RIP Rootsweb Mailing Lists

As many of my readers most likely already know, the following message was sent from Rootsweb earlier this month.

Beginning March 2nd, 2020 the Mailing Lists functionality on RootsWeb will be discontinued. Users will no longer be able to send outgoing emails or accept incoming emails.  Additionally, administration tools will no longer be available to list administrators and mailing lists will be put into an archival state.

You heard it right. All mailing lists on Rootsweb will be discontinued. It's a shame to lose all the wonderful genealogists sharing and asking questions on these lists so I've started a few replacement lists and groups.

If you are on Facebook be sure to check out the following groups and pages:

PAGES
Olive Tree Genealogy https://www.facebook.com/OliveTreeGenealogyPage/

Ancestors At Rest https://www.facebook.com/AncestorsAtRest-126984267353049/

GROUPS
New Netherland Settlers https://www.facebook.com/groups/NewNetherlandSettlers/

Van Slyke Genealogy https://www.facebook.com/groups/VanSlykeAncestors/

Van Valkenburg to Vollick https://www.facebook.com/groups/Vollick/

Vrooman Genealogy https://www.facebook.com/groups/Vrooman/

Barheit Genealogy https://www.facebook.com/groups/Barheit/

Van Alstyne Genealogy https://www.facebook.com/groups/VanAlstyneGenealogy/

Goeway Genealogy https://www.facebook.com/groups/Goeway/

Descendants of Adriaen Crijnen Post https://www.facebook.com/groups/AdriaenCrijnenPost/

Straetsman Genealogy https://www.facebook.com/groups/Straetsman/

Peer Genealogy in N. America https://www.facebook.com/groups/PeerGenealogy/

Pioneers of Arkell Wellington County https://www.facebook.com/groups/ArkellPioneers/

We Are Genealogy Bloggers https://www.facebook.com/groups/WeAreGenealogyBloggers/ 

Not on Facebook?

Not to worry I also set up some mailing lists using Google Groups.

New Netherland Settlers
This group is about the history and settlement of New Netherland (present day New York) & the early settlers. In 1624 the first colonists arrived in New Netherland to settle at Fort Orange (present day Albany) & other locations.    
 
Peer Genealogy
Following the descendants and ancestors of Jacob & Anne Peer and their 8 children from New Jersey to Ontario Canada 1797. Descendants settled in Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ontario & New York.    
   

Van Slyke Genealogy

For anyone interested in the genealogy of Cornelis Antonissen Van Slyke and his nephew Willem Pieterse Van Slyke aka Neef. Both settled in New York in the 1600s.    
    
Van Valkenburg to Vollick
This group is for descendants of Isaac Van Valkenburg aka Vollick, Loyalist who left New York for Canada during the American Revolution    

 

Ancestry.ca Subscription Giveway on Olive Tree Genealogy

Olive Tree Genealogy is excited to announce a Giveaway from Ancestry.ca!

If you live in Canada you can enter for a chance to win a free Ancestry Family History Subscription! This giveaway is only available through Olive Tree Genealogy.

What does an Ancestry Family History Subscription do?

Ancestry Family History Subscription

A subscription to Ancestry allows your friends or family members to build their family tree and, with access to billions of searchable historical records worldwide, discover the stories of their ancestors’ lives: where they lived, how and when they arrived in Canada, if they served in the military, who they loved and who they lost. Ancestry is continually adding records to the site, fueling continuous discoveries.

Contest Rules:

1. You must be a resident of Canada to enter
2. No purchase necessary.
3. Winner will be chosen at random from entries received. See details below for entry requirements
4. One winner will be chosen by a random draw on November 28, 2019.
5. Giveaway starts immediately and ends at midnight EDT on November 27, 2019
6. You are responsible for anything in regards to the legality of entering a contest in the area in which you live.
7. The winner will be notified via Facebook or Twitter and must contact me at OliveTreeGenealogy@gmail.com WITHIN 48 HOURS so I can arrange the free subscription for you

How to enter for a chance to win:

1. Share this blog post on Facebook OR Twitter. Be sure to tag Olive Tree Genealogy (see instructions for tagging below). If you don't tag me I won't know you shared the post and your name will not be entered in the giveaway.

2. If you share this blog post on both Facebook AND Twitter and tag me on both your name will be entered twice. 

How to Tag Olive Tree Genealogy: 

On Twitter, follow me at https://twitter.com/LorineMS and then tag me with @LorineMS when you share the post on your Twitter Feed

On Facebook, join my Olive Tree Genealogy page at https://www.facebook.com/OliveTreeGenealogyPage/

Share this post on your Facebook personal page and tag me with @OliveTreeGenealogy when you share the post on your personal Facebook page or in an appropriate group.

AncestryDNA Giveaway on Olive Tree Genealogy Blog!

Olive Tree Genealogy is excited to announce a Giveaway from Ancestry.ca!

If you live in Canada you can enter for a chance to win a free AncestryDNA kit! This kit giveaway is only available through Olive Tree Genealogy.

