Genealogy Online For Dummies

By April Leigh Helm and Matthew L. Helm

Research your family history using the latest online toolsand apps

Genealogy Online For Dummies, 7th Edition is the perfectbook to help you conduct genealogical research. Updated to coverthe latest online tools, this new edition shows you how to leveragesocial networks and the rapidly increasing number of mobile apps tolocate family members and trace their histories. You?ll discoverhow to start your investigation, develop a research plan of action,identify sites and resources that will be of the most use to you,get information from government records, preserve electronicmaterials, and share your findings with the rest of the family.

• Shows you how to conduct research into family history using thelatest online tools, mobile apps, and other resources
• Explains how to use online and offline research techniques andtools for genealogical research, find and share information withother genealogists, and create your own site to showcase yourfamily tree, digital images, and compiled genealogies
• Includes access to free versions of RootsMagic Essentials andLegacy Family Tree Standard Edition as well as information on freewebsites for storing your genealogical information
• Covers DNA research and testing, new geocoding applications,U.S. Census information available online, international records,public access catalogs, and more

Genealogy Online For Dummies, 7th Edition helps youfollow the clues to uncover your family?s legacy ? the fun and easyway.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Jan 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781118808184

Book preview

Getting Started with Genealogy Online

9781118808108-pp0101.tif

webextras.eps Visit www.dummies.com for more great content online.

In this part…

Learn how to use information that you know on yourself to begin your online research.

Discover how primary sources can jump-start your genealogical journey.

Locate large collections of records that you can use to find details on the lives of your ancestors.

Learn how census records can be used to track the movements of your ancestors every ten years.

Discover how you can use primary sources to find the details of your ancestors’ lives.

Chapter 1

Beginning Your Ancestral Journey

In This Chapter

arrow Starting research with yourself

arrow Getting familiar with a genealogical database

arrow Creating an online family tree

arrow Entering data with an app

We know you're ready to go! You have a mouse in hand and are set to learn all there is to know about your ancestors. However, we need to go over a few useful things before that mouse runs wild.

If you're new to genealogy, we strongly suggest that you begin your journey with this chapter. (That's why we made it Chapter 1.) We'll walk you through the basics of recording genealogical data by starting with a very familiar person — you! Then we'll explore how to get valuable information from relatives, locate key documents around the house, how to use photographs to further your research, and explore easy ways to get organized.

Sketching Yourself

Late one night, you decide to start looking for information on your great-great-grandfather Absalom Looney. After booting up your computer and connecting to the Internet, you put good old Absalom's name into your favorite search engine. Within a couple of seconds, a page appears telling you there are more than 51,000 results for Absalom Looney. How can you possibly sift through all the Absaloms onscreen and find the one you're looking for? Well, before you go any further, we should let you in on a little secret: Instead of starting your journey with Absalom, it's better to begin with the information you have about someone you know better — yourself.

Regardless of what your spouse thinks, we're convinced that you're really the expert on you. You know your birth date, place of birth, parents’ names, and where you've lived. (We recognize that not everyone knows all this information; adoptions or other circumstances may require you to do the best you can with what you know until you can discover additional information about yourself.) Knowing some things about yourself, it's time to start sketching out your life — and, at the same time, learning some good research skills that will help you delve into the lives of others.

When working on your life's sketch, we recommend beginning with current events and working back through your life. This is the method you'll likely use when researching an ancestor. First, note the basics: your current marital or family status, occupation, residence, and activities. Then move back to your last residence, occupation, and so on until you arrive at your birth date. Make sure that you include milestones such as children's birth dates, marriage dates, military service dates, educational experience, religious affiliations, participation in organizations and sports, and other significant events in your life. If you prefer, you can cover your life by beginning with your birth and working forward to the present. Either way is fine, as long as you list all the important events.

You have several ways to store your sketch. Some people prefer to start with index cards, placing a particular event on each card — or, if you want to use a digital tool, you can store notes in a product such as Evernote (www.evernote.com) or Microsoft's OneNote (office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote). Others use a database or word processor to write up things that they recall over a certain period of time. If you don't have time to type something out, why not use a digital voice recorder to record all those nuggets of information? Using any of these methods, you can begin to arrange historical events to form the basis of your biographical sketch.

remember_4c.eps The biographical sketch that you create now may become an important research tool for one of your descendants who decides to conduct research about you in the future. So, when you have the time, turn that sketch into a full-blown autobiography. This way, your descendants not only know the facts about your life, but also gain some insight as to why you chose the paths you did throughout your life.

