I have to admit my distaste for the Best Blog of the Year Awards. There are too many of them and they tend to be a bit self serving, in my opinion. And besides having a "Best Of" badge on one's site doesn't get you much because people have to click on your site to even see the badge. But I thought I would share two "Favorite" lists for 2013. The first is my favorite articles for 2013 and they are ALL MINE! Actually they are my most read posts of the year. The second list contains my favorite 2013 genealogy blogs that I always read.  

So true to my nature of rarely following the rules (even my own), I am posting a "Best" list" even though I don't like them. Just shoot me.

So here goes the self serving part, my favorite (and most read) articles from The Ancestor Hunt:

• 33 Reasons You Should Be Searching Old Newspapers for Your Family History
• 19 Ways to Find Ancestors Birth Information
• What Did Your Ancestor Look Like? 5 Ways to Find Physical Characteristics
• 14 Ways to Find Ancestors Death Information
• The 5 Best Free Sites for Online Newspaper Research for Genealogy

And my 5 favorite genealogy blogs that I never missed in 2013 are:

• 4 Your Family Story - Caroline Pointer's blog is always informative and incredibly useful, especially the "Genealogy Things You Need to Know This Morning" daily series that she started several months ago. Besides I like Caroline's writing style, where she incorporates some humor as well as a bit of snarkiness here and there. I like to be snarky myself and appreciate it when others don't take themselves too seriously. Additionally, anyone who publishes a blog post on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day deserves some kudos.
• The Legal Genealogist - Judy Russell's posts are a don't miss. They are always informative and I always learn something new. I'm not into DNA for genealogy for a lot of reasons, so I skip those parts but all of Judy's other articles are outstanding. And she posts something new every single day. I'm envious.
• Parallax View - I hear a lot of groans out there. Yes, Tony Proctor's posts are hard to understand sometimes. But as a degreed mathematician myself, I do indeed appreciate his desire to present pieces that require some scientific/mathematical critical thinking. For this I appreciate Tony's articles. And he's different.
• Adventures in Genealogy - I always enjoy Deb Ruth's articles. They are always very interesting and diverse and I just enjoy them. Besides she's a librarian and I have always had a soft spot for librarians.
• Genea-Musings - I applaud Randy Seaver's "prolificness". Even though many of his screenshot based posts are not my cup of tea, Randy always presents more than the press release. He analyzes the new stuff and the hows, whys. and whats of his research and presents his take, many times in great and glorious detail. Good for you Randy. You have more energy than me, and I am 3 years younger I think.

An honorable mention goes to Braunhart Mania, especially the Letters from Germany series, where German letters about a Jewish family (the Braunharts) have been translated, and portray the struggles of this family as they move from their ancestral home to Berlin and then escape to all parts of the globe from Nazi Germany. Of course I am quite biased in designating this blog, since I am the author :)

Happy New Year everyone and let's make 2014 better than 2013!

For THE ANCESTOR HUNT that is. When 2013 started, I was a well experienced and obsessed researcher for articles and stories about my ancestors in old newspapers.

So I decided to write articles about what I had learned about this art and share them with you.

What a ride!

As I assess my progress with this barely year old (15 months to be exact) website and blog, it occurs to me that the abundance of articles have been about newspapers.

In fact there are almost 60 articles about newspaper research that have been published on this site in 2013.  Wow - that is way more than I intended in the beginning of the year. Check many of them out in Newspapers! I think most of them are referenced there. There is lots to discover and believe me - I learned a lot while writing them.

I started a YouTube Channel in 2013 as well and over 90% of the tutorials (over 50) are about newspaper research. Check out the list in Newspapers! or visit my YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/KennethRMarks.

The subscription sites such as Genealogy Bank and Newspapers.com continued to add to their collections. I don't want to leave out Newspaper Archive, but that site is a puzzlement to me sometimes and hard to discern what is new and updated.

The free sites such as Chronicling America and many state, province and country sites are making more and more newspapers available to us. And Elephind, the search engine out of New Zealand continues to make more collections available from across the world.

