Courses

Financial Matters and Your Genealogy Business

Financial Matters and Your Genealogy Business

Your Genealogy Business Tracking money is not just mindless busywork. It has a purpose. Keeping track of money as it flows in and out of your business is a process that is key to providing you with the necessary information on how your business is doing which leads to better decision making. Managing your financial resources will involve the following aspects of money management: accounting/bookkeeping/budgeting profit/loss cash flow tax reporting break-even analysis credit and collections For a small sole proprietorship, weekly bookkeeping and periodic budgeting can be a simple process, and many small business owners do very well using just a spreadsheet to keep their financial records. Accounting reports are useful for reporting and planning purposes. The basic financial reports useful to an owner of a small genealogy business include: Balance Sheets– This is a very basic look at your business ownership at a particular point in time, usually at the end of each month. Profit/Loss Statement– This covers a specific period of time, such as one month, one quarter, or one year. Budget– This serves as a guide for your activities. If you have ever had a month – in business or even in your personal life – when you did not know where you would get the money to pay the bills, you have an understanding of what cash flow is. In a service business such as genealogy research, cash does not always flow smoothly. Genealogy research projects can take extended periods of time, sometimes six months or more. Project Management  A significant portion of your income may come from projects that you complete for your clients. In order to be adequately paid for your work,…

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Your Ancestor’s Locations

Your Ancestor’s Locations  It is extremely important to learn about the location(s) our ancestors lived. We need to be aware of when certain jurisdictions were formed, what records were kept and when, which jurisdictions were responsible for keeping specific records, and what records are currently accessible. Keep in mind that jurisdictional boundaries may have changed over time, so it is important to keep track of what jurisdictions a location was a part of during the time the family resided there. Therefore, the use of historical and modern-day maps is essential. For example, the area now known as the City of Auburn in New York was a part of Onondaga County until 1799 when Cayuga County was formed. Another problem we run into is location name changes. Consider the city of Auburn, New York as an example. It was originally known as Hardenberg’s Corners situated in the town of Aurelius. In 1805, it became the Cayuga County seat and was renamed. We also need to learn about the history of the location. In the United States, local histories can provide a wealth of information. We can often learn about what types of groups settled in a location, where they came from, and if they later dispersed, giving us wonderful clues for further research. There are a variety of recourses available to help us learn about different locations. Finally, we need to understand the laws that were in place for the time period and location we are studying. This includes such things as the minimum age for marriage and if parental…

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Mapping Your Ancestors

 Mapping Your Ancestors  Geography is an important element in your family history research. Did your ancestor contend with mountains, valleys, or waterways? The best way to answer these questions and potentially uncover new research avenues is to take a look at maps, particularly those contemporary to the time periods with which you are researching. Physical maps are most helpful in determining a person’s location relative to their surroundings, including boundaries, roadways, railways, waterways, and sometimes places of interest, such as churches and schools. Political maps can help determine neighboring jurisdictions and that may contain records about your ancestors. Plat maps, in most cases, are sketches that depict property boundaries of a particular area. Many of these maps also include a variety of physical features, such as roadways, railways, waterways, schools, churches, cemeteries and landscape elements. Plat maps may also indicate the landowner for each parcel. Topographic maps are helpful for learning the details of a location’s landscape. These maps are helpful for determining if land features such as waterways, mountains, or valleys may have influenced your ancestor’s decision to attend a church or register a birth in a different place than you would have expected. As with many resources, there are various ways to find and access maps. With our Skill Building: Breaking Brick Walls Course you will learn more ways to use these maps.

Understanding Newspapers

Do You Understand What You are Reading? As you begin searching for mentions of your ancestor in the newspaper, you may begin to wonder if you are reading a foreign language. The vernacular or abbreviations that you are reading are the result of the newspaper world, or the general colloquialism of the time. Abbreviations may be a little more prevalent than you anticipated as a result of the limited typeface of the publisher. Some of these abbreviations may have been encountered in other records including census, vital, land, or probate. Some of the abbreviations were used when there was limited space, perhaps where the vital records announcements might have been included, for instance.   Inst. – is the abbreviation for instant and means that the event took place in that month.  Ult. – is the abbreviation for Ultimo, a Latin word that refers to the past month.   Esq. – which actually comes at the end of the name and is the abbreviation for Esquire.   Remember that as you are working in older newspapers that the terms are not always the same in meaning as they are now. So, you may find that reading through certain news stories can take a little more time than reading a news story in today’s papers. With our United States: Newspaper Records course, you will learn more research techniques when using these records in your research.

United States Newspapers

US Newspapers  Newspapers offer a window to the past. They are the real-life recordings of our ancestors’ history. Unlike history books, family histories written years later, or memoirs, newspapers were recording the news at the time it was actually happening. One of the reasons that many researchers do not investigate what newspapers may be available is because they often assume that searching the newspaper requires going page by page and issue by issue. This is not always the case; there is a method to the arrangement of the newspaper. Like any genealogical resource, it is important that you take the time to become familiar with it.   Remember that the purpose of the newspaper was to disperse information to its readership. The editor’s job was to keep the town or city informed of not just what was going on in the world, but also in the country, state, county and city.  Small town newspapers, and those begun during the early settlement of a town or county, may often contain more personal news about its residents than larger cities. Newspapers are one way to get some insight into the life of your ancestors.   As genealogists we want information about our ancestors. When we can’t find a birth, marriage, or death record, we may turn to the newspaper to see if we can find an announcement of the event. In addition to vital records, there are many miscellaneous items in the newspaper that may hold tidbits of information about the families you are seeking. You may find mention…

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