Ancestry Hacks: Ancestry Hints by Specific Record Collection

I make research plans and I carry them out...for awhile. I tend to get restless and bored doing the same thing day after day.  I like to switch up how I'm attacking my research, and I generally like to keep working on all branches of my tree (backward and forward) at the same time. Some days, I work on a specific person until I'm done with all the green leaves and suggested hints. Sometimes, when I'm pressed for time, it's working through a few photo hints or other user trees. When I have good mental energy, it's attaching census records or obits (though they tend to take longer). And some days (like today) I choose to concentrate on a specific record collection. When I'm "in the zone" on a specific set of records, I feel like I can fly through hints (while still making sure each is correct and documented). 

One of the best "secret genealogy hacks" (ok, maybe not super secret) I've come across is Mining Ancestry.com Hints by Specific Record Collection - Updated by Randy Seaver on Genea-Musings. This tip has been around years, and it still works! It's a trick I use quite frequently. He outlines how to search a specific record collection on Ancestry.com to find the people in your tree who currently show hints available in the specified database. This is done by using your Ancestry member tree number (treenumb) and the database number (dbas) in a carefully crafted URL. I won't go in to the specifics. Randy does a brilliant job of explaining the steps and I encourage you to read his post. It's a very simple trick to use. I want to tell you some of the reasons why I like it searching this way.

Have you ever wished, for instance, you could find all the yearbook hints? Those are fairly quick and easy to attach. Working thru quite a few in a single sitting is liberating (though still requires diligence to be sure you have the right person). Or Social Security Claims and Applications? Often a way to verify the child for a set of parents, along with the birth date, birth location, death date, social security number - and for females, potential other husbands surnames (from the notes). With a confirmed Social Security Number it makes working with SSDI records a breeze (cause you can easily confirm the SSN matches) and you often get the added state where the number was issued (and when) as well as the last residence/benefit address. Social Security records are some of my favorite record sets to work with when I want to make a small dent in my ever growing list of hints! Or all the FindAGrave entries or draft cards or....ok, ok, you get the idea. You can search for any database you want, so long as you know the number.

Any record set can be extra useful when narrowed down. Are you working on a specific branch of your family and want to see all the census records for a specific year? Perhaps you want to see who lives near who...or who moved away since the last census. Once you've narrowed to the specific database of interest, you can further narrow your search by first name, last name, or most recent hints (just like you can from the main list of all hints). This is a great way to focus in on specific parts of the family within a given dataset. Even public records, with the numerous addresses, when narrowed down, can help you figure out if the various people are all falling into the right place (pun absolutely intended). This isn't a magic solution to find elusive hints. Everything this search returns is already shown somewhere in your "all hints" listing. It just makes it easier to find the hints by filtering out the noise and letting you focus on a specific database for a period of time.

Randy provides a really good list of various database numbers to start you off. As I work, when I encounter a new database I'm running across frequently, I'll add the database number to my running list so I can go back and use it whenever I want. This "trick" has been around since at least 2013, and with a few tweaks to the original method over the years, it still works extremely well. It's definitely something you want to have in your genealogy toolbox. If you've never tried searching using this particular method, give it a go and see how you like it. Personally, I'm as excited about it now as I was when I first discovered it. Connect with me on social media (or leave a comment) and let me know how it works for you.

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

Cost Savings Tip: Accessible Archives and the Conococheague Institue

Accessible Archives was founded in 1990. They've assembled a database comprised of "Diverse primary source materials reflecting broad views across American history and culture". Most of the publications are from the 18th and 19th century. This data has all been scanned and digitized, and all text is searchable. Though the site is in the midst of a transition after becoming a part of Coherent Digital in 2023, it's still fully functional and a great source of information. The information on the site will be transferred to History Commons and ultimately, it will be even more useful as it's integrated into the new platform. 

