Tuesday's Tip - FamilySearch Rocks! (and I Heart GeneaBloggers)

Back in July, I created my first blog ever because it was the latest and greatest genealogy tool and everyone was doing it. But I couldn't think of anything to write, er blog. I had this foolish notion that it should be organized, sort of like if I was writing a book, and wasn't quite sure how I really wanted to structure it. I've never been the type of genealogist that picks just one individual or one family group to focus on and then move to another when "done" with them...I tend to bounce around from one family to another and am usually researching two or three lines simultaneously. Then I discovered the Daily Blogging Prompts on GeneaBloggers.  GeneaBloggers' explanation for the prompts was the perfect solution to my dilemma:

"Many genealogy and family history bloggers like to post every day but at times are at a loss for ideas. Using the series of daily blogging prompts below – and there are over 30 of them! – is not only a great way to create new content, but also lets you participate in a community effort with other genealogy bloggers."

All right! now I have something to write about without stressing over the structure of my blog. And so I began...

But wait. My post is titled FamilySearch Rocks! yet all I've been talking about are Daily Blogging Pompts. What does one have to do with the other? Well, I'll tell you. Although I have been doing my own research for 14+ years, I have many, many holes in my tree. The reason for those holes is that the data was not easily accessible to me, the filling of which required more time than I had to give. Consequently, I pretty much just gave up on them.

When I started writing my blog posts, those pesky holes jumped out at me. So, I did some searches on FamilySearch. Voilá!

• I found my 2nd great grandpa's hitherto unknown first wife while searching for occupations for Workday Wednesday - Three Generations of Jackson Men (to be published tomorrow).
• I found marriages and baptisms in Norway parish record indices while writing my post for Monday Madness - Religously Insane!, which led me to digital images of those records on the National Archives of Norway, Arkivverket Digitalarkivet website (the indexed record gave me the source film number; a film/fiche search at the FamilySearch library catalog gave me a link to the archives).
• I found my cousin's marriage record containing his wife's name, date of birth, and parents' names while documenting the Thriller Thursday - Railroad Crossing Tragedy story.

While I didn't use all of the information I found in those stories, the point is that I saw that I had holes which  FamilySearch  helped me to fill. FamilySearch has over 2 billion indexed names and an additional 312 million names that have not been indexed and are browse-only images.  They add about a million new records every week. You have to go back often to search for the same people...eventually you will find them! And best of all, it is 100%, no strings attached, FREE!

In summary, GeneaBloggers' Daily Blogging Prompts coupled with the dynamic FamilySearch website have re-energized my research and documentation of my findings. FamilySearch Rocks! (and I Heart GeneaBloggers).

Thanks for dropping by.