Genealogy Hack: California Voter Registrations

Judy of Nevada Genealogy sent in this trick for navigating one of Ancestry.com's newest databases.

The just released California Voters Registration Lists at ancestry.com, cover a range of years. The exact year is not listed on each page so to determine the year for a given entry try the following. Load the image of the page which contains your searched name. Note the printed page number on the image. Divide by 2 [since each image contains 2 pages]. Subtract this number from the image number. Enter this new image number in the box and click "GO". You may still have to browse one or two pages more or less. It has worked for me so far but some counties may vary, and missing pages could mess up the calc.

Thanks, Judy!

A "genealogy hack" is a tip or trick that solves a specific problem and increases one's productivity as a genealogist, whether online or out in the real world. If you have a hack to share, submit it here or send it to hacks [at] genealogue.com.

Genealogy Hack: Sourcing Your Scans

Michael John Neill has written several times this week about recording the sources of documents that have been photocopied (or printed from microfilm) and subsequently scanned. He makes three good suggestions:

1. Write the source on the original before scanning (in black, not green ink).
2. Use photoediting software to type the source onto the scanned image.
3. Include the source info in the image's file name.

Probably the best option is 1 or 2 and 3. File names are not always included with printouts, so that is a limitation of only using option three. Including the source in the file name (along with the name of the person on the scan), makes it easier to search the hard drive or media for specific words or phrases.

Me, I usually do both 1 and 3. You might also consider treating your scans like photographs and adding the source info as metadata. Metadata is embedded in the image file, and can be viewed using a variety of applications. For how-tos and caveats, see these articles:

• JLog - IPTC
• About Genealogy - Labeling Photos with IPTC
• Digital Cameras and Genealogy - Digitally Labelling Photos

A "genealogy hack" is a tip or trick that solves a specific problem and increases one's productivity as a genealogist, whether online or out in the real world. If you have a hack to share, submit it here or send it to hacks [at] genealogue.com.

Genealogy Hack: Dual Monitors

Ever wish that you could double the size of your monitor? This may be beyond your budget, but you can get a similar effect by using two monitors side by side.

As an example, on the left monitor, you could have your genealogy database open. On the right monitor, you could have the Internet open and view census images. If you find information in the right monitor, just copy and paste it into your application on the left.

If you have digital images on your computer, you could use the right monitor to view your digital image collection, while on the left you could preview one of the images at full screen.

This is also a great solution for transcription projects: View a document image on one screen while typing into a word processor on the other.

A "genealogy hack" is a tip or trick that solves a specific problem and increases one's productivity as a genealogist, whether online or out in the real world. If you have a hack to share, submit it here or send it to hacks [at] genealogue.com.

[Photo credit: Muchos Monitors by reway2007]

Genealogy Hack: Firefox Smart Keywords

Firefox has a neat feature called Smart Keywords that allows you to quickly search databases from your address bar. Let's say I want quick access to RootsWeb Town Search. I right-click in the "Town Name" search field, and select Add a Keyword for this Search from the menu that appears.

I'll give the bookmark the name "Town Search," and use "town" as my keyword.

I can now type, say, town paducah in my address bar and immediately be taken to my search results at RootsWeb.

One drawback for genealogists is that Smart Keywords accepts only one search term. Most of our searches require two or more fields with distinct values (e.g. first and last name). But there are many sites I use regularly where this method does come in handy, including Google Book Search and News Archive Search.

This is a new irregular feature here at The Genealogue. A "genealogy hack" is a tip or trick that solves a specific problem and increases one's productivity as a genealogist, whether online or out in the real world. If you have a hack to share, submit it here or send it to hacks [at] genealogue.com.

Genealogy Hack: Obituaries in Google Blog Search

Lots of newspapers publish RSS feeds of their obituaries, and many of those feeds are indexed at Google Blog Search. As of today, there are more than 340,000 posts indexed from sites with "obituaries" in the title. You can add a surname to the search and find just those obits where the name appears.

Instead of a surname, you can add the name of your hometown, or even a phrase like "world war ii" to search for veterans of the war.

There are a few ways to monitor these search results and be alerted whenever an obituary is published that meets your criteria. Over in the left sidebar, click on Blogs Alerts to be notified by email. Or click on Atom or RSS to monitor this search with your favorite feed reader. If you use a personalized iGoogle homepage, you can also add a blog search gadget for your keywords by clicking the appropriate link at the bottom of any search results page.

A "genealogy hack" is a tip or trick that solves a specific problem and increases one's productivity as a genealogist, whether online or out in the real world. If you have a hack to share, submit it here or send it to hacks [at] genealogue.com.

Genealogy Hack: Ellis Island Images

This is a new irregular feature here at The Genealogue. Let's define a "genealogy hack" as a tip or trick that solves a specific problem and increases one's productivity as a genealogist, whether online or out in the real world. If you have a hack to share, submit it here or send it to hacks [at] genealogue.com.

Ever try to bookmark a manifest page from the Ellis Island website using your right mouse button? If so, this will look familiar:

Here's an easy way to get around this limitation. Left-click on the manifest, and then use this keyboard shortcut: Shift + F10. When the menu pops up, select "Bookmark This Page" (in Firefox) or "Add to Favorites" (in IE).

Saving the manifest image in Firefox is simple using this technique. From the menu that pops up select View Page Info > Media. Then click on the entry that looks like this:

Click Save As, and give the image a name that ends in .gif.