Well That's Weird

I love it when I come across something unusual or strange while doing my family history work. A week or so ago, I had just that experience.

While researching my ancestors Samuel West and Mary Ann Prugh of Madison County, Ohio, I found I needed a source for their marriage date.

Fortunately, FamilySearch has Ohio County Marriages online, indexed, and digital images attached. I quickly found them. Here is a screenshot of that marriage record.

Notice anything weird about that date? It is 29 Feb 1839. Twenty-nine February? That meant they were married on a leap year...how cool! That is when I realized the problem. The year 1839 wasn't a leap year!

I wonder if they were actually married on the 28th? Or maybe it was March 1st?

Here's my theory. I noticed that the rest of the marriage book is not exactly in chronological order. It is close, but there are a few marriages recorded out of sequence. Next, I see that this marriage was not recorded until April, so several weeks had passed. Perhaps the justice of peace had just written down the 29th of February by mistake in his notes or he was trying to recall the date from memory. After all, I am always getting the dates wrong when writing a check! (As a genealogist, I probably shouldn't admit to always getting dates wrong...but you know what I mean!)

Another possible theory is the clerk that was recording the marriages transcribed the date wrong when writing it into this marriage book.

Whatever the reason for the inaccurate date, I think it is fair to say they were likely married in February and it couldn't have been on the 29th.

Several months ago, while working on Ancestry, I had another weird experience while looking at a census. I couldn't quite make out the name, so I had to zoom in on the image. When I did, the strangest thing happened! A picture of an old man with a little girl sitting on his lap just popped up right there on the page. I shrunk the image down and poof, they disappeared. I again zoomed in and there the picture was again. I knew no one would ever believe me, so I took a screenshot of the image.

See! I told you! Isn't that the strangest thing!?

Like I said, I just love running across these weird little things. Have you found an unusual or strange record lately or in the past? What has been your craziest find?

Want to read other spooky and strange genealogy readings? Try this!
Haunting Illnesses of the Past

My First Blog Book Has Arrived!

My very first blog book has arrived and I am thrilled! There are a few things about printing the blog book that I wish I'd known sooner.

In my last post, I wrote about creating my first blog book. (You can read that here.) I used a blog-to-print, online service called blog2print. For about $17.00, blog2print "slurped" my blog posts and formatted them into book form.

The bottom line? I was very happy with the results, but I will do some things differently next time.

What I Did and What I'd Do Different

I ordered a soft cover book with a total number of 24 pages. I felt a soft cover book fit the number of pages better than a hard cover book. I was happy with this choice. I would likely choose to do a soft cover book for anything under 50 pages.

I set my book to "compact" for the page layout, but should have chosen "snapshot." By choosing "compact," I allowed the system to move my photos around to make the best use of space. Unfortunately, many of my captions were printed in unusual places and even on different pages altogether. Next time, I will choose the "snapshot" layout.

I did NOT add a page break in between posts. I did this to save space and unneeded pages. This was a good choice and I was happy with the look. I will definitely do that again.

I chose to print in color. The majority of my photos were color to begin with. For this reason, I had my book printed in color. The additional cost was very minimal and I am happy with the choice. I would base this decision on whether the majority of the images you are printing are color or black and white.

I added my name as author. At the last minute, a fellow blogger mentioned they had forgotten to add their name as author of their book. I wanted to make sure my name appeared on the front cover. There was no field on the set-up page to add an author's name. Instead, I used the "side text" on the front cover to add "By Amie Bowser Tennant."

The Results

The cover was perfect! The image looked great and my name appeared on the side as author.

All the images were clear and just what I had hoped.

My first page looked like this:

Notice, the posts were formatted to come one after the other; I like that. However, by choosing the "compact" page format, the captions of my photos were added to the text in some unexpected places, as I mentioned before.

If you notice in the image above, the screenshot of a FamilySearch page has the caption a paragraph away. Now look at the bottom image. I had created a caption prior to uploading the image to my blog post. In that way, the caption is "stuck" to the image and you avoid this problem of captions not being with their appropriate images.

Was that a bit confusing? Don't worry, there is an easier way. If I had chosen the "snapshot" page layout, then the page would be formatted with my captions closer to the actual image. See image below as an example.

The BEST thing to do when using blog2print service is to add your captions to your photos before adding them to the post. The next best thing would be to choose the "snapshot" page layout option. If you are not pleased with either of these options, I would suggest using another service all together.

Blurb.com allows you to edit each page and by so doing, you will not have the caption-picture problem. It is more editing work on your part, but you may be happier with the results.

Conclusion

Before you place your order, ask relatives if they would like a copy! Whoops, I didn't do that. I was so excited to make my first book that I didn't even think about offering the option to the family. Several family members are now interested in purchasing a copy as well. It is not difficult to order more, but some forward thinking would have avoided having to order again.

Overall, this was a wonderful, easy, and pretty successful venture. I am anxious to continue printing my blogs into book format in the future. Maybe you should try it too!

If you enjoyed this article about blog books, read my earlier post:
"Creating Your First Blog Book: Here's How"

My First Blog Book...Coming Soon

As my readers know, last February I participated in the Family History Writing Challenge hosted by The Armchair Genealogist. I reflect on that month with fondness. I have also decided to blog my family history stories during the challenge for 2016.

