A familiar question, one that is usually asked when you’re in trouble. However, this time, it takes a different meaning. Seven celebrities embark on a quest to answer the question, “Who do you think you are?” in a new television series on NBC. Of course, Ancestry.com on of the largest Genealogy Websites is helping out.

The celebrities featured in the new show include:

• Sarah Jessica Parker
• Susan Sarandon
• Spike Lee
• Mathew Broderick
• Brooke Shields
• Emmitt Smith
• Lisa Kudrow

The premise for the show might appear boring if the celebs were merely sitting at a computer looking at family tree info; you’ll have to watch below to see if that’s the case:

From NBC (after the ad):

From Hulu:

The show starts Friday Evening, March 5th and continues each Friday.

Resources through Ancestry.com help make the series possible. Ancestry.com offers a Free Trial to new signups.

First, you’ll need to upload or enter some of your family history information into the Ancestry Family Tree Program (on the web). After entering or uploading information for a few relatives (you’ll need locations in what you enter), you’ll be able to see information for a relative on a map.

This is not only helpful for understanding the areas where your ancestors may have lived, but you’ll also be able to see if a certain event took place near a cemetery, school, church, etc. where you might be able to search and find new records.

To get started with your family tree: Start Your Family Tree

To get started with Ancestry’s other features: Free Trial – Ancestry.com World Deluxe Membership

Remember the wall that Sirius Black had in the Harry Potter book Order of the Phoenix?  We’re talking about something like that, just a little more compact to fit 510 names of ancestors.

I came across The FamilyRoots Circle Pedigree a while back and started filling out the chart as a personal challenge.  I have to admit that I have one quarter of the chart that I haven’t gotten to, but I’ve been able to fill out about 280 names so far.  

It’s interesting to see how far back you can trace one line while perhaps another, only a few generations back, has no records you can find.  It seems like if a bunch can be traced back nine generations, then the few that stop only 3 or 4 generation in shouldn’t be that hard to track down.

Filling out a chart like this also helps you to see the commonality of names in your family tree.  We had an exorbitant number (okay I’m exaggerating, but we do have a lot) of ancestors named Elizabeth in my family tree.  So, when our first daughter was born, what did we do?  We carried on the tradition, so that someday nine generations into the future, someone can look back and name their child Elizabeth as well (or maybe not).

The chart allows for room to put dates and locations.  If you have any Puritan roots, it’s fun to see names such as “Thankful” and “Content” in the family tree.

If you feel up to the challenge, you can purchase the FamilyRoots poster (it’s 37″ by 37″) and start filling out your family line (see http://familyrootsorganizer.com/lessons/charts.htm or http://www.123genealogy.com/shopping/product_details.php?id=3)

To get started, there are a couple places where you can find information on your family line (with any luck, one of your distant cousins, may have done a lot of the hard work for you.  Don’t you wish you were nicer to them at the family reunions?  Oh never mind).

- Great Family Tree Research Tools -

FamilySearch.org – FamilySearch.org has millions and millions and millions of names, and you can browse the names in a pedigree or “Family Tree” format.  Access to the data is free; however, you may need to start a few generations back in your search results to an ancestor that you know of that has already passed away.  I used FamilySearch to get a lot of the info I needed for my chart.  We downloaded the information in the the Personal Ancestral File program (PAF) which is made freely available as well.

Ancestry.com – Ancestry.com is another great resource.  It requires a subscription, but if you’re looking to find more than just names (such as digital copies of newspaper articles, birth certificates, war records, etc.) you’ve come to the right, and perhaps the best place.

So take the challenge, see if you can get 510 ancestors on your wall (well, at least their names).

Multiple people can add notes to a picture. For example, say you have a scanned photo of an old family photo but don’t know who’s in it. Upload your picture, and ask Grandma to identify who the people are in the picture by clicking on the people in the picture and adding a short description.

When you put your mouse cursor over the updated picture, the comments appear.

There’s not cost to uploading the pictures, and you can upload an unlimited quantity.

Vietnam Memorial Project

The site also has recently launched the Vietnam Memorial project in which visitors to the Footnote website can search for names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall and see details about the names, places and battles.

Search the wall by name, home town, enlistment type, or service branch.

