GenealoGy tips + tools Rootstech 2017 ebook

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“Genealogy Jackpot” by Sunny Morton, c2017. 

GenealogyJackpot!

Sunny Morton is Editor and Book Club Guru at Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems (www.genealogygems.com), and Contributing Editor at Family Tree Magazine (www.familytreemagazine.com). She authored Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy (Family Tree Books) and the forthcoming How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records.

Our ancestors all have amazing stories—if only we can learn what they are. This 1-2-3 step process helped me hit the genealogical jackpot for my ancestors who survived the Johnstown Flood of 1889.

1. Learn the backdrop or context oftheir lives.

2. Use historical records to learn moreabout them specifically.

3. Put it all on the map.

#1: YouTube for vivid historical context

In her book The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, 2nd edition, Lisa Louise Cooke convinced me to start using YouTube for family history. My ancestors survived the Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood of 1889. I learned the stunning and tragic story of that event in this Johnstown Flood documentary now on YouTube. It’s narrated by Pulitzer prize-winning historian David McCullough. The documentary led me to McCullough’s companion volume (and an Amazon best-seller), The Johnstown Flood. The documentary gave me dramatic impact and a story. The book filled in the historical facts, sources and details.

Years later, the then-teenaged boy of this Felix family moved to Pueblo, Colorado. A search for “Pueblo CO history” brought up a stunning bookend to this story: a deadly 1921 flood that occurred not long after he moved there. Two major floods in a lifetime—both in mountainous areas!

Use YouTube to bring the backdrop of your family’s stories to vivid life. You can also use it to find your relatives in historical video footage—see the book to learn more.

“Genealogy Jackpot” by Sunny Morton, c2017. 

#2. Historical records for specifics on my family 

Censuses and city directories helped me confirm that my family was in the Johnstown area at the time of the flood. The 1889 city directory listing included the cryptic numbers, “4-12,” leading me to the front of the directory. There I found a several-page history of the flood and the explanation that “4-12” meant that 4 people lived in the home before the flood and 12 people lived there afterward, hinting that the Felix family may have taken in boarders.

I also found a compelling story about the directory itself: the publisher had just canvassed the city before the flood, then left town with the printer’s proofs. The flood came and wiped out the city. He returned—with the most recent “census” of city residents—and helped officials tally the survivors, the missing and the dead.

A relative’s story from a published family history told of a cousin added to what I knew about the Felix family during and after the flood:

“On Memorial Day in 1889, Ida Mae [Felix] was working as a waitress in a restaurant in Windber, northeast of Crume [8 miles south of Johnstown], Ida Mae rushed to help the flood victims. Here in Johnstown, Ida Mae met John Armstrong who was a papermaker and recent immigrant from Richmond, England. He was aboard a train going from New York City to Chicago when the train was swept off the tracks by the flood. John Armstrong was a very strong swimmer, having done a lot of swimming in England in the River Swail and in the moats of the Castle Richmond. John was reported to have saved the lives of 8 people in the flood. The town recognized his heroism by presenting him with an engraved gold watch fob. Afterward John and Ida Mae set up a soup kitchen in the basement of a house that had been carried away by the rising waters. The basement stairs were still intact. They formed a makeshift roof by putting up a tarp over the basement. Later on John and Ida Mae opened a restaurant…They were married in 1891.” (The Four Felix Brothers by Marion C. Bale and Diane M. Kumrine, McSherrytown, PA: John Tim Reily Historical Society, 2001).

IJohnstown, PA city directory on Ancestry.com.

“Genealogy Jackpot” by Sunny Morton, c2017. 

And a detailed Google search (also with methods learned from Lisa Louise Cooke’s book The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox) led me to The Congressional Record of Friday, June 2, 1939, which printed the remarks of the Hon. J. Buell Snyder of Pennsylvania. In his 50-year anniversary memorial to the flood and its victims, he recalled the sermon of another Felix relative (also named John) that made a lasting impact and showed that my family was deeply aware of and connected to the flood disaster:

#3. Map it out with Google Earth 

After learning what street the Felix’s lived on from the 1889 city directory, I wanted to find them on a map and see how they avoided the flood. But modern maps don’t show Elm St or even the little town of Morrellville, which I learned  was a hamlet around the river bend and slightly up a side valley from Johnstown proper.

I found an 1890 plat map dated just a year after the flood that identified Elm St. in Morrellville. Then, using a technique learned from Lisa Louise Cooke in The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox and in her downloadable video training class Google Earth for Genealogy, I overlaid the historic map on top of Google Earth to identify the new street and location. (Use the resources above to learn more about how I did that.) I found that the street still exists: it’s Blaine St., now in Johnstown. So I drove there and talked to a resident. From her, I learned that the floodwaters never reached their street. The Felix home was safe from the flood.

Start learning to use Google Earth for genealogy with this free video by Lisa Louise Cooke.

The book The Genealogist's Google Toolbox, and Google Earth for Genealogy video series

are available at www.shopgenealogygems.com.

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Easy Family History Video Creation Lisa Louise Cooke

The Genealogy Gems Podcast www.GenealogyGems.com

Resource Page and Links: http://lisalouisecooke.com/family-history-videos/

Click here and get 25% off Animoto* with Coupon Code: gems25

Non-genealogists aren’t captivated by the same things as genealogists. With the newest tech tools you can create fabulous videos about your family history fast and easy. No special skills are required, and with Animoto you can create videos in a fraction of the time that it used to take.

Outline Your Story Laying a foundation up front will save you time and ensure a cohesive, well-told story. One of the easiest ways to do this is to define your audience, and the story you want to tell. Don’t bite off too much. Captivating, shareable videos aren’t long. Typically 3-5 minutes is ideal for grabbing and keeping attention particularly online. So rather than telling the entire story of your family, how about featuring one generation, one town, one year, one event…in other words, break it down into a manageable size and a story that does not go in so many different directions that it becomes confusing to the viewer. And bear in mind that the genealogical documents themselves are rarely as riveting to non-genealogists as they are to genealogists. Focus on the story and use a document image to reinforce the story portrayed in the video rather than being the star of the video.

Collect the Imagery You probably already have many images on your computer in a digital format (such as jpeg files). Look for photos, and scanned images of documents, postcards, newspaper articles, and other ephemera to bring your story to life in a visual way. And remember, you don’t have to use an image straight from your family, and in some cases you may not have an image. Representative images can also do the job. A great resource for historic images is the American Memory Project by the Library of Congress at https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html .

Create a new folder on your hard drive and name is “Video Project Images”. Copy images into it that you want to include. It can help to rename them and add a numbering system to the new names so that they appear in the folder in the order you want them to appear in the video. (i.e. 01_grandpa) You can also add your own video clips to your Animoto video, so you may want to create a second folder for those, or just include them in your images folder.

Get a free Animoto.com account Sign up for an account, and get 14 day free trial which gives you the full power of Pro, with no credit card required. (Videos created during trial will be watermarked.)

Create! Click the Create button

Copyright Lisa Louise Cooke www.GenealogyGems.com

Style Select a style that fits your story. (Note: Styles that have a “Premium” banner require a Premium subscription.) Here are some of my favorites for family history:

Memory Box Antique Bouquet Remembrance Vintage Voyage Rustic

Click on a style and you can watch a preview of what it will look like. When you find the one you want, click the Create Video button on that style page. This will load the Video Creator.

Music The style you chose will come with a song, but you can change it if you want. Click Change Song, and you can pick a song from the Animoto library. You can also upload your own music mp3 file from your computer. (Remember to keep copyright in mind!) You can also upload an audio file, such as a family history interview, or even an mp3 file that you created that includes both music and words.

Adding Pictures & Videos From the menu, click Add Pics & Vids. In the pop up window you’ll find lots of options for imagery, including stock photos from Animoto. Let’s add the images you put in your “Video Project Images” folder. Under Your Computer click Upload Pictures and Video. Navigate your way to your folder. Click to select the first image, hold down the shift key on your keyboard, and click the select the last image in the folder, thereby selecting all of them. Press Enter on your keyboard to add them to your project.

You can rearrange the order of your images and videos by dragging and dropping them with your mouse. But thanks to the work you did up front, you probably won’t have to do much of that. If you decide to eliminate an image, simply click to select it and from the menu click Delete.

Text Next, we’re going to add Text to your imagery. From the menu, click Add Text. The first option will be to create a title and subtitle for your video – then click Save. You will now see it in a box along with your imagery. Click and drag it to the first position so it will be the first thing you see in your video. You can include as many text “tiles” as you want, and position them in the order you want them to appear.

You can also add text captions to each of your images. Hover your mouse over the image and click “Caption” under the image. In the pop up window containing your image, click to place your cursor in the text area, and type in the desired text, then click Save.

Spotlighting an Item If you have a particular image that you want to have the “camera” spend a little more time on, thereby spotlighting it, click the select the image, and then click Spotlight in the menu.

Copyright Lisa Louise Cooke www.GenealogyGems.com

Previewing When you’re ready to see how it’s all coming together, click the Preview button. A low resolution version will be created in about 15 seconds for you to review. The preview will allow you to ensure that you like the pacing and order of things.

Further Editing You can fine tune the speed at which the images are shown and the length of the song by clicking the Gear icon in the upper right corner of the editor (just above the images.) In the pop up window you can trim the song and slide the lever to change the pace. When you’re done, click Save and preview the video again to see the changes.

Settings Before you produce your video, click the Settings button and take a moment to review the video title, and your name as producer, and add a date if you wish. You can also add a description, which I recommend because it helps the people you share the video with understand what they are about to see.

Another really cool feature is that you can add a “Call to Action” button in the Settings. A Call-to-Action invites the viewer to do something. Animoto allows you to add a button to your video (typically at the end) offering to take the viewer to another website: your family history website or blog, your Facebook page a website with more information on the topic, a store where you have related items for sale, or any other website you wish.

To add your call to action, click to check the box for “Show Call-to-Action button” and then type in a name to label your button such as “Visit our Family Reunion Facebook Page”. Then in the field next to “URL” type in or copy and paste the website address. Example: www.yourfamilypagehere.com. Click the Save button, and your call to action will appear on your video.

Producing Your Video After making your edits and previewing your video one last time, you’re ready to produce it. Simply click the Produce button which will take you to the Produce Video page. Here you have one more opportunity to edit the title, producer name, date, and description. On the side bar you can select the resolution size of your video, which can come in handy if you have to stay within a certain size. Producing your video can take a few minutes and depends on the length of your video. Animoto will conveniently email to notify you when it is ready.

Your final produced video will appear on its own page where you can view it again. You’ll see another link along the side for Video Settings. Click it and you will find additional settings that can now be customized such as Privacy Options where you can designate whether or not you want to allow viewers to comment on your video or be able to share it on social media. When done, click Save to go back to the video page.

Sharing your Family History Video Your video is now ready for sharing, and there are loads of options available. You can share by: Email, Facebook, Twitter, sharing a link to the video, or posting it on YouTube. You can also post it on your own website by copying the Embed code and pasting it into the source code of a webpage on your website. Click the More button and you’ll find many more social media options

Copyright Lisa Louise Cooke www.GenealogyGems.com

for sharing your video. I would also highly recommend that you download a copy of the video as well to your computer for permanent storage.

Continuing with Animoto Once your free trial is over you will have to subscribe to Animoto if you wish to continue creating videos. There are many options to choose from so you can find the one that fits your needs.

If you only need to make one or a couple of videos at a time, you could do all your planning before making a purchase. Then you can purchase one month’s “Personal” use of Animoto for approximately $16. If you have several or ongoing projects, purchasing the 1year plan cuts the monthly price in half. Plans include unlimited HD video creation and sharing.

Resource Page and Links: http://lisalouisecooke.com/family-history-videos/

Think of the Possibilities! You could create videos for: Weddings, birthdays, holidays, graduation parties, family reunions, retirement parties, genealogy society events and presentations, your genealogy website or blog, tutorials and classroom teaching, your facebook page…the possibilities are endless!

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GenealoGy tips + tools Rootstech 2017 ebook

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