What does an AncestryDNA kit do?

AncestryDNA lets you pique family members or friend’s curiosity about their heritage and family history by taking them on a journey with AncestryDNA that can:

• Provide an ethnicity estimate from more than 500 regions around the world going back up to thousands of years;
• Reveal the migration journeys of their ancestors, showing the places and paths that are part of their family story;
• Offer the potential to connect with family members that they never knew about or lost touch with through the ‘DNA Matches’ feature;
• Help fill in gaps in their family history based on their results 

Contest Rules:

1. You must be a resident of Canada to enter
2. No purchase necessary.
3. Winner will be chosen at random from entries received. See details below for entry requirements
4. One winner will be chosen by a random draw on November 22, 2019.
5. Giveaway starts immediately and ends at midnight EDT on November 21, 2019
6. You are responsible for anything in regards to the legality of entering a contest in the area in which you live.
7. The winner will be notified via Facebook or Twitter and must contact me at OliveTreeGenealogy@gmail.com to arrange having the AncestryDNA kit sent to you.

How to enter for a chance to win:

1. Share this blog post on Facebook OR Twitter. Be sure to tag Olive Tree Genealogy (see instructions for tagging below). If you don't tag me correctly I won't know you shared the post and your name will not be entered in the giveaway.

2. If you share this blog post on both Facebook AND Twitter and tag me on both your name will be entered twice. 

How to Tag Olive Tree Genealogy: 

On Twitter, follow me at https://twitter.com/LorineMS and then tag me with @LorineMS when you share the post on your Twitter Feed

On Facebook, join my Olive Tree Genealogy page at https://www.facebook.com/OliveTreeGenealogyPage/

Share this post on your Facebook personal page and tag me with @OliveTreeGenealogy when you share the post on your personal Facebook page or in an appropriate group.

Learn How to Spot a Bot, Sockpuppet or Troll

In this day and age of the popularity and influence of Social Media, we all need to be cautious. We need learn how to spot disinformation, lies, and automatic bot tweets and comments. If we don't understand how to recognize bots, sockpuppets, and trolls, we may be guilty of sharing the lies and disinformation that these bots spread.
 
Bots

There are good bots, and bad bots. It is the bad bots we need to be aware of, recognize them, and avoid or ignore them. A bot performs an automated task without involving a human. Bad bots exist only to deceive. They exist to disrupt, to cause chaos and confusion in the population. They spread disinformation and sometimes malware as they attempt to trick readers into clicking on malicious links.

Retweet Bots are dangerous as they exist to take disinformation and normalize it. On Twitter they retweet false stories (we've all seen them!) and immerse social media users in the lie until it is believed, or at least widely shared and sent into mainstream media.

Sockpuppets

What is a sockpuppet? A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.  Sockpuppets use a phony name or identity to argue and bully while hiding and pretending to be someone else.

Trolls

What are trolls? A troll doesn't hide behind a phony identity, usually they post under their own name. They post inflammatory and offensive comments meant to entice others into responding. They exist to disrupt and create an angry hostile environment.

Why should we care about learning to recognize these malicious bots and trolls? Because they help gaslight the population. They share lies and misinformation so often that the general population starts to believe lies are truth, reality is false, and that we cannot and should not believe our own eyes and ears.

Fact-Checking

Sharing stories or articles without fact-checking is one of the worst things we can do. As genealogists we should be fact-checking every "fact" or document or story we encounter. There are sites online that will help with that task - we can consult FactCheck.org , Snopes, or PolitiFact for example.

The bottom line is that we need to not only protect ourselves from bots, we need to protect others. So please, my fellow genealogists, do your fact-checking before you share or before you respond to online trolling.

The following is the best and most comprehensive article I have read on this new, and dangerous, phenomenon.

Spot a Bot: Identifying Automation and Disinformation on Social Media

Privacy, What Privacy?

Most of you will have heard of the fuss over the information from User Profiles on Facebook being shared and then sold to Cambridge Analytica. If this is new to you, you may want to read Zuckerberg confesses ‘huge mistake’ as Cambridge toll hits 87M to come up to speed.

Basically reports emerged in March 2018 that Facebook had known since 2015 that Cambridge Analytica, which did work for Trump's 2016 campaign, obtained information on some 50 million users via an academic researcher. (this has been upgraded to 87 million users). Many Facebook users are understandably upset.

Take Responsibility for Your Privacy

My take on this is that it's time we users of internet services took responsibility for our own privacy and stopped depending on large corporations to do it for us.

Facebook Settings Options

First of all, users can control their own privacy settings on Facebook. It's easy to go in to your settings (using the gear icon) for PRIVACY and tighten them up. Stop letting others post on your timeline. Stop showing the world your friends' list. Limit who can see your posts and also who can see your past posts. There are several options available and you can restrict your account as much as you want.

Secondly, are you participating in those memes that ask you (often in a convoluted way) for personal details such as your middle name, your year of birth, your mother's maiden name. Even innocent-seeming memes such as "What is your Santa's Elf name" where you have to select your first name, the last digit (or 2 digits) of your year of birth, and so on, should be avoided!

