control how often these updates are delivered. Look down at the bottom of this message and you will find a Manage Subscriptions link in the fine print as you see in this example. Click it and you will be taken to the WordPress.com Subscription Management page. Use the Delivery Frequency column to change your delivery options from “Immediate” to either “Daily” or “Weekly”.
Sample of the “fine print” at the bottom of each post.
Also down at the bottom of each delivered post is a Comment button. If you would like to comment on something discussed in a post or ask a question, just click the Comment button and you will be taken online to the comment section of the post where you can share your thoughts and read what others have shared.
To learn more, download a copy of the SAGS Support Guide from the Member Guides page at SAGS Support.
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