Top products from r/Genealogy

We found 25 product mentions on r/Genealogy. We ranked the 94 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top comments that mention products on r/Genealogy:

u/esayer · 5 pointsr/Genealogy

Griffiths Land Valuation (I think that's what it's called?) Are land holder records and lessee records. Since so many records in Ireland were destroyed it's a good way to find families. Problem I've had is everyone in Ireland had the same names, so it's hard to suss out who is who (I have to put 'maybe' on a lot of suggested records on Ancestry, you just don't know for sure if Paddy O'Connor with a wife Anne and a kid Mary is the right one!) It really helps to know the general area or even better, the parish your ancestors were, which is really really hard to find out if you don't know. I read this book https://www.amazon.com/Paddys-Lament-Ireland-1846-1847-Prelude/dp/0156707004 which is incredible, and figure my ancestors are represented pretty well in that book. Since I don't know their names or anything, it's the closest I could get to walking in their shoes. And it really puts into perspective what our Irish ancestors went through, and shows the tenacity and bravery of the ones who immigrated.

Edit: Fun fact! My DNA from Ancestry updated, and they narrowed it down to Munster and Connaught for me. Which is interesting since Burke is my mom's family name and the Burkes aka de Burgho had estates in Connaught and Munster since 1100. So that's neat!

u/BreakforPuppies · 4 pointsr/Genealogy

The style outlined in Evidence Explained and Evidence! are the standard for genealogy (at least in the United States) if you are a professional or publishing. That said, the goal in citing your sources is to make sure someone else can find them later with little effort. This Genealogy Source Citations Quick Reference by Thomas MacEntee also has a good overview of genealogical citations in general.


I also use these two Quicksheets all the time. They are easy and help build good citations (they are by ESM again, so in the EE style):
Quicksheet Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images
Quicksheet Citing Online Historical Resources
(I got a deal on them from a vendor at a genealogy conference less than what they cost on Amazon) I also bought Evidence Explained used which saved some money.

u/Lostwalllet · 55 pointsr/Genealogy

NO lamination.

Gaylord Archival supply sells on Amazon and are a good company. Hit up your family for gift cards to Amazon to help defray costs as this stuff is expensive.

Paper can be stored in archival folders (they look like manilla or white ones but are acid-free) or poly folders. (FYI, I blow through tons of these from B&H, they seem more affordable than the gaylord ones.)

Put anything fragile in the poly sleeves, as close to the size as you can. (Or, in other words, don't let it bounce around in a sleeve that it too big, nor be damaged by one that is too small).

ONLY buy poly folders that are PAT" passed. It will be in the description or a little logo and is the only certification that matters. You will see all kinds of "archival-friendly" terms which are meaningless.

I put my tintypes in a photo sleeve and then into a box. Between each, I put a piece of felt (craft store) or heavy acid-free paper so they don't scratch each other.

Newspaper is the most frustrating as no matter what you do, it will continue to yellow and become brittle. The acids in the paper destroy it form within and only de-acidifying will slow it. But this is expensive and may destroy the piece. Make newspaper your scanning priority.

If you protect the individual items you can skip, for now, the super-expensive archival boxes and use regular boxes. As long as the items are safe, in a climate controlled environment, have pretty even temperature year-round, and no smoke, regular boxes are fine. Invest in protecting each item first—that will give you more bang for your buck.

BTW, a flatbed scanner works GREAT for scanning tintypes. Just invest in a stand-alone scanner with the highest resolution you can find. The kind attached to a printer is not made for photos and not worth scanning with. I like this model as it scans slides and negatives, too.

Scan documents at minimum of 300ppi (archives scan at 600ppi) and photos at minimum of 600ppi. The smaller the image the higher resolution you should scan. Save images as TIF or PNG, not JPG.

Also buy some back-up drives and/or a cloud subscription. You will chew up hard drive space but hard drives are cheap. Backups and cloud storage insures that you are protected in case your hard drive dies (which they do) or your house burns down.

Lastly, you can buy cotton gloves but many archives now prefer clean hands to gloves. When wearing gloves, it is almost impossible to feel what you are grabbing, and very easy to damage paper. Wash your hands well before handling materials and you should be fine.

