If you are here, you know that I just moved my blog. This whole process started because I noticed that other blogs I visited had white borders around their uploaded images and mine did not. I emailed Wendy of Jollett etc. (one of my first followers) asking her how she did it on hers. Through a few back-and-forth emails, we figured out that some Blogger templates allowed you to configure borders around images and some did not. The one she was using (Simple) allowed them and the one I was using (Picture Window) did not. Since I really, really love borders around my images, I decided that I would have to change my template. And since I was changing my template, I decided to take the plunge and redesign/refocus my blog–something I had been thinking about doing for some time but was too scared to try.
For the Tech Tuesday portion of this post, I will share with you what Wendy and I learned from this exercise:
I didn't want to change my blog title without changing its URL because people expect the blog URL to reflect the blog title, for example my old blog "My Mother's Family" URL was mymothersfamily.blogspot.com. However, I was afraid that if I changed the URL, I would lose my followers. It turns out that settings in the Blogger Dashboard let you change both the blog title and the blog URL without losing a thing! My Google Followers came along for the ride, but the Networked Blog followers did not. I will have to hope that they realize I moved and follow me to the new site. The downside of retaining the Google Followers is that everyone that is set up to receive email notifications when there is a new post got a notification for every single one of my posts as if they were new. Lesson learned: this is not something you would want to do if you have hundreds of posts.
Another consideration is that if there are any links to your old blog URL anywhere on the web, they will be broken. I knew of a couple of them and emailed the site owners letting them know to change their links. To accommodate the links I could not change, for example the Sepia Saturday Linky List, I had to get a little more creative. I ended up creating a new blog with my old URL (mymothersfamily.blogspot.com) with one post saying I moved. And for those links to specific pages in my old blog, I created a Custom Page Not Found in Settings directing folks to my new blog address. It works perfectly!
Now for the Thankful Thursday portion of this post. Although she didn't really know much, if any, more than I did about the tech side of blogging, Wendy took time to help me figure it out. Between the two of us we brain-stormed ideas and came up with solutions and we both learned a few new things. Thank you, Wendy!
I've been blogging for a year and a half now. It's been sporadic, but I still manage to publish a story now and then.
When I started "My Mother's Family" I didn't really know how I was going to use this venue and decided to restrict it to posts about my mother's side of the family hence the name. But I found myself posting about my father's side sometimes and I want to post about my husband's family, too. So...since I have changed the purpose of the blog I have given it an entirely new look and a new name. It is now "All My Family Trees".
I hope I didn't mess up any links or followers. Thank you to all that read my blog. I hope that I will continue to entertain and maybe even educate you a little.
Something from the Hessig/Hessick family tree to get things rolling.
I missed last week's fruit stand Sepia Saturday challenge, and hope I'm not too late for this one. As usual, there is lots from which to choose...I chose photos with people wearing caps.
Mom in a cap and funny pants, c1935.
I've been looking for an opportunity to show off this photo of my mom dressed funny. Look at those pants! But she is wearing a hat that I can loosely call a cap which qualifies this for the challenge.
Grandma about 1930.
This is her mom, my grandma, wearing a real cap. Nothing was written on the back of this photo and nobody seems to remember the dog which might help identify the time and place. I'm hoping that this blog post will prompt family members to search their memories and help me out. I think she's about 17 in this photo, which would put it in about 1930.
Great-Grandma about 1950
This last one is her mom, my great-grandma, whom you have seen many times before. She is wearing a hat (which I count as a cap) and she is riding a bicycle. A two-fer if I ever saw one! Shep, the family dog, is walking beside her. She wrote on the back "I won the race".
Hop on over to the Sepia Saturday blog to see how creatively others have incorporated this theme.
This week's Sepia Saturday prompt is a tough one. There is so much going on in the prompt photo that it was really hard to choose what theme, and consequently which old photo, to use. I finally chose the "interesting happenings in the background" theme.
This is an old postcard that has been in our family for nearly a century. The center man staring at the camera is my great-grandfather Harry Jackson. He was a Railroad Fireman and Locomotive Engineer for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad from before 1908 to 1941. Nothing was ever written on the postcard and it is undated, but I would hazard a guess that it was taken in the 1920s. Everyone in the family has always been so fascinated that one of our relatives was pictured on a postcard that we never even noticed that they were standing in front of a train wreck!
We just focused so hard on Harry and vaguely registered the fact that
there was a train in the background. We assumed he was at the train yard
where he worked and the photographer came by to sell picture postcards. None of us ever took a close look at the background until recently. I am astonished at how unobservant my family is!
Check out the Sepia Saturday blog to see how others interpreted the theme. I promise you will be entertained!