Third, are you posting personal information? Are you linking to obituaries of a close relative such as a mother, father, or sibling? Anyone mining your page for data can now easily obtain more personal details about you!

Fourth, do you reveal your  home address? First names of your children? I could go on but I think you get the idea.

How about those fun little quizzes you like to take? The ones that say you have to allow the app to access your profile, photos, etc - hopefully you don't give that permission! Because if you do, you only have yourself to blame for giving up your privacy. 

It Isn't Just Facebook

Let's not blame Facebook for all our woes. Google "reads" your outgoing and incoming emails using bots in order to deliver relevant ads to you. You can now limit what ads you see, but it doesn't appear you can force Google to stop scanning your emails. But there's a good side to that! Scanning allows Google to stop spam quite effectively.

Anything you post on the internet is almost certainly going to be publicly available at some point to total strangers. So why are you not protecting yourself online?

Think of it this way - would you walk up to a stranger, and immediately say "Hi there. My name's Mary Smith and I have 3 children - Tommy, Bobby and Jimmy. They're 6, 4 and 2. Tommy and Bobby are in Little Angels Public School over on Wilmott Street. My mom Sally died 3 years ago, and her obituary is online. Dad's still with us and he lives in Winnertown. My husband Danny works at the Auto Shoppe in Friendlyville. I'm 49, Danny's 53"   But that is what you are doing when you join memes, take online quizzes, and don't restrict who can see your information.

Take Sensible Precautions

There's no need to be terrified. Just take sensible precautions. When you join a new group or social media site, check out their privacy and security options. Think before you post and before you fill out forms asking for personal information. 

My husband's rule of thumb is to not reveal anything online that you don't want the world to know. I'm not quite that strict but I do check my settings in all social media sites I'm on. Don't wait - check yours now and set them as most suits you.

Calling Van Valkenburg Descendants!

Official Seal of New Netherland

Are you a Van Valkenburg descendant? I am.

My 9th great-grandfather Lambert Van Valkenburg was born in the Netherlands circa 1614. With his wife Annetje Jacobs, Lambert sailed for the New World of New Netherland (present day New York state). 

From his son Jochem Lambertse Van Valkenburg, there are 10 recognized branches of the Van Valkenburg family (one for each of Jochem's children with his wife Eva Vrooman) and I descend from two - his son Isaac Jochemse (with wife Lydia Van Slyke) and Isaac's sister Jannetje Jochemse (with husband Isaac Van Alstyne)

If you too have Van Valkenburg (and variant spellings) ancestors, you might be interested in our Van Valkenburg Facebook Group 

Also take a peek at the information I researched and published online at at Lambert Van Valkenburg in The New World

I also wrote three books on the Vollick and Follick descendants of Lambert Van Valkenburg. They are: 


From Van Valkenburg to Vollick: The Loyalist Isaac Van Valkenburg aka Vollick and his Vollick & Follick Children (Volume 1) 

From Van Valkenburg to Vollick: V. 2 Cornelius Vollick and his Follick and Vollick Descendants to 3 Generations 

From Van Valkenburg to Vollick: V. 3: The Loyalist Storm Follick and his Follick and Vollick descendants in North America

Records found for Lambert indicate he was in New Amsterdam as early as Jan. 1644. Since it is unlikely the ships sailed in the winter, he was probably in New Amsterdam in the summer or fall of 1643. Existing records indicate he purchased land in July 1644. That 1644 plot of land  is now the site of the Empire State Building in New York City.

29 July 1644: Deed. Jan Jacobssen to Lambert van Valckenburgh, of house and plantation on the island of Manhattan, near Fort Amsterdam. [Register of Provincial Secretary Vol. II p. 121] [Source: Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the office of the Secretary of State, Albany NY edited by EB O'Callaghan]

16 March 1647: Patent. Lammert van Valckenborch; lot south of Fort Amsterdam, Manhattan Island. [Land Papers Vol. G.G. p. 192] [Source: Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the office of the Secretary of State, Albany NY edited by EB O'Callaghan]

Court records are a wonderful resource. Those of us with ancestors in early New Netherland are lucky for the Dutch kept meticulous records. It was a litigious time period and settlers were frequently in court suing their friends and neighbours. Lambert is found many times in the court records for New Netherland. Here is one of the more volatile examples:

Source:"Minutes of the Court of Fort Orange and Beverwyck 1657-1660", translated and edited by A.J.F. Van Laer, Vol.2, Albany, 1923. Page 9:
"Ordinary Session held in Fort Orange, January 9 Anno 1657

"President, J. La Montagne, Rutger Jacobsen, Jacob Schermerhoorn, Andries Herbertsen, Philip Pietersen

"Lambert van Valckenborch, plaintiff, against Henderick Claessen and Gerrit Willemsen, defendants.The plaintiff complains that the defendants beat him and his wife in his own house. The defendants deny it and claim that the plaintiff chased them with a naked rapier out of his house and pursued them to the center of the fort. The court orders the parties respectively to prove their assertions."

