Genealogy research is not just for pros

The following item appeared in The News Star, a daily newspaper published in Northeast Louisiana, on Monday, Mar. 24, 2008. It was written by Lora Peppers of the Ouachita Parish Public Library's Genealogy Department.

"Genealogy is one of the fastest growing pastimes in the United States today. It preserves family ties and provides a legacy for future generations. The following suggestions will aid you in tracing your lineage and provide guidelines for compiling your family tree information. Good luck in your search!

The first and most basic principle in doing genealogy research is to always begin with yourself and work back in time. Never try to trace your line from a known person down to yourself. It may turn out that you are not actually related to George Washington, and you will have wasted hours of research!"

Click on the title link to read the remainder.

Use Caution When Accessing Newly Available Army Records

I have often wondered why I could not find the enlistment records of my father and two of his brothers who served in the Army Air Force during WW2.

The Air Force kept, and apparently still safely maintains detailed records of men and equipment from that era. An uncle was a bombardier instructor, and was killed along with several of his crew when an engine on the B-29 in which they were flying exploded. The report provided to me by the Air Force is detailed, and includes eye witness reports, survivor reports, and other valuable information.

An uncle of my wife was also killed during WW2 while flying in a B-24 over the Adriatic Sea. The report that I obtained on that incident not only included the serial number of nearly everything on board the aircraft, but also maps, eye witness reports, crew names, ranks, serial numbers, hometowns, next of kin, etc.

According to an article by Sharon Tate Moody, which appears at Tampa Bay Online, the National Archives tossed some 1.5 million (about one-third) of the WW2 enlistment records which could not be scanned. The article tells how the electronic records were created in 1994 in an attempt to help reconstruct military files lost by fire in 1973. It also describes how errors were introduced by the electronic scanning process, and warns that caution should be used when interpreting certain data from the cards.

Click on the title link to read the complete article.

Making Everlasting Memories, worldwide memorialization, establish a living family history

Updated Link Sep. 9, 2011

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According to a company fact sheet, "Making everlasting Memories®, MeM, is a progressive memory recording and publishing company, which preserves and publishes to the Internet or other current technology, lifelong memories through stories and images. Established in 1995 in Cincinnati, Ohio, MeM distributes its products through e-commerce and 1400+ intermediaries in the US and Canada. MeM is globally accessible via www.mem.com."

I checked it out for Coffey and Coffey and was pleased to find several EY and a very few EE "memories." Many of these included photographs of the deceased.

Access to the files appear to be free (I did not have to do anything to gain access). I suppose they make money through advertisements and contributors to the "memories" files.

Check it out by clicking on the title link.

Public Records soon to hit the web

"Ouachita [wash-uh-taw] Parish [LA] Clerk of Court Bill Hodge said more citizens come to his office than any other local government agency for public records.

"The history of Ouachita Parish is right here, from marriages to lawsuits to property records," Hodge said.

And Hodge is about to make it even easier for people to trace their genealogy or property titles or even find out how much their neighbors paid for their houses.

Much of the information now available in Hodge's Ouachita Parish Courthouse office will soon be on the Web."

Click on the title link to read the complete news article.

SSDI: Fields and Search Tips

Many researchers do not know about, or forget to use the Social Security Death Index (SSDI). The SSDI at Rootsweb is probably the best available, and provides a couple of search options.

- The basic option permits searching on last name, first name, middle name or initial and/or, social security number. The surname can be searched using exact, soundex or metaphone spelling.

- In addition to the above, the advanced option permits searches using Zip, State, County, City, birth dates, death year and month and issue state.

Before becoming as dependent on it as I have in recent years, I often misinterpreted some of the data fields.

- Last Residence - This may or may not be the location where the person lived or died. Rootsweb believes that a better description for this field might be "the address of record."

- Last Benefit - This "can be the last residence" of the deceased "or, the location where the final lump-sum payment (burial benefit) was sent." Someone [a widow, child, etc.] in the "Last Benefit" zip received the burial benefit from Social Security.

Click on the title link to read more tips about using this valuable resource.