Visit Footnote.com

Al Caholic, Anita Bath, Sloth Washington, Mayor Bland, and Gamble Moore are just a sampling of the names some poor folk had to endure during their lives.

From the database at Ancestry.com,
comes a book that reveals bad baby names throughout the century. The names have been taken from census and other records. Some are pretty hard to believe.

You may find some strange names in your family genealogy. If you have puritan roots you may find “Thankful” or “Content” but hopefully, you won’t find any as bad as “Doctor Love”, “Seymour Butz”, or some of the other wacky names parents have actually used.

Read the feature on the Today show or watch the Today Show video about the names/book below:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23631411

Take the book on a road trip and enjoy the fun. The book is available at Amazon.com: Bad Baby Names: The Worst True Names Parents Saddled Their Kids With, and You Can Too!

Many people have wondered where they can search the genealogy information found in the Indexing Project. As of this writing, the information can be found at the “Labs” section of FamilySearch.org.

Create an account for free to view and search the records. Among many types of records, you’ll be able to search are:

• Census Records
• Court Records
• Vital Records
• Military Records

Information has been indexed from various countries including the United States, England, Mexico, Canada, and many others. Search the indexed information or even browse the images of the original documents.

The interface is fairly intuitive and is not cluttered by too many links or instructions. The site appears to be using some sort of AJAX or AJAX-like programing which means the web page doesn’t need to be refreshed each time you click on a link or enter information. This saves a lot of time if you’re on a slower Internet connection and it makes for a better look-and-feel for the website.

This search site will probably graduation from the Labs section at some point, but it’s great to have access to the records even while the project is still in its beginnings.

Occupations such as yeoman, wright, longshoreman, cooper, whig, yatman, and more are probably going to be pretty hard to find on someone’s business card today.  However, in the past, and on ship and census records, you may come across terms like these more often.  It’s fascinating to see the definitions of the various occupations.

To help you out in finding and defining occupational terms, choose from the links below which detail many “old” occupations and their definitions (perhaps you’ll find an old term that you would like to adopt for yourself):

• http://www.familyhistory101.com/encyclopedia/job-A.html
• http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgwkidz/oldjobs.htm
• http://genealogyfix.tripod.com/jobdesc.html
• http://www.genealogy-quest.com/glossaries/occupations1.html

If you find a job title that you can’t understand in your research, you can also visit Dictionary.com to look up the definition. Another source for discovering more about a certain type of occupation is Wikipedia.

Ancestor occupations can provide tremendous insight into the life of your ancestor. A coal miner is going to have a much different life experience than an ancestor that worked in an accounting office.

Take special note if your ancestors left their country of origin to seek a new life and switched occupations.  In today’s world, people change occupations quite frequently.  A few hundred years ago, it might take several generations worth of the same occupation until a change was brought about.  Consider the hardships that an ancestor may have had in changing occupations and you’ll appreciate even more the struggles they went through to build a better life and future for their family.

A strong family will help ensure a family history worth keeping and a desire to make the most of it. There are many ways to strengthen the family and to better your family history. Spending time together and staying connected when apart are key to building a good family and memorable family history.

Spending Time Together – As simple as it sounds, spending time together with your family will help strengthen your family and your family history. One side of my family gets together for family reunions (these are big events). We enjoy the events and loads of family history info has been shared and swapped as a result. Unfortunately, on the other side of my family, it’s been decades and decades since the whole clan got together. There has been little shared in the way of family history. It’s not too late for us, but if you get started early, sharing family history will be much easier down the road, and hey, you might just have a more fulfilling family life.

Below are a few ideas of things you can do to strengthen your family ties. These are simple ideas, but the simple things are what can make the most profound difference if enacted on a regular basis:

• Eat a home-cooked meal together (with your immediate and extended family).
• Do yard work together (we have a “Help Grandpa Day” that is simply fantastic).
• Perform an act of service to the community together.
• Make a family video with pictures and music.
• Share family pictures during the holidays of what each family has done during the year (a 2-5 minute time limit isn’t a bad idea for this activity).
• Take a family vacation with the extended family.
• Visit the National Parks or State near your home.
• Turn that television off and go enjoy the out-of-doors with your family.