I found the site particularly helpful for accessing some specific Pennsylvania newspapers not available elsewhere. These are but a few of the many collections available (see the link below for a more comprehensive list):

• African American Newspapers
• America and World War I: American Military Camp Newspapers
• American County Histories
• Native Americans in History
• The Civil War Collection
• The Pennsylvania Gazette
• The Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue
• The Pennsylvania Newspaper Record
• Reconstruction of Southern States
• South Carolina Newspapers
• The Virginia Gazette

The individual membership (prior to the acquisition) was around $99 per year. Since I already had a lot of subscriptions, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the additional money. So I searched for discounts. I found a way to support the Conococheague Institute, a regional learning center with the mission to "to develop and foster awareness, understanding, and stewardship of the cultural and natural history of the Appalachian frontier of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia" AND gain access to Accessible Archives! 

By joining the Conococheague Institute, you cannot only access all the collections at Accessible Archives, you also receive a membership card for free admission to events (with the exception of some of their fundraisers). On the 30 acre grounds of the homestead and gardens, they have buildings, re-enactments, archives, artifacts and a library. For those who cannot visit in person they even offer some virtual programs. The Institute offers learning opportunities for families and history buffs alike! The price for an individual membership is just $25 per year! There are other membership levels available, including student and family, as well as some higher levels. Each level has its own membership benefits. If you'd like to consider joining to take advantage of this great opportunity, view the membership options here. 

This cost saving tip is a win-win. Not only do you get access to a great wealth of searchable data (no matter where you live) but membership supports a worthy cause. Just in case you're wondering how to pronounce the name of the Institute, per the website: "In the Lenape language it is translated as 'Water of many turns' and it is phonetically pronounced as 'KAH-no-KAH-cheek'. Today locals pronounce it as 'Conica-jig'." I you live within driving distance, with so many learning programs, this would make for great family day trips!

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

Using OCR for Transcribing Newspaper Articles

Newspaper articles and obituaries can provide a lot of information. You're likely to find names of relatives and friends, possibly birth/death dates and places, residence, occupation/retirement or even cause of death. I personally like to transcribe newspaper clippings so I can easily work with the details...but transcribing can be a time consuming process depending on where you find the image. Enter optical character recognition (OCR). It's not perfect, but it can make the job a lot easier.

The majority of newspaper clippings are .jpg images (photos) so it's not as easy as copy/paste. If you're finding the image on a newspaper archive site, there's a reasonable chance an OCR transcription is already provided. Those are typically able to be copied and pasted (but you can't edit out errors directly on the webpages). Be sure to read both the source document and the transcription. Computers aren't infallible, and sometimes they have trouble with certain characters, old/faded images or when column borders exist. If you accidentally "transcribe" the column border, or catch some random characters from the next column, you'll have a lot of i's and l's and other gobbledygook where it doesn't belong. Articles spanning multiple columns may need to be transcribed in separate steps for each column. No matter how you cut it, OCR speeds up the process...just don't expect it to be perfect.  Once copied/pasted, you can feel free to make any necessary edits before saving in your tree or using to mine the details.

If you don't have a "built in" transcription with the image, there are tools to make the job easier. My new favorite is the build in Windows Snipping Tool. Windows users can search for the app on their computer, and I highly suggest pinning it to your taskbar for easy access. OCR was added in the last few months. Open the image you want to transcribe, and select the area with the text. Then, click the OCR button as shown in the image. All the text will be highlighted and you'll see an option to Copy All Text. This will put the text on your clipboard and you can paste it into the program of your choice (notepad, Word, Google Docs, etc.). For additional information on using Windows Snipping tool for OCR please watch the video linked at the end of this post. The biggest caveat is all the text needs to appear on your screen before snipping. Snipping Tool won't let you scroll to capture text. This can be problematic with longer articles/obits when the text becomes too small for the computer to "read" it. 

If you have a longer article, where the text is too small for Snipping Tool to work well, try using Google Docs! (Yup, it works! I use it all the time.) Simply upload the .jpg from your computer to Google Docs. Right click it, select Open With and choose Google Docs. You'll see the image at the top, and when you scroll down, the OCR transcription will be below. You can edit the transcription as needed right in Google Docs. More detail on using Google Docs for OCR can be found here.