So yes it has been a banner year for newspaper research, especially for The Ancestor Hunt and myself.

Here's to an even better 2014!

And thank you to all my readers and viewers for spending a little time with me.

If you have hundreds of San Francisco, California ancestors and relatives like I do, then you will want to search, search again, and search some more for records about them. Maybe you only have a handful or just one. But if you look at the lists below, you can see that there is a lot out there for you to avail yourself of.

I always recommend starting your online search at SF Genealogy, the outstanding resource for all things San Francisco genealogy related.

But below is a list of resources available at the two biggies - ancestry.com and FamilySearch.

Please note that these lists are accurate as of December, 2013 and may change after this date.

Ancestry.com

Yes ancestry is a subscription based site, but if you have access to a subscription - don't miss these resources. The list is presented in order of size of collection:

• California, Voter Registers, 1866-1898
  
• California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1895-1985
  
• San Francisco, California, Chinese Applications for Admission, 1903-1947
  
• U.S., Registers of Chinese Laborers Returning to the U.S. through San Francisco, California, 1882-1888
  
• U.S., Chinese Immigration Case Files, 1883-1924
  
• San Francisco Chinese Exclusion List
  
• San Francisco, California, Immigration Office Minutes, 1899-1910
  
• Alcatraz, California, U.S. Penitentiary, Prisoner Index, 1934-1963
  
• The history of San Francisco
  
• The Bay of San Francisco : the metropolis of the Pacific Coast and its suburban cities : a history.
  
• Benjamin F. Taylor, Trip to San Francisco, 1870s
  
• The annals of San Francisco : containing a summary of the history of the first discovery, settlement, progress and present cond
• Clifford Allen, Rail Trip to California, early 1900s
  
• San Francisco : the bay and its cities
  
• Albert Williams, San Francisco, California Pastorate, 1849-54
  
• Lights and shades in San Francisco
  
• William Chambliss, San Francisco Society, 1895
  
• San Francisco : a pageant
  
• San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists. Vol. III: November 7, 1851 to June 17, 1852
  
• Inventory of the county archives of California: The city and county of San Francisco.
  
• San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists Vol. II [1850-1851]
  
• Complete story of San Francisco's terrible calamity of earthquake and fire : the most appalling disaster of modern times : imm
  
• San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists Vol. I [1850-1864]
  
• Villains and vigilantes : the story of James King of William, and pioneer justice in California
  

FamilySearch

FamilySearch is a free resource and there is tons of information available in these online records. Not all collections are indexed so you may need to browse through some of them, but try browsing. I have found lots of documents while browsing.

• California, Birth Index, 1905-1995
  
• California, Births and Christenings, 1812-1988
  
• California, Cemetery Transcriptions, 1850-1960
  
• California, Collections of the California Genealogical Society, 1700-1942
  
• California, County Birth and Death Records, 1849-1994
  
• California, County Marriages, 1850-1952
  
• California, Death Index, 1905-1939
  
• California, Death Index, 1940-1997
  
• California, Divorce Index, 1966-1984
  
• California, Great Registers, 1866-1910
  
• California, Marriage Index, 1960-1985
  
• California, Marriages, 1850-1945
  
• California, Northern U.S. District Court Naturalization Index, 1852-1989
  
• California, Probate Estate Files,1833-1991
  
• California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1835-1931
  
• California, San Francisco County Records, 1824-1997
  
• California, San Francisco Passenger Lists, 1893-1953
  
• California, San Francisco, World War I Enemy Alien Registration Affidavits, 1918
  
• California, San Mateo County Records, 1851-1991
  
• California, San Mateo County, Colma, Italian Cemetery Records, 1899-2011
  
• California, State Census, 1852
  

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

My mind works in weird ways sometimes. I have not seen the new TV show "Orange is the New Black" but it occurred to me that the title is a very enticing and attractive one. Just the title alone makes you want to tune in just to find out what it means.