Staying Connected When Apart – Since we can’t always be together as families, there are many tools that we can take advantage of to stay connected with family while apart. It’s a shame not to take a part in some of these fascinating tools we have.

Email - If you don’t have or use email very much, I suggest you reconsider. Writing letters can make a big difference and are a treasure when saved, but writing emails is a great option because they are delivered much faster than conventional mail, it’s free to send, and it’s easy to store and preserve.

Many folks have an email address set up with their Internet Service Provider (the company that you use to receive the Internet). Getting your email through your Internet service provider isn’t such a great idea. I’ve had plenty of family members that keep changing their email address because they keep changing their Internet Service Provider. It’s a hassle for everyone. Try getting a free email account from Google’s Gmail. You’ll get plenty of storage space for your pictures and no advertisements will be placed in the bottom of the emails that you send to others (other free email accounts do this, but not Gmail).

Webcam - Using a webcam (camera hooked up to your computer) is a great way to stay connected with family members. If Grandma can use it, so can you. Just ask the resident “geek” in the family (just about every family has one) to help you set it up. Try using Skype for your video conferencing using your webcam. Skype is a free video conferencing software. You can also make national and international calls with Skype for well below the rates you’ll pay with your telephone company. The calls can be made from your computer’s microphone or from a special Skype phone that hooks into your computer. We had a family member do this on a trip to Asia and it worked better than calling on the regular phone!

Phone Home for Free – My favorite pick is ooma for staying connected to family by phone. With Ooma, you make a one time purchase of the Ooma Hub. You plug you Internet connection into the Hub and your phone into the Hub as well. You now have no more phone bill because your calls are routed through the Internet. That means free long distance to family members and you can still use your regular phones (no need to purchase a special phone). The person on the other end of the conversation doesn’t need to have any special adapter to receive your call.

I have an Ooma box, and I love it, love it, love it. The voice quality is great. The Ooma service will store voice mail for you, and you can even check and listen to your voice mail online after you log into the Ooma Lounge.

You can check to see if your current phone number is “portable” which means you can transfer your number completely over to Ooma from your old service provider without a break in service. If your old number can’t be ported for some reason, you can still use the land-line backup option which will retain your old number for you. You can also select the option for a brand new phone number.

Eliminate Your Monthly Phone Bill with ooma!

Whether away or at home, have fun, and stay connected. A better present-day family relationship will make for a better family history now and in the future.

We stumbled upon another great (and free) website that lets you preserve the list of books that you’ve read. The site is called Shelfari and lets you include a “bookshelf” of the literary works you’ve enjoyed reading, that you own, or that you want to read in the future and include the bookshelf right on your own website (if you so desire).

There are a variety of bookshelf styles that you can choose from. The bookshelves are interactive (meaning, visitors can scroll through the list of books you’ve placed on the shelf).

The service is free and will let you, if you choose, to connect with your friends to share info about your favorite reads.

How to use for Family History – Take advantage of the option to write a review of the books you’ve read. Wouldn’t you like to know what your ancestors thought about the material they read? You might feel lucky that you at least know what books some of your ancestors enjoyed let alone what they really thought of the books. Think of how beneficial and enlightening it would be if you had written down the thoughts and feelings of your ancestors as they read their favorite books. Those insights would be very valuable to a family history enthusiast.

Your descendants and family members will probably have an equal desire to know what you thought about the books you’ve read just as you have a desire to know what your ancestors read and thought about what they read.

So, there’s no easier place to start that with yourself. You can log on to the site for free and start to rank and write reviews for the books you’ve read. On the Shelfari site, you can easily find books you’ve read. Simple search by the title, ISBN, or author.

Share your reads by inviting family members and friends to see your book list. You have control as to the level of privacy on the site.

Get your friends, children, and grandchildren involved and linked on the site as friends. You’ll then be able to chat about shared interests in your reading and recommend your top picks to your friends.

Once your family members have created their list of books, ask them to export them (a feature included on Shelfari) so that you can store their favorite books in their family history folder you’ve created for them (if you’ve been so kind as to create a folder).

