9 April 2008, Vol. 11, No. 14

Table of Contents

Editor's Desk: News and Notes

All the links in the thirty-one guides of the RootsWeb's Guide to Tracing Family Trees series have now been updated. These guides, found under the "Getting Started" link on the homepage, are a great resource if you're new to genealogy; they will give you tips on how to start, what different records to use and where to find them, how to cite your sources, and more.

Check them out here.

Roots Television has won four Telly Awards in its first year in business.

NBC has purchased rights to create an American version of the popular BBC reality series, Who Do You Think You Are?

Read more about it here or here.

Using Rootsweb

Family history researchers are acutely aware of the importance of preserving their family's information. We wish our ancestors had left us a better paper trail. But are we doing the same for those that follow us?

During my time working with RootsWeb, I handled many cases where users were moved to a nursing home, became disabled, passed on, or for one reason or another became unable to manage their information on RootsWeb. It's important to make provisions now for someone to manage your information when you no longer can. Doing so will save your family, and fellow researchers, lots of time and effort.

DELETE IT, LEAVE IT BE, OR FIND A CUSTODIAN
Your information will remain on the site unless you or a legal heir or guardian requests that it be removed. Notes can be added to some information to let researchers know you can no longer be contacted. Or, you may wish to pass on the care of certain accounts and information to a relative or friend.

Whatever course of action you decide on, leave instructions in your will or simply prepare a separate letter of instruction for your heirs or chosen guardians.

FAMILY TREES AND WEBSITES
Our RootsWeb-hosted Web pages and WorldConnect family trees represent hours of work gathered together in one spot.

Some may want these removed when the time comes, but most of us will probably want RootsWeb to preserve our data for future researchers. There may be information that could later be disproved or added to; even so, our research can provide a base for others to build upon. WorldConnect provides the Post-em Note feature for this purpose.

And, unlike other hosting services that require renewal and payment, RootsWeb will continue to maintain our data for free for the foreseeable future.

Leave your user code and password for heirs if you want them to delete your family tree or manage the file for you. If they are going to accept responsibility for communication about the tree, have them update it with their current e-mail address.

Or, you can have them contact RootsWeb Support to add a note to the file indicating that the submitter is deceased and can no longer be contacted. To contact RootsWeb Support, click the Help tab at the top of any RootsWeb page; then, select the "Email RootsWeb Support" tab.

MAILING LIST ARCHIVES AND MESSAGE BOARD POSTS
Mailing list archives and old posts on message boards should not be of concern; archived messages represent what transpired on a given date and neither the information nor the contact address need to be current for the messages to be of value to future researchers.

However, if you are subscribed to a mailing list, you may want to have these services discontinued, especially if a spouse or other family member continues to use your e-mail address but does not wish to receive mail from RootsWeb. They may contact RootsWeb Support to globally remove the e-mail address from all mailing lists.

If you subscribe to alerts for new posts to message boards, your family member can simply hit reply to the e-mail notification and the address will be unsubscribed from all board alerts.

MAILING LIST AND MESSAGE BOARD ADMINISTRATORS
If you are a RootsWeb administrator, you should provide instructions for your heirs or guardians to contact RootsWeb Support if you are unable to continue your administrative duties.

UPDATE YOUR PROFILE
If you have a RootsWeb public profile at My Account, you may wish to instruct your heirs to ask RootsWeb Support to put a message in the "About Me" section of your profile explaining that you are no longer able to respond. If people click on your username on a message board or elsewhere they will see the note in your profile and won't become frustrated by unsuccessful attempts to contact you.

Take a few moments now to give thought to the disposition of your valuable research so that it is preserved for future generations in accordance with your wishes. I know I'm going to do so.

Genealogy Tip

When copying information from a website, you may want only the text. To avoid copying images and other unwanted items, save it as a text file.

1. Open the Web page you want to copy text from and select File>Save As.
2. Select Plain Text (*.txt) in the Save as type field.
3. Create a file name and click Save.

An alternate method is to copy and paste the information directly into a word processing or genealogy program as unformatted text.

1. In the Web page, highlight the text with your mouse and copy it. (Press Ctrl+V; select File>Copy; or right-click the highlighted text and select Copy.)
2. Open your word processing program or other program where you want to paste the text.
3. Go to the Edit menu and select Paste Special>Unformatted Text, or a similarly worded option.

