It was an assortment of boxes and binders, each given to a specific purpose, whether it be Census, Photography, Family Group Sheets or just general collected materials. In those days, it was mostly letters, where various researchers corresponded back and forth, giving each other the tidbits of the trade. I now consider myself and old timer, because I still have most of that collection. Even with the 24,000+ names I have database on my computer.

Having been in the hobby for over 36 years now, I can easily show volumes of materials as my “collection.” I had initially figured on passing down this “collection” to my children or a grandchild. But as fate would have it, I didn’t have or contribute to either a child or a grandchild. So, my concentration moved over to my niece. She could not care less about the family history. One time I got to drag her to a couple of family graveyards and I don’t think she has forgiven me for that day yet.

So, I began to look for other places I could give my collection to.

Library of Congress only wants it in Book Form. National Archives referred me to the Library of Congress.

Most of the research is in Pennsylvania so I checked with the Penn Archives. I got a no from them too.

Carnegie Library wants it, but made no guarantees that it would not end up on the third floor with thousands of other things they have no time and budget for.

Several Genealogical Societies could use the materials, but most of them are under funded jokes that I would not trust to archive the materials properly. One key County Historical Society that would be a perfect fit wants everything bound at my expense or in Book Format.

I won’t give it to the Mormons, nor will I consider anything affiliated in any way with Ancestry.com

I went back to some of the original organizations I contacted about the collection and asked them about my computer files of over 24,000 individuals. Again, every place rebuffed me. They have no program setup to archive digital media.

I offered to sell my collection a few years ago to a group of researchers who tie into most of the lines I research. I received so many threatening or obscene emails that I don’t talk to those people any more. Nor do I share anything with them. I have made my collection a Genealogical Black hole for everyone but a few fellow researchers who were smart enough to stay out of the attacks when I tried to sell.

I am all for forming a 501C3 independent repository for Genealogical Research. Something that is not allied with any religion, corporation or the government. Some place that would be dedicated to preserving collections no matter what medium they were presented in.

Until something like this happens, I am seriously considering buying a shredder so my over 3 decades of work doesn’t fall in the wrong hands.

What do you plan to do with YOUR collection?

Instead of printing a full complete obituary, many papers have taken to writing just a small brief announcement and then telling the reader to “subscribe” to the paper in order to see the full result.

To these papers, I say, “Fat Chance.”

I have discussed this issue with several editors of newspapers, both large and small. a while back, there was a wave across the country to cut obituaries, because newspapers knew the genealogists were using them and reprinting them. It was a loud scream of Copyright Violation! Infringement! Illegal use if Intellectual Material! Call the Supreme Court!

Let me put things in perspective for everyone.

First, an obituary, except for some trite phrasing is almost always only a dissemination of Public Information and facts. Barring the occasional celebrity, most obituaries do much more than write a lot of information into a readable format.

In the old days, newspapers employed someone who would take this raw data and format it into a readable form. Many papers today, simply reprint a form that the Funeral home sends to them. Is there really any Copyright involved?

Many years ago, Congress was debating a bill to place Copyright and other protections on databases and segments of databases. When the planes hit on 911, that legislation pretty much died. So, if an obituary is nothing more that a dataset of information, presented in a format, is is really subject to Copyright.

The newspaper people I talked to claim the Copyright is theirs because they are the publisher. I debate that because they are NOT always the publisher. In many cases they are simply an information syndicator for the various Funeral Homes in their area. They are simply reprinting what is already formatted.

Anyway, what I want you to do is join me in protesting to any paper that is only publishing the short announcements. Encourage them to bring back the full blown obituaries as a “public service.” Most editors have email addresses and all it takes is a few lines.

Dear Editor:

Please bring back full text obituaries to you online editions, free of charge as a Public Service.

Sincerely,

Simple and effective communications to make a point.

The four groups are: Data Thieves, Hobbyists, Veterans, Professionals.

In this article I will define the characteristics of all four groups so that you may recognize which of the groups you fit into.

Data Thieves

Go ahead and take offense at this title; it was meant to be offensive. A Data Thief is someone who does nothing but run around the internet, copying everything in site and claiming it as their own work. They have NEVER done one ounce of original research on their own. They’ve never visited a library, a courthouse, a cemetery or a home town. They just leech the work of others and ask as many questions as they can before they are shunned.

