Episode 185

Genealogy Gems Podcast
Episode 185 with Lisa Louise CookeShow more

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This month all of us here at Genealogy Gems are celebrating reaching a milestone 1000 blog posts on our website. But we're not just celebrating our own genealogy writing. We're celebrating YOURS! Today I have a special segment that celebrates what YOU have shared with us about your adventures in family history blogging. I also have a short, fun family history writing challenge to share with everyone, not just those who blog. I'll introduce that challenge with a surprise guest the poet laureate of Kentucky.

Genealogy Gems App Users: Check out the Bonus Content video

NEWS: More U.S. Marriage Records Online Have you noticed on our blog that every Friday we report new genealogy records online? Well, last week was a doozy in terms of U.S. marriage records. We had heard through the grapevine that FamilySearch had set itself to the task of tracking down every possible marriage record for the U.S. and it looks like they're having some success! At FamilySearch alone last week, they published or updated indexed marriage records in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania,Tennessee and Washington. Louisiana's collection alone contains over a million entries, and Pennsylvania's dates to the 1600s! But FamilySearch isn't alone in the marriage record publishing frenzy.

We noticed that Ancestry has just added new marriage indexes for West Virginia, Maine and Jackson Co, Missouri.

Of course, not every ancestor who married stayed that way: Ancestry has also updated its Idaho divorce collection and added a new collection of Oregon divorce records. A lot of these are older but you'll be surprised at how far into the 20th century some of these new marriage record collections are. Use these to recharge your research if you've stalled somewhere on your U.S. family tree!

NEWS: National Archives (U.S.) Doing More Digitizing the U.S. National Archives has signed contracts to digitize more of its historical records. The partnerships are with FamilySearch and Ancestry, and the records in question will include various items with births, marriages, deaths, immigration and military service information.

So the National Archives has partnered with these organizations in the past, but this time around, the contract allows them to get records online faster by uploading digitized and partially-digitized collections before they're even indexed, like FamilySearch already does. There are new provisions to protect personally identifying information, and Ancestry will have a shorter window of exclusivity with their content. They invest in record digitization and indexing so they will have exclusive access to the images and indexes for a period of time, after which the National Archives can put the material on its site and share it with other partners. It's a win-win even for those who don't subscribe to Ancestry: you'll just have to wait longer to win!

And FYI, in case you wonder why FamilySearch and Ancestry seem so favored, the U.S. National Archives does sign content partnerships with other companies. Findmypast has a contract pending, and there's already a contract with military records site Fold3.

NEWS: RootsMagic for Mac and More

I recently heard two really great pieces of news about RootsMagic genealogy software--for Mac users! First, RootsMagic Essentials for Mac software is now available for FREE! This is the get-started version of RootsMagic which introduces you to this excellent family history software. If you're still exploring which family history software is best for you, give it a try! If you decide to upgrade to the full, paid version of the software, the transition is seamless and easy.

Speaking of a full Mac version of RootsMagic, you may recall that last year they launched MacBridge for RootsMagic. This was really a great step forward, but there was an additional fee and it required extra steps to download and use.

But now when you buy RootsMagic 7, you can install it on both Windows and Mac computers in your household....So your single purchase includes licenses for both. Great, right?! So if you already own RootsMagic 7 for Windows, you can head back to their website, and download RootsMagic 7 for Mac any time and use the same registration key that you got with your original purchase.

And something I really love about Rootstmagic is the free and easy to access support they provide their users. There's nothing worse than struggling to use your genealogy software when you're hot on the trail of ancestors. Well they have just published two new free PDF RootsMagic user guides one that's all about installing RootsMagic for Mac, and another guide on how to create a...