Then my mind gravitated to the use of "color" in genealogy. Basically, genealogy is colorless, unless you think that black, white, grey and sepia represent the entire color spectrum. Think about it - documents are almost always black and white; gravestones are almost always grey; and most photos before the 1950's or so were almost always black and white, with a bit of sepia thrown in here and there.

If you consider that words portray a "color", you have to agree that the writing in many family history websites  (and books) are somewhat colorless. For example, many of the words in these websites/books include wording like this:

"So and So was born in some location on such and such a date and married Mrs. So and So on some date in some location, and then So and So died on such and such a date in some location and was buried at some cemetery.

I don't know about you but that language doesn't float my boat or entice me to read more.

So what can we do to add color to our genealogy work and writing? Here are some suggestions:

1. For gosh sake, write about more than the dates of the events in your ancestors lives. How about some stories, or photos?
2. Most documents, including newspaper articles are in black and white. But some have some color, for example recent death certificates. My Mom and Dad's for example are blue and black and one has a pink border. Scan them in color and display them that way in your writings.
3. When you scan photos, scan n color unless it is purely black and white. Retain the sepia tone if it is an old one and don't convert to black and white. Even older color photos can be faded and have lousy color, but there are lots of photo enhancing software packages that can bring the color back and make it look better.
4. When you scan old letters - if they are yellowed from age - retain that coloring - it gives the letters a sense of history.
5. When you write about your ancestors - remember that you are not writing for yourself - you are writing for an audience. Don't worry if you don't consider yourself a great writer. Make the writing and images enticing to the reader so that someone will actually read it. 

All of us know the glazed over look we get from our relatives when talking about our family tree. But ears perk up when we tell them that they were murdered, or were a murderer or a rum runner, or a war hero, or committed suicide, etc. etc. Or they died at Andersonville or at Auschwitz (two true examples from my own tree). Make sure that these examples of "color" get into your writings.

Make "orange" the new black, white, grey and sepia in your genealogy!

Well my friends, this hasn't been the greatest year for yours truly as far as getting on Santa's good side. Although a lot of good genealogy work has been done, there are several things that have gotten me on the naughty list:

• I have done a crappy job with finishing the source citations project that I had hoped to complete this year. In a word - FAIL!
• I have done very little research this year and new fields have not been plowed. Ugh.
• I haven't completed the "Letters from Germany" series for the Braunhart branch, as I had hoped.
• I didn't complete the article on the Braunhart family for the Szubin, Poland Historical Society.
• Finalizing the uploading of a lot of supporting documents so that my relatives could access them has not been completed.
• There are still too many "Unknowns" in my ancestor photo collection.
• The box that I received from my Dad's childhood with numerous documents and mementos is still sitting in my office - untouched.

So all in all on the personal research front - it has been less than a stellar year. Sorry Santa - I guess life got in the way. My grade for the year I think is a D plus. Coal for me.

The good news is that this site - "The Ancestor Hunt" has received a lot of my attention and has attracted a bunch of new readers. And my focus on newspapers, California research and videos has been a good accomplishment. At least I would give myself a B plus for this activity.

Hopefully next year will be better.

How did you do?

There really are only 4 things that you need to know (and implement) to be successful with your family history research.

This may appear to be an oversimplified list - but if you do these 4 things I guarantee you will be more successful:

1. Look Everywhere - don't just search online - there is much more relevant information in libraries and archives and courthouses, etc.
2. Talk to Old People - heck - talk to all your relatives, but especially the older ones for obvious reasons. Unless you can talk to the dead their memories die with them.
3. Write Stuff Down - especially where you found those pertinent documents and please cite your sources in some standard way so you and future researchers can find what you found.
4. Use your "Own" Brain - analyze what you have found and don't easily settle on the first "evidence" that you find.  Also using your "own" brain means don't just copy someone else's tree without detailed analysis.
   

I wrote much more on this subject in Genealogy is Pretty Simple - Don't Let Anybody Fool Ya. Check it out.

Stay with these basics and you will improve your results.