You see these people all the time on the forums. “Send me everything you have about the Smith Family.”

I have developed a favorite response for these type of people. “Go Fish!” I developed that phrase after being thrown off of a couple forums for being much more deliberate in my comments.

These people ARE NOT Genealogists. They are exploiters. Don’t help them. Eventually they will go away like the scourge they are.

Hobbyists

I love the Genealogy Hobbyist. They are so eager to learn and are willing to do what it takes to go just one step further in their search. Many of these people only want to find out one or two things. Some may follow one line in their family only. But all of them show an eagerness that makes you want to help them.

Don’t expect the Hobbyist to have a large Genealogical Collection. Also, if you see them in the Library or the cemetery, they will often have tunnel vision. They are looking for Grandpa Ralph’s parents and are oblivious to the other family members who might be living next door.

These people will attend a class or two but may not follow up for years. They just fool around with the hobby when they get the urge.

Veterans

A true Genealogy Veteran is someone who when you ask them how long they have been a Genealogist, they can almost tell you the exact day and time they started. They have been to the libraries, the societies, the grave yards and they have usually compiled a massive collection. They know when where and how their ancestors existed and can often recite those times and locations from memory.

A Veteran Genealogist can help anyone with their toughest of problems in Genealogy. If you are lucky and they are willing to help. The mood and tone of Genealogy has changed thanks to the Data Thieves and the Exploits of Ancestry.com. Many of the huge databases of these Veterans have no been taken down off of the Internet. While the Veteran may still help you, the materials will not be easily accessible to just anyone. Many of the Veterans of the Genealogy World are dying off and when they die, their research and resource usually dies with them because their family just doesn’t know how to continue or just doesn’t want to devote the time.

Veterans accumulate information. They pride themselves in having not only found the obscure facts about their ancestors, they can often provide you the exact documentation and the source.

Professionals

Professional Genealogists can be broken down into various sub groups, but the common thread among all of them is that they do something to make money off of Genealogy. Many professionals teach, some write, some do research and others gather compilations of information to sell. I guess writing would be the common thread between all of the different types of Professional Genealogists.

I have been in this “hobby” for almost 36 years. When I first started, there were about a dozen people I would have classified as Professional Genealogists. They were the one’s writing the books and magazine articles, appearing at the conferences and basically setting down the standards that the rest of us are supposed to live by. As things developed that pool of professionals grew.

I am not talking about Certified Genealogists here. In fact, in those days, certification was a farce and the taint surrounding the Genealogical Certification was massive and corrupt. I heard people tell of having to submit their work six or seven times before the committee certified them. The committee collected a fee with every redo and some of the best work was being denied certification.

On top of that, the rules for certification have always been almost impossible. In my case, because I have one line that could not be traced, certification was not possible. It doesn’t matter that I have taken all of my other lines back to their countries of origin; some of them, 15 generations deep.

So please don’t equate Professional with Certified. I can’t tell you how many Certified Genealogists I have met over the years who I could almost guarantee you, took their work from other researchers and not their own efforts.

The same goes for those who claim membership in groups like the D.A.R. Never trust a D.A.R. research packet. I have busted several of them in my years because D.A.R. never checks them. They just assume legitimacy and take the membership fee. It’s all about the money. I don’t begrudge someone the right to claim D.A.R. or some other affiliation, if their claim is legitimate.

You can tell a Professional Genealogist a mile off. They smell like a courthouse basement, they have the dirt from the cemetery under their nails where they have spent hours clearing tombstones to get that one vital piece of data. They can recite their ancestors to you and tell you where to find yours. They publish, they lecture and they teach and they will encourage you to be much better at the hobby that you already are. They have a strong contempt for anyone who pollutes the data and anyone who fills the air with improper information based on assumptions and guesses. Their databases are massive, well connected and usually accurate. they are and have to right to be declared a Pro!

Now, which group do you fit into?

First of all, I use a semi-formal header for many of my Genealogical Headers and my envelope.

Your Name
Pennsylvania ?????? Family Researcher (Example)
P.O. Box ####
Anytown, State #####

1. This gives them your name
2. It tells them why you are writing
3. It gives them your location.

I also include a phone number in most letters and an email address.
It gives the recipient of the letter two or three ways to contact me.