Source: I'm an archivist(ish—still in school).

UPDATE: Had wrong B&H link. Fixed.

u/Macaroni_and_Cheez · 2 pointsr/Genealogy

This 1994 book has a chapter about the author's struggles in getting locals to open up about the city's past and their experiences: Between East and West - Across the Borderlands of Europe (Holy crap that's expensive... find it at a library! WorldCat.org is your friend!) The rest of the book is interesting as well, though Kaliningrad/Koenigsburg is only mentioned in it's own chapter.

And here are some cool old maps of the city!
1887
1906
1911

I'd love to visit too! Sadly it follows the Russian rules of needing a tourist visa. If only they made it as easy as just hopping on a train from Poland or Lithuania... maybe someday.

Last but not least, here's a link to FamilySearch/LDS' holdings that reference Kaliningrad: Family Search - Kaliningrad Records. The holdings look like they're mainly in German and a few in Polish. There's only 1 census (from 1939), but the older taxation and church records might be useful for you.

u/essari · 1 pointr/Genealogy

Fantastic website update--you're definitely moving in the right direction.

Some other off the cuff suggestions I have:

be even more transparent about the resources you have access to, or essentially, what makes you unique? From how you present yourself, it sounds like the bulk of your available research is on Ancestry or Familysearch (which is fine!). If so, why should a client choose you rather than just doing it herself? (This would be a good time to emphasize that history degree).

Have you given thought to how you will provide clients with citations/images of documents? If you're using online sources, you will need to consider their TOS.

For repository lists, also consider area colleges/universities, historical societies, genealogy societies, and even public libraries.

And while you're waiting for clients, purchase or ILL this book, as it is a helpful resource to understanding how a professional genealogist operates.

u/GermanGenealogist · 3 pointsr/Genealogy

I just stumbled over these two sources:

u/NoSleepTillWhiterun · 2 pointsr/Genealogy

The book Albion's seed. Spending time at Plimoth Plantation (relatives landed there). The Boston Tea Party Museum in Boston (relative participated). Spending time at Sturbridge Village. Reading Midwife's tale. (My something great grandfather founded Eastport,
Maine with 16 other families). Good wives. (Reminds me of how lucky I am in many ways!)
One side of the family is all Governors and fancy folk-while there is lots of info about them I am not to interested. I am REALLY into how the regular people lived and try to learn about that.

While it's not my relatives, I loved the NYC tenement museum.



u/gijoeusa · 2 pointsr/Genealogy

Kind of like how a dark skinned Spaniard could easily get results for Iberian Peninsula or North Africa or possibly even the Middle East. Still a Spaniard, though, and European-white by an American definition in the 1900s.

Whenever I read stories like this I always think of the Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man that I read when I was a kid. The author’s subject is described as having caramel colored skin. Raised in a different home, it really could have gone a different way.

u/filberuthie · 1 pointr/Genealogy

There's a 3rd edition (not the revised one) available through various sellers at Amazon from about $30: https://www.amazon.com/This-item-been-replaced-9780806320403/dp/0806320176/ref=sr_1_17?keywords=elizabeth+shown+mills&qid=1570226531&sr=8-17

If that would work for you, would suggest you message the seller to make sure that you're getting the 3rd edition, they don't always pay attention to details like that.

As nice as having a Kindle version is for most things, the 2nd edition is almost 900 pages long and there's no way I could navigate through it to find what I need on a Kindle.

u/HoboViking · 1 pointr/Genealogy

Yeah, my entire reason for getting into genealogy was to learn about new relationships, and it would be hard for me to justify destroying one because I found out someone else's painful truth.

