I am surprised and honored to be selected as one of  40 Genealogy Social Media Mavericks to Follow for 2014 by Family Tree Magazine. The magazine chose my Ancestor Hunt YouTube Channel as one of their Top 40. I am pleased to be in the company of the people and sites selected. Many are folks that I follow and read. Congratulations to them.

Lisa Louise Cooke, who publishes the  podcast Genealogy Gems is the author of the article which chooses Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest as the categories of social media and selects eight each from those categories.

Social Media is here and not to be denied. I have embraced it and now am all "over the place" - so to speak.

If you wish to find me and hopefully connect - here are my sites and locations:


Blogs:

• The Ancestor Hunt
• Braunhart Mania 
• Marksology 
• Genealogy for Beginners (semi-retired)

Facebook:

• Personal Profile
• The Ancestor Hunt Page
• Facebook Genealogy and Newspapers Group

Twitter:

• Marksology

YouTube

• The Ancestor Hunt YouTube Channel

Pinterest:

• Genealogy (and other Boards)

LinkedIn

• Personal Profile

Google Plus:

• Personal Profile
• Genealogy and Newspapers Community 
• San Francisco Genealogy Community 

Flipboard:

• Boost Your Genealogy Research With Newspapers

I have been using city directories as a mainstay of my ancestor research ever since I started my family history search.

Since census data informs one of family members and relationships - city directories are the next best thing - not including birth and death certificates of course (in my opinion). If Joseph Marks has the same address as Louis Marks in 1888 in San Francisco - I can surmise (although it is not proof) that Louis and Joseph are likely related. In this personal case, Louis was my great great grandfather, and his son Joseph my great grandfather. And there is a lot of other information that can be gathered from these old directories.

I became excited about San Francisco city directories when I had a Footnote (now Fold3) subscription many years ago. They had a nice collection of older San Francisco directories. At that time I could browse and search through the directories. Fold3 requires a subscription.

Then I moved to the Internet Archive and found many more in lots of different cities. Internet Archive has a nice page flipping feature that makes it pretty easy to look for specific surnames once you select a specific city directory publication - and it is free.

I also discovered Don's List - which also has a nice collection of directories and is free and browsable. There are also international directories available.

Ancestry.com has a large collection of directories that do have an index, so that a surname or compete name can be entered and one can find an ancestor in the results provided. The page where the person's name exists is made available and all one needs to do is scan through the image to find the subject person. Ancestry requires a subscription.

Distant Cousin also has a search and browse capability for city directories which is free.

Mocavo has a number of city directories of interest to me. Again, you enter the person's name and the results list shows the page where the subject "resides" and as a nice added feature - it highlights the person's name. And searching city directories is currently free. Although I have a Mocavo subscription, I have tried it with a "free" account and the results are the same.

England and Wales trade directories are available for free at the University of Leicester Historical Directories project. It has browsing and search capability.

And finally, Cyndi's List has a very long list of smaller collections of directories online provided by local libraries and historical societies. Definitely worth looking at these free resources.

So try out all of these options - there are plenty for you to choose from. And city directories are really fun to search. And rewarding.

I know it's not Thanksgiving - but I think we should express appreciation every day - not just the days when we gorge out on food.

This site - The Ancestor Hunt - has been in existence for about 15 months. It has been extremely rewarding for me to be able to write about all the family history and genealogy "stuff" that I have learned. Obviously a lot of my articles are about researching newspapers, but that is very important to my research so I try to share what I find.

So to you - "my" subscribers and followers - I thank you for taking part in this adventure, reading the emails that are sent whenever I do a new article - and for visiting my site.  

I really appreciate it.

Please feel free to share an article if it helps you out or you find it interesting. Just click on the buttons that are always at the bottom of the article to share to your favorite Social Media site. And your comments are always welcome.

Again - Thank You!

On February 1st, I published an article and a poll in order to discover how others used the "Shaky Leaves" and "Shoebox" features of ancestry.com: Genealogy Poll - Ancestry's Shaky Leaves and the Shoebox.


Here are the results. A few surprises for sure, but it appears that both features are well used.

No surprises here, except that 7 people rarely or never use them. One might not trust the results as 5 people stated, but not to look at them?  Maybe they aren't subscribers?

Again, no surprises, as many folks have come to not trust many of the trees on ancestry because of lack of sources by the individuals uploading the trees or inputting incomplete or poorly researched information.

This was a shocker to me. At least folks were honest - but about half of the respondents actually added unanalyzed tree contents to their own trees. Wow!

The "Shoebox" seems to be quite popular as 75% of the respondents have used this feature.

This was not an unexpected result as the respondents use a variety of techniques and places for storing newly discovered records.

Personally - I have my folders on my PC set up fairly well, but lack of discipline is my weak link. It looks like I am not alone. And there is ONE person who wants to go back to paper. Wow!


What are your takeaways from this poll?  And for those who participated - Thank You!

I have been writing at The Ancestor Hunt for about 15 months. It has been great fun and I hope helpful (and fun) for readers.

And I have been researching my family history for over 10 years and it has been a blast to do.

I often get nice comments from readers that are helpful in that they add to my content and knowledge, but mostly they are just complimentary. The comments are attached to the posts and sometimes are in an email. And I appreciate all the feedback - positive or negative.

But this one?

Recently I received one in an email that stated - "Although you are not a serious genealogist, I do appreciate the articles that you write."

My question is - What do you think my response should be?

• "Are you friggin kidding me?"
• "You are right - I am not serious - I have fun at this"
• "If being serious means being rude, count me out"
• "I am serious, but don't call me Shirley" (from Airplane!)
• "Is that a stick up your ass or are you just glad to see me?" (butchered Mae West quote)

Maybe the best response is no response.

Many of us who have ancestry.com subscriptions take advantage of the Shaky Leaves that are automatically generated for us. Also many of us use the Shoebox that the site provides for storing results of searches and newly found records.

I am interested in finding out how you use these resources. 



Shaky Leaves

For me, the shaky leaves are useful because sometimes they turn up new collections that are provided that I am not aware of. Thus the records that are found can be saved, analyzed and the information contained in those records then added to my own family tree, if pertinent.

Also, the shaky leaves provide trees from other subscribers. This is the "Danger Zone." Many genealogists of all sizes and stripes complain about many of these trees because they are copies of the work of others and many are unsourced.

My Advice - "USE THESE TREES ONLY AS HINTS AND NEVER COPY TO YOUR OWN TREE, PERIOD." I always treat this newly found information only as a hint and perform my own analysis. Then I add to my tree outside of the ancestry site.

Shoebox

I use the shoebox as a temporary holding place for newly found information that has been turned up via searches. I also have a "Current Genealogy Research" folder on my PC that holds other newly found records. Unfortunately this becomes a mish mash of disparate records that I have to remember to process later. If I have a research plan for a specific ancestor or family then the information is processed immediately. But I do not always have a research plan, so this folder and the Shoebox grows and grows. Thus I admit that I am a tad bit disorganized vis a vis the analysis and processing of these new records.

I would encourage everyone to read the help section in the ancestry.com site and make sure that you are taking full advantage of the "Shaky Leaves" and "Shoebox" capabilities availaible on the site.

So - let's see how you use these resources. And please be honest.  I have a feeling that I am not the only "disorganized" researcher out there.

You can provide Multiple answers to each question.

Thanks for taking this poll. I am interested in the results and hopefully the responders will be honest. I will publish the results in about 30 days, but you can always view the results yourself by returning to this page.