Then I start the letter informally,

Dear Distant Cousin Ralph,(Example)

This personalizes the letter more than a Dear Mr. Ralph Keith would.
It let’s Ralph know you are family and that your purpose is friendly, and not too formal.

Then I go into the meat of the letter.

I am writing you to try to find out a piece of information that is missing from my research records. I have been researching the Keith family in your area since 1974 and I need to know exactly how you are related to John and Mary Keith who had the farm near Grass Hill.

I’m guessing that you are their grandson, but I am not sure who your father was, since public records aren’t readily available for this time period to us researchers. I would certainly appreciate your help in connecting the dots in my search.

Please feel free to contact me either by letter using the enclosed stamped envelope, telephone or email. I am usually easiest to catch by email.

Sincerely,

Cousin Your First Name.

One issue for the first letter, don’t go for broke! Don’t kick down the wall too hard on the first contact. If Cousin Ralph is willing to talk to you he will respond; if he isn’t, he won’t. If he doesn’t respond, you can try again, but if he does respond, then you can GENTLY ask any additional questions. keep the first letter SIMPLE!

BE AWARE Ladies tend to answer these requests far more than men. Ladies tend to write more. So if you can find out the Wife’s first name, you might gain her as an ally in your quest.

Never overwhelm anyone you write with too many requests. They’ll get irritated fast. Also be sure to let these people know if you are publishing or not. They have the right to know if the information they provide is going to be published!

Also, if you are writing someone elderly, it helps to use a FONT that is larger than standard font. It also helps to space the lines apart more than standard spacing. Many elderly people have eyesight issues.

This type of letter works for most situations. I did have one situation long ago where a cousin was not responding, so I used my IBM Selectric with a piece of Art paper and told her everything I already knew about the family and what pieces I needed filled in. When she spotted some specific things in the large letter, she knew that I was aware of a certain situation with one of my relatives. Only then did she call and make contact. On that one occasion I did break my own rule and kick down the wall, but only after three years of non-response.

So, be gentle with your first letter and build a new helper in your Genealogical Quest. If you luck out and find a letter writer with a lot of family knowledge, you’ll gain a load of information and tons of new family contacts. It makes the quest a far more fun and personal adventure.

Two problems come from using obituaries in your research. The first problem is the accuracy of the obituary, and the second comes from the use of the obituary itself, and whether or not it is Public Information or Copyrighted information.

Hopefully I can enlighten you to these issues and their answers.

First of all, you must remember that an obituary starts typically at the Funeral Home. Someone gives the funeral home information, which they pass on to the newspapers and various authorities. Thus you have a dual layer of transcription from the informant to the Funeral Home and then from the Funeral Home to the various repositories.

Errors are made every day in Obituaries. The most common of these is the spelling of names. Even relatives who have known family names for years, get them wrong when they are under the duress of giving information to a Funeral Home at the time of death.

The second issue with Obituaries is the use of casual names and Nicknames, instead of formal names of individuals. Bobby vs. Robert, Skipper vs. Ralph and so on. In the older generations, you might assume that it was Robert, but in the last 30 years or so, it really could have been a given name of Bobby. Also, you have pseudo names like Peg for Margaret. While known as a common substitution, you have to verify things. The woman’s name could have been Peg or Margaret.

Another thing you see in Obituaries is wrong dates. People think they remember a birth date or a marriage date, but if there are no documents to verify it presented to the Funeral Director, those incorrect dates stand until corrected.

The last big hassle in obituary is the way the information is disseminated. For instance, the obituary lists the deceased and that person’s five children. Then it lists the 25 grandchildren in no particular order and with no notation of who belongs to which child. It can take years to untangle this kid mess, if you don’t have other sources to cross reference.

The second half of the issue about using obituaries in your research is copyright and source. I have seen great debates about proper use and citation. Lately, many newspapers have gotten into the habit of putting only pieces of obituaries on their web sites, so researchers can’t copy them without subscribing to the paper. Being a writer, I love and use Copyright fully. But, I also know that everything that is printed on the Internet is subject to theft or public “fair” use. I also know that an attorney and the courts can work wonders against a Copyright thief.

