❤️ your videos. I find them to be relevant, smooth, no skipping ahead needed to get past the weather. The tips from you and your guests have opened up my mind a great deal in understanding the details of records! Thank you!
I appreciated your episode on Find My Past and the tip that it is good for UK records. I am just beginning to dig into my Welsh side and I think this site is going to help me.
The truth is, websites cost money to operate. Our historic society just paid to have newspapers digitized and we offer them free to the public, but it cost us nearly $4000 to do it. So without members to help pay the costs, how do these resources become available?
Good point. I can appreciate that as I run two websites and two youtube channels myself... and while I freely give information, it costs me to produce it. I hear you loud and clear.
Doesn’t hurt to remember that societies or organizations with decent to good size collections can contact data aggregators such as FamilySearch, Ancestry, FindMyPast, MyHeritage any of the genealogy based orgs who sell data or offer data and images for free. These recipient organizations are always looking for document repositories who will let them come image their collections. They image the collections at no fee and supply the repository with image copies for the repositories use. This is one of the reasons most membership sites such as Ancestry offer access to certain collections at no cost. The agreement with the original source owning agency required Ancestry (in this example) to furnish the records at no cost to all users regardless of whether they are Ancestry subscribers. Of course FamilySearch is probably the forerunner of this concept. The reason they have so many records is because they agree to image collections and provide the results to the collection holders: government agencies, libraries, organizations and historic businesses at no cost. Think the 1880 US Census on Ancestry is one of the free collections NARA stipulated years ago.
Until I watched your video on findmypast, I thought the website was useless for "free users." I uploaded my tree there recently and has helped me in terms of one side of my tree.
FindMyPast: Two important points. One: FMP has a decent and slowly growing collection of USA records which include indexes as well as images. I’ve been very surprised to find county vital records within some USA states I’ve never been able to find at Ancestry or FamilySearch. Searching FMP is free and I’ve been able to scrape enough detail from the abstracted index info presented to confirm records are relevant to my people and provide data I lacked without maintains a constant membership. Highly suggest genealogists search FMP record collections a few times yearly at minimum. I’ve been tickled pink more than once. Second Point: As to Scotland records on FindMyPast. Yes FMP offers Scotland Records but all Birth, Death, Marriage and Census records are indexes at minimum and abstracts at best. Do not expect record images for any class of document under the authority of General Record Office of Scotland whose online presence is Scotland’s People. One simply can not do Scottish research without access to full images of Scotland’s vital records, censuses and old parish records because the historic Scottish naming conventions (at least for Highland families) make it impossible. Scots vital records contain much more information than is found on many if not most USA vital records. Without every possible droplet of information it is impossible to make out who is who and came from whom? Families were large, endogamy was common and name choices were reused by every brother and sister for their own children just as the same names past down from their parents, aunts and uncles. Indexes and abstracts on FMP are not complete enough to sort one John MacLeod from dozens of others in any good size village unless you know his occupation, his parents names, where each was born, the dad’s specific occupation and when/where the parents were married. Most of this information doesn’t appear in either the index or in the FMP abstract of the original record. FMP is useful perhaps for post 1920 vital records when the hereditary naming conventions were waning and for people with rare Scots names. Bottom line: One cannot accurately rely on FindMyPast for accurate Scotland research except for documents FMP owns/leases record images. Scotland’s People is a pay per image site, moderately costly but brilliant to use. Once you pay for an image it is in your Scotland’s People account and is free to view, print, sort etc countless times.
I was hoping to influence you to educate your growing customer base regarding researching Scots’ ancestors. I am hoping you will remind your audience against relying on Ancestry and FindMyPast Indexes/Abstracts for Scottish genealogy. Unless someone is handed down meticulously detailed genealogical work conducted on site in Scotland at the GRO - accurate offsite research is impossible without Scotland’s People and their actual document images. The devil destroys the efforts when the full details in actual Scottish documents are ignored. The details were the means by which local registrars and officials back then (and genealogists today) to separate identically named people born on nearly identical dates and places one from another. For newspaper research Find My Past in Scotland is good. On any site pay attention to Scots “By-Names.” After birth, men especially, were given “by-names” by their school and work associates to separate same named locals from other same named locals. “By-names” were common in most countries where these historic naming conventions were prevalent. By-names could be based on hair color, stature, occupation, mannerisms, complexion, most anything! These often yielded lifelong designations such as Tall Red McLeod, Chippy McKenzie, Sunny Sinclair, Pocky McDonald. Few will read my comments to you but you can help your users conduct better and more accurate research in Scotland by warning them not to crap up their trees relying on Ancestry and FindMyPast text abstracts. Without Scotland’s People or on-site research genealogy errors are guaranteed. I live in California now but lived there in Ross-Shire Scotland for 8 years. Even living in Scotland accuratenresearch is impossible without access to the General Record Office in Edinburgh. Visiting GRO requires appointments and hassle and is time restricted. Much easier for most records to research online at Scotland’s People. Records exist much farther back in Scotland than here in USA. Thanks for warning your peeps when you get a chance! Stepping off my soap box now....