In 1659 Lambert was appointed to the Rattle Watch. The Rattle Watch was responsible for walking the streets at night, watching for crimes or fires and from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. they called out the hour every hour as well as ringing their rattles.

Source:"Minutes of the Court of Fort Orange and Beverwyck 1657-1660", translated and edited by A.J.F. Van Laer, Vol.2, Albany, 1923: Page 209-210:"Extraordinary Session held in Fort Orange, August 8 Anno 1659

"Instructions issued by the honorable commissary and magistrates of Fort Orange and the village of Beverwyck for the rattle watch, appointed at the request of the burghers to relieve them of night-watch duty; to the rattle watch of which place Lambert van Valckenborgh and Pieter Winnen were appointed the 6th of July of this year 1659, on condition that they together are to receive for the term of one year one thousand and one hundred guilders in seawan and one hundred guilders in beavers.

Read more about Lambert from the Court Records online at Lambert Van Valkenburg in The New World This was first published as "Lambert Van Valkenburg: His Life in the New World as Revealed in Court Documents and Other Primary Source Records From 1644 - 1664" by Lorine McGinnis Schulze in The National Association of the Van Valkenburg Family of America serialized beginning in the Fall of 1999

How To Prevent Your Facebook Profile from Being Spoofed

Facebook accounts get spoofed all the time. But what does this mean? Has your account been hacked? Do you need to change your password?

No you have not been hacked. You do not need to change your password, in fact, changing it does nothing to help or stop a spoofed profile.

Spoofing is when someone duplicates your Facebook profile.  It is not the same as hacking. A spoofer sets up a clone of your profile page and sends out Friend Requests to everyone on your friends list. This is not the same thing as actually having your account hacked into and your password stolen. In the case of actul hacking, yes, changing your password is a must.

** If you were spoofed, changing your password does nothing, because your password was not compromised. The spoofer does not have access to your account.**

To help prevent being spoofed, you need to make sure that your list of friends is not public. To make your friends list private make sure you are on your profile page. That is your name, not the word "Home". Click on the word "Friends"

There is a pencil icon top right. Hover your mouse over it and you will see the word "Manage". Click on this and you see "Edit Privacy" Select this and you see a popup window with choices for setting the privacy of your friends list. You can see that mine is set to "only me" That means no one, not even friends I am linked to, can see who else I have as friends.

Setting your friends list to something other than public will make your Facebook account not worth spoofing!

If you were spoofed, or if you accidentally accepted a spoofed account friend request, go to the spoofed page and report it to Facebook then unfriend them. Warn others and warn whoever was spoofed so they can take action too.

Remember to check your Privacy Settings every so often to make sure they are set as you want them to be! You probably don't want all your posts and status updates and photos being available to everyone including search engines, so be alert and be savvy about what it means to have settings as "public" vs "private"

Help Find Clarence Victor Sheppard 1929-1996 to Return Military Items to Family

Recently a request for help was posted on the Simcoe County Genealogy page on Facebook. Deborah C. posted (in part):

1972 Voters' List Orillia Ontario

"A few weeks ago, a friend of mine successfully bid on a soldier's service book and a few other items belonging to a man from Orillia. Clarence Victor SHEPPARD was born in Orillia 9 May 1929; died 17 November 1996 in the same area. He is buried at Bethel Cemetery in Kilworthy.  Clarence Sheppard enlisted in Toronto 5 June 1953; his service number was 24870. RCIC High Depot is written in his book, and POT driver mech. noted.  if anyone knows of any family members of Clarence Victor SHEPPARD, let us know so that we can contact them to see if they'd like this soldier's book etc that we found. "

If you have any information please post here as a comment or on the Facebook page or in private email to me (olivetreegenealogy@gmail.com). Let's see if we can find the family this soldier's items should go to.

Join our New Group: We Are Genealogy Bloggers

If you have a blog, or are thinking of starting a blog, We Are Genealogy Bloggers is for you. 

The focus of this new group I started recently is to share our blogging experiences, to discuss issues of importance to bloggers, and to help each other with blogging platforms such as blogger, wordpress, weebly and others.

If you earn money from your blog you can share tips for how you do it. If you want to earn money from your blog you can ask questions about how to do that. Here you will find help on how to grow your reader base.


If you want to talk about plagiarism or copyright issues, We Are Genealogy Bloggers is the place to do it, to get advice and to share our knowledge of how to educate and combat this serious issue.

The topic is BLOGGING - specifically GENEALOGY BLOGGING and all that entails. In this group you can talk about your blogs, your interests, your thoughts on genealogy, DNA, history, archaeology, etc.

Your blogs can have ads. Your blogs can sell your own product. You can share links to articles you've written that you think group members might enjoy or find useful. If a website is of value to the members, feel free to link to it whether it's a free or fee website.

Join us at We Are Genealogy Bloggers!

Do you Love or Hate the New Facebook Icons

If you're on Facebook you have no doubt heard of, or seen, the new emoticon icons that rolled out a week ago.