If you happen to be lucky enough to have a PDF of the document you're working with, but can't just copy/paste the info (thank you Adobe and other PDF editors for locking down some documents), you can use the same Google Docs trick. You can also open PDFs in Word (though I've had mixed success) or you can use the PDFCandy.com OCR tool for free (though you are limited to how frequently you can use it at no charge. See my previous post here for the limitations.)

We all use transcriptions a little differently. There's no right or wrong way to go about it. If you like to do it old school and enjoy reading, then typing, then reading, then typing, then....well, you get the idea...that's fine! I personally prefer to let the computer do the heavy lifting, then I'll just do a little housekeeping to tidy up the text. Please keep copyright in mind if you're planning on posting/sharing any transcriptions, and always credit the newspaper, poster, etc. appropriately. If you have another suggestion for OCR transcription, connect with me on my socials. I'd love to hear how you handle transcribing from images and PDFs. 

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5tDJCLnShw

Liking Linkclump

Linkclump is a browser extension for Chrome. (Firefox users can download it here). It's one of the handiest tools in my Genealogy Toolbox, Developed by Benjamin Black, it's a free extension with over 300,000 users. The developer does not collect or use your data. It makes opening, copying or bookmarking multiple links at once a snap! For genealogists it's a huge time saver.

When you open a record on Ancestry.com, you've undoubtedly noticed the additional Suggested Records on the right hand side of the page. Sometimes it's just a few, and sometimes the list is quite lengthy. How many times have you wanted to look thru them all to see what might be new, check for what's not included in your New Hints (not all of them are!) or find out if you've already saved a particular record, but the thought of all that clicking is just plain annoying? Enter Linkclump! 

Simply drag and draw a box (shown in red in the image) using the left mouse key + Z around the links you want to open and Linkclump does all the clicky work, opening them all at once in new windows or tabs (depending on how you set it up). I changed my action key to be "Ctrl" instead of "Z" because I can remember it easier. Customizing is super simple. 

I use it to open all the Ancestry.com Suggested Records (and I haven't encountered any issues no matter how many links I've selected), then I click thru them and close the ones I already have saved. Anything remaining I either review on the spot or copy the URL for future research. I've learned from experience, just because something shows in your new hints today doesn't mean it will be there tomorrow. It's best to save any URLs you may want to research later using whatever system works best for you. I use iDailyDiary by Splinterware as detailed in my previous post.

I personally haven't used the copying or bookmarking features, but they're easy enough to set up right in the extension if you want to give them a try. Once you use Linkclump, you'll wonder how you ever survived without it! Because this is a free extension, there is no support per se, but there is extensive information on GitHub if you encounter any issues. I know not everyone is a fan of browser extensions, but this is one you should definitely give a time saving try. It truly makes opening bunches of links at once a breeze!

For a quick tutorial check out this YouTube video.

Family History Daily Course Center

I'm not a professional genealogist (far from it) - I'd call myself an intermediate amateur (and when it comes to analyzing DNA, a definite beginner). When I first started building my family tree, I made a LOT of mistakes. Even after restarting my tree several times over the years, I continued to fall into the same bad habits and patterns. I can't count number of blogs and articles I've read cautioning not to blindly trust other people's trees. Do the research yourself! Don't just accept hints, make sure they make sense for the person you're working on. Nonetheless, I barreled through dozens of hints a night, hundreds in a weekend, measuring my progress by the drop in hint count and increase in number of people in my tree. And I realized - my tree was a MESS! How could I ever fix it? The thought of trying to "clean it up" was beyond daunting. I finally accepted, I needed to start over, from scratch.