Hi Connie, background on me first. I was born in 1975 but my parents were born in 1918 & 1938 so that makes my grandparents & great grandparents right away born in the 1800's when most people have a couple generations before they get there. So from what I have found, most of my family came here in the 1600-1700's & other then the ones who were Quakers it's hard to find info on them. Will you ever do an episode on going back further then the 1800's with resources or have you already & I just haven't seen it? Also are there free ways to research European records? People in Scotland really get upset with us using Ancestry & all the records on there leading back to Robert the Bruce for anyone with Scottish ancestry so I just want to search their records over there to find my European roots for myself. I just wish there was a way to learn so much more about my ancestors that far back like how they lived & what made them tick & I know it's not possible. My 8 years of working on my tree, I'm sure it has discrepancies & I'm still trying to find out & correct them, but I'm pretty proud of the ancestors that I have found. My favorite ancestor I've found so far is Pres. Teddy Roosevelt's grandparents, his mom's parents, are my 8th greats. Which also means first lady Eleanor Roosevelt is also a cousin of mine like Teddy but not Pres. Franklin Roosevelt if you know how that family tree is. Then I have a grandfather who is both a 5th great & a 6th great because of a ancestor from his sons side & a ancestor from his daughters side but on different levels in the tree marrying & becoming grandparents of mine. Genealogy is so much fun & is a soap opera in itself for sure! Thank you for taking the time to read my letter here! Lol!
Great questions. I don't have a video on Colonial research... although I should. I'll add it to the list. I have a video on Quaker Research here th-cam.com/video/dPoUR-mSP7I/w-d-xo.html I did a photo restoration of a Quaker image (I too have Quaker ancestry) th-cam.com/video/kUx6QSPrN9A/w-d-xo.html... Regarding free research... FindMyPast has some, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, and FamilySearch has a video on how to research Old Scottish Parish Records that might help www.familysearch.org/ask/learningViewer/241
Hi connie, love the channel. For ancestrydna, would it be better colour coding matches from grandparent couples or individual surnames? Right now, i have created groups for each individual surname.
I find it helpful to color code the grandparents line first then as you work back, add more detailed colors for surnames. That way at least having color codes for the four grandparents, you know which line each cousin matches from. In your case you could just add four colors to what you already have worked on. One for each grandparent. Some people like to use cooler colors for their father side of the family and warmer colors for the mother side of the family as well. Just a thought.
How and where can I do a family tree for a friend? I have an Ancestry account ( and my own tree) but I don't see a way to make a tree for someone else.
You can add a new tree under trees then scroll to the bottom and it says manage trees and then add a new tree. Then you can share that tree with your friend. I’m doing this from memory as I’m not in front of my computer, but I’m pretty sure that’s how you do it.
Hello, I was wondering if you may answer my question please. My DNA match has connected me to new cousins on my Dad’s paternal side of the family, however my question is about a 1st cousin that I know since childhood this 1st cousin is the son and oldest child of my Dad’s oldest brother but this cousin who I thought was a first cousin shows our match as 1st cousin 1x remove? His DNA is not matching to the new 2nd cousins from my Dads paternal side. My DNA match between us number is 327 cm across 15 segments a lot less then my matches of myself and newly found cousins of 508 cm and 487 cm both over 22 segments. My suspicion is my Uncle has a different Dad and Paternal grandparents the then my Dad? I hope I clearly explained this information. Thank you! :)
DNA cM's can overlap with a variety of possible relationships. Don't assume what Ancestry is telling you for a relationship is correct, they're giving it their best guess. Go here and plug in the number of cM's for any DNA cousin match and see all possible relationships. Be sure to scroll down after putting in the cM's too. The once removed part just means a generational difference between test takers. dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4
❤️ your videos. I find them to be relevant, smooth, no skipping ahead needed to get past the weather. The tips from you and your guests have opened up my mind a great deal in understanding the details of records! Thank you!