Personally, I think newspapers are crazy to restrict obituaries. A lot of people want that information for one reason or another and the text in the obituary is probably just a reprint from the Funeral Home. The days of the newspaper actually writing the obituary are fading fast. It’s all done by fax or email so one could ask, “Who really owns the obituary Copyright?” The newspaper will claim it because they are the publisher. It’s murky as far as I am concerned and I don’t think anyone should be claiming restrictive copyright.

Never believe anything you see in an obituary. It could all be correct or it could be dead wrong. Take the time to corroborate all the information in the obituary. It could be all fiction or full of great facts!

Twenty five or more people all crowded around an Adult Table and a Kids Table, all doing their best to grab everything in sight. Passing dishes in two different directions, so the poor suckers in the middle always got stuck with a pile up of dishes and no place to put them.

Does this sound like your home, or were you at my family dinners too? The three or four times a year ritual when the clan gathered to feast themselves into oblivion, walk away and then not talk to each other until the next happening.

In our family, the big events were Christmas and Easter, followed closely by Thanksgiving and sometimes Fourth of July. It was Mid-Western tradition at its best and its worst. In my early years my Grandparents were the hosts on both sides of the family and I can remember being rushed from one place to the next so we could spend time with both. The utter chaos of the moments compounded by the rituals attached.

Football on the television for the Adults and Football out in the backyard for the kids. There were 26 cousins on one side and 18 cousins on the other. I can’t ever remember a time when all of use were ever at the same place at the same time. On one side, I have cousins I have never met and on the other side I have cousins I haven’t seen since those great gatherings of the 1960′s and the 1970′s. While both families had extremely different circumstances, their roots garnered from some common origins.

Turkey on Thanksgiving and sometimes Christmas and Ham on Easter. Home-made dishes and salads that I know had their origins from generations past. Pies, Cookies and other desserts, that made your mouth water and your stomach turn into the endless cave. My grandmothers and my mother could make cookies to die for and pies that should have been National Treasures.

What do you do at your Thanksgiving feast? Do you sing the first Christmas Carols of the season or do you do what we did and pile in the car and go on the search for the first Christmas Lights. When I was a kid, all the stores in Downtown Youngstown used to decorate their windows and it was the big event to go downtown Christmas Shopping the day after Thanksgiving and see all the stores and “Visit Santa”. If you have watched the movie “A Christmas Story” you have seen my childhood in action, except I never got the Official Red Ryder BB Gun until I was 37 and I bought one for myself. I did have a worthless low powered BB Pistol at age 12, but I left it home and borrowed better guns from kids I knew.

How many of you go hunting on the Holidays? Look out Bambi, they’re back!!!!!!!!! I tease you a bit because my family was filled with hunters on my father’s side. I grew up knowing the taste of wild game and liking it. Give me a steaming bowl of Moose and Elk Chili any day. Solid, hunted for country food, made tasty by the grandmothers, a huge tradition that is dying all across this county.

“Tis the season to be Jolly” and I hope you find something to smile at this season. I’ve taken up feeding the squirrels in my back yard and there’s little more funny than watching the antics they will make up to get my attention. A couple of them climb the screen door and peer in trying to see where I am. Ever see a squirrel ride a screen door? Ever hear a squirrel say UH OH!!! ? I have one runt who almost lets me hand feed him. He’s not been afraid since day one. He sits on the fence and stays for the longest amount of time. Just sitting, eating and watching the world go by…..I stand next to him, placing one nut at a time on the post so he can reach them…..Yes, I have named him…..Bucky.

Deck the Halls and keep those traditions alive!

So, here are a few thought for you when dealing with your pictures, whether Genealogy based or not.

First of all, when you take a picture, keep a log.

Picture Number 1001 is: Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth Smith at the family reunion in Barsto, Ohio, May 5, 1985.

It’s really that simple. then, go to any art supply and buy what is commonly refered to as a Photographer’s Pencil. It is an extremely soft lead pencil that allows you to write on the photo the same information that is in the photo log. That way the two documents compliment and correlate with each other.

I know, you next question is, what happens with digital photography? You number the photos in their file name and also put identifying information in the file name. joe-ruth-smith-1001.jpg. Then you record them in a database, spreadsheet or any one of a number of photography cataloging software packages.

The next issue that always comes to mind, is do I leave the picture in its original form, or do I modify it to remove scratches and other damage. Quite frankly, I do both, except in unusual cases. I never destroy an original for a modified copy, but I modify almost every picture, especially if I intend to use it in publication. Nobody wants to look at a scratched up mess of a picture nor do they want to look at something that could have been corrected with some software.

