I love listening to Julie Andrews sing about her favorite things – and the Sound of Music is one of my favorite movies that I’ll always watch when I come across it showing on TV. (along with the reboot of StarTrek with Chris Pine as Capt. Kirk!).
Genealogy is definitely a favorite hobby, and since it’s gift giving time, I thought I’d gift you with a few of my favorite genealogy items.
My first is FREE EDUCATION! Legacy Family Tree Webinars has over 300 free webinars to help one learn more about genealogy. Their webinars cover methodology, skills, technology, place/ethnicity research, DNA, photo restoration, and way more than what I could list here. My favorite category of these webinars are the one tagged as BCG. BCG stands for Board Certified Genealogist, and is the gold standard to which professional genealogists hold themselves.
My second is FREE BOOKS! If you have an Amazon Kindle, you really should sign up for a Kindle Unlimited membership. The genealogy book selection has everything from how-to books, such as “The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy: Trace Your Roots, Share Your History, and Create Your Family Tree”, reference books like “Practical Genealogy: 50 Simple Steps to Research Your Diverse Family History” and genealogy based fiction like “The Forensic Genealogist” series written by my favorite genealogy author Nathan Dylan Goodwin. The main character in his books ‘needs’ to eat chocolate when researching, a trait close to my heart *smile*. While the kindle unlimited membership is not free, there are over 1,000 books you can access for free.
[My unlimited membership is $9.99/month, and given how many books I read in a month this is absolutely worth it. Others with ADHD will understand the struggle of trying, over and over, to use the library for free and remembering to return books, then ending up paying fines and fees for lost books. God did not design my brain and libraries to work well together and I end up paying WAY more in fines and fees for overdue or lost books than the kindle membership costs. ]
The third I wanted to highlight is FREE WEBSITES! If you haven’t yet checked out a site called Cyndi’s List, boy are you missing out! [I have yet to check out every one of the links on this site, but all the ones I have used have been free resources.] Cyndi’s list is a categorized & cross-referenced index to genealogical resources on the Internet, with a list of links that point you to genealogical research sites online. Its a great jumping-off point for you to use in your online research, and a lot like a “card catalog” to the genealogical collection in the immense library that is the Internet. My suggestion is to start at the Categories page, and review the links in the category that pertains to your research.
A few final tips, 1) check out the National Genealogical Society’s list of free resources, and 2) while you’re with family and friends this holiday season – make sure to collect their stories. So many times as I gather with my current family, there are questions that arise and no one knows the answers; answers my grandmothers both would have been able to tell us. Don’t loose those stories.
If you need a starting point, I’ve created a free downloadable pdf list of starting questions. Be subtle though, don’t whip out the full 3 page document! Read the questions first and pick one category, one question; maybe start with “Dad/Mom, tell me a life story. What did you love about elementary school?”
Circle back here after your gathering, let us know your favorite story that you learned.
BONUS: If you can find the spelling mistake in this blog post, you’ll win a $25 discount coupon you can use towards services with Tracing My Tree.
Tracing My Tree, Finding My Roots 