Now when someone you are friends with posts a status update, you can do more than LIKE, COMMENT, or SHARE. 

Hold your cursor over the LIKE icon and up pops a whole role of goodies, from LOVE, HAHA, WOW, SAD, and ANGRY.

There's been plenty of buzz about the icons. Some love them, saying that now they don't need to find the right words to express sorrow when a friend talks about a sad event for example. Others dislike them and believe the emoticons will only lead to the further degeneration of using words to express our feelings.

I don't care for them. I've used a few and found that if you use the ANGRY icon to express solidarity with someone who is complaining about something, they sometimes think you are angry with them, and not expressing support for their feelings. 

And I think it's a disrespectful cop-out to use the SAD emoticon on a status where a friend is reporting the death of a beloved family member or pet. No one knows "the right thing" to say when someone is grieving but resorting to a sad face emoticon is not the right way to show a person you care. 

What do you think of the emoticons?

Emigrant City: Help Transcribe 19th & 20th Century Documents

Just spotted this note on  The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society's Facebook post

The New York Public Library presents EMIGRANT CITY

Join us in transcribing 19th and early 20th century real estate records from the Emigrant Savings Bank. These unique documents reveal the lives and dreams of immigrants who helped create modern New York. Help unlock a vital piece of history!

Emigrant Bank was founded in 1850 by members of the Irish Emigrant society to serve the needs of the Irish immigrant community in New York.  The goal of the Emigrant City transcription initiative is to produce structured, building-level records for approximately 6,400 digitized mortgages.

We are encouraging general access to the collection by making high resolution images of these materials available via the NYPL Digital Collections website. This is not the first time the collection has garnered attention from crowdsourcing efforts. An Ancestry.com project has successfully digitized and indexed the collection's Index Book, Test Books, Deposit-Account Ledger, and Transfer, Signature, and Test Books. 

It's a cool crowdsourcing venture. You can Mark, Transcribe or Verify records so it's easy to pick a task that is of most interest to you. I'm off to verify a few! Won't you join in too?

Are You on Social Media Channels?

My Twitter Page

Are You on Social Media Channels? If not, you might want to have a peek at some. You could be quite surprised at how many genealogists can be found on various sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram,  Google+ and Periscope (and LinkedIn but it's more business oriented)

I am all of the above. They are great for making connections with other genealogists and if you are trying to generate any kind of income from your genealogy pursuits, they are a must.

My Instagram Page Today

Each Social Media channel has its own flavor and rules. Facebook for example is more casual where Twitter is a bit more formal (and you are constrained by a limit of how many characters can be each of your tweets or updates). Periscope is streaming video which you create yourself to show your followers or you are the watcher, and there are some intriguing "scopes" out there! Instagram relies on photos to capture other people's attention.

If you want to check out these Social Media Channels, here's where I can be found:

• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Olive-Tree-Genealogy/16127378259
• Twitter https://twitter.com/LorineMS
• Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/lorinems/
• Instagram https://instagram.com/olivetreegenealogy/
• Perisocope Get the app on your iPhone or iPad and look for me under Olive Tree Genealogy @LorineMS
• Google + https://plus.google.com/+LorineMcGinnisSchulze/posts
• LinkedIn https://ca.linkedin.com/in/lorineschulze 

My Facebook Page

So come on over to one of my channels (or all of them if you want!), check them out and join me. Say hello once you get there, I'd love to see you. I am most often found on Twitter and Facebook but I am on Pinterest, Instagram and Periscope daily. 

Introducing Ken McKinlay, Professional Genealogist

Ken McKinlay is an Ottawa Ontario based genealogist. Olive Tree Genealogy recently interviewed Ken so that I could introduce him to my readers. 

I've seen Ken's meticulous research on various Facebook groups and am very impressed with his research skills and citing of his sources. Read on for my questions and Ken's responses:

How and when did you become involved in the field of genealogy?

I first became involved in genealogy and family history due to my curiosity. I had always heard stories that a branch of the family was descended from Loyalists, another branch came to North America on the Mayflower, and yet another branch came to Scotland from Ireland. I wanted to find the truth behind each of these family tales. Amazingly enough those stories have all turned out to be true. I have been able to document that I am a descendant of Lt. Caleb Howe of the Queen’s Rangers (I have three or four other Loyalist lines I’m working on too), I can trace one of my lines to Elizabeth Tilley of the Mayflower (I’m also looking at a possible Brewster connection), and the McKinlay family that settled in Thornliebank, Scotland did come from Londonderry, Ireland around the late 1830s.

What is your main genealogical focus?

Over time my genealogical focus has gone from researching my own roots to doing research for clients and also helping out those that post to certain genealogy related groups on Facebook. What I enjoy most is sharing my knowledge. What I’ve found is that I enjoy teaching people how to do research, whether it be speaking at a society meeting (a little stressful for me but I do enjoy it), blogging, or telling someone where I found the information I had posted in response to their Facebook query. If I can educate someone as to how the information can be found that then means they can better learn how to do their own research.
 
What are your website(s) and blogs?

I do have a blog called Family Tree Knots found at http://familytreeknots.blogspot.ca/. There the focus is on the methodologies of genealogy research and where to find those oftentimes elusive records. When I’m dealing with my own research my blog becomes a “lessons learned” post plus a way to share the findings with family members.
 
Do you have a Social Media presence? 
I can be found on various social media sites including:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kmwebott

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kmckinlay

Google+: https://www.google.com/+KenMcKinlay
 
Do you believe a Social Media presence is important?
I find that a Social Media presence is important since it allows me to interact with a much larger audience than just that found in the Ottawa region. It may be that I have information that someone is looking for or, more often, someone else has the information I’m trying to find. A simple post or query using the applicable site can lead to the key answer or document to resolve an outstanding problem.

Are you a member of any genealogical societies or organizations?

I’m a member and director at large of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (BIFHSGO), a member of the Ottawa branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS), a member of the United Empire Loyalists’ of Canada (UELAC), and a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG).
 
What does genealogy mean to you? Why do you believe it is important?

Genealogy is not only a way of learning about where the family came from but also the impact that history and society has had on each of us. We all have heroes and villains in our tree and they make the research interesting. Yet it is the common person that has helped bring us to where we are today. Finding out the causes of why the family moved from Ireland to Scotland or from a village in Yorkshire to the industrial city of Glasgow can make the history that they teach in school much more interesting.

What do you believe is the most exciting development in genealogy today?

I think there have been two important and exciting developments in the past several years. The first is the increased amount of documents that are now available to researchers without the need to either visit an archive or library or to send away and way weeks or even months for a response. That isn’t to say that archives and libraries aren’t important. Those brick and mortar buildings are a vital component to our research. However, with more records available at relatively low costs or even free anyone can start research their family tree. The second is genetic genealogy. As an adjunct to tracing the various lines using the well-known paper records, DNA testing has helped make connections to possible distant cousins.
 
Do you have a prediction or hope for the field of genealogy in the future?

In the near future I think that with the continued digitization projects more “lost” clues on our families will be uncovered. However, I don’t think it will be a rosy future 50 to 100 years from now when it comes to future genealogists trying to figure out our lives. So much of what used to be recorded in newspapers or even in letters is now being done electronically. Yet we don’t know if that information will survive us.

Exclusive Offer on IDrive Backup for Olive Tree Genealogy Followers

Keeping your genealogy research safe and sound is important. I've been thinking a lot about how and where genealogists should be backing up their computer files and reached out to iDrive to see if they could help. I'm very pleased to say they agreed to provide an exclusive deal for followers of Olive Tree Genealogy! 

iDrive is offering my followers 1TB of automatic Online Backup Storage PLUS 1TB of Sync Space file storage, for $14.88 for the first year. This is a 75% savings off the regular price of $59.50 and saves you almost $45.00

iDrive is easy to install and easy to use. There's no learning curve and you can start protecting your years of genealogy research immediately. 

Use this link for the Olive Tree Genealogy exclusive offer Offer valid  until Feb. 14,2015 

What Does iDrive Offer?

iDrive offers more benefits and features than Dropbox, Carbonite and Backblaze. Here are just a few of the benefits of iDrive:

- backup unlimited computers and smartphones: Mac, PC, iOS & Android
- ability to set a personal encryption key which affords extra security for your data
- real time (as it happens) backup
- offers both online backup and Syncing services  
- Facebook backup 
- Instagram backup
- iDrive Express:  IDrive will ship you a hard drive of up to 3 TB. You simply backup or restore all of your data from the hard drive and return the drive to IDrive. iDrive then transfers the data to your online account. 

iDrive vs Dropbox, Carbonite & Backblaze

Compare  iDrive and Dropbox, iDrive and Carbonite and iDrive and Backblaze

Are There Any Extras?

iDrive has extras benefits available for a small fee. The one I like best is

- Hybrid local backup with iDrive WiFi. This is secure local storage for all of your important files, with speedy backups and restores

Ready to start protecting your work? Use this link for the Olive Tree Genealogy exclusive offer 

Genealogy Selfie Contest

Selfie with WW1 ancestor,
WW2 ancestor & coffin plate
2nd Great grandpa

This sounds like fun! Enter Gould Genealogy's Genealogy Selfie Contest for a chance to win a  Conversion Pack (Video Converter and PhotoMaker X4 slide/negative scanner) from Kaiser Baas.

To enter, take a selfie pic of yourself with something genealogy related. Maybe you are standing in front of a stack of microfilm or at a microfilm reader. Maybe you're in a cemetery hunting for the grave of an ancestor. Or perhaps you are surrounded by a mountain of genealogy paperwork or charts. Next time you find yourself doing something genealogy related, grab your cell phone and snap a selfie.

You must then post it on Gould Genealogy's Twitter Account, Facebook Page or Google + page.  Details are at Genealogy Selfie Contest

Lucky 13? 13 Things You Never Knew About Me

There's been a fun "meme" going on over on Facebook. You are given a number and using that number you must reveal things that others probably don't know about you.