Why do this you might ask? – From personal experience I can attest that it is worth it. I’ve had many ancestors that have collected books and have written thoughts in the margins of the books. A precious treasure it is to read the same material that an ancestor had and to understand the thoughts, feelings, and insights. The only problem is that because there are so many descendants, it’s very difficult to share the books with everyone. Even distributing out one book per person doesn’t really cover it if the ancestor’s library wasn’t very large. By creating a digital bookshelf online and by writing your review (thoughts and feelings as you would in the margins of a book), you can share with all your family members the books you’ve read, how the books have affected you, and why you thought it was important.

As your posterity grows, they’ll be glad to have one more way to get to know you and your family members you helped get started keeping track of literary tastes and insights.

Go ahead, have fun and give it a try.

That’s why it might not be a bad idea to preserve the family “voice” in some way or another. Sure, now-a-days we have video that captures so much more than sound; however, most of the time, events are captured on video and not opinions, dreams, thoughts, and life lessons.

Audio recordings offer a great way for you or your family members to express themselves and to preserve that expression with tone and feeling.

Below are listed the top 5 ways to preserve sound recordings of your memories and insights or of those that you love:

1. Ancestry.com Family Tree – It almost couldn’t be easier with our top pick. You simply create a family tree on Ancestry.com using their free family tree program, click on the person in your tree for/by whom the audio recording will be made, and select “Audio.” You’ll then be prompted to create a new recording. You can choose to have the automated service call you and record your memory, or you can record straight from your own computer’s microphone. (Example picture below)

   

   You can share your recordings with other family members, or keep them private. It’s up to you, but let at least one other person have access to your recordings if you want them passed on some day.

2. To Your Computer – Many computers have either a microphone jack or a integrated microphone. Get a microphone or use the one on your computer and record your thoughts, stories, memories, etc. If you have Microsoft Windows, you can use “Sound Recorder” or even Windows Movie Maker (using the Narration option) to record your audio. The benefit of recording straight to your computer is that you can record for as long as you have hard-drive space and you can easily make a copy of your recording for family members. When you name the audio file you’ve created, include the date, your name, and the topic you discussed.
3. To a Digital Recorder - There are now many devices that will record your voice digitally. Many digital video cameras available that record to a memory card instead of a DV tape and also double as a voice recorder. You can record your stories to the device in audio format and then copy the recorded audio to your computer. Recording is a little less cumbersome since you don’t have to lug your computer around with you to get the job done, but you’ll need to know how to get the audio off the device and on to your computer.
4. Professional Studio - You could visit a professional recording studio to create your memories. Be prepared to pay a lot for the service; however, you’ll get a very high quality recording in a setting where you won’t be disturbed.  You’ll most likely be given a disc containing the audio files you’ve created.  Just make sure you go in prepared so you don’t waste time because you’ll be paying for the time you are there.
5. Non-digital Media – Recording voice to cassette tape or other form of analog recorder will still preserve audio for a while but will make extra work for someone else down the road. Media such as audio tapes will degrade over time and it will become increasingly more difficult to find devices that will play cassette tapes. Recording to tape will make it harder for someone to distribute copies of your recording to family members as making copies is a slow, manual process. Still better than nothing at all, analog recording would be our very last pick.

Tips on Recording - If you want to sound like you’re making up what you’re saying as you go when you record, that’s fine. However, you might want to consider making an outline of what you want to cover in your recording. To make things flow better, consider jotting down what you want to say so you don’t fumble with words and start the same recording over a dozen times trying to get it right.

If you’re making separate recordings of the same topic or experience, listen to your previous recording so you can pick up where you left off in terms of your tone, excitement level, and volume. It’ll make it easier for the listener who will probably listen to a good chunk of recordings in one sitting.

Purchasing a quality microphone might not be a bad idea if you’re going to record the audio to your computer. A crisp, clear recording provides a better listening experience. If you’re really serious, purchase a “pop screen” which is a little screen that is placed in between you and the microphone and prevents the “p” and “b” sounds from hitting the microphone with force making a “popping” sound.

Tips on Content - Take a moment to make a list of the various things you’d like to talk about. Try to keep each audio file you make centered around each topic. Five to ten minutes is a pretty good time frame to try to stick to for each file. Talk about things that are exciting to you so people can really come to know you better through what you’re saying.  Some ideas of what you can speak about are listed in a part article on how to write a personal history.

Pass it on - When you’re finished with your recordings, share them with others through email or by disk so that your “voice legacy” can be passed on.