Wow. You made my day. Thank you.
You should mention that double cousins can allow you to reach back that extra generation or two with atDNA. Very useful.
I appreciated your episode on Find My Past and the tip that it is good for UK records. I am just beginning to dig into my Welsh side and I think this site is going to help me.
I think so! Thanks for watching.
The truth is, websites cost money to operate. Our historic society just paid to have newspapers digitized and we offer them free to the public, but it cost us nearly $4000 to do it. So without members to help pay the costs, how do these resources become available?
Good point. I can appreciate that as I run two websites and two youtube channels myself... and while I freely give information, it costs me to produce it. I hear you loud and clear.
Doesn’t hurt to remember that societies or organizations with decent to good size collections can contact data aggregators such as FamilySearch, Ancestry, FindMyPast, MyHeritage any of the genealogy based orgs who sell data or offer data and images for free. These recipient organizations are always looking for document repositories who will let them come image their collections. They image the collections at no fee and supply the repository with image copies for the repositories use. This is one of the reasons most membership sites such as Ancestry offer access to certain collections at no cost. The agreement with the original source owning agency required Ancestry (in this example) to furnish the records at no cost to all users regardless of whether they are Ancestry subscribers. Of course FamilySearch is probably the forerunner of this concept. The reason they have so many records is because they agree to image collections and provide the results to the collection holders: government agencies, libraries, organizations and historic businesses at no cost. Think the 1880 US Census on Ancestry is one of the free collections NARA stipulated years ago.
Until I watched your video on findmypast, I thought the website was useless for "free users." I uploaded my tree there recently and has helped me in terms of one side of my tree.
Super!
FindMyPast: Two important points. One: FMP has a decent and slowly growing collection of USA records which include indexes as well as images. I’ve been very surprised to find county vital records within some USA states I’ve never been able to find at Ancestry or FamilySearch. Searching FMP is free and I’ve been able to scrape enough detail from the abstracted index info presented to confirm records are relevant to my people and provide data I lacked without maintains a constant membership. Highly suggest genealogists search FMP record collections a few times yearly at minimum. I’ve been tickled pink more than once. Second Point: As to Scotland records on FindMyPast. Yes FMP offers Scotland Records but all Birth, Death, Marriage and Census records are indexes at minimum and abstracts at best. Do not expect record images for any class of document under the authority of General Record Office of Scotland whose online presence is Scotland’s People. One simply can not do Scottish research without access to full images of Scotland’s vital records, censuses and old parish records because the historic Scottish naming conventions (at least for Highland families) make it impossible. Scots vital records contain much more information than is found on many if not most USA vital records. Without every possible droplet of information it is impossible to make out who is who and came from whom? Families were large, endogamy was common and name choices were reused by every brother and sister for their own children just as the same names past down from their parents, aunts and uncles. Indexes and abstracts on FMP are not complete enough to sort one John MacLeod from dozens of others in any good size village unless you know his occupation, his parents names, where each was born, the dad’s specific occupation and when/where the parents were married. Most of this information doesn’t appear in either the index or in the FMP abstract of the original record. FMP is useful perhaps for post 1920 vital records when the hereditary naming conventions were waning and for people with rare Scots names. Bottom line: One cannot accurately rely on FindMyPast for accurate Scotland research except for documents FMP owns/leases record images. Scotland’s People is a pay per image site, moderately costly but brilliant to use. Once you pay for an image it is in your Scotland’s People account and is free to view, print, sort etc countless times.
Great info. I learn something new every day.
I was hoping to influence you to educate your growing customer base regarding researching Scots’ ancestors. I am hoping you will remind your audience against relying on Ancestry and FindMyPast Indexes/Abstracts for Scottish genealogy. Unless someone is handed down meticulously detailed genealogical work conducted on site in Scotland at the GRO - accurate offsite research is impossible without Scotland’s People and their actual document images. The devil destroys the efforts when the full details in actual Scottish documents are ignored. The details were the means by which local registrars and officials back then (and genealogists today) to separate identically named people born on nearly identical dates and places one from another. For newspaper research Find My Past in Scotland is good. On any site pay attention to Scots “By-Names.” After birth, men especially, were given “by-names” by their school and work associates to separate same named locals from other same named locals. “By-names” were common in most countries where these historic naming conventions were prevalent. By-names could be based on hair color, stature, occupation, mannerisms, complexion, most anything! These often yielded lifelong designations such as Tall Red McLeod, Chippy McKenzie, Sunny Sinclair, Pocky McDonald. Few will read my comments to you but you can help your users conduct better and more accurate research in Scotland by warning them not to crap up their trees relying on Ancestry and FindMyPast text abstracts. Without Scotland’s People or on-site research genealogy errors are guaranteed. I live in California now but lived there in Ross-Shire Scotland for 8 years. Even living in Scotland accuratenresearch is impossible without access to the General Record Office in Edinburgh. Visiting GRO requires appointments and hassle and is time restricted. Much easier for most records to research online at Scotland’s People. Records exist much farther back in Scotland than here in USA. Thanks for warning your peeps when you get a chance! Stepping off my soap box now....
Hi Connie, background on me first. I was born in 1975 but my parents were born in 1918 & 1938 so that makes my grandparents & great grandparents right away born in the 1800's when most people have a couple generations before they get there. So from what I have found, most of my family came here in the 1600-1700's & other then the ones who were Quakers it's hard to find info on them. Will you ever do an episode on going back further then the 1800's with resources or have you already & I just haven't seen it? Also are there free ways to research European records? People in Scotland really get upset with us using Ancestry & all the records on there leading back to Robert the Bruce for anyone with Scottish ancestry so I just want to search their records over there to find my European roots for myself. I just wish there was a way to learn so much more about my ancestors that far back like how they lived & what made them tick & I know it's not possible. My 8 years of working on my tree, I'm sure it has discrepancies & I'm still trying to find out & correct them, but I'm pretty proud of the ancestors that I have found. My favorite ancestor I've found so far is Pres. Teddy Roosevelt's grandparents, his mom's parents, are my 8th greats. Which also means first lady Eleanor Roosevelt is also a cousin of mine like Teddy but not Pres. Franklin Roosevelt if you know how that family tree is. Then I have a grandfather who is both a 5th great & a 6th great because of a ancestor from his sons side & a ancestor from his daughters side but on different levels in the tree marrying & becoming grandparents of mine. Genealogy is so much fun & is a soap opera in itself for sure! Thank you for taking the time to read my letter here! Lol!
Great questions. I don't have a video on Colonial research... although I should. I'll add it to the list. I have a video on Quaker Research here th-cam.com/video/dPoUR-mSP7I/w-d-xo.html I did a photo restoration of a Quaker image (I too have Quaker ancestry) th-cam.com/video/kUx6QSPrN9A/w-d-xo.html... Regarding free research... FindMyPast has some, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, and FamilySearch has a video on how to research Old Scottish Parish Records that might help www.familysearch.org/ask/learningViewer/241
Always a help😊
Thanks Stella
Hi connie, love the channel. For ancestrydna, would it be better colour coding matches from grandparent couples or individual surnames? Right now, i have created groups for each individual surname.
I find it helpful to color code the grandparents line first then as you work back, add more detailed colors for surnames. That way at least having color codes for the four grandparents, you know which line each cousin matches from. In your case you could just add four colors to what you already have worked on. One for each grandparent. Some people like to use cooler colors for their father side of the family and warmer colors for the mother side of the family as well. Just a thought.
How and where can I do a family tree for a friend? I have an Ancestry account ( and my own tree) but I don't see a way to make a tree for someone else.
You can add a new tree under trees then scroll to the bottom and it says manage trees and then add a new tree. Then you can share that tree with your friend. I’m doing this from memory as I’m not in front of my computer, but I’m pretty sure that’s how you do it.
I add new trees all the time when working different problems for different clients. You should have the same capability.
Hello, I was wondering if you may answer my question please. My DNA match has connected me to new cousins on my Dad’s paternal side of the family, however my question is about a 1st cousin that I know since childhood this 1st cousin is the son and oldest child of my Dad’s oldest brother but this cousin who I thought was a first cousin shows our match as 1st cousin 1x remove? His DNA is not matching to the new 2nd cousins from my Dads paternal side. My DNA match between us number is 327 cm across 15 segments a lot less then my matches of myself and newly found cousins of 508 cm and 487 cm both over 22 segments. My suspicion is my Uncle has a different Dad and Paternal grandparents the then my Dad? I hope I clearly explained this information. Thank you! :)
DNA cM's can overlap with a variety of possible relationships. Don't assume what Ancestry is telling you for a relationship is correct, they're giving it their best guess. Go here and plug in the number of cM's for any DNA cousin match and see all possible relationships. Be sure to scroll down after putting in the cM's too. The once removed part just means a generational difference between test takers. dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4
@@GenealogyTV okay, thank you!