Ever wish you could take a snapshot of a reference or other item on the Web? It's not hard and is useful for documenting genealogy sources. Use the print screen option to take a "picture" and paste it into any program that accepts images—all graphics programs and most word processing programs.

1. Verify that the item you are copying is not copyrighted or that it falls under fair use rules.
2. Find the Print Screen button on your keyboard and press it. (Look at the top row on the right hand side.)
3. Open the software where you will be pasting the image. Position the cursor in an appropriate place and paste the image. (The paste option is usually available as an icon, or it is located under the Edit menu. You may also be able to right-click your mouse and select Paste. )
4. Document the screenshot by indicating where and when you found the image, as well as who the author of any information in the image is.
5. Save the document in your usual manner.

Connecting

I have been researching my husband's family history for more than twenty-five years. We knew my husband's great-grandfather came from a family of nine here in England and of the five boys only two survived infancy.

We could find little about his younger brother, but when the 1901 census for England and Wales came online, we found him in the census; he was nineteen at the time.

About eighteen months ago I looked on the message boards at RootsWeb and found someone in America was looking for an ancestor of the same name. Despite repeated messages from me, I got no reply, but it gave me the idea he might have gone to America. I started hunting through passenger lists and found that in 1907 he had indeed gone to Boston. I found various other bits of information about him, but not a link to the family today.

Then I read about an improved message board facility on RootsWeb and decided to check again—success at last. I made contact with one of his great-grandchildren and now have connected with another great-grandson as well as a grandson. We found his living relatives and they had their family history completed back to the early 1600s. Thanks RootsWeb.

I had been searching off and on for about five years for my great-grandmother's family in Ohio who had emigrated from Wurttemberg, Germany, in 1857. I found information on her father and his second wife and child, but knew little else. Recently, on a whim, I put his name in the WorldConnect search engine at RootsWeb and, lo and behold, found that a lady in California had put the entire Lipp family tree online.

She is not related to me, but she is writing a book on the entire village from which the Lipp family came and had complete sources for all the family members back to the seventeenth century. I could not believe my eyes. I could never have put this information together because I don't know German and all the records are in German. Thank goodness for people who share their information.

Did someone find your genealogy query on the message boards and come to your rescue? Did you find five more generations of your family in WorldConnect? We want to hear your genealogy success stories. Send your family history triumphs to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com.

Bottomless Mailbag: Readers Write In

In the last issue of the Review, Don Martindale wrote about the Veteran's Administration furnishing a free headstone for his great-grandfather, since he was a Confederate soldier. Free headstones are also available for Union soldiers. Here is the link on the Veteran's Administration website for more information.

As a member of the Reno County, Kansas, Genealogical Society I was able to help mark the grave of a Union soldier while researching the Civil War veterans buried in our county. You can read a short article about it here.

Read Don Martindale's letter, "Confederate Soldiers Get Free Headstones."

Family reunions are ideal for celebrating and sharing hard-earned genealogy information. Many families use these gatherings to share, explore, and discover more that makes them unique.

Reunions magazine includes stories of such reunions and focuses on the details of planning reunions. If you want to check the magazine out, go to Reunions magazine and click on "free stuff."

I found out more than I wanted to find out when I looked for the burial spot of an ancestor who died during the Civil War. I called the cemetery directors in the area where he had passed away. They couldn't answer my question but told me to call the local tombstone makers who had been in business since before the Civil War. They knew exactly who I was talking about and who owned the cemetery plot he had been buried in. They even gave me the name of a descendant of the plot owner who was listed in information. We had a nice chat and I was told that her folks had nothing good to say about my ancestor's family. According to them, my ancestors were scoundrels who had never paid for the cemetery plot. I had been unable for years to find the parents of this ancestor, but found them with a little work and a lot of luck.

In the last Review, Jana Lloyd wrote an article about how to return orphan heirlooms. She quoted a reader with a 1921 yearbook from Ainsworth, Brown Country, Nebraska.

I just wanted to let you know that the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, will gladly accept donations of yearbooks from any school, any time!

The Genealogy Center Allen County Public Library
900 Library Plaza Fort Wayne, Indiana 46802
dlitzer@acpl.info
260.421.1225

Read Jana's article, "Orphan Heirlooms: Returning Flea Market Finds to Their Families."