I have even gone to the extent of modifying pictures to include missing individuals. For instance, I took a picture of my mother and her brothers at a reunion many years ago. Two of the brothers did not make it to that reunion. So I created a picture with those two brothers included so that all of them could be recorded in the same photo. While it took some time and ability to achieve this, I know that it was worth it to show a complete group versus two individuals missing.

Taking pictures of cemeteries and stones also presents some challenges. Unless you are extremely careful and watch your shadows and also take the time to clear any grass or other vegetation away from the stone, you are going to end up with a picture that requires editing. Here again I like to play a bit and merge pictures of the living with their stones. Who are these names on this stone?

I use a product called Paint Shop Pro to do all my photo editing. It retails for around $100 but you can usually catch it at Best Buy on sale for around $49.95, if you watch their ads. While it does not have all the features of Photoshop, it is more than adequate for most of the things a Genealogist may want to do to a picture. take a look at my Photo Editing page on Genealogyland. Those are but a few of the pictures I have edited and fixed using the software.

I leave you with a picture of my grandfather John H. Sweitzer and his ghost of Christmas Past.

A little bit of Holiday Humor……

Here is some historical perspective and a bit of information different than the reviews you will find on most Software sites. I have dealt with many of the developers first hand over the years and know there many motivations. I have also seen many companies destroyed by tactics that reek.

First of all, I used a product called “Ancestral Quest” and I have for years. But! I do not use their latest version because it has added features I don’t want, won’t use and I have also had issues with the way the company has been handled over the years. I use their version 3.0.40 that was released in April 2002.

I did upgrade to their Version 2002 and after having issues with several of the features and a really poor response from the company, fell back to the Version 3. It does almost everything I would want it to do and what it doesn’t do, I have created Access Templates to do. I tried at one point to get those templates included in some manner in any of the major software programs for Genealogy and all of the developers blew me off cold. So I put them up for sale on my own.

Anyway, with Ancestral Quest I am able to track and print my database, print gedcoms that can be used to transfer data and print basic Books that can be customized using Microsoft Word and also converted to PDF files using a software called “PDF Creator.” Ancestral Quest in this version has an extremely simple and intuitive interface, something that has become convoluted in newer versions of the product.

Many of you are probably using or may have heard of a product called “Family Tree Maker.” This product started out as a badly done piece of software from a company called Broderbund, who’s better fame was various game software. The user interface was horrible from the beginning and hasn’t changed much over the years as they have added features. It take three to four steps to do simple tasks and the results can be far less than you hope for and wanted. Unfortunately, most of the major retailers only shelf this product because it has the backing of Ancestry, so many users become trapped in it before they learn there are other products available.

Legacy Family Tree Genealogy Software is another long survivor in the Genealogy World and has a solid core and features. For those of you who want a feature packed product that can interface with Access more easily than some of the other products, Legacy is the product you want to consider.

The last product I want to mention is called “The Master Genealogist.” I consider it to be the most complete Genealogical Software available, if you want to track hundreds of tiny details. It has scores of fields you can enter information into and by far the most complete data composite available.The ONLY reason I never used the product is that I do not computerize that much detail in my database. I found it overwhelming for how I wanted to track my data. But, for those of you who want to computerize EVERYTHING, it is the product for you.

I am sure there are other new entries into the Genealogical software market, but quite frankly many that I have seen are geared more toward multi-media than pure database manipulation. Yes, it’s wonderful to be able to produce a slideshow, but the point of the database is tracking the information.

What I will encourage and have encouraged for decades, is a break away from the GEDCOM standard that has held back Genealogy Software from the beginning. Most major software brands have added features that break from this standard, but the core data remains tied to this antiquated, outdated, data structure. I challenge any software developer to contact me so we can create a Genealogy Software Suite of products from scratch that will import user data from the other products, but also create a whole new software world for Genealogists.

I remember the thrill when I databased my first 200 people. It was a printout that stretched all the way across our 20 foot living room. I wonder how far my current 23,383 printout would stretch. Quick math tells me it would be roughly 1169 feet. Just a little less than the Empire State Building. Puts it all in perspective. How high is your research!