3 February 2012 by Libbi.

This is a press release from Fold3:

Celebrate Black History Month with Free Access to Black History Records

In 1976, President Ford designated February as Black History Month to highlight the achievements of African Americans in U.S. history. He encouraged the nation to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

In honor of Black History Month, we invite you to enjoy free* access to Fold3’s Black History Collection. This collection includes many enlightening historical records documenting African American achievements since the earliest days of our nation. Of particular interest are those from the Civil War era as we continue to observe the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

As soon as black soldiers were recruited to serve the Union in 1863, records were generated to document their service including Compiled Service Records for the U.S. Colored Troops and, ultimately, pension files. The pension file index cards, like this one for Joel Bedenbaugh, include a soldier’s rank, company, and regiment within the U.S.C. Infantry, his pension numbers, and sometimes a death date, 24 August 1913, in this case. Private Bedenbaugh’s 16-page service record also includes his enlistment record from when he joined up in Dayton, Ohio, in 1864.

Southern Claims Commission files are petitions by southerners who lost property to Union troops during the Civil War, including many blacks, like William and Louisa Ferguson. Though freeborn, Louisa was not only the wife of a slave, but also the daughter of George Washington’s carpenter, also a slave. Their claim for compensation of $150 for the loss of a horse was denied, but Louisa’s tales of Union and Confederate troops in the vicinity includes her encounters with the rebels and her service to the Union hospital nearby. A transcription of her file is here.

Explore these and thousands of other records documenting the history of African Americans in the U.S., from before the Civil War to the War in Vietnam. Join us as we recognize Black History Month and provide free* access to the Black History Collection on Fold3.

*  Free Access ends February 29, 2012 at Midnight

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30 January 2012 by Libbi.

RootsTech Conference Will Broadcast Select Sessions Free Online

SALT LAKE CITY—RootsTech, a leading family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 2-4, 2012, announced today that fourteen of its popular sessions will be broadcasted live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend worldwide a sample of this year’s conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The second-year conference has attracted over 3,000 registered attendees.

The free online sessions include the keynote speakers and a sampling of technology and family history presentations. Following are the fourteen broadcasted sessions and speakers. All times are in Mountain Standard Time (MST):

Thursday, February 2

8:30-10:00 am, Inventing the Future, as a Community (Keynote Address) by Jay L. Verkler

11:00 am-12:00 pm, Do I Trust the Cloud? by D. Joshua Taylor

1:45-2:45 pm, Effective Database Search Tactics by Kory Meyerink

3:00-4:00 pm, Twitter – It’s Not Just “What I Had for Breakfast” Anymore by Thomas MacEntee

4:15-5:15 pm, Eleven Layers of Online Searches by Barbara Renick

Friday, February 3

8:30-9:30 am, Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities (Keynote Address) by Josh Coates

9:45-10:45 am, Publish Your Genealogy Online by Laura G. Prescott

11:00 am-12:00 pm, Optimize Your Site for Search Engines by Robert Gardner

1:45-2:45 pm, Genealogists “Go Mobile” by Sandra Crowly

3:00-4:00 pm, Google’s Toolbar and Genealogy by Dave Barney

Saturday, February 4

8:30-9:30 am, Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry (Keynote Address) by Tim Sullivan and Ancestry.com Panel

9:45-10:45 am Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101 by Lisa Louise Cooke

11:00 am-12:00 pm, Future of FamilySearch Family Tree by Ron Tanner

1:45-2:45 pm, Privacy in a Collaborative Environment by Noah Tatuk

For more information:
Jim Ericson,
RootsTech Marketing,
jericson@familysearch.org,
801-592-2520
Paul Nauta,
RootsTech Media Relations,
nautapg@familysearch.org,
801-240-6498

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6 January 2012 by Libbi.

Using genealogy, history and online resources, Elizabeth Crowe will paint a lively picture of Colonel Guy Wyman, the founder of Navarre, at 5:30 p.m. January 31, 2012, at the library. It’s a story of murder, mayhem, madness and many wives. There’s never a dull moment in the story of Wyman and his family.

Libbi Crowe, a Navarre resident, is the author of Genealogy Online, now in its 9th printing. Crowe’s father really was a rocket scientist and she has been involved with computers since the early days. Her family got involved in genealogy after discovering an old Bible with family records going back to 1812.

The program is part of the free Lore, Legends and Learning series at the Library sponsored by the Friends of the Navarre Library. The program is held on the last Tuesday of each month, presenting a variety of topics to the public. Reservations are not required..

Visit our website:  http://www.friendsofnavarrelibrary.org/ for the most current information.

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3 January 2012 by Libbi.

Played this list while at a friend’s house, and she really liked the mix:

 In a way it is a soundtrack of my life from grade school to now….so if anyone writes a novel about me and wants to listen to the music of my life, this is a good start. 

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19 December 2011 by Libbi.

Crowe Family Christmas Card

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! I have decided to do only email newsletters/holiday cards this year. Less waste of gasoline and paper!

2011 brought some pretty wonderful things. Marianne and Ryan were married in Key West in February, my brother Bill and his wife Kathie (and Springer Ria!) came to see us in June and Matthew passed his prelims for his Ph. D. in September. We went boating a lot and camped out on the lovely coastline where we live. From Destin to Pirate’s Cove in Baldwin County, we had a blast on Crowe’s Nest this year.

We hope all of you are well and happy, and will come to see us in the new year!

Below: Matthew, Libbi, Mark, Marianne in Key West!

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6 December 2011 by Libbi.

The West Florida Genealogical Society was kind enough to ask me to speak last Saturday at their regular December meeting. I had a blast!My topic was What’s New in Online Genealogy.  I talked about blogs, and Twitter and social networks like Google+ and more!
For example, I pointed out that   Twitter is where you will find people discussing news and techniques about genealogy. Several sites such as Ancestry.com have regular Twitter sessions where you can pepper professional genealogists with questions using the @ and handle, and receive directed replies.

