Starting the US Census Records Course

By Shannon Bennett, Student   One of the main go-to sources for genealogical information in American research are the federal census records. Within the first few days or weeks of researching you will pointed to it and be immersed in the glory of all that data. However, unless you really dig into the census many people never uncover the real gems that are hidden just beneath the surface. The course US: Census Records  is a comprehensive look at the U.S. Census from 1790-1940. Glancing through the syllabus I know I will learn a lot even though I am pretty comfortable with using the census for my research. The instructors, Scott Andrew Bartley and Beverly Rice, cover a lot of material in the various modules. At first it appeared daunting, particularly when I opened the binder section and saw the sheer amount of pages that were staring back at me. But, you know what, when you are talking over 15 censuses covered in one course, I guess that should be expected. I am looking forward to learning more about the census history, why they did things, and what was discovered. Also, I am really excited to learn more about the other schedules. I have researched a little into other census schedules, like the 1890 veterans schedule, but I am not as comfortable with them as I would like to be. Hopefully, by the end of the course I will be comfortable the whole way around! I was pleased to see that…

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On the Road to Midwestern Roots 2014

What are you doing this weekend? We are on the road to the Midwestern Roots 2014 conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. If you’re there, stop by our booth (#66) and talk to Tami. Every conference participant receives a free course and one lucky conference attendee receives a free 9 course package (think of the great courses you could sign-up for with that prize!). See you at the conference!

Extractions

By Shannon Bennett, Student   In modules 5 and 6 of Skills: Transcribing, Abstracting & Extracting we learned about extractions.  It is a similar concept to an abstraction but not exactly the same. Trust me, I am sure you have used them both, but you may not have realized the distinction between the two. Similar to an abstraction, an extraction looks at only a specific part of the document you are reading.  Items that would get an extraction, instead of an abstraction, would be census records, lists, inventories, manifests, and so on.  For those examples you extract the information for specific people or items that you are researching. There is no need to have (at that moment) the entire document abstracted or transcribed. To be honest, I never knew there was another type of abstraction. I use extractions frequently in my family research. They are very, very handy when processing multiple census records, bible records, or various family items. Having the pertinent information at hand, without the chaos of a whole transcription of abstraction, has helped me correlate and analyze data easier. Besides learning about extractions we also were given more, lots more, practice. Once again, and you are probably tired of hearing this, practice is awesome!  I loved looking at records which I normally wouldn’t come across. My ancestors have been in the US for centuries so what I think of as common records are probably unique to others, and vice versa. Looking at unfamiliar record sets keeps you…

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The Down-Low on Abstracting

By Shannon Bennett, Student   This next section, Modules 3 and 4,  of the course Skills: Transcribing, Abstracting & Extracting  was a close-up look at creating an abstract. For those of you who do not know what an abstract is, the instructor defines it as “an abbreviation of the original content in a document.” Simply put, it is the bones of the document with all the superfluous information taken away. The instructor provided tips throughout the module to help you with your abstractions. One that I particularly liked was to count the names from the document and make sure you have the same number of names in your final abstract. Names, dates, places, and other pertinent information should not be deleted. At times you will need to quote large sections from the document, like with a land record.  Sometimes it can be a bit challenging to figure out what is important and what is not, until you get the hang of it. Part of me thinks this is where practice makes perfect. In this course, you will get a lot of practice from a variety of sources. Module 4 was only practice. I have said it before, abstractions and transcriptions are a bit of an art form, which once again comes with lots and lots of practice. How many of you have letters or documents that need this treatment?  Bet your house is full of practice items just waiting for you. I was pretty comfortable with abstraction before I came…

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Do you Really Know Transcribing?

By Shannon Bennett, Student   Well, this course didn’t dally around; it jumped straight into the nuts and bolts of creating a good transcription. While several of the courses I previously wrote about did touch on the basics of transcription, Modules 1 and 2 of Skills: Transcribing, Abstracting & Extracting  provides an intense introduction to the process. Yes, I have already created transcriptions, but as I stated in a prior post, the early ones were bad, in some cases, very bad. Transcriptions are an art form you need to learn and I know I am still developing those skills. Practice makes perfect though, and the more you read handwritten documents the better you get at creating transcriptions. I particularly liked where the instructor walked us through various ways to use our word processing software, allowing our transcriptions to be more true to form. While several of these tricks I knew about there were several that I didn’t. Or, at least I had never given much thought to it. For instance, and I feel like a dolt that I didn’t think of this before, you can turn off the spell/grammar checker as well as the auto-capitalization features of your software. The worst part of typing a transcription is the way it will automatically fix “bad” spelling and auto capitalize words on new lines. If you have not created a transcription you may not understand why this would be a problem but I assure you it can be. Since transcriptions are true…

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