Editor's Note: After publishing this article, we also received mail from the coordinator of the Brown County website, who offered to scan the book, place it on the website, and then donate it to the Ainsworth Public Library; as well as from another woman with relatives in the area who was interested in seeing the book.

Have a story, question, genealogy resource, or tip you'd like to share with RootsWeb Review readers? Send it to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com.

Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the editor or of RootsWeb.com.

Advertisement

REQUEST A SEARCH FOR YOUR ANCESTORS AT WORLD'S LARGEST GENEALOGICAL LIBRARY

ANCESTOR SEEKERS researchers at the Family History Library in Salt
Lake City will search this vast collection for your ancestors from
the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, or Europe. Friendly service, affordable prices.

For a no-obligation research assessment visit
www.ancestorseekers.com/research/

For help from professional genealogists in England or Scotland visit www.britishancestors.com/research/

What's New: Databases, Freepages, and Mailing Lists

CONNECTICUT. New Haven County. 1867, Yale University Alumni. 12 records. Contributed by Paula Lucy Delosh.

NEW JERSEY. Middlesex County. Rutgers College in Brunswick, 1853 graduating class. 42 records. Contributed by Paula Lucy Delosh.

PENNSYLVANIA. Philadelphia (Independent City). 1850 Female Medical College Commencement. 7 records. Contributed by Paula Lucy Delosh.

These databases have come online recently. They are searchable, but not browseable.

Submit Your Genealogical Data to a RootsWeb Database.

Stone and Quarry Men of the West Country. By Joan Taber. This site includes more than 70,000 names of stone men of Devon and Cornwall, who eventually spread all over the world. The directory contains the names of all the artisans who worked with stone masons there (carpenters, plasterers, surveyors, etc.). Over the past year, I have added thousands of new biographies to the index and more details to the existing ones. People are finding many lost ancestors here.

Our Maternal and Paternal Ancestors: 350 Years of History in America. By Fred Siler and Tom Peiffer. This site features three separate family sub-sites as follows: (1) DELLINGER, KNECHT, PFEFFER, SILAR, and allied families; (2) BOZARTH, PEIFFER, QUIGLEY, RHUBART, and allied families; (3) MORELAND, MCVICKER, PINNELL, SCRUGGS, and allied families. View new and updated Web pages added between 1 January 2008 and 31 March 2008.

If you have a new or substantially revised freepage at RootsWeb and would like to see it mentioned here, send the URL, the title, and a BRIEF description, including major surnames, to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com.

If your genealogy- or history-related site is located somewhere other than RootsWeb, you can add the link to RootsWeb here.

Request a Freepage (Free Web Account).

DAR = Daughters of the Americal Revoluntion
DUVCW = Daughters of the Union Veterans of the Civil War
USGW = USGenWeb

U.S.A.

• caebaygs — East Bay (California) Genealogical Society
• flswphs — Southwest Florida Pioneers Historical Society
• ohmwduv — Mary Walker (Ohio) Chapter DUVCW
• ohsiskgs — Genealogical Society of Siskiyou County (California)
• pachest2 — Chester County (Pennsylvania) USGW
• paclearf — Clearfield County (Pennsylvania) USGW
• pafrcdar — Forbes Road Chapter (Pennsylvania) DAR
• tndpotc — Descendants of the Pioneers of Old Tennessee County (Tennessee)
• txburths — Burton Heritage Society (Texas)
• wichadar — Multiple Chapters Wisconsin DAR
• wvmcgc — Marion County (West Virginia) Genealogical Club

Ireland

• irlbeara — Beara Peninsula (Ireland)

Some of these Web pages might not be accessible yet. They are created by volunteers, so if one that interests you isn't up yet, please check again in a few days or next week.
www.rootsweb.com/~xxxxxx

Note that the ~[tilde] before the Web account name is required.
For example, the East Bay (California) Genealogical Society website is at
www.rootsweb.com/~caebaygs

Request a Freepage (Free Web Account).