Before I jumped into my do-over, I spent time researching affordable genealogy courses. I knew I needed to reframe my thinking and improve my skills. I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars or years in classes. I didn't have time for scheduled online classes. I wasn't after a certificate or degree. I didn't want to be a professional genealogist. I wanted a decent, easy to understand, useful course, at a reasonable price and to study at my own pace. Enter Family History Daily Course Center.

Family History Daily has tons of articles, tips/tricks and guides anyone can access for free. There's quite a lot of valuable information to be had in the free resources. But for those who crave more, they also offer the Family History Daily Course Center with several courses to choose from to fit almost any budget and goal. Courses are online, easy to understand, self paced, created by experts. Prices range from $89 (for the Ancestry.com Crash Course) to $339 (for the Complete Access Package, including access to any new courses offered in the future). I decided the Complete Access Package was the right choice for me. After registration and payment, access to the courses is immediate. 

Courses include lessons, hands-on activities, quizzes, forms, charts, worksheets and links to valuable research resources. I completed all the courses in my package, and felt much more confident as I set out to restart my tree (for what I've pledged is the final time). While the number of little green leaf hints still makes me anxious sometimes, I now take my time adding people to my tree. I've learned to verify and cross-check information before adding facts and saving records. My organization and search skills have improved dramatically. I scrounge every little scrap of information (no matter how small) from each record because you never know how important one little detail might be or what door it might open when researching in the future. I no longer wonder how/why I added someone to my tree. In short, I'm proud and confident in my tree.

If you're considering taking a course to improve your research skills and genealogy knowledge, I highly recommend the Family History Daily Course Center. Genealogy is a big investment in time and effort (and for some, money). Continually improving your skills and bolstering your knowledge will help you make the most of your genealogy journey. 

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

More Resources at Ancestry.com

 

Ancestry.com is far more than just a site to build a tree, research records, and do a DNA test to find matches. I happened to click on the Ancestry Site Map (scroll to the footer at the bottom of any page on the site) and discovered a wealth of information I had no idea existed. From links to pages on family history resources including the Ancestry Academy™, to all kinds of information about DNA in the AncestryDNA® Learning Hub or AncestryDNA® Traits Learning Hub, and links to social media accounts and other Ancestry.com family owned sites, there's so much information here it's incredible! If you want to expand your genealogy knowledge, this is a fantastic place to start!

Here is a small sampling of the additional resources on the site:
Ancestry Search - Main search page, some records are free, others require subscriptions

Ancestry Card Catalog - Search additional records, including unindexed

Vital Records- Birth, Marriage, Death - Several free record collections, other require subscriptions

Recently Added and Updated Collections on Ancestry - check regularly to stay up to date on record collection changes

Ancestry Wiki - Check out the "Explore the Wiki" links

Ancestry Live Chat  - Results interacting with agents seems to be hit or miss, but if you have a need, feel free to try it

Provide Feedback to Ancestry - Provide your feedback and comments about the site. No responses are provided, but your voice can be heard

Ancestry Site Map - Links to an amazing number of pages on the site you may not know exist (see below)

Ancestry Genealogy Toolkit - Links to Ancestry and other resources

No matter how long you've been researching, there's am amazing wealth of information and resources available to you with both free or paid subscriptions to Ancestry.com. It's important to get well rounded information, and no one site will be a full one stop shop, but the amazing resources on this site further my belief if you could only subscribe to one site, this is the one you want!

I Do 90% of My Research on Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com  is by far my favorite of the bigger genealogy sites. With the ability to build a tree, using an intuitive and easy to navigate interface, it's where I keep my main family tree. Combined with extensive record sets and user submitted data for research around the globe, plus DNA testing/matches/tools, the majority of my research can be done in one location. I'm not saying I don't use other sites, I definitely do! I actually have subscriptions to several other sites as well. But Ancestry.com is the closest to a "one stop shop" as I can get, so I spend more time on this site than any other. If I had to pick just one site to have a membership, it would definitely be Ancestry.com.

