In this episode you're going to learn the details that go into planning a trip to your ancestor's homeland.

NEWS:
Read Jenna’s blog post called Monday Midwest Family history Expo posted on 8/1/11. 

GEM:  FTU DISCOUNT Coupon Code gemsFTU
If you missed the Early Bird registration pricing for the upcoming Family tree University Virtual Conference – no worries!  Because Genealogy Gems listeners can still get 20% off with our special coupon code.   

This conferenece is really the first one of it’s kind. No matter where you live you can take part, attend every class if you want to, and all from the comfort of your own home. 

It’s going to be an exciting weekend from Friday August 19 to Sunday August 21, of 2011.  You’re going to get three full days of unlimited access to watch the 15 pre-recorded video classes. Lisa will be debuting her brand new Common Surname Search Strategies class and hosting a chat on Sunday. 

The special coupon code we have just for Genealogy Gems listeners is gemsFTU and that will you get 20% off the registration fee.  And in fact you can use it to 20% off ANY of the Family Tree University classes. 

GEM: More Online Newspapers
This week the Library of Congress updated Chronicling America to include newspapers from 3 new states added to the program in 2010 and additional coverage for 1836-1859. New Mexico, Tennessee and Vermont are now included with 22 other states and the District of Columbia in Chronicling America's almost 4 million pages of historic newspaper pages, published between 1836 and 1922.  So you can start searching at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ 

Swedish Genealogical Society of Colorado is going to host the SwedGenTour 2011 September 17, 2011
8:30 am to 4:30 pm, Aurora, Colorado.  You can register at the SGSC website      

Genealogy Gems Podcast App Users are getting a special bonus with this episode.  Swedish Researcher  Yvonne Hendrickson has graciously provided a a terrific pdf file called How to Find Your Swedish Roots. 
Get the app for the iPhone & iPad
Get the app for the Android

GEM: Railway Records
Ancestry.ca has partnered with the UK’s National Archives to launch the Railway Employment Records, 1833 – 1963, an online collection containing the employment-related records of British railway workers dating back to the invention of the locomotive in the early 19th century. The records date from 1833 and by the middle of the 20th century.

FamilySearch
FamilySearch recently announced that they have digitized historic records from eight countries and added them to FamilySearch.org.  In addition to 1.8 million new U.S. records, collections from seven other countries were added including Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, and Poland.

Newspapers
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced on July 27, 2011 awards totaling $3.8 million to 13 institutions representing their states in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). These means there will be new digitized historic  newspapers coming to the free Chronicling America section of the Library of Congress website in mid-2012.    

Your chance to help bring the 1812 records
Indiana Genealogical Society - You can find out more about the IGS $10,000 Match Challenge .Thanks for a wonderful podcast and all your genealogy gems!  Visit Tina’s Blog: http://genwishlist.blogspot.com

New Video Cast on YouTube on UK News
Genealogy Gems video channel at YouTube packed with over 50 family history related videos. 
Nick Barratt and Laura Berry of Your Family History magazine out of the UK at www.your-familyhistory.com. They have created a new YouTube video channel called appopriately enough Family History Show.

MAILBOX:
RootsMagic questions so  I went right to the source Bruce Buzbee, founder of RootsMagic and he’s got the answers. 

“Would I create a "land" fact in the entry for my great-grandfather, and just describe the land in it?  Thanks again for your terrific podcasts. I just started listening to the Family Tree podcasts, and am excited to start using the tips shared in those episodes as well.”

Bruce recommends adding a "Property" fact type (which is one of the fact typesbuilt into RM and which is officially supported in GEDCOM).  You can use the date field to show the time period the land was owned, and can use the note to enter any description of the land.

Then he recommends using the various documents as sources for that fact type. When you are adding a new source to RM, you can type "land" into the "Search for source type" field on the "Select Source Type" screen to filter the list of source types down to ones relating to land records.

Kai has a question about image and source citations. "I've always attached source media to events/facts and now I'm wondering whether  there's any point in going through and removing every media item from the individual events/facts and instead attaching it to the relevant source. Since sharing events between people is so easy, I haven't seen much point in doing it before now.”  Bruce says there probably isn't a compelling reason right now to move existing images from events to sources or citations.  There may be in the future, but we would also work to make it easier to do that at that time. 

Kai’s second question is “I'm wondering whether you record your negative research (i.e. searched particular resource, nothing found) within RM."  Bruce says "RootsMagic allows you to add facts (of any type... birth, marriage, death, etc) and set the "Proof" for that fact to "Disputed" or "Proven false".  It then draw that fact on screen with a redline through it.

Second, when entering a source citation, you can enter the "Quality", which follows the BCG standard and allows you to set the "Evidence" to negative.  However, that doesn't mean the source is wrong.  It means that the source didn't contain the information you expected to find in it.”

And finally Kate wrote in asking for help with migrating from Family Tree Maker to RootsMagic and found a great help guide right on the RootsMagic web site. 

Free webinars including Lisa’s at RootsMagic. 

GEM: Preparing for a visit to the National Archives
Here are Lisa’s tips for preparing for a research visit:

1.  National Archives in the UK video series called Quick Animated Guide

2. Do a Google search by file type
SEARCH:  National Archives Genealogy Research .ppt
Beginning Your Genealogical Research at the National Archives powerpoint presentation 

3. Check out Lisa’s interviews with Margery Bell of the Family History Centers which are full of great ideas for preparing for a research trip, regardless of whether it is to the National Archives or the Family History Library. 
Family History: Genealogy Made Easy episodes 17, 18 & 19 

Genealogy has no borders!
Keith in the UK sent me one of those recently through Google+.  He writes: “I've only just started listening to your podcasts, and think they're brilliant! I like the fact that you cover off places outside of the US as well, as its hard to find a good UK podcast. Keep up the great work”

British Home children Follow up
Bill wrote in recently to share his connection to a recent episode:  “I love your podcasts! Episode 111 featuring a gem on British Home Children touched my heart especially. My mother's father was one of the Britsh Home Children.”

 During my stay with them in England, Mom's cousin said that she thought that my grandfather Richard Ing had come to Canada as one of the Barnardo Home children, mentioning that she and her husband knew some of the Bernardo family personally. I said that I had never heard of him coming out with Barnardo Homes. Much later, I discovered that she was right about him being one of the British Home Children! 

You can read more from Bill about his Ing family at his genealogy blog at blog: http://billbuchanan.blogspot.com

GEM: How to Travel to Your Ancestor's Homeland

Kathy Wurth
www.familytreetours.com
www.familytreetours.blogspot.com
info@familytreetours.com
familytreetours@charter.net
888-798-2208
314-954-7005

About Family Tree Tours:

“No family tree research is complete until you experience the place your family came from,” says Kathy Wurth, owner of Family Tree Tours. “There’s no feeling more exhilarating than walking the streets your ancestors walked. Even if you don’t know your hometown, our European Heritage professionals help you paint the picture of your ancestors’ lives. Our new website helps us make your research come alive.”