Do you get stuck because you always do global searches on FamilySearch? A better way is to search in specific collections. Below we show you how to see what collections are available for a specific geographic area, such as a state.

As a bonus do you ever browse the images that FamilySearch provides for you online, or do you always just search indexes? I have found tons of relevant documents by browsing the collections that just have images and no index.

Never fear - there is a way to find out how to do all of this - and it is easy peasy.

Check out this one minute video to find out how - yes one minute! You have a minute to spare don't you? You don't? Then take more than a minute and read through the descriptive tutorial below. Your choice!

Here are the steps to find state-based collections as well as "browse-only" collections":

Step 1 - Log in to FamilySearch and bring up the search page. Scroll to the bottom and you should see this:

Step 2 - As an example - click on "United States" and you will be provided with all of the United States collections, presented in "state alphabetical order"

Step 3 - Select a state. As an example - click on "California" and you will be presented with all of the California collections.

If the collection has been indexed (indicated by a number in the "Records" column) then click on the title and you can search it. If the item states "Browse Images", then no search can be performed but you can indeed browse through the images. Many of the collections' images have also been subdivided somewhat.

That's all there is to it. You can see what collections by state are available for searching or browsing. You can also keep track of when the collections have received updates.

Good luck and happy hunting!

Face it - cousin bait is a strategy that many family history researchers and genealogists employ to find relatives. But just like fishing - if your bait is lousy - the fish won't bite.

Here is a list of seven reasons why your cousin bait "execution" may not be working and what you can do about it:

1. You don't get alerted to blog comments by email because you haven't the correct comment settings
2. You do not have any way to contact you on your site so you must include your email address visibly
3. Your site is so boring that no one wants to contact you so make it enticing
4. You don't include locations AND names AND dates so that search engines index all this information for future researchers
5. Your forum entries may be stale and lonely so check out the genealogy forums from time to time and update them
6. Your One World Tree entries aren't paying off because your entries aren't complete, so source them and make them complete
7. Your "cousins" just do not care - this you can't control but if you make your site enticing you might get lucky

I wrote about this more extensively in 7 Reasons Cousin Bait Doesn't Work.

Check it out and get the right bait out there and your success rate will go up.

Are you having fun with your genealogy activities?  Has it become a drag and sometimes even a drudge to do?  I ask this as a serious question, because sometimes it can become more like work than fun. 





Here are a few reasons why it sometimes can seem like a drudge:

1. You've hit a brick wall
2. You are disorganized 
3. You've lost your zeal for research because you haven't found anything/anyone lately 
4. You are overly focused on a goal to increase the number of ancestors and relatives in your database
5. You are overly focused on a goal to to prove that your ancestry goes back to a specific century
6. You are intimidated by the experts and the requirement for detailed source citations and you are not documenting sources "sufficiently"

Here are a few solutions and most importantly one thing (#1) that can give you a positive kick start:

1. Stop focusing on the ancestors you don't know and start focusing on the ancestors you do know
   
2. First of all - if you don't have a family history website - build one
3. Search for newspaper articles about your ancestors
4. Focus on photos of your ancestors for awhile
5. Focus on writing ancestor stories for awhile

I wrote more about this over a year ago: Why Aren't You Having Fun with Your Family History Research? You might want to check it out. 

Let's have some fun, OK?

OK - you've been at this genealogy thing for awhile. You've collected dates, names and locations. Maybe a few stories, some newspaper clippings, and hopefully some photos.

All this stuff is on your computer or in the cloud. You've stored the names and dates in some genealogy software or in an online tree.

But have you WRITTEN these family stories down into a collective family history?  

Here are 7 reasons why you should:

1. If you don't write it - who will?
2. It honors your ancestors
3. It keeps them alive forever
4. If you post the stories on the Internet, you might find a "cousin"
5. You may inspire some of your known relatives to participate and share more stories and photos and documents than they already have (if they have).
6. You are going to die some day and the stories could then be lost forever
7. Did I say it is fun?

The best time to start is NOW!