Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode #192 with Lisa Louise Cooke Highlights from this episode: How to use Animoto, my favorite new tech tool for creating professional-looking slide shows and videos New Genealogy Gems team member Amie Tennant shares insights as she prepares for professional certification A listener shares a favorite genealogy database for finding recent relatives A listener uses DNA to connect adoptive and biological relatives—who were closer than she thought A segment from the Genealogy Gems Book Club interview with author Helen Simonson on The Summer Before the War News from Dropbox and a new initiative to capture the family histories of remote, indigenous populations   NEWS: Dropbox Improvement New on Dropbox: Now when you share Dropbox content with someone, shared links will stay active even if you move or rename the file or folder. Dropbox file-sharing tip: “If you ever want to unshare something you’ve already sent out (like to remove access to a sensitive document), it’s easy to disable an active link.” Just sign in to dropbox.com. “Click the link icon next to the file or folder, and click ‘remove link’ in the top right corner of the box that appears. You can also remove the link by visiting dropbox.com/links and clicking ‘x’ next to the file or folder.” How to share folders on Dropbox   NEWS: MyHeritage and Tribal Quest TribalQuest.org FamilySearch Helping Preserve and Provide Access to African Records and Family Histories Ghana Oral Genealogy Project (on FamilySearch.org)   NEWS: New Premium Video Getting Started in Genetic Genealogy: a new video available to Genealogy Gems Premium website members by Your DNA Guide Diahan Southard Genealogy Gems Premium website membership: Click here to learn more Click here to watch a free video preview   MAILBOX: Russ Recommends the U.S. Public Records Index Russ blogs at https://worthy2be.wordpress.com/ Genealogy Gems Podcast episode 181: What to use while waiting for the 1950 census Russ recommends the “U.S., Public Record Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1 and 2.” “Volume 1 is far more interesting with more data. A search will return a Name AND Birth date, along with more than one ADDRESS, Zip Code and sometimes phone numbers.” Ancestry’s description of its online database for Volume 1 says original data comes from public records spanning all 50 states, such as voter registration lists, public record filings, historical residential records and other household database listings. U.S. Public Records Index on Ancestry.com:  Volume 1 and Volume 2 Free partial version (1970-2009) at FamilySearch.org Another partial version (1970-2010) at MyHeritage Thoughts about using the U.S. Public Records Index (some of these points come from the FamilySearch wiki): Not everyone who lived in the U.S. appears in the index, and you’re more likely to find birth information for those born between 1900 and 1990. What you’ll find is primarily where someone lived, and often when they lived there. It’s rarely possible to positively identify a relative in this index, since there’s limited information and it spans the entire country for up to a half century, and you can’t follow up on the record it comes from because the index doesn’t say where individual records come from. As Russ says, this is a great resource to use in combination with other records. It’s a similar concept to the way you might consult uncited family trees: great hints to go on and follow up with further research into verifiable sources. When you find more recent listings, you can sometimes find telephone numbers for living distant relatives. The Family History Made Easy podcast has a 2-episode series (episodes 14 and 15) about cold-calling techniques for reaching out to distant relatives you don’t know.   MAILBOX: Katie on Cold-calling and Adoption and DNA Katie blogs her family history adventures at McKinnon Ancestry. Click here to read a blog post with her story and see more pictures that go with it.   INTERVIEW: Amie Tennant Ami