Where Did They Go?

PA Birth & Death Vital Records

myparoots — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:34:52 +0000

In case you didn’t know, SB 361 recently released birth and death records to the public. Death records 50 years and older or births 105 years or older are now available to the public. You can search for the record number at the state archives website and with that in hand, either request a photo copy or go look it up yourself. Visit the link above to see the requirements, fees, and limitations. Happy hunting!

Odd Fellow Orphanage, Sunbury, PA

myparoots — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:24:00 +0000

The I.O.O.F orphanage was outside Sunbury, Pennsylvania. It operated for many years, providing homes for needy children. Some where along my travels, I collected three different “newspapers” from the orphanage. They are from June 1940, November 1940 and March 1941. The paper was called Bugle Notes. I scanned the papers, OCR recognizable and offer them to anyone that would like to download them. The originals I am donating to the Northumberland County Historical Society.

Abstracts from the Sunbury American newspaper

myparoots — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:35:39 +0000

When my mom was still living, we would spend Tuesdays at the State Library of Pennsylvania looking at old newspapers on Microfilm. We picked Tuesdays because the library was open until 8 pm then. I decided to write down any births, marriages and deaths on these visits and put them in a searchable file.

So I am pleased to offer you some deaths and marriages (they didn’t seem to have births in the paper) for the years 1876 – 1877 in and around Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. These were all taken from the Sunbury American. There are many surnames, so have a look – you might find one of your relatives. You can download the PDF file here.

Closson Press – Welcome

myparoots — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:48:33 +0000

Closson Press – Welcome.

If you are a Pennsylvania researcher, you need to head over to Closson Press and check out their wide selection of books for the genealogist, all very reasonably priced. I’ve ordered a few and have found valuable information on my relatives I would not have otherwise known. It helps that the people at Closson are helpful and friendly. I give them two thumbs up!

Our Pennsylvania Families

myparoots — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:20:22 +0000

I’ve been working fairly steadily on the family site and nearly all the information I’ve collected so far is viewable. I’m filling in gaps and holes and clearing up wrongly linked photos/families, etc.

I hope you all get over there and have a look around. Maybe you will find some bit of information you’ve been searching for.

I am also going to put up a listing of old newspaper marriages and deaths that I collected from the Sunbury American from 1875-1880 or so. My mom and I spent many hours in the state library reading those old newspaper microfilms. We were searching for the still elusive Maggie E. Gibbs, but I thought I’d write down any marriage or death in the hopes it would assist someone someday. I’ll keep you posted on that progress and it will be available on my website.

Deciphering Handwriting

myparoots — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:50:42 +0000

Sometimes I have difficulty deciphering handwriting, in particular, signatures. I recently found an article that gave a great tip for helping to read those scrawls. Using a clipping program (Windows 7 has a snipping tool built-in), capture the signature and save the image. Now, using an image editing program (I use PSP X4) with your image open, select Effects, Geometric Effects, Skew. The skew direction will be based on the slant of the signature and by adjusting the skew angle, you can rotate the signature to make it easier to read.

My PA Roots is ready

myparoots — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:24:32 +0000

I decided to maintain my family history on my own site, using the most awesome genealogy site creation program, called The Next Generation of Genealogy Site Building or TNG. I used Simply Hosting to host my site and those fine folks set up the TNG files for me.

Within an hour of making my TNG purchase (only $30) and arranging my hosting, I was clicking merrily away with my mouse, designing my site like I was a pro at the workings of strange acronyms like CSS and HTML. I was feeling like a character in a Sophie Kinsella book – no skills but applied for the job anyhow, after all, how hard could it be? Unlike Sophie’s character’s though, I didn’t hit any snags that would leave me with egg on my face.

I have some tweaking to do,people to fix up, additional photos to add, but for the most part, I’m ready for customers!

Take a moment and have a peek at what I’ve done. As always, if you have information to share, I’m all ears.

PA Death & Birth records to be available February 2012

myparoots — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:23:18 +0000

Vital Records Law Senate Bill 361 was signed into law on December 15, 2011 and will take effect on February 13, 2012. This means that Pennsylvania death certificates over 50 years old and birth certificates over 105 years old will become open records, and will then be transferred to the holdings of the Pennsylvania Archives.

How the State Archives will handle these records in terms of any online access, remains to be seen. Regardless this is a huge victory for those who have been pushing for this access. I will post more on the availability of records here, so stay tuned!

Watermark for my future image uploads

myparoots — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:12:20 +0000

I applaud all who make their family trees on Ancestry public (boo to Ancestry for making people join to view those “public trees.”). Many people, myself included, spend a great deal of time and money obtaining the information we place on Ancestry for other genealogists to use and to make their searches easier.

When you find a matching relative in another users tree, Ancestry allows you to merge that information with your own. When you use the copy to my tree feature, a credit to the original up-loader is attached to that image/document in your tree and rightfully so. Giving a small bit of credit is the least we can do for the original submitter.

However, some less than scrupulous individuals have circumvented this credit by saving those images to their computers and then turning right around and uploading them as their own work. This steals the credit, not to mention the documents and photos from the person that is the rightful uploader.

The only way to protect your photos and documents is to embed some sort of watermark in them prior to uploading. I have created the watermark below to place in my documents and will use a simple embossed text watermark for photos.

Watermark

If you upload documents and photos to Ancestry, you may want to design something to protect your investment.

That said, there have been times I have downloaded photos from another user and then uploaded them to my tree. I do this because the photo may be faded, discolored or damaged in another way and I repair it. Even so, I always make a comment on the photo, originally submitted by_____.

Help for the 1940 Census

myparoots — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:33:24 +0000

As many of you know, the 1940 Census will be released on April 2. Genealogists all over the US are drooling with breathless anticipation – one more brick in many proverbial walls will come down.

Keep in mind that names will not be indexed on release day, so you will need to search for your relatives by enumeration district, or ED (no, not that ED!). Thanks to Steve Morse, narrowing down your relatives ED will be easier with his Unified 1940 Census ED Finder.

Happy Hunting.