Using an online resource

Because this book deals with online resources, we wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't mention an online resource for writing your biographical sketch. One site that assists you with creating your autobiography is Story of My Life (www.storyofmylife.com). Story of My Life contains a simple way to assemble chapters together to form your biographical sketch.

To begin your biographical sketch on Story of My Life, follow these steps:

Point your browser towww.storyofmylife.com.

In the top-right corner, click the Register Now image to register for free.

Fill out the Personal Info form. You can check the availability of your Story of My Life ID by clicking the Check Availability button. Also, make sure you read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and select the appropriate box for the level of notifications that you would look to receive. Keep in mind that you can opt out of receiving notifications by deselecting the Notifications check boxes.

Click the Continue button.

The confirmation page appears. You should also receive an e-mail confirmation. To progress to the next step of the registration process, confirm your e-mail address.

Go to your e-mail program and open the confirmation e-mail from Story of My Life.

The title of the e-mail is Registration | Email Validation. Open the e-mail and locate the link to validate your e-mail.

Click the link in the e-mail to validate your e-mail address or copy and paste the validation link into your web browser.

The web page shows that your e-mail address has been verified. The page also allows you to choose a Forever Space package, which requires payment. Don't panic! You don't have to purchase a plan to use the site. If you're not interested in purchasing a package, just make sure to choose the I Will Buy Later. Continue with My FREE Story Account option.

Click the green Continue button near the bottom of the screen.

The next page in the registration process is the Checkout page. If you don't want to order anything, make sure the package is set to Free and the total at the bottom of the page is $0.00.

Click Continue.

The My Story page appears, shown in Figure 1-1.

Click the Click Here link (in the middle of the page, under the Stories tab) to begin writing your story.

You can add chapters or categories by using the prompts under the My Story menu on the left.

9781118808108-fg0101.tif

Figure 1-1:The My Story page on Story of My Life.

Using genealogical software

You can use a biographical website to document your life (as described in the previous section), but another option is to use a tool of the genealogy trade from the beginning — genealogical software. Over time, you'll collect a lot of information on your ancestors. You need something to help you keep everything straight and make sense of it all. Not only can genealogical software keep track of the names, dates, and places of your ancestors, but it can also show you the gaps in your research and point you where to go next.

Several software programs on the market can store and manipulate your genealogical information. They all have some standard features in common. For instance, most serve as databases for family facts and stories, have reporting functions to generate predesigned charts and forms, and have export capabilities so that you can share your data with others. Each software program also has a few unique features (for example, the capability to take information out of the software and generate online reports at the click of a button or integrate with data stored on subscription genealogical websites) that make it stand out from the others. Here's a list of some simple features to look for when evaluating software packages:

How easy to use is the software? Is it reasonably intuitive from a graphics standpoint so that you can see how and where to enter particular facts about an ancestor?

Does the software generate the reports you need? For instance, if you're partial to Family Group Sheets, does this software support them?

Does the software allow you to export and import a GEDCOM file? What other formats does it export to? GEDCOM is a file format that's widely used for genealogical research. For more info about GEDCOM, see the nearby sidebar GEDCOM: The genealogist's standard.

How many names can this software hold? Make sure the software can hold an adequate number of names (and accompanying data) to accommodate all the ancestors about whom you have information.

remember_4c.eps Keep in mind that your genealogy continues to grow over time.

Can your current computer system support this software? If the requirements of the software cause your computer to crash every time you use it, you won't get very far in your genealogical research.

Does this software provide fields for citing your sources and keeping notes? Including information about the sources you use to gather your data — with the actual facts, if possible — is an important and a sound genealogical practice. Take a look at later parts of this chapter, as well as in Chapter 11, for more information about the importance of citing sources and understanding how to do so.

Does this software have utilities that warn you of incorrect or incomplete data? For example, some software can check the place-name that you enter against a database of locations and suggest a standard way of spelling the location.

Does this program integrate with genealogical websites? Integrating content between websites and genealogical software is an easy way to build your genealogical database, as well as to share your findings with others.

