April 13th Research Group Review

The April 13th meeting of the CVGS Research Group had 15 attendees.  In the first hour, Randy discussed:

*  MyHeritage book matching technology is now available for researchers with a family tree on MyHeritage.  The technology searches over 450,000 published books and periodicals for a user's tree persons.  The matches are in the "Compilation of Published Sources" collection in Discoveries > Record Matches.
*  The New England Historic Genealogical Society website, www.AmericanAncestors.org, is free to search all databases through 20 April 2016.
*  CVGS J. Paul Hawthorne created a Facebook firestorm by creating a 5-generation pedigree spreadsheet showing birthplaces rather than names, and coloring the backgrounds for specific states or countries.  Members who want to do this can contact Randy at rjseaver@cox.net.
*  Ancestry.com has a Homestead Records database for six states now.  Randy showed the documents for one of his relatives.
*   Ancestry indexing of probate record databases is incomplete - users should also browse the records even if a search provides a result.
*  Randy received 28 document images of Bristol County, Mass. probate records for his Kirby ancestors from a distant cousin, whose family had kept them for over 200 years.

In the second hour, the attendees discussed:

*  Mary found her 3rd great-grandfather, Edwin Miller Schaeffer (1819-1889), in a Lancaster (PA) Historical Society document and in the Lancaster cemetery.  She wants to find more information about him and the family in order to prove relationships.  The group suggested probate and land records, and perhaps military pension records.
*  Virginia obtained an "Old World Wisconsin" book at a local book sale.
*  Gary's step-father died at age 95.  He was Gary's hero.  The family has an album with 95 photos of his step-father's World War II service flying B17s and other aircraft.  
*  Joanna is not satisfied with the 23andMe presentation of genetic results, or the health questions.
*  Susi posted a family register document to her blog, and wanted to know how she should transcribe it.  The group suggested a four-column word processing table.
*  Shirley noted that her FamilyTreeDNA matches are difficult to contact and few respond.
*  Carole wants to download a GEDCOM file from her Ancestry Member Tree, and send it to a cousin, but without living persons.  The group suggested using the free RootsMagic program to exclude living persons while creating another GEDCOM file to send to the cousin.
*  Esther family was from Spain and Mexico, but some brothers were born in the 1930s and worked on the railroads, and then went to Mexico.  She is looking for more records for all of the family members.
*  Diane found a birth record for her husband's ancestor, Juan Bautista Godinez, in the Mexico civil Registration records on Ancestry.com, after 40 years of searching.
*  Karen S. called the Amite County, MS county clerk to obtain records for an ancestor, had a fantastic response, and received many copied papers.
*  Karen Y. learned to write her name in Viking runes on the PBS Nova website (see  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/write-your-name-in-runes.html).

The next CVGS Research Group meeting will be Wednesday, 11 May 2016, in the Conference Room at the Chula Vista Civic Center Branch Library (365 F Street, Chula Vista, CA).  This is a free meeting open to any person.  Please register at the CVGS webiste (www.cvgenealogy.org) on the Events tab so we can plan for the attendance.