We are offering a $25 discount on the complete price on our 2010 Salt Lake Research Trip for those who make their deposit by 30 June 2009. The complete registration price for those registering by this date will be $175. The balance of the fee is due in December, just the deposit is necessary by 30 June.

There is more information about the trip on our site at http://www.rootdig.com/slctrip.html

This discount won’t be posted on those pages, email Michael at mjnrootdig@gmail.com for a registration brochure with the discounted price or questions.

Thanks!

Scanning documents is great and an excellent way to preserve them. But transcribing serves a purpose too. It forces you to actually READ the document. That is a great way to notice phrases or words that sometimes get overlooked. And there are times when that one word or phrase can make all the difference. Transcribe something today.

How many pieces of information are in your family tree or genealogy database from “memory” or some unidentified source? Check them out. They could be the real reason you have a brick wall.

Try searching Google books for every ancestor, even the ones you think will never be in there. I located my paternal grandfather in an Angus breeders’ directory from the 1950s and a 4th great-grandfather in an 1830s era directory from Germany.

http://books.google.com

Just a little piece of advice. Before you buy a CD with a PDF or a scan of that out of print book, make certain it’s not available on www.archive.org or the BYU website for free.

Then you could download it and search it for free and make your own CD.

Keeping up with the genealogy news can be overwhelming at times. Two great ways to keep up can be to read Dick Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter or Leland Meitzler’s Genealogyblog.
Of course, I’d be appreciative if readers signed up for the paid version of Eastman’s as that includes my weekly “Casefile Clues” column.

I love to use Gmail for my genealogy mail. Those who use Gmail might want to check out the Gmail blog post about being a Gmail Ninja.

There are a lot of good tips there for making the most of gmail and saving time and hassle in the process.

Have you thought about how long after your ancestor’s death he or she may be mentioned in a record?

My ancestor Peter Bieger died in 1855. He is mentioned by name in a 1906 deed when his grandchildren are signing a quitclaim deed for the property. Fifty-one years after he died.

Researching “completely” a family you know may do one of several things for you or your research. You may learn something about research or something about the family you did not know before.

Recently I obtained deeds showing how a house and a farm were sold after the owner’s died. In both cases, I knew all the vitals on the family. In both cases I understood the records better because I “knew” the family. That helps me understand records later when I don’t know the family. Sometimes it is easier to learn about records when the family isn’t as foreign to you as the records.

And in one case I learned a few things about the family that were new to me. Another reason to search for everything.

I wasted an hour today looking for a set of documents I scanned. I scanned and saved them when I was in a hurry and the file name was very helpful, “ufkes.”

When a last name is your mother’s maiden name, MANY files contain that word. I eventually searched the entire hard drive for files with “ufkes” in the title, but there were MANY that I had to go through. I renamed the file with a more descriptive name “john_ufkes_cancelled_homestead_file”

Are your file names helpful?