---

GEDCOM: The genealogist's standard

As you probably have already discovered, genealogy is full of acronyms. One such acronym that you'll hear and see repeatedly is GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunication). GEDCOM is the standard for individuals and software manufacturers for exporting information to and importing information from genealogical databases. Simply put, GEDCOM is a file format intended to make data transferable among different software programs so that people can share their family information easily.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints developed and introduced GEDCOM in 1987. The first two versions of GEDCOM were released for public discussion only and were not meant to serve as the standard. With the introduction of version 5.x and later, however, GEDCOM was accepted as the standard.

Having a standard for formatting files is beneficial because you can share the information that you collect with others who are interested in some (or all) of your ancestors. It also enables you to import GEDCOM files from other researchers who have information about family lines and ancestors in whom you're interested. And you don't even have to use the same software as the other researchers! You can use Reunion for Macintosh, and someone with whom you want to share information can use Family Tree Maker; having GEDCOM as the standard in both software programs enables each of you to create and exchange GEDCOM files. Similarly, GEDCOM enables you to transfer data from your smartphone genealogical application to your home computer.

To convert the data in your genealogical database to a GEDCOM file, follow the instructions provided in your software's manual or Help menu. You can create the GEDCOM file relatively easily; most software programs guide you through the process with a series of dialog boxes.

In addition to creating GEDCOM files to exchange with other researchers, you can generate GEDCOM files to submit to larger cooperatives that make the data from many GEDCOM files available to thousands of researchers worldwide. You can also convert your GEDCOM file to HTML so you can place the data directly on the web for others to access.

Although GEDCOM has been a reliable standard for a while, the implementation of it in some genealogical software products has been less than ideal. As a result, some genealogical software developers have created products that can import files made from one software package into software that uses a different file format — without the need to save the file to GEDCOM. One such product is GenBridge, which is part of the Family Tree SuperTools product from Wholly Genes Software (www.whollygenes.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?screen=FTST). Before purchasing a converter product, check the documentation that came with your genealogical software to ensure that your software doesn't already have the conversion capability built into it.

Although GEDCOM has been around for a while, efforts are underway to engineer the future of the standard. GEDCOM X (www.gedcomx.org) is a project to develop a new model to improve the capability of genealogical software and websites to share data.

---

Entering Information into RootsMagic Essentials

To help you get a better idea of how software can help you organize your records and research, and to help you figure out what features to look for in particular software packages, this section examines how to use RootsMagic, a popular genealogy program.

You can download a free trial version of RootsMagic Essentials software and install it on your computer:

Open your web browser and go to the RootsMagic site atwww.rootsmagic.com/Products.

Scroll down to the RootsMagic Essentials section and click the Free Download button.

Complete the information fields, including typing your name and your e-mail address. Enter your e-mail address again in the Verify E-mail field shown in Figure 1-2.

9781118808108-fg0102.tif

Figure 1-2: Information fields for the RootsMagic install.

Select the check box if you want to receive e-mails from RootsMagic.

Click Download.

The instructions for downloading the product appear.

Click the RootsMagic Essentials Installer link.

The software downloads to a directory on your computer.

To begin the installation, double-click the downloaded file.

When we installed it, the filename was RM6Setup.exe. The Welcome to RootsMagic Setup wizard pops up.

Click Next.

The license agreement appears.

Read through the licensing agreement. If you agree to its terms, click the I Accept the Agreement option and then click Next.

In the window that appears, choose where to have the RootsMagic Essentials software stored on your computer.

Identify where to store the software and then click Next.

The Select Start Menu Folder field appears. This enables you to identify where to put shortcuts for the program. The default location is a folder called RootsMagic.

If you want the shortcuts listed inRootsMagic, leave the default location in the field. If you prefer to have shortcuts in another folder, browse and select the folder or enter the location.

Click Next.

The Select Additional Tasks window opens. If you want to set up any additional tasks (such as creating a desktop icon for the program or downloading a place database for geocoding and gazetteer components), select the appropriate check box.

Click Next.

The final information for the installation appears.

Review the installation information and, if everything looks correct, click Install.

The software installs on your computer. When it's finished installing, the Completing the RootsMagic Setup Wizard box appears.

If you want to open RootsMagic now, select the Launch RootsMagic check box and click the Finish button.

A window opens welcoming you to the software and asking you to identify which version of the product you're opening.

Click the RootsMagic Essentials — Free Version link.

Now that you have the RootsMagic Essentials software installed on your computer, let's get down to the nitty-gritty and start entering data. When you open the application for the very first time, you get a RootsMagic News window containing links to various announcements and stories of interest to RootsMagic users. If you want to read any of these, you can click the links; otherwise, just click Close.

When the RootsMagic News box closes, you see a Welcome to RootsMagic screen. To begin your family tree, follow these steps:

Click Create a New File.

A box appears, enabling you to do several things:

Identify the new filename.

Determine the location for the file.

Set options, including the date format for the file, whether to display a number after a name, whether to display surnames in all capital letters, and whether to set up and support some additional fields for the Latter-day Saints and FamilySearch family tree support.

Choose whether to start a file from scratch or import data from another program.

Enter the new filename in the New File Name box, set any of the optional formatting items, and identify whether you're starting a new file or importing an existing one; then click OK.

In our case, we're starting a family tree for the Abell family, so we entered Abell as the filename. We set the date format and selected the option for starting a new file.

Click OK.

The database is created and the Pedigree view opens, as shown in Figure 1-3.

9781118808108-fg0103.tif

Figure 1-3:The Pedigree tab.

You can start entering information about yourself in the Pedigree chart (presuming that you choose to start with yourself). Then you can add information for four additional generations.

Completing the Pedigree page

Usually, it's easiest to enter information about yourself, your spouse, and your children, and then work backward through your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. After you complete your direct lines back as far as you can, enter information about each of your siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins, and other relatives. Always enter as much information as you can in each of the fields in the Add Person dialog boxes. Follow these steps to fill in the Pedigree page:

Select the Click to Add a Person box in the Pedigree chart.

The Add New Person dialog box appears, and then you can fill in details about yourself or an ancestor.

Complete the Add New Person box and click OK.

Type the first and middle names in the Given Name(s) field and the last name in the Surname field. Then complete the remaining fields to the extent that you know the biographical facts about that person. Remember to use your maiden name if you're female — regardless of your marital status. Of course, we want to set a good example in this book when it comes to privacy for living relatives, so rather than typing information about one of us, we type in Matthew's great-great-grandfather, Samuel Clayton Abell Jr.

After you click OK, the Edit Person dialog box appears.

Complete the Edit Person dialog box and click Save.

You can add more facts about yourself or an ancestor by clicking these buttons in the edit window — Notes, Sources, Media, Address, and To Do. You can also add or delete facts by clicking the appropriate button and then following the prompts in the Fact Types box that appears. After you finish adding the details, click Save.

warning_4c.eps Make sure that you use the four-digit year when you enter dates in RootsMagic. If you inadvertently use only two numerals for the year, the software accepts the year as is, leaving it ambiguous for anyone who references your database in the future.

Click Close.

After you've entered your first person, you can click the next person box you want to complete or click the Add People to the Database icon on the toolbar and enter information for people related to the individual, such as spouse, children, and parents. You can keep track of family units by clicking the Family tab.

Sourcing your information

As you enter information about people, it's critical that you cite your data sources. Most genealogical software programs, including RootsMagic, allow you to enter source information. For specific instructions on how to enter info in your particular software, see the Help file or user's manual that comes with the software. In RootsMagic, you add sources through the Edit Person box.

To add a source for your information, follow these steps:

From the Pedigree chart, double-click the person that the source references.

We have the source documents for the marriage of Samuel and Martha. So for this example, we double-click Samuel Clayton Abell Jr. The Edit Person box appears.

Select the fact or event that you want to source.

We select the marriage fact in the left side of the box.

Click the Sources button in the lower-right side of the box.

The Citation Manager opens for the marriage fact.

Select Add New Source.

The Select Source Type box appears, as shown in Figure 1-4.

9781118808108-fg0104.tif

Figure 1-4: The Select Source Type box.

Select from the list of source types.

In our case, we search for the source type Marriage and then select one of the results — Marriage Record (Bound Volumes). If you can't find an existing source type to fit your need, select Free Form and enter your own source type.

Click OK.

Enter details about the source of your information. You should complete as many of the fields as you can for every source.

Complete the Edit Source fields and click OK.

You should now see a check mark under the Source icon in the Edit Person box.

You may have already noticed another way to get to the Source Manager. Choose Lists⇒Source List, click the Add a New Source button, and follow the preceding steps. This enables you to add a source that's not necessarily tied to one specific event in that person's life. If your ancestor kept a diary or memoirs of sorts, you might prefer to use this method of citing sources. Similarly, you have functionality to add sources that pertain to more than one person (called Family Sources in the drop-down list accessible from the Sources icon).

After you've used RootsMagic Essentials for a while, you may find that you need more features. You can compare the features between RootsMagic and RootsMagic Essentials at www.rootsmagic.com/RootsMagic/Features.aspx to determine whether you need an upgrade.

Creating the Virtual You

If you're going to be researching using a variety of computers, perhaps a better option is to use an online genealogical database rather than a genealogical database stored on one computer. One full-featured online genealogical database is Ancestry.com. Not only can you enter genealogical information, but you can also upload media files and integrate your data with the content found on the Ancestry.com subscription site through the Hints function.

To get started, try the following:

Point your web browser towww.ancestry.com.

The Ancestry.com home page appears.

In the upper-left corner of the home page, click the Family Trees button on the menu bar to open the Family Trees page.

A new page appears labeled Start your tree. Organize facts. Find answers.

Near the top of the page, enter your first name and last name, select your gender, and click Start Your Tree.

The resulting page shows a three-generation Pedigree chart with you as the first person on the left side; see Figure 1-5. Note the helpful tips along the right side of the chart.

9781118808108-fg0105.tif

Figure 1-5:A three-generation Pedigree chart to fill in with your ancestors.

Add the name of a family member to the tree by clicking the Add Spouse link, the Add Father link, or the Add Mother link.

In the pop-over box that appears, enter the first and middle names, maiden (or last) name, gender, birth date, birthplace, and, if applicable, death date and death place. A pop-over box is similar to a dialog box except that you must complete its fields and click a button to make it disappear. When you begin to enter a location in the Birthplace field, a list of potential matching locations appears beneath the field. You can select from the list to enter the information more quickly. You can also use this list to standardize the location that makes searches easier in the Ancestry.com database.

Click Save.

The Save and Build Your Family Tree pop-over box appears. To save the family tree, complete all of the fields on the form, including the tree name and your first name, last name, and e-mail address. You can also choose to allow others to view the tree by selecting the check box. If you don't want others to view it, deselect the check box. You may also want to review the privacy policy by clicking the link on the right side of the box.

Click the Save My Tree button.

If your e-mail address matches a registered user of Ancestry.com, the Provide a Password page appears. Type your existing password to continue. If your e-mail address is new to the site, Ancestry.com automatically registers you and gives you a default user name and password. To change the default user name and password (randomly assigned values that you aren't likely to remember), click the link. The family tree you just created is displayed. A pop-up box may also appear describing the Ancestry Hints feature. After reading it, click the X in the upper-right corner. If you want to see the hints, click View Hints. In our case, we clicked the X to continue to the Pedigree chart.

Add information about other family members by clicking the Add Father, Add Mother, or Add Relative links.

Clicking any of these links opens a pop-over box. Enter the individual's first name, middle name, last name, gender, birth date, birthplace, death date, and death place. Click the Save button when you're finished.

The Pedigree page is shown again with the names of the new family members.

If you see the green shaky leaf symbol, as shown in Figure 1-6, Ancestry.com has found a hint, meaning that Ancestry.com has searched its databases and thinks it has found further information on that particular individual. Sometimes the hint applies to the person and sometimes it doesn't.

9781118808108-fg0106.tif

Figure 1-6: Shaky leaves indicate a hint about your ancestor.

Click the leaf symbol to see the hint. When you finish reading the hint, click the gray Return to Tree box.

tip_4c.eps Not every individual triggers a hint, so don't be concerned if you don't see one. If you follow a hint that leads to part of the paid subscription database, the site prompts you to subscribe to the Ancestry.com site.

As time allows, add more generations to your family tree.

Beefing up your profile

Just like your ancestors’ lives, your life is a lot more than just names and dates. To get a better picture of you, or your ancestor's life, you need to include details about important events such as marriages, buying a house, starting a new job, moving to a new town, and so on. To add some facts, try the following:

If your family tree isn't onscreen, place the mouse cursor over the Family Trees button at the top of the Ancestry.com home page. A secondary menu drops down showing the family tree you created. Click the family tree name to display your family tree.

Your family tree is displayed with the Pedigree view.

Place the mouse cursor over the name of a person on your family tree.

A pop-over box appears with more information about the person on your family tree.

Select View Profile.