My, it's been such a long time since my last blog post! I am thoroughly ashamed of myself! But this is a new year and I have resolved to post on a regular basis, at least once a month if not more often.
I found myself surfing over to the Sepia Saturday website this evening and saw that yesterday's prompt was what looks like a 1950s photo of a woman sitting at the beach. That reminded me of several family photos I have of bathing beauties in the early 1920s.
The darling girl standing with the pointed toe in the picture below is my grandmother Dorothy with her sisters Signa and Lillian and her mother, my great-grandmother, Frances. This was probably Nantasket Beach, Massachusetts taken about 1921.
This photo must have been taken around the same time...it is of my great-grandmother Frances and she is wearing the same bathing suit as the one above. It was also probably at Nantasket Beach in Massachusetts since that was a favorite bathing spot for the family in the early 20th century.
This next photo is Frances' sister Jennie around the late 1910s/early 1920s. This must be in cooler weather because nobody is wearing a bathing suit.
Sepia Saturday is a weekly meme which encourages bloggers to publish and share old images and photographs. Visit their blog for other stories and vintage photos with the theme of the week.
Today was the monthly meeting of the Pima County Genealogy Society. Although I live in Arizona, the only relatives I have that were born here are my children. Every one of my ancestors lived and died in the Midwest or New England states. So, why do I care about the local genealogy society, you might ask? Well...I'll tell you.
First, a little background. If you have been following my blog, you know that I uploaded a photo that I believed was taken in Kennebunk, Maine about 1900 in my post "Wordless Wednesday - Julianna Marie (Rasmusdatter, Christenson) Bye". A reader asked me if the building in the background was still standing, and I have been trying to find out ever since (see "Those Places Thursday - Is That Building Still Standing?") with no success. Today's PCGS program included a presentation on Google search tips. One of the many things I learned at that meeting was that you can upload a photo from your PC to Google images and search for similar images. If you are lucky, you just might find other photos of that object or place that will identify what and where it is. You can guess that I rushed right home and uploaded that image.
First, I uploaded the entire photo. The Google image search found that exact photo on my blog, and then gave me some interesting "visually similar images". One of those led me to an image at the New Jersey Historical Society website of two men with bicycles standing in front of a house that had been lifted off its foundation by a tornado in 1895 and dropped back down on its cellar. The house toppled over because it wasn't aligned properly. Go take a look at it...it's really interesting.
Results of uploading the full photo into Google images.
Next, I cropped out the people and uploaded just the building portion of the image (the top floor and the roof). This time Google returned very different "visually similar images", most of which were of ships and planes.
Results of uploading just the building into Google images.
While my search did not get the desired results, it was fun and interesting and I plan on trying it on other images as well.
The other presentation at today's meeting was on newspapers. I have been relatively successful in finding newspaper articles on my family by using GenealogyBank.com or NewspaperArchive.com. However, I have scanned copies of two newspaper articles that I have not been able to locate the newspaper in which they appeared (the original articles were cut out of the newspaper and the source was not cited). One is an article about my grandfather being arrested for bootlegging; the only clue I have is that his age stated in the article dates it between November 1942 and November 1943 and they gave the location of the still (in his home in Skokie, Illinois). The other article is about my uncle that was shot down over France in WW II and listed as MIA. The article published a letter of commendation sent to my grandparents by his commanding officer; the only clues I have is that I know he was shot down in June 1943 and my grandparents did not receive notice that he was alive until November 1943, and it mentioned that my grandparents lived in St. Augustine, Illinois.
I used some of the techniques that were taught at our meeting. We learned to Google "town name" newspaper (e.g. "Skokie" newspaper) to find websites for the newspapers servicing that town. Going to the newspaper websites gives you directions on how to find old articles in their archives. This usually involves contacting someone at the newspaper via email or regular mail.
I also searched the US Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present on the Library of Congress' Chronicling America website to find the names of newspapers that were operating in those cities in the 1940s and to find the libraries that hold microfilm copies of those newspapers. My next step will be to try an inter-library loan of the microfilms. This is way more tedious than finding the articles online with a search engine, but as we all know not everything is online. Sometimes you just have to do things the old school way.
There are many, many more tips we learned for using the Google search engine and for finding newspapers which I would have never found if I had not attended my local genealogy society's meeting today. If you are fortunate enough to have a genealogy society operating in your town, I highly recommend you look into the benefits they offer to their members. If you don't know what societies are close to you, try looking on the Genealogy Society Directory or Cyndi's List Societies & Groups.
Thanks for dropping by.
Society Saturdayis a daily blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers.
I've submitted 23 batches from ten states of the 1940 Census that I have indexed. This might not seem like a lot to some of you, but I have maintained an average accuracy rating of 99% and learned a few things along the way to maximize my indexing time (i.e. index quickly) and ensure a high degree of accuracy.