I was given the number 13 (!!) so here are 13 things you probably never knew about me. (If you want to join in on the comment section of this post, use the number 3)

1. I learned to belly dance when I was in my 30s

2. I detest chocolate - the smell, the taste -- hate it all

3. I love Math! I could do algebraic equations for hours

4. I was once on a game show with host Alex Trebeck (before he was famous) which aired on CBC in 1969. I think I was on in 1970. I won a washer and dryer but Alex kept mispronouncing my name so I corrected him. Yes. While we were on the air....

5. I can play the French Horn

6. I sprained my wrists when I fell off the roof of our porch while handcuffed to the boy next-door. Okay okay we were playing Cops and Robbers and we climbed on the roof (we were the bad guys) and he said "Jump!" and I didn't but he did..... so down I went.

7. As a kid I was terrified of horses so when I was 13 I signed up for horse riding lessons to try to overcome my fear. It didn't work. I'm still scared of horses

8. I was so shy and introverted as a kid that I kept my hair long so it would fall over my face when I read and no one could see me

9. I am geographically & directionally challenged. I can get lost coming out of a store in the mall.

10. I won the medal for highest marks at Wilfred Laurier University when I was getting my B.A.

11. I paint and I used to sculpt. I had a few watercolours in a show several years ago.

12. I am scared of turkeys. They make creepy noises (veet, veet!) and they peck and they are very tall

13. I used to sail competitively and during one race I met Gordon Lightfoot. Well, okay truth is he yelled at me cuz he was peeved.....

Are you a Genealogist on Facebook?

The Changes Made by Facebook

If you're a genealogist and using Facebook to connect with other genealogists this might affect you. Facebook has changed everyone's default contact email to yourname@facebook.com

That means if your contact email was your personal email account, it's no longer visible on your Timeline. It's still there, but it's hidden and the visible email is your username@facebook.com

Now maybe you don't care. But if you want others to contact you at your personal email you will need to switch back to what you had. Also some tests done this morning and last night by concerned inviduals are indicating that Facebook's email system is flawed. Some messages are getting in and some are getting out but it's flaky.

My own tests this morning showed two messages I sent from two different gmail accounts did end up in my Facebook messages area and one I sent out to a gmail account arrived. That's not a very good test but I was only mildly curious as I have no intention of using Facebook's email system!
 
To change your contact email back, go to your Profile page, click ABOUT and scroll down to where you'll see your new facebook.com addy. Click EDIT then HIDE the facebook addy from Timeline, and make your old one VISIBLE on Timeline. Then SAVE your changes.

Did you know you can follow Olive Tree Genealogy and stay in the loop? Just choose from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and YouTube icons below



       

Please Don't Expect to be My Friend if You Won't Tell me Your Name!

One of my pet peeves is when someone on Facebook sends a friend request but they are using a pseudonym (usually something like "GraveSeeker" or "GenieGal" or....) and I have no idea who they are. 

They could send a personal message at the same time as the friend request, something along the lines of "Hey Lorine we met at the Genealogy Conference in Boston. I'm Janis of AncestorsRUs" or "Hi Lorine, we've never met but I'm the webmaster on AncestorsRUs website"  But they don't.

So off I go to GraveSeeker or GenieGal's Profile page, only to find that's no help either. They have no identifying information on their profile page, no indication of who they really are, what their interests are or how they know me. 

It truly puzzles me. But an interesting thing happened recently on Facebook. I got one of those anonymous friend requests. Facebook kindly informed me we had 57 mutual friends. A look showed me that they were genealogy people I know and who my anonymous requester was also friends with.

So I asked around - who is this person? And guess what - no one I asked had a clue who she/he was! It seems everyone I asked was accepting his/her friend request based on the fact that so many other friends were accepting. Now maybe someone in that friend list knows who this person really is. But why is GraveSeeker (or GenieGal or whover) making us work that hard to find out?

I dunno, maybe it's just me but I feel uneasy about letting a complete stranger who won't even use his/her real name see my personal family photos or read my status updates and have a glimpse into my life.

Sorry Ms./Mr. Anonymous but I won't be accepting that friend request.

Small World Experiment (6 Degrees of Separation)

 Yahoo  and Facebook are joining forces to test a social experiment that showed there are just six degrees of separation between most people on the planet.

The current Small World experiment -- anyone with a Facebook account can participate by going to http://smallworld.sandbox.yahoo.com -- could help determine that. The study is intended as academic social research and will be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, said Watts, a widely recognized authority on social networks.

From the Small World Experiment website:

The Small World Experiment is designed to test the hypothesis that anyone in the world can get a message to anyone else in just "six degrees of separation" by passing it from friend to friend. Sociologists have tried to prove (or disprove) this claim for decades, but it is still unresolved.

Basically you sign up as a sender. You are given a target somewhere in the world, and a message to send. Using your Facebook account you send the message to one person. That person sends it on and so it goes until it reaches the intended target. Sounds like a bit of fun and you'll be helping social research.

