The Genealogist

Three Clicks Away!

THE GROWING interest in family history over the last few years has been remarkable. With a new series of the popular BBC programme “Who do you think you think you are?” due to start in the New Year, family history and genealogy research is becoming easier thanks to the internet. Leading the way in online genealogy is the website www.familyrelatives.org which has begun to revolutionise Family History research by making the process of locating Birth, Marriage and Death records (BMD) for England and Wales much easier, more accurate, cheaper and without the need to visit the Family Records Centre in Central London.

Familyrelatives.org has launched the complete records for the period 1837, (the year of Queen Victoria’s coronation and the year records began) to 2003. It is the first website to make available 300 million records searchable by Surname and Forename with 150 million of those records being fully searchable on any criteria from spouse name to age at death to mother’s maiden name.

This ease of use and pinpointing of family relatives has created much excitement in the Family History community as no other website allows the searching of marriages by using a marriage match or booster marriage facility.

Familyrelatives.org search capabilities allow family history enthusiasts to find an ancestor quickly and identify the exact record needed. Searches for 1866-1920 and 1984 to 2003 can be made by forename, surname, mother’s maiden name, spouse’s maiden name, approximate age at death (+/- 5 years), year of event, year range, geographical area as well as official registry districts.

In addition a unique and exciting feature has been added which allows researchers to track down spouses using the ‘Marriage Match’ search.

Now we can go to the right records almost immediately with the Marriage Match. For example we want to research Charlie Chaplin’s mother: we know his father was also called Charles Chaplin, and we know his parents were married sometime between 1870 and 1910 and his mother’s surname was Hill, although we don’t have her forename or the precise date they were married. We can search for Charles Chaplin in the period during which the marriage took place (1870 to 1910); and entering the spouse name. Once the search button is pressed it searches 150 million records and it produces one result. As we know that Charlie Chaplin’s mother was called Hill, we have established our match as Hannah Harriet Hill, St Saviour.1d, Page 325, Marriage – Quarter 2, 1885. Furthermore an important and invaluable feature is that all previous searches are automatically saved allowing researchers to pick up from where they left off.

Treequest Ltd., the company behind Familyrelatives.org, says “Genealogists across the globe are beginning to appreciate this remarkable facility in terms of reliability and user-friendliness. The new additions and the new search functions are just part of our commitment to the Family History research community, to make available as many useful UK genealogical documents as possible on our website and to make sure that they can be accessed in the quickest, most up to date and most affordable way.

We have had some very positive comments and interesting stories. One lady found out that not only did she have a Nelson in her family but she also had a Bonaparte (which no doubt they kept quiet at the time!). We also had a family history enthusiast who was tracing his roots and found he was related to Cecil Rhodes of Rhodesia or modern day Zimbabwe. So it’s very rewarding to be able to help people trace their heritage.”

Paul’s Weekly Ponderings

The exciting news this week is about The 1911 UK Census. You may (or there again may not!) remember that I set up a site for a Petition to get the 1911 UK Census released early some months ago.

Well………… I am not claiming that it is entirely down to the signatures we got but I heard the news that the information from the 1911 Census will now be available from January 2007 rather than the original date of January 2012. The aim is to have a fully searchable copy on the Internet by January 2009!

I must admit it’s given me a bit of a buzz! This for me is absolutely what we are about in terms of Marketing on The Internet - really adding value to the niches in which we operate.

If you are one of my subscribers then you will be aware that the last two weeks have been something of a challenge! This all resulted from a major outage by one of our hosting companies which lasted for some time and saw lots of data lost by them. It impacted about 50% of my business with some of our most significant sites going offline and the domain names being inaccessible to amend the DNS for!

So as you can imagine the last few weeks have seen quite a few long days getting things back up and running and I am pleased to say that of this morning almost every major site is now back on line and fully functional. It has also seen the creation of a number of new sites and the redeployment of other sites.

The good news for Genealogists is that our sites at The Amateur Genealogist, Free Genealogy Search Engine, Catholic Genealogy and Genealogy Articles are all now back online!

What have I learnt from the last few weeks? Well in summary here’s my top pieces of advice. Always make sure that you have your hosting spread around a number of major hosts so that you can always shift things around in the event of a problem; ensure that you back up your sites and any databases on a regular basis; ensure that your hosts also back up data on a regular basis. If you are serious about hosting then you need to look at getting a Reseller Account and one of the best that I hav come across is Hostgator who I have found to be excellent.

Finally in terms of my recommendations and this is a big one! Never ever, under any circumstances buy your domain names from your hosts! That way lies complete disaster if your host goes down and you then cannot access your account. If you cannot access your account with your host then you cannot amend the DNS an point your sites to an alternative host.

Now before all that happened I had been well on with my planning for 2007 and thought that I knew what we were going to do! However, the coincidence of the problems with one of our hosts and also reading an excellent report from Niche Mania’s BigMike called “Google Hiccup” set me thinking! If you haven’t taken a look at Niche Mania then you really want to - it’s one of the very few memberhips that I ever recommend for anyone interested in making money online.

The areas we will focus on in terms of our primary niches will remain as originally planned. However, our approach to those niches and the value we will be adding is going to be much mroe focussed.

One of the things that we are currently very focussed on is evolving the highly successful GenMates community and you can read more about that at GenMates Changes - this is a set of changes which is in response to the fedback from our members. I think this is going to be really exciting!

The other two major developments which have suffered a bit of a set back are my Internet Marketing Coaching Site and my Self Improvement Coaching Site - however with a few more days work on these they will be ready to go early in the new year! You can sign up for the heavy discount on the Internet Marketing one by going to Internet Business Creators!

Have a good week and if you are one of my subscribers watch out for a very useful Christmas Gift!

How to get your Kids on the Hunt for Ancestors

There can be no better activity to do with your child than tracing your genealogy-after all, the connection from one generation to the next is what your research is about! Kids as young as 5 can start learning about their family history and many even surprise you with the help they provide or the new ideas they have. By working on the project together, you can teach your children about their ancestors and create a keepsake that can be passed on to them when they are older.

Begin with what you already know. The easiest way to get started is my filling out what researchers call family information sheets. These can be printed from the Internet and usually include full name, birth date, death date, parents, hometown, spouse, children, and other vital information. First, have your child help you fill one out about yourself, your spouse, and him or herself and any siblings. Make it a game-what does your child know? For example, can your child give you his or her sister’s birth date? Tell your child funny stories pertaining to the information, such as details about your wedding or what your hometown was like when you were growing up. Of course, not every child will be interested in hearing about this, so don’t make yours listen if he or she would rather be doing something else. However, many children will surprise you with their interest. Be prepared for lots of questions. Get your parents or other older family members involved as well if possible. Oral history is vital to genealogy, not so much for research purposes, but to ensure that your family history stays alive with each generation.

When your child gets a little older, you can take him or her to the library with you to do some research. Kids like finding out about their family crests and surname meanings, and learning to use a library is an important skill that kids should learn at a young age. As they mature, kids can accompany you on other field trips as well, such as to family plots in the cemetery, to the records department at your local courthouse, or to virtual destinations on the Internet to help you find your ancestors. By learning research skills, your child will develop an interest in genealogy that might last a lifetime. When your research is done, have your child help you put together a family tree or other family history project that can be passed on to them when they have a family of their own.