This book may interest you, I just started reading it:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Sheep-Kissing-Cousins-Stories/dp/076580588X

Oh man, I think the best thing we can do for binders is to make them visually appealing (like you are) and digital as well, so they don't just disappear. Email them to other family members... and perhaps even get a copy self published.

u/PMcCullough · 2 pointsr/Genealogy

You might want to check out A Pickpocket's Tale. I read it years ago, and didn't adore it, but found the approach interesting. They obviously didn't have a huge amount of information on the titular character, so they would find a record that mentioned him being arrested in a specific bar, then fill the pages with newspaper accounts of other things that had happened in that bar around that time period to really flesh out what it was like there, other people he likely knew or encountered, etc... I've often thought it was a good way of painting a picture without a ton of info.

u/Elle_Emme · 1 pointr/Genealogy

Found this on one of my Facebook genealogy groups. If you buy from Amazon and add it to your cart, there's an additional 20% off, bringing it down to $63...and free shipping with Prime. I don't believe it's an affiliate link.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TRLVKW0/?tag=smsibiho-20

Of course I find this literally the day after I purchased a kit for my cousin! sigh

u/GogglesPisano · 2 pointsr/Genealogy

I've made do with cell phone photos, which (as you noted) are not ideal, but very portable.

There are small portable "bar" scanners where you feed documents through them. For old, possibly delicate photos this is not great - the rollers can damage the original photo. You really want a flatbed scanner.

In the end, your best bet is probably just to get a compact flatbed scanner - there are a number of models (like this Canon scanner ) that are about the size of a laptop. You can carry it in a regular laptop bag.


u/mikenew02 · 2 pointsr/Genealogy

I use this one, it's great. It runs fully on USB so no external power is needed.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LN0NUOO

u/my_interests · 2 pointsr/Genealogy

Good question.

You could just start writing and see where that takes you - don't think too much about structure, etc. but get the stories written up (with cited sources). I'll bet that during the writing you'll find questions that you hadn't considered earlier - it'll make you research further. You may start to find a structure to the story as you progress.

When you feel you're finished, read it over and see what you think. You can move sections around/break the stories into chapters, add more here or there, etc.

Alternatively, you can try to answer a common family question ("Who shortened our Surname?") or investigate a rumor/myth ("Did that ancestor really buy land from Thomas Jefferson like everyone always claims?") or, write individual biographies of notable individuals.

For some inspiration, take a look at how other authors handle writing biographical-based history. Something like:

  • Never Caught:The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

  • The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

    There are as many different approaches as there are people in your tree, but really just try to get started, see where you end up.
u/myohmymiketyson · 6 pointsr/Genealogy

I would probably do AncestryDNA because the database is so large and its family tree interface is the best. The downside is no chromosome browser, limited tools, the whole subscription thing, doesn't take uploads.

AncestryDNA is on sale, including at Amazon, free shipping plus Prime. An email I received from AncestryDNA said the sale ends Sunday.

I like 23andme, especially its tools, like the chromosome browser and DNA painting, but so few people add surnames and even fewer add trees. It's difficult to make genealogical connections, even with closer matches.

I like FTDNA, too, but again so many don't do trees or surnames, which is strange to me because its reputation is being more oriented to serious genealogists and genetic genealogists. Maybe they're more privacy concerned? I don't know. I am also not a big fan of the family tree interface. YMMV.

u/stickman07738 · 3 pointsr/Genealogy

The people from nowhere: an illustrated history of Carpatho - Rusyns.

​

Carpathian Rus': A Historical Atlas

​

With Their Backs to the Mountains: A History of Carpathian Rus' and Carpatho-Rusyns

​

and I cannot forget all the meetings, associations and documents that I have purchased over 30 years of this crazy hobby.

u/Stegasaurus_Wrecks · 1 pointr/Genealogy

This is supposed to be the holy grail for info to start with.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0717150240/

u/TexasNiteowl · 1 pointr/Genealogy

I have a hard time with the pricing. $8, $9.50, $10. So for over $27 you are getting somewhere between 6 and 12 pages? That is half the price of buying the whole book, Evidence Explained 3rd ed. which is almost 900 pgs! That said, I don't actually own any of the quick sheets. I do own the whole volume.

u/Alan259 · 3 pointsr/Genealogy

Another possibility is that his birth could have been registered but not indexed. I'm not sure if this is possible in England, but if his birth wasn't indexed, a search of the local registrar's books would have to be carried out. Maybe, you could contact a local history/ heritage centre if Norwich has one and ask them for advice regarding this.

I also have a copy of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Tracing-Your-Family-Kathy-Chater/dp/0754819868/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464457976&sr=1-7#customerReviews . And in its section on BMD records of the General Register Office, it says this: 'In the first ten years or so following the introduction of national registration, parents were not obliged to notify the registrar of a child's birth, and if a child was not registered within six months, it could not be included in the records. There seems also to have been some confusion about whether it was necessary to register a child if it had also been baptized. In 1874, fines were introduced for non-notification by the parents, which improved the situation.

This lack of registration, combined with the bureacracy involved in copying entries as they were passed from level to level in the system, means that a number of events are missing from the indexes, especially in the earlier period. There may be as many as 15 percent of the births missing for 1837-47, and as many as 1 in 40 marriages missing for 1837-99. There are also the difficulties caused by copying errors and by dealing with illiterate people who did not know how their names were written, and who probably had strong regional accents . Registrars had, in many cases, to guess at the name and how it was spelled.'

u/Rhydnara · 2 pointsr/Genealogy

Warning: Brick wall incoming. Joana in particular is one of my favorite misunderstood heroines and I could talk for hours about her.

That story in particular is the primary one used to prove her insanity, but it's rather complicated and can be explained as both a misinterpretation of her actions and straight up lies.

The following information comes directly from this biography.

Almost everything we read about Joana comes as part of a biography of someone else - her mother, her sister Catherine, her niece, Mary - but almost never herself. There are no primary sources from Joana herself, so she was never able to directly explain her actions. She lived in an extremely patriarchal time when the idea of a woman ruling on her own was considered partially insane, which is a bit ironic considering the fact that her mother did a wonderful job.

But because we have no primary sources from her point of view, all of her actions were interpreted either by people who simply didn't understand her, or by people with their own political agenda. And it's the latter we have to be most critical of.

Yes, Joana delayed the burial of her husband for several years, and carted it around with her. But rather than interpret it as insanity, it's possible this was a brilliant political move intended to introduce the Spanish people to their new monarch. Joana and Philip were never supposed to rule. She was the third born child and her marriage to a Hapsburg was meant as a political alliance but she was meant to go to Germany and not come back. Three separate people and an unborn child had to die in order for them to become the heirs to Spain. So by carting around Philip's corpse, Joana may have simply been trying to get the Spanish people comfortable with the idea of a Hapsburg dynasty.

A particular morbid part of the tale that still fascinates people today, and really convinces them that Joana was nuts, is that at one point, Joana somehow either became convinced that Philip wasn't dead, or was so obsessed with her husband that she opened his coffin to stare at his dead body. A fantastic historical fiction book about Joana, The Last Queen, one that portrays her in mostly a positive light, even includes this scene.

But the truth is, the first mention of it shows up several decades after Joana died, and a primary witness to the journey where Joana supposedly opened his coffin never reported it.

Yes, Joana had some quirks that to a modern audience may seem a little weird. When family members showed up in the convent she had been locked away in, they found her emaciated and dressed in what was essentially peasant clothing. She was supposedly starving herself. But further research shows that it was shortly after she lost close family members and typical Spanish mourning included dressing simply and fasting. Mary Tudor and Katherine of Aragon were known to do the same thing.

One report has her banging and screaming on the doors, but further research shows that her husband had locked her in her rooms and refused to let her out.

Shortly before her mother died, Isabella wrote a special part of her will that specifically named Joana (NOT her husband Philip) as her heir and gave her the ability to rule alone. Isabella obviously believed that Joana was capable of doing so. Mere months after Isabella died, Ferdinand was declaring Joana insane and unfit to rule.

Years after Joana had been locked away in a nunnery, onlookers claimed that she was paranoid and was blaming the nuns for stealing her jewelry. Turns out - her family was actually breaking open her coffers and stealing her jewelry.

The truth is, Joana was tortured, gaslit, and finally locked away by her family all so they could rule through her. At one point she was given the opportunity by her people to rule alone, and she passed it up because it might mean her son would lose the ability to rule. She voluntarily put herself back into the nunnery to preserve her family's right to rule. She sacrificed herself. If anything, that might prove her insanity for sticking up for the very people who tortured her.