Online Research

Veterans Burial Registrations Provide Service Info

Today I received an email from Ancestry.com suggesting that I had a photo hint for Matthias Flaugh Jr. It was for a Veterans’ Grave Registration Card for the guy who was my 3X great grandfather. When I went to his profile in in my main Ancestry.com family tree, I found that I already had added this

Read on »

Why We Need to Include a Country Name with Genealogical Locations

One of the effects of using online genealogical databases in our research is that we need to enter a country name to completely identify each family history location. Back in the day before online databases, American researchers just assumed that readers of their research reports about American ancestors would know that a location reference was

Read on »

Hooray! Ancestry.com Adds New York Death Records

If you have ever tried to research death records in New York State, you know it was a big pain. The state death index existed only on microfilm and was accessible only in a half dozen libraries across the state. You had to know the year of death to be able to browse these records

Read on »

Some Links to Read about President Niinistö of Finland

As a followup to my attendance at FinnFest 2017 in Minneapolis last week (Sep 21 – 24), I have done some Google research to find links to news coverage of President Niinistö’s visit. Here is a brief selection: Dropping the Puck at NHL hockey pre-season game https://www.nhl.com/wild/news/finland-president-visits-092117/c-291247206 The President’s Personal Webpage: http://www.tpk.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=365353&culture=en-US’ U of M

Read on »

A Blast from the Past: FinnFest 2007 Program Notes

I can hardly believe that it was 10 years ago that FinnFest was in Ashtabula. Having just returned from Minneapolis and FinnFest 2017, I was curious about what publicity for that earlier event might still be available. So I went online and checked the website for the Star Beacon, the daily newspaper published in Ashtabula.

Read on »

One Hundred Years of Finland’s Independence

Dec 6, 2017, is the day Finland will officially celebrate its centennial as an independent country. In the lead-up to that momentous day, it is appropriate that Finland has a website with information about the centennial: Suomi Finland 100. The page on that website that is very interesting to me is “One hundred years of

Read on »

Uncle Walter’s Marriage Found Online

Today, I opened one of the hints on Ancestry.com and it led me to the marriage record of my great uncle Walter Chase Dingman. I had visited the Archives for Trumbull County, Ohio, in Warren, more than 15 years ago to obtain a paper copy of this marriage record. Now it is available online. If

Read on »

Avoiding Danger when Checking Missed Calls on My iPhone

I have been getting a lot of incoming calls from unknown telephone numbers recently on my iPhone. Here is a recent example: 763-275-1399. I didn’t recognize the area code. Later, in my missed call log, the iPhone indicated that the call was from Becker, MN. I don’t know anybody in this little town (pop. 4,500 according to

Read on »

Baked Beans–And a Trip Down Memory Lane

In today’s issue of The Plain Dealer, the local paper (that I have to read online on Tuesdays because it only prints papers on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday), there was an article about a Food and Drug Administration recall of Bush’s Country Style Baked Beans. As it turned out, I had a can of this

Read on »

FamilySearch Will Discontinue Microfilm Distribution

The following announcement was made by FamilySearch.org on 26 Jun 2017: On September 1, 2017, FamilySearch will discontinue its microfilm distribution services. (The last day to order microfilm will be on August 31, 2017.) The change is the result of significant progress made in FamilySearch’s microfilm digitization efforts and the obsolescence of microfilm technology. •

Read on »