Building a tree on Ancestry.com is simple. You have the ability to upload your own photos and stories or link to those submitted by other users. You can search for and save records from the Ancestry record collections, edit citations and add as many facts as you want (including custom facts). You can also save links to external websites and add sources of your own. Always keep copyright in mind and don't upload anything you don't have permission to when adding your own images, stories and sources. When in doubt, link to the information instead. Ancestry.com will help by building a story of each person's life and showing helpful insights into the time period they lived and the records pertaining to them. You can keep private notes, include comments for other users, add tagging (for easy filtering) and of course, the algorithms will keep the little green leaf hints coming! You can also easily invite and share your tree family and friends (and limit what those guests to your tree have access to do). Ancestry.com provides all the basic tools you need to easily manage your tree (or as many trees as you may want to create) and they regularly update and add new features and record sets.

I personally find the World Explorer membership to be a great value. With access to US and International records (a must if you want to trace your heritage to other countries), as well as a basic subscription to Newspapers.com and Fold3 (also owned by Ancestry.com) it's a good deal for the serious family researcher. But there are other lower priced, or even free options available (with limitations on which record sets can be viewed) for those who may not be able to financially afford the "deluxe" membership. You can absolutely use Ancestry.com with the free membership, but it may require a lot of research on other sites in combination with the free record sets at Ancestry.com (and not every record is available for free no matter how many sites you search.) Memberships to the site go on sale often, and you can even let your membership expire and rejoin using a sale/gift price. (I personally don't do this as there are huge costs associated with maintaining such an all-encompassing site, and I feel I get a good value for my membership. But for some, cost is a significant factor and this method is an option).

You'll find Ancestry.com DNA tests on sale regularly to help jumpstart your research. While Ancestry.com does not allow uploads of raw DNA results from other sites, you can download your raw DNA file from Ancestry and upload to any number of other sites to find additional DNA matches. DNA tools on Ancestry.com are expanding, and with the largest database of testers, it's definitely the place to start if you're interested in DNA matches. Serious DNA testers can also manage results for DNA tests of other family members with ease (if they give permission). You receive not only DNA matches, but ethnicity results, and potential ancestors (but do your research, these are curated from other member trees and may not be 100% accurate). For additional fees, you can also receive traits information based on your DNA.

There are tons of valuable links and educational information on the site as well. I'll detail some of those options in a future post.

If you have to pick just one site to join, make it Ancestry.com. You aren't likely to be disappointed! Just remember, it's still up to you to do your research. Hints are just that, hints. Not every hint is accurate. Do your due diligence when researching. From personal experience, don't just attach every hint or you'll  end up with a tree full of errors. I can't imagine a scenario where I wouldn't use Ancestry.com. It's the leader in genealogy websites for a reason. If you don't have an account yet, go sign up for free and check out the various available resources. You have nothing to lose, and a lot of family history information to gain.

Bite Size Daily Genealogy Tips

Are you looking for an easy way to find new tips, inspiration or suggestions on how to reframe your genealogical thinking?

Genealogy Tip of the Day posts a bite size genealogy tip every day! Posts generally take a minute or less to read and can be about anything from potentially new research paths, reminders to get the most from particular types of records, or provide suggestions on different ways of thinking about your genealogical challenges. 

I've noticed some posts are occasionally "recycled", but I don't find this to be an issue. Not every idea is pertinent at the time we first read it. Some tips don't resonate until we're at a different part of our research journey. While the daily tips are totally free, for those who are interested, there's a Genealogy Tip of the Day book for sale if you prefer a different format (though you may miss new suggestions as they're posted if you aren't also following the free daily tips).

Genealogical research can take a lot of time. Following all the latest blog posts could take hours a day. Perhaps, like me, you have no extra time to jump on the genealogical podcast bandwagon, preferring good old fashioned words on a page instead. Lots of blogs aggregate some of the best posts they discover each week, but few (in fact none of the 80+ blogs I follow) include Genealogy Tip of the Day. Just because these tips are boiled down to the essential ingredients for quick reading doesn't make them any less valuable.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay