Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    One If By Land, Two If By Sea
    One If By Land, Two If By Sea
    One If By Land, Two If By Sea
    Ebook154 pages1 hour

    One If By Land, Two If By Sea

    By Wendy Swanson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    How did your ancestors arrive in America? By land migration or across the sea?

    This book guides you through easy to follow instructions to discover your roots and avoid the pitfalls and dead ends that frustrate and halt even the most experienced genealogists.

    What are some of these secrets? Learn how to use the Internet to your advantage and how to pinpoint the information that relates to your ancestors. Learn how to use message boards and how to ask questions that people will be willing to take the time to answer.

    Explore ways to keep your genealogy information organized and on track. With a little effort you can get your family research project started, and soon you'll be the go-to person for your entire family.

    Included are guides to free research websites, state by state sources, and sites that give you access to ships passenger manifests, archives, and other historical sources.

    Where does the time go? Before we know it, we're on the last branch remaining on the family tree, and leaves are getting sparse. Oftentimes, when we begin tracing our roots, there are very few living sources of information left to us. We seem to begin our interest in our own history when we are close to becoming part of it! As you'll come to discover, it's never too late to start down the path of tracing your family, and even a novice genealogist can be very successful at tracking down their ancestors.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWendy Swanson
    Release dateSep 7, 2013
    ISBN9781301399147
    One If By Land, Two If By Sea
    Author

    Wendy Swanson

    The author is a professional researcher and proof reader for authors. Her credentials are numerous, including website designer, software engineer, and IT manager for a literary group.Her genealogy researching began as a hobby, but rapidly progressed to the point of traveling thousands of miles in search of mysteries regarding the Custer Battlefield, Mount Rushmore, and to the dark canyons of Utah after the shadows of the Wild Bunch.

    Related to One If By Land, Two If By Sea

    Related ebooks

    Genealogy & Heraldry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Family History

      May 4, 2023

      Family History
      3 min read

    • Article

      Your DNA Work Shop

      May 8, 2020

      Your DNA Work Shop
      9 min read

    • Article

      Your DNA Workshop

      Feb 9, 2024

      Your DNA Workshop
      10 min read

    • Article

      Your Letters

      Sep 10, 2021

      Your Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      12 Christmas Projects

      Dec 5, 2023

      12 Christmas Projects
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tips For Starting Your Family History

      Feb 7, 2023

      One of the most rewarding aspects of the hobby of family history is that we constantly learn new things, and can help others on the same journey. You can accelerate your research by learning from people who have more experience. This does not have to

      1 min read

    • Article

      Family Jewels

      Jun 6, 2021

      Family Jewels
      2 min read

    • Article

      FAQs

      Nov 27, 2023

      FAQs
      6 min read

    • Article

      Tips For Searching Genealogy Websites Researching Online: Part 1

      Feb 11, 2020

      Once we’ve established a firm base for our research by getting as much information as possible from old family documents and relatives we can begin to embark on our journey of discovery. While you definitely can’t do it all online, it’s undeniable th

      3 min read

    • Article

      Family history PROJECTS

      Dec 11, 2020

      Some problems in life are unforeseen and unavoidable, but we all know we’d be heart-broken if we lost our family history research, so let’s be sure to back it up. (Cough. At this point in writing the article I stopped what I was doing, plugged in my

      3 min read

    • Article

      Your DNA Workshop

      Mar 10, 2020

      Your DNA Workshop
      4 min read

    • Article

      Get More From Your Family History

      Jan 10, 2023

      200 issues October 2007 – February 2023 The experts who have generously shared their knowledge with us over the past 200 issues of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine have made an enormous difference to my research. As I have learnt, so my tree has gr

      7 min read

    • Article

      Your DNA Workshop

      Jul 10, 2020

      Your DNA Workshop
      8 min read

    • Article

      Find Yourself

      Sep 20, 2021

      Find Yourself
      1 min read

    • Article

      Family History – What ’s It All About?

      Feb 10, 2023

      How to build a reliable online family tree? How to find accurate evidence about your ancestors in the census? How to unlock the clues in your DNA match list? How to discover the best ways to create an organised genealogy research plan? Or to trace me

      1 min read

    • Article

      My DNA Test Success

      Nov 17, 2020

      My DNA Test Success
      1 min read

    • Article

      Another Brick In Your Wall?

      Apr 8, 2022

      Another Brick In Your Wall?
      9 min read

    • Article

      Using DNA In Genealogy

      Sep 10, 2019

      Using DNA In Genealogy
      4 min read

    • Article

      Quick-and-dirty Trees

      Oct 20, 2020

      Quick-and-dirty Trees
      1 min read

    • Article

      Share Your Tree This Christmas

      Nov 16, 2021

      Share Your Tree This Christmas
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for One If By Land, Two If By Sea

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      One If By Land, Two If By Sea - Wendy Swanson

      One If By Land,

      Two If By Sea

      A Guide To Genealogy Research

      Wendy W. Swanson

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

      ISBN: 9781301399147

      This book is dedicated to the memories of my ancestors for their courage and pioneering spirits. They have left me with a wonderