Use your smart phone and a blog to capture your family story!

If you've got a smart phone, use it to help you capture your family story as it unfolds. Blogger and Wordpress are free blogging sites, and both have smart phone apps that can combine text, photos, and videos on-the-spot blog to create blog posts. Blogs can have multiple contributors, so family members who live far away can tell part of the story, too. Make your blog private, if you'd like, so only those you invite can view it.

Because those blog posts are stored in the "cloud", they won't disappear if you lose your phone or accidentally delete everything when you upgrade to your next phone.

Waiting until you have "more time" to begin recording memories means that you're losing precious moments along the way! To get started, go to www.blogger.com/start or learn.wordpress.com/get-started/.

Church of Ireland - Anglican Records Project

St Luran, (Derryloran) Cookstown 

(one of the parishes currently available)

Baptism, marriage and burial registers of the Church of Ireland are being made available in digital format on the church's website. While only a handful of parishes are fully transcribed, the number is growing steadily. The records are in searchable PDF book format (not images of the actual registers), and each parish includes a table that lists churches individually, along with the years covered. 

 To see the list of parishes currently available, go to Church of Ireland - Anglican Records Project. Also check out "Genealogy" under [Pages of Interest] on the Welcome page to read Church of Ireland research policies, and to learn more about records destroyed in the 1922 fire at the Public Record Office, as well as records that might be effective replacements for burned records. 

Contact information and details about how to request information through local clergy are also provided.

West Virginia Vital Records Online

Marriage Record Search - West Virginia Division of Culture and History Website

If you have West Virginia ancestors, try searching West Virginia vital records using the West Virginia Division of Culture and History Website at http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/. Their collections are easy to search, and results are displayed in chronological order by county name, making it easy to quickly scan search results.

Index entries are linked directly to JPG images that you can view and download. Each collection (birth, marriage, and death records) has its own search page that includes a county-by-county listing of what years are included. Since there are often gaps in record coverage, this information may be particularly helpful if you do not find a record for your ancestor.

For help finding your West Virginia ancestors, stop by the Family History Center soon!

"LIfe Sketch" at FamilySearch Family Tree

There's something new in the Family Tree at FamilySearch.org. A feature announced this week is called "Life Sketch," and it's found at the top of the Person Record. It's a place for a narrative of your ancestor's life, to go along with Photos, Documents, Stories and historical records (Sources).

The photos and stories that you add to your ancestors' records at FamilySearch.org show up in Google searches now, too. When you digitize your photos and add them to the FamilySearch Family Tree, you not only protect them from being lost or destroyed, but you also make it possible for relatives you've never met to discover and treasure them, too.

For help with Photos, Stories, and the Life Sketch feature at FamilySearch.org, stop by the Family History Center!

Italian Genealogical Group's Index to NYC births, marriages and deaths - much more than Italian names!

Volunteers from the Italian Genealogical Group have indexed millions of New York City births, marriages and deaths (and they didn't limit their efforts to Italian names!). Not all records have been indexed for all years, and the project is on-going, so check back if you don't find what you're looking for.  Each record type has its own search page that explains what that particular database covers (years, boroughs, etc.).  

Italian Genealogical Group - Database Search Screen

Go to the Italian Genealogical Group website at italiangen.org, click on [+] Database Searches, then select a collection and enter basic search criteria.  If it's a unique surname, start there. If you find your ancestor listed, then request the original certificate using Family History Library microfilm or the Photoduplication Request process. Remember that many immigrant families paused briefly in New York City on their way to other parts of the United States.

To learn more about locating New York City vital records using the Italian Genealogical Group web site in combination with FamilySearch.org, stop by the Family History Center.