Another topic was social networking.  Google+ has less traffic and less garbage about Fill-In-The-Blank Awareness and Appreciate Your Dog Week than Facebook. Although Google+ works much like Facebook, the way you sort the postings is called “circles” and works much better at filtering the stream of the social network. So I advised one questioner to try that, as he had found Facebook left him cold.

Another questioner asked me about finding African American genealogy in one little town in Louisiana. I showed her quickly how to search Google in my iPhone and there it was, a site about the history of the place where her grandparents had lived!
I also found some folks that had Kentucky genealogy, and had a good time swapping facts with them.

During my talk, promised the group that I would get back to blogging myself. 2011 has been such a busy year, that I have not posted much. My new year’s resolution is to fix that. So this is an early attempt to keep that promise!

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17 September 2011 by Libbi.

I’ve been invited to speak on genealogy by the Friends of the Navarre Library on the 21st. My friends on the friends’ board suggested some local genealogy and history as the topic. So  I chose the “founder” of Navarre, Guy H. Wyman. It’s been a fascinating two weeks of research!

I’ve found locally written and published books, talked to people who have lived here ‘forever’ and searched everything from the BLM GLO to FamilySearch and NPL’s online genealogy resources.

Just a few interesting tidbits:

• Wyman married first a woman from France, and second a woman from Pensacola, whose family originated in Italy.
• His father bought land from Robert Oglesby, who got the original land patent.
• His parents were murdered while Col. Wyman was serving in the Phillippines.

It’s going to be a fun talk!

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15 July 2011 by Libbi.

When we were in Kentucky for my husband’s grandmother’s 100th Birthday, my mother-in-law gave me her scroll of genealogy.

This is a six foot long handwritten document with  the names, dates and some of the places of the living family members and ancestors she knew about in 1973. She asked me to get it reproduced, but I have yet to find a place that can scan this 2 foot by 6 foot scroll on a flat surface, and it is too delicate to feed through a sheet feeder.

It should be noted that she does not have the documentation to go with it. It comes from some interviews with people living at the time, some information from printed genealogies, some personal knowledge (e. g. she was at some of the funerals, so she remembers those dates), and a little bit of hands-on, 1970’s style research in libraries and courthouses. I don’t know how much of this data is provable, in other words.  Maybe all, maybe some, maybe just from the people she and I know or knew personally.  It’s all right with me if she doesn’t need any more evidence, but I’d like to find some just for myself.

The solution I have come up with is to try to type all this data into Ancestry.com, and then find a way to output it. As I type, I am looking for the little leaf hint that says some form of documentation may exist  for that person, hoping to fill in the gaps with census records and so on. I am also searching the Web for the names of the 19th, 18th and 17th century people on the scroll. I hope to come up with something!

Then, Russ Worthington suggested for output I try GenealogyPrinters.co.uk . They offer a variety of styles and as much or as little details as you like, from about $50US and up. He has had one project completed by this company and was very pleased with it.

So that’s what I’m doing this summer!

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13 July 2011 by Libbi.

So I’ve been trying Google+ ever since my son Matthew sent me the invitation July 8 and I’m ready to give a few thoughts about it on my blog.

1. The “circles” feature is much like “groups” in Facebook, but easier to use. The list of your circles (e. g. Family, Friends, Acquaintances, etc.) is always on the left, so filtering the “stream” is much easier. Creating circles is also much, much easier than creating groups in Facebook. Instead of pawing through each and every friend, you just drag and drop, or when someone adds you, you can put them in a circle with one click.

2. With the installation of StartGoogle+, a Google Chrome browser plug in specifically designed to help make the process of transitioning from Facebook to Google+ as smooth as possible, the new social network is is easy to use. You can also track Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ all at once with this plug in. The StartGoogle+ instructions also say that if you use it to log into Twitter and Facebook using the plugin,  your Google+ posts will appear on the two others.  I have not yet gotten that feature to work, but I’m sure that is operator error.

3. It can be useful for genealogy if you create a circle just for your genealogy buds, and post your genealogy  queries to that circle only.

4. I am in love with the “Hangout” feature. I just had a really fun hangout with +Russ Worthington about Google+, the video features, EfM, printing genealogies, and more! I want to use that with my kids, siblings, cousins, etc!

5. Posting your pictures, especially your profile pictures, from Picasa on your desktop to Google+ is not as easy and intuitive as it should be. I expect they will tweak that in future.

6. Like Twitter, someone can follow you but you don’t have to follow them (see their posts) back. In Facebook, it must be mutual.

7.  With all of that said, Google+ still does not feel quite so friendly as Facebook. The interface is clean and open, but not “cozy.”  Once I get more used to it, perhaps that will change.

I shall keep experimenting with this new tool and put some observations on a later blog.

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11 July 2011 by Libbi.

On my way to volunteer at the Panhandle Butterfly House this morning, I stopped for coffee at a little cafe that I have been meaning to try out for some time, Higher Ground Coffee and Tea Co.  It’s on US 98, on the north side just before the exit to SR 87.  As I walked in I saw on the white board menu for breakfast and lunch: HOT BROWN Sandwiches! Hot Browns! In Florida!!

Of course I had to ask how they knew about Hot Browns…and it turns out that though they grew up in Fort Walton and Navarre, the owner and his wife both have family in Kentucky & both went to Berea College! And the wife’s brother, who also works in the cafe, is a newly minted and highly enthusiastic genealogist!! We spent the next 30 minutes happily discussing genealogy, my book, Genealogy Online 9/E, Ancestry.com, military records, and on and on and on. Oh, and the University of Kentucky!

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