Blogging was the perfect way to share the stories I had collected of my ancestors. The cousins loved it and stories initiated several fun cousin "talks."

This past week, I decided to try out blog2print, an online service that will print your blog posts into book form. I loved how easy it was!

After adding a title and my name as author (thanks to a fellow blogger that reminded me to add my own name!), I just fixed the little calendar to slurp up blog posts only written in February 2015. In this way, I was able to only print the blog posts that had to do with the family's history and not the "how to genealogy" posts I had written.

It was just luck that all the posts I wanted printed were in order chronologically. If I had thrown in a how-to blog within that month, I don't think blog2print would have allowed me to edit it out.

In this way, blog2print is super easy for the beginner and requires no editing. However, if you would like or need to edit, this is likely not the service for you.

Because I have added several pictures to my blog posts, I wanted the full color interior pages. You can request black and white only which is a bit cheaper. The pictures are placed on the page for you, but I felt the site did a great job in placement.

You can also write a dedication page for the front of your book. My favorite item was the Table of Contents. It made the book seem more "professional."

I ordered a soft cover book with 24 pages for about $17.00. I could have ordered a hard cover for $23.00.

Customers can order as many copies as they wish for the same amount, but it seems you need to order them all at once. I had not mentioned anything to my family members about publishing, so if they want a copy in the future I will have to upload to the site again. Some forward thinking would have allowed me to contact relatives that might have wanted to place an order before I hit "create my book."

Though I have yet to try Blurb.com, I have heard great things about their service too. Blurb allows editing options that blog2print does not. I believe their prices are a bit lower as well. I will likely choose Blurb to print my next book, just to see the difference in print quality.

Screenshot of a page created by blog2print

My book should arrive sometime around the 17th of September and I am super excited to see it! In the meantime, I have taken a screenshot of one of the pages. I will also be writing more on how to use this service and other blog to book services in an upcoming article for the RootsBid blog, so stay tuned!

Attention Genealogists: You Might be Missing Out

Image from FreeImages.com; Photo by Emin Ozkan

If you haven't heard of genealogy webinars, you are missing out! Getting to go to genealogy workshops, conferences, and lectures are fun and certainly educational, but they can also be expensive and require you to travel long distances. However, online webinars are the next best thing and many are free.

What is a webinar, you ask? It is an online meeting. Imagine listening to a live genealogy lecture without ever having to leave the house. Participants can view PowerPoint slides, download handouts, and even ask questions. A typical webinar lasts about 45 minutes to an hour with some time left over for questions. With a variety of topics, you will soon turn into a webinar junkie.

You don't need special computer software to participate. Webinars are browser based. All you need is a good internet connection and an internet browser such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Google Chrome.

Most webinars require pre-registration. You will register using your email address. Then, you will receive an email with instructions for logging into the webinar on the day of the event. It is really easy and the instructions are clear and straight forward.

When participating in a webinar, it's a good idea to log on early as some of the webinars are first come, first serve. If you log in late, you may not be able to "attend." However, if you do miss the webinar, many societies offer a recorded version to their members. If you are not a member of their society, you will sometimes pay a small fee to download the past webinar or have limited access.

I started attending webinars regularly over the past year. I love the freedom of going to genealogy lectures without having to actually "go" anywhere!

Some of my favorite places to go for webinars are:

• New England Historic Genealogical Society
• Legacy Family Tree Webinars
• Georgia Genealogical Society
• Board for Certification of Genealogists
• Wisconsin Genealogical Society
• Illinois Genealogical Society
• FamilySearch

This is just a small list of what's available. Genealogy webinars are becoming more and more popular, so don't miss out! Check your local state genealogical society for webinar opportunities and take advantage of this new tool for your genealogy and family history education.

If you have some go-to webinar sites for genealogy that you enjoy, I would love to hear about them!

Find out if you have these top three genealogy books in your library. Click here.

Multiple Family Trees Online...It's a GOOD THING!

A few weeks ago in a Facebook group I follow, a very upset woman shared her feelings about having lost access to her online family tree. Even though she had taken some small precautions to protect her data, it got me thinking.

I have a family tree on no less than five websites: FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and Findmypast. This does not include the family tree I keep on my personal computer using genealogy software. I feel like my family tree has turned into an orchard of trees! How on earth do I keep them all maintained? Read the rest of this article at RootsBid.com here.

DNA May Have Revealed the Family Secret

I was born and raised a blonde, blue-eyed, "White" child. I look like my  mother, also blonde and blue eyed. So you can imagine the surprise while researching her family, I found that her great grandfather, his siblings, and parents were recorded as "Black" in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census. Surely, there was some mistake. Wasn't there?

Read the full article here at RootsBid.com/blog and learn how DNA may have finally revealed the family secret.

SeekingMichigan.org Leads the Way in Michigan Records

Can you imagine how exciting it must have been to your ancestors to first hear about Henry Ford's "Tin Lizzy?" If your genealogy research is in the state of Michigan, you might feel as excited as they did that day. I just found a website full of genealogical records for the state of Michigan and it's free!

SeekingMichigan.org is a website dedicated to helping you with your Michigan family history. You will be amazed at the digital images of records they have there. Learn more about SeekingMichgian in the article at the RootsBid.com blog here.