Several tabs are available on the Profile screen: Overview, Facts and Sources, Media Gallery, Comments, Hints, and Member Connect. As you might expect, the Overview tab, shown in Figure 1-7, shows a summary of the information contained within the other sections.

9781118808108-fg0107.tif

Figure 1-7:The Family Tree Overview tab.

Click the Facts and Sources tab.

The new page contains some basic facts that you already entered, such as gender, birth, and death.

Click the Add a Fact button on the right side of the green menu bar.

The Add a New Fact or Event page appears.

Click the Add a New Fact or Event drop-down box and select an event, as shown in Figure 1-8.

One or more fields appear on the page depending on the event that you selected.

9781118808108-fg0108.tif

Figure 1-8:The Add a New Fact or Event drop-down box.

Fill out the fields and click Submit.

The information that you entered now appears on the Facts and Sources tab.

Citing your sources

A source is any material (book, document, record, or periodical, for example) that provides information for your research. We strongly encourage you to cite the sources of all facts and information that you enter into profiles on your family tree.

Keeping track of sources helps you remember where you discovered the information and helps other researchers retrace your steps. If you find conflicting information later, returning to the source can help you sort out the reliability of your information.

Follow these steps to cite a source for a fact you've added to your tree:

Display the profile page for the person you want to cite a source for.

Follow Steps 1 through 3 in the earlier section "Beefing up your profile."

Click the Facts and Sources tab.

The Facts and Sources page appears.

Click the Source Citations button.

The button is located just under the Facts and Sources tab.

Click the Add a Source Citation link on the right.

The Create Source Citation Information page appears, as shown in Figure 1-9.

9781118808108-fg0109.tif

Figure 1-9:Create Source Citation Information page.

Click the Create a New Source link under Step 1 onscreen.

The link appears just below the Select a Source drop-down box. The Create a New Source page appears.

Fill out fields for the source of the information.

You don't have to fill out all fields. The only required field is Title.

Near the bottom of the page, click the Create a New Repository link.

A repository is a place that holds the source that you're citing, such as a library or a person's house, in the case of the location of family photos. The Create a New Repository page appears.

Fill out the fields to describe the repository. When you're finished, click the Save Repository button to save the repository and return to the Create a New Source page.

Note that after you've created a repository once, it's then available for you to use in future citations.

Click the Save Source button.

The source title is now reflected in the drop-down box under Step 1 on the Create Source Citation Information page; see Figure 1-10.

9781118808108-fg0110.tif

Figure 1-10: A new repository appearing on the Create Source Citation Information page.

Complete the fields under the Citation portion of the source (Step 2 on the Create Source Citation Information page).

The Detail field is the only required field in this section.

If you have a scanned document, an audio recording, or a video recording that you want to include as part of the source, click the Yes radio button under Step 3 on the Create Source Citation Information page.

Under Step 4 on the Create Source Citation Information page, select the box next to the fact or event that you want the source to document.

Click the Save Source Citation button.

Getting the full media experience

To provide a rich experience for your sources, consider adding media. For example, you can scan a birth record of an ancestor and add the image of the actual record as part of your source citation. Follow these requirements to upload media to Ancestry.com:

Photo: A photo must be in .bmp, .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, or .tiff format. No individual photo can be larger than 15 megabytes (MB).

Story: Type your anecdotal story on the site, or upload it in .doc, .docx, .pdf, .rtf, or .txt format. No individual story can exceed 15 megabytes (MB).

Audio: Add audio recordings directly via the Ancestry.com site.

Video: A video must be recorded using a webcam and the Ancestry.com site. Videos must be less than 12 minutes long.

Follow these steps to

Reviews for Genealogy Online For Dummies

[stacyinthecity · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I’ve been casually doing genealogy research for years, but I recently decided I wanted to step it up a notch. So I decided to go to the library and get a book. Their selection wasn’t huge, but I did find this one and thought I’d give it a try.The instructions are quite basic in some areas, so I skipped entire pages. I know how to send an email and I know how to navigate the internet with a browser. I suppose that might be helpful to someone else, but I’m very familiar with computers.Where I did appreciate that basics approach was in the genealogy stuff. It was helpful to a person like me to see it broken down bit by bit. There were also a lot of helpful links, and the trial versions on the software disc were pretty cool.Overall, I’m glad I checked this one out from the library. Good to have read; don’t need to own.