Sourcefull Saturday

Taken from the Kentucky Genealogical Society Website 2013

This week I woke up with a vivid "dream" that I needed to go into a family group sheet and fix all the birth dates of the children. I had no idea who's family that might be and I was telling my husband how strongly I felt about this kind of message.  So I got up, it was just 5:30 am, with the intention that this would be my sewing day, but ended up spending the whole day working on the family group sheet of Peter Seldon Transue, my mother's side of the family.

It seems that in my MyHeritage program I was looking at some "Record Matches" for Peter the night before, and I decided to see what I had done on his family. Maybe this was the family, I wasn't sure.  I discovered that I had only one child listed in Peter's family. That seemed strange, so upon opening another window and looking at my tree in  FamilySearch (FS), sure enough, I discovered that someone had added 9 children to Peter's family. The next thing I had to do was prove that these 9 children were really the children of Peter S Transue.

Thanks to "Record Search", found on the left side of a person's profile page in FS Tree, I easily located several census records that showed 7 of these children. With just a click of my mouse I added those records as SOURCES to my tree and corrected the birth dates. (Amazingly all of the children I had found in the FS tree had the wrong birth dates!!) In the 1910 U.S Census, it was reported that 9 children had been born, but only 7 were living. While I could only prove that 7 of the children belonged to this family the FS program allowed me to prepare 7 more names to take to the Temple. For the remaining children I posted a discussion note about having proof of the birth dates, opening up collaboration with the submitter.

 I know that the Spirit of Elijah was speaking to me through my dream. I listened to those promptings, and I also know that Peter S Transue wants his family sealed together forever. I am so glad to be able to do this work and must add here that all of this is possible because of the work you have been doing by indexing and arbitrating. YOU are making these records available to researchers like me. And thankfully, through the efforts of FamilySearch  hundreds of thousands of records are added every week. To all, keep up the good work!

Free Ancestry.com subscription for Schools

Pocono Township School, Tannersville, PA grades 1-12 taken between 1925 - 1930
original photo scanned from private collection by Lois Gilbert 2007

Ancestry.com has a Classroom Learning Grant that provides three month's free access to Ancestry.com's subscription for schools. If you know any teachers please tell them about this offer. Lesson plans are available to help teachers and they contain the follow topics:

• 1940 Census Lesson
• The Census and the Constitution
• The Census and the Depression
• Autobiography
• Biography
• Immigration over Time
• Civil War
• Military Lesson
• Personal Side of War ( American Revolutionary War)
• War of 1812
• WWI
• Battles (WWII)
• Local History is Your Community History
• Historical Crime
• Haunted House
• Suffrage Movement
• Trail of Tears Lesson
• How Life Influences Art
• African American Congressmen Lesson

Kim Harrison of  the Ancestry Library Team said that  "We provide lesson plans to help you integrate historical records into the classroom and teach students how to manage research projects, approach critical thinking and gain communication skills for life".
To apply write to :

http://ancestrylibrary@ancestry.com  

They will give you some more information and a grant application.

FamilySearch.org and MyHeritage.com make New Contract

FamilySearch recently entered into a new contract with MyHeritage.com which will give MyHeritage access to over 2 million records now held by FamilySearch. In return MyHeritage is going to give FamilySearch the technology of their very popular "Record Matching" and "Smart Matching" features.

Brother Dennis Brimhall of FamilySearch indicated that while MyHeritage is a paid subscription this new contract will give  access to records to people who may have never been able to see them. These records will still be available for free to all users of FamilySearch and we will be seeing more improvements with the search features. 

To me this is a win-win deal. I feel that the Church is preparing for the millennial by giving access to their records to the world, and by speeding up FamilySearch programs. We should keep in mind that some state and local genealogy groups do not make their records available for free and so companies like MyHeritage and Ancestry pay for those records. The Church does not always have that privilege.

September Report and Oklahoma Marriages

Provo City Center Temple - "Under" construction

Oklahoma City Oklahoma Stake
Cum Indexing/Arbitrating
to 10/15/2013
468,957 Names

Total for September 2013 = 29,059 Names

Indexing Results for September by Ward

• Clinton                                1342
• Edmond First                       2303
• Edmond Second                  3853
• Okc Fifth                              620
• Okc First                             1402
• Okc Third                            5578
• Quail Creek                         4762
• Village                                 5282
• Woodward                            707 

Youth

Edmond First                               1089

Okc Fifth                                          24

Okc Third                                         23

Quail Creek                                        1

Village                                           2043

Autumn in Broadheadsville, PA taken by Bishop Wooley 

Indexing Suggestions

Some of you may be wondering "what can I index?" as there are not many level 1 batches available. Please consider trying a level 3 batch. One that I would suggest is the Oklahoma County Marriages. There are two records on each image and most batches contain an overlay. If you will start by reading the PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS and clicking on the first blue link that says "click here"  you will find some very good examples of how to index an overlay. I have called SLC several times to question them even further about an overlay. You can call for help at this number 1-866-406-1830 , just ask for indexing help and you will find that they are very kind and helpful. Here are a few things in general that I have learned about overlays in the Oklahoma County Marriage project:

1. Most overlays are parental permission forms or letters.
2. Index only what you see on the overlay IF the full record underneath appears on another image. If that record does not appear on the next image, then index all information from overlay and from the record underneath as one record.
3. The record that appears underneath the overlay will be indexed as a separate record if it is the next image with the overlay flipped back.
4. By going to TOOLS, you can mark each image as having two records, if needed.
5.  A second photo of the image was normally made with the overlay folded back.
6. Always look for on the  parental consent form,  right below the application at the top of the page, for a parents signature. It may not be an overlay.
7. Marriage dates are on the bottom of the form. If they did not go through with the marriage, use the application date.
8. There are 10 images in a batch, most have 20 records in a batch.

I am excited to work on this project as I was one of the document preparation volunteers  for the Utah Genealogical Society,  when they came to the Oklahoma City Court house to microfilm these records in 1998. Our own Alice Lynn Bodyston of Woodward headed up the project at that time.

taken from the Kentucky Genealogy Society website

How do you get people to return to Indexing after they have been looking at Family Tree and preparing names for the Temple?

By teaching them the Gospel Principles of "Turning the Hearts". See D&C 110: 13 & 14.  Elder Birmhall, Head of FamilySearch, said that "Every name indexed is an opportunity for Eternal Blessings". Indexing and Temple work is doing Family History. 

Our Stake needs to get back to Indexing and Arbitrating, "behold the time has fully come". Did you know there are over 1 million records just waiting for Arbitration before they can be viewed by patrons. We need more Arbitrators. If you are interested please contact me, or your Ward Group Administrator.