New Mailing Lists

New Surname Mailing Lists

• ACKRILL 
• HAMMIT 
• LINROTH 
• MCCANSE 
• MCCASKEY 
• MCCONACHAY 
• MCELRAVY 
• MENOR 
• PARLE 
• PROKOSCH 
• RIGAZIO 
• SMETHERS 
• TICHGELAAR 
• TURREFF 
• WYMIS 
  

New Regional Mailing Lists

• GUAM — A mailing list for anyone with genealogical interest in the Territory of Guam. Guam is an island in the western Pacific Ocean and is an organized unincorporated territory of the United States.
• PALAU — A mailing list for anyone with a genealogical interest in the Republic of Palau. Palau is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, some 500 miles east of the Philippines and 2,000 miles south of Tokyo.
• WAKEISLAND — A mailing list for anyone with a genealogical interest in the Wake Island, which is a coral atoll in the north Pacific Ocean, about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to the Northern Mariana Islands.

New Ethnic or Special Interest Mailing Lists

• AUS-TFHS-BB — A mailing list for the members of the Tasmanian Family History Society, Burnie Branch, for the sharing of research and for keeping informed of branch activities and acquisitions.
• CAN-GEN-EVENTS — A mailing list for the discussion of information regarding family and local history fairs, lectures, talks, conferences, and other genealogy-related events occurring in Canada or about Canada.

To find or subscribe to a mailing list, or to search archived posts to more than 30,000 RootsWeb-hosted genealogy mailing lists, go here.

Request a Mailing List.

The Darkroom

This photograph is of my husband's grandfather, Harrison Albert Thexton. It was taken in Pembina County, North Dakota, about 1907.

For a chance to see your ancestor's photo in the RootsWeb Review, send it to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com. Make sure to include your name and a brief description of the photograph.

You Found It

My sympathy to those who wrote in last time and mentioned how difficult it was to do an Internet search for the surnames Driver, Search, and Washman.

For another challenge, try researching the surname "Descent," which is in my family line. You come up with all sorts of listings for people of German descent, Italian descent, French descent, and so forth. Everything but what I want. I don't think it would help to include the word genealogy in the search either.

While my son was driving with his seven-year-old daughter, he mentioned that her grandmother's family was from Norway and Sweden, and that her grandfather's family was from Wales. She excitedly responded, "Whales. Whales. No wonder I'm such a good swimmer; I have whale blood in my body."

Two unusual names in my family are "Rough and Ready" and "Buena Vista." They are listed in the 1850 census for Hinds County, Mississippi, with the ages of three and one respectively.

I assume these names were given in honor of Zachary Taylor, the twelfth president of the United States (1849-50), who was nicknamed "Old Rough and Ready," and who won a major victory at Buena Vista during the Mexican War (1846-47).

Rough and Ready was born in January 1848, not long after the end of the Mexican War. Buena Vista was born February 1850, the second year of Zachary Taylor's presidency. Both children most likely died young. I have found no other record of them.

My supervisor was going down the names in a telephone book in Marysville, California, in the mid 1960s and came across the name Peter Missing.

My great-great-grandfather, Allen Love, had a nephew named Young Edward Love after his grandfather, Edward Love.

In the Washington County, Texas, marriage book he is listed only as Young Love, married to Mary Ann Stevens at Independence in 1843.

Found a funny name or humorous tidbit in old records, or an amusing entry in census, parish, church, or other records? Send these and other genealogy-related humor/humour items to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com.

Subscriptions
To manage your e-mail communications (i.e., to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter or to sign up for others), visit our newsletter management center at any time.

If you use a spam-filtering program, in order to receive the RootsWeb Review please make sure that you're allowing e-mail from rootswebreview@email.rootsweb.com. The RootsWeb Review is a free publication of The Generations Network, Inc., 360 West 4800 North, Provo, UT, 84604

Submissions
The RootsWeb Review does not publish or answer genealogical queries, and the editor regrets that she is unable to provide any personal research assistance or advice.

RootsWeb Review welcomes short (500 words or less) articles, humor, stories, or letters, and reserves the right to edit all submissions. The announcement of books and products is provided as a community service and is not an endorsement in any way. Pictures for "The Darkroom" should be at least 72 dpi, preferably jpgs.

All mail sent to the RootsWeb Review editor is considered to be for publication—send in plain text (please, no attachments) to Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com and please include your full name and e-mail address in the text.

RootsWeb Review Advertising contacts
Ad Sales Worldwide: Tami Deleeuw, tdeleeuw@tgn.com

Reprints
Permission to reprint articles from RootsWeb Review is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, provided:

1. the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and
2. the following notice appears at the end of the article: Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 9 April 2008, Vol. 11, No. 14