First, read the field helps and project instructions before you start indexing any new project. Then, you MUST read the project updates and check them frequently for additions. This is crucial. The project updates are created after the project has been released and provide clarification and additional detailed instructions. They also have a link to a presentation on "How to Index the 1940 Census" and a link to "Lists of US Counties and Cities" (helpful to find the correct spelling of a place name) under the Additional Helps tab. Be sure to click on all the tabs to see if there is anything new in them. The 1940 Census Project Updates are accessible from the Project Instructions tab when working on your batch. Yes, this takes time, but if you don't read the instructions you have no hope of accurately indexing.
Second, don't get discouraged if an arbitrator disagrees with you when you have read the instructions and s/he obviously has not. Just click on the Feedback link and check the Please Review button and trust that eventually the arbitrator will learn the rules. Then go on and keep indexing as accurately as you can. FamilySearch is working on a way to communicate the arbitration errors to us. Yes, I confess that I am also an arbitrator and I know I have made a few mistakes which I realized after reading the project updates (and, I might say, was completely mortified when I learned I erroneously marked some hapless indexers wrong when they were indeed right). I hope we will receive feedback similar to the indexing arbitration results as I would love to learn from my own mistakes.
Third, adjust those highlights! Highlights are available for the 1940 Census project and if you don't use them or if they are not aligned properly you will lose your place and index a value from the wrong person or field. To adjust the highlights, select View from the menu bar and check "Adjust Highlights." Then, zoom your batch out to about 25% and align the highlights by moving the handles up, down, right, or left. Go back to the View menu and uncheck "Adjust Highlights" when you are finished. Otherwise, they may jump around a bit while you are indexing. You will also want to zoom in to your preferred magnification (I like at least 75% and sometimes 100%). There is a short (2:40 minutes) video on Youtube on adjusting the highlights that may be helpful.
This reminds me of another tip to increase your accuracy...Fourth, don't be afraid to zoom in on the page so that the writing is easier to read. Sometimes I need to zoom into 100% or even 125% to tell if a letter is an "o" or an "a", an "e" or an "i", or if a low letter (like a "g" or "y") from the row above is making the letters below look odd. There is no disgrace in admitting that you do not have telescopic vision. Blow that puppy up as high as you need to decipher the handwriting.
My fifth, and final, tip helps to increase the indexing speed. I can index a full census page in less than 15 minutes, and that includes looking up a few values and checking the field help, project instructions or project updates when I run across something I haven't encountered before or forget how to index something. I prefer to index using the Table Entry rather than the Form Entry forms because you can speed up the indexing of some fields by doing it vertically rather than horizontally. However, if your highlights are not aligned properly, you will end up with a mess so please do not skip that step.
Line Number: The indexing program automatically advances the line number by one on each row. Enter either "1" or "41" (depending on whether you are on sheet A or sheet B) then tap the down arrow key on your keyboard all the way to the 40th row. On a Windows machine, hold down the Ctrl key and tap the Home key to return to the top of the data entry form and tab over to the next column. (Sorry, I don't know the commands for the Mac.)
Number of Household: This is where the alignment of highlights become important. The program automatically repeats the value of the row above in this field. Enter the first household number (remember that you can look at the previous image to get this value if it is a continuation of the last household) then tap your keyboard's down arrow key watching your highlights while doing so. When you reach the next household, change the number to the new household and continue to tap the down arrow key until you reach the bottom. Ctrl-Home to return to the top and tab over to the next column.
Surname: Like the household number, the surname is repeated from the previous row. Type the surname in the first row, tap the down arrow key while watching the highlights, then type the new surname when it changes.
After this, you index across because none of the rest of the fields will automatically advance or repeat. There are a few things you can do, like selecting the Color or Race field, starting with the second row, and hitting Ctrl-D to duplicate what is in the first row all the way down. This is useful if most of the individuals that are enumerated on that page are the same race, which is usually the case. You can then go back to the exceptions, if any, and change those on a case by case basis.
If you haven't begun indexing yet, what are you waiting for? It is fun, easy, and fast. And, yes, you will probably (definitely) make some mistakes, but you will improve with practice and you get the satisfaction of knowing that you are helping a lot of people either find their missing relatives or discover some new information about them that brings them back to life. Getting started is easy...go to the 1940 U.S. Census Community Project site, click on the blue Get Started button, and follow the instructions. There are even weekly contests that qualify you to be entered into drawings to win Kindle Fires, iPads, and Visa gift cards. Go on, give it a try. The more volunteers we have, the sooner the census will be searchable for everyone.
Thanks for dropping by.
Disclosure: As part of
the1940census.com ambassador program this blog post enters me into a
drawing for an Amazon Kindle Fire.