Jumping on the Google+ Bandwagon

Last week I finally got an invite to join Google+. Why do I say "finally"? Because invites have been few and far between, and even those who were lucky enough to receive an early invitation were often shut out. Google opted to keep the doors to Google+ shut much of the time, preferring instead to control how many new members were using the site at any one time.

If you don't know what Google+ is, it's actually called the Google+ Project. That's its official name. You can read about it at the official website. I love going there because I get a little notice saying I'm part of a small group of people who are helping to test this new offering by Google. Makes me feel important!

All levity aside, Google+ is pretty cool. It's a new social networking site and having played around in it for several days now I'm categorizing it as a combination of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Skype. A good combination. Google does it well.

CIRCLES

In Google+ you have Circles. They consist of your social network. Your Circles can hold  friends, family members, business associates, people whose comments you want to follow but you don't necessarily know. You set your own circles and then you simply click and drag to drop people into them. It's a great interface and easily managed. People can be in more than one circle and that's important if you want to filter your news stream.

For example, I have 91 people in my circles now. That's not very many but the chatter on my news stream is constant and sometimes overwhelming. So I put some of those 91 people into a second circle I called "FAVS". Now I can filter my news stream to only see posts by those people in my FAVS circle. I can still see the others by choosing any circles I want, or all my circles. So I might pull in my FAVS several times a day but only pull in all my circles once a day.

HANGOUTS

Google+ also has Hangouts. These are Video Chats where you very quickly start a Hangout by dragging and dropping a friend or an entire Circle into the Hangout with you. Bingo you are chatting. You can enable or disable your webcam if you're in your PJs and someone drags you into a Hangout. You can also mute your microphone and simply chat by text. I haven't actually been to a Hangout yet. I started one but no one was online that I was comfortable chatting with. I want to start with a good friend or family member first. 

SPARKS

In Sparks you choose an interest (I chose "genealogy") and add it to your personal Sparks. Sparks then provides you with a constant feed of news about your topic of interest. It's easy to keep up with the latest happenings and share things with other friends who have the same interests. I've got "genealogy" and "recipes" going right now but am going to play with Sparks and see what else I can get. It's kind of like a Google Alert except it's not coming into your email box.

INTEGRATION

This is what I'm loving most about Google+. When I am in my gmail account for example, I can see my Google+ notifications at a glance. I can comment on posts directly from my gmail. I can see who has added me to their circles and I can add them to mine right in my gmail account. No need to open another browser window or leave my mail program. This is a big plus in my opinion.

PROFILES

Profiles are your personal page with your information. You share what you wish to share and you have complete control over your privacy settings. One thing I suggest is that when you join Google+ take a few minutes and fill out your Profile completely, including a photo, before you start adding people to your Circles. It will make it much easier for your friends to determine if you are the right Sally Smith they want to have in their circle if they can see a photo and a little information about you!

TIPS

I've got a lot more exploring to do in Google+ and I've got a lot more to learn about how things work and how I can make it work for me. But I've learned a couple of things that might be of interest to some of my readers.

Vanity URL

Your default profile page link is long and unwieldy. But Google+ has a way for you to make it memorable. You simply add your gmail account name (mine is olivetreegenealogy) to http://profiles.google.com/  So mine becomes http://profiles.google.com/olivetreegenealogy  (Add me to your circles if you are on Google+ and want to connect)

If you don't have a gmail account you can choose any available username to tack onto the end of http://profiles.google.com/

I don't advise using a third party service such as gplus (which is not a Google service) to create a vanity URL. Why would you do that when Google+ does it for you quickly and easily?

Buzz

Many of us are genealogy bloggers and we want our blog posts or titles to go to Twitter and Facebook and now to Google+. So I hunted around and discovered that you can sync Google Buzz to your blog(s) and then enable Buzz in your Profile. That pulls your blogs in to Google+.  I'm pretty sure there will be a better way, if not at present, soon, but for now I'm using this method. I'd love to hear from anyone whose figured out another more efficient way of pulling in an RSS feed!

+1 Button

 This is similar to the Facebook "Like" button. If you read a post from someone in your circles and you think it's great, click the +1 button. That tells others reading it that you consider it interesting or thought-provoking or humorous. You can also Share it with others and pass on good posts that way.

SUMMARY

I've only been in Google+ a few days. But I like it. I like it a lot. I will at some point have to decide how I'm going to manage my social networks. Will I give up Facebook in favour of Google+? Is there room for both in my life (with some tweaking so that there is no duplication)? Is Google+ a flash in the pan?

I want to interect with  other genealogists and bloggers. I want to keep up with emerging technology, and I'm going to be choosing the platform(s) that best enable me to do those three things. Perhaps I will keep Facebook  for Family connections and Google+ for everything else? I don't know yet but I'll be considering my options carefully over the next few weeks.

I don't want more work. I don't want more reading. So my final decision will be carefully thought out with one of the main criterias being that my work load does not increase.