"Tracing Our Roots" Newsletter Archive (A monthly genealogy newsletter written by the late Brenda Kellow, dec'd, for the Plano Star Courier newspaper. We've included all the ones we could recover.)
Many of us with British ancestors, constituting about half of American families, are constantly waiting for another publication to surface that offers another opportunity to find our missing links. In 1998, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published the Vital Records Index Resource File to help some of us. Now, they have published an update to the earlier version, which adds about 7.3 million names to the index. The Church s publicity quoted Elder D. Todd Christofferson as saying the marriage records contain about 1.9 million and 10.4 million birth and christening records over the period from 1538 to 1906. The period, however, varies from parish to parish within the counties. The new index is on 16 compact discs in another of their nice binders on deceased people in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. Within the collection is the latest version of the Family History Resource File Viewer program.
Always on the lookout for my elusive Stibbens family, I check for them in the index to the second edition. I first searched for Samuel Stibbens and then just the surname by itself. My original assessment of the family that they came from heaven on a shaft of light continues to be true. If I knew the county or town the family came from, I might have gotten closer to finding them. Finding no hits for the Stibbens family certainly does not give the index bad marks for I was able to find other surnames. Overall, it is most beneficial.
The search features of this application are good for both the birth and christening and the marriage. The data only contains deceased individuals. If the name is known, just type it in and see what pops up. A hit will likely provide the name of the spouse or the parents names; date and place of the event if it was registered; and the microfilm number where the information can be found on The Church s film. Some of the additional features include a parent search; bookmarking, print options and GEDCOM export.
The second edition of the British Isles Vital Records Index system minimum requirements are: Pentium processor; MS Windows 95 or MS Windows NT 4.0 operating system; 8 MB RAM but 16 MB is recommended; 4x minimum CD-ROM drive; VGA monitor with 256-color-capable video card.
The collection is offered for $20, Item #50126000, and may be order by phone, 800-537-5971 or online at www.familysearch.org.
19th Century family photo album: Russell Granger is the creative director and web designer with a growing compulsion for genealogy, and he just completed a web site with two special sections of interest. One is an interactive reconstruction of an extensive 19th Century family photo album, and the other is a detailed tutorial for non-professionals on digital restoration of antique family photos. Please take a look because I believe you will find it a valuable site. There is no commercial purpose for the site, only a personal interest and an offer of good information. His site is at www.screengenes.com.
SATURDAY SEMINAR: The next GenFriends' Saturday Morning Seminar will be a "Show, Tell and Share" event where members and genealogy enthusiasts can display their writings, family trees, photos, books, newsletters or other interesting items to demonstrate their genealogical creativity. Jean Funk asks that you bring in your innovative writings, research notes, scanned pictures, family recipe books, newsletters, or just innovative filing systems, etc. that you have done. This does not have to be a great family history book. It may be just a family report on your research, write-up on a vacation, a remembrance letter, or a story of your parents or grandparents. Genealogy Friends will have tables set up to set out your treasures. The hope is that this will give others ideas of the types of things they can do with the information they have gathered. The event will be on Saturday, June 15, 2002, at the Gladys Harrington Library, 1501 18th Street, Plano. The program runs 9:30 a.m. to noon. The doors open at 9:10 a.m. Admission is free.
For more on the Saturday event, see my article of last week.
ROOTSWEB LISTS: Be aware that lists servers on RootsWeb will be down from June 10 and won t be up again for a couple weeks. This may also cause problems on other RootsWeb sites.
Brenda Kellow, dec'd, Certified Genealogist and Certified Genealogical Instructor, had a Bachelor s Degree in history and taught genealogy courses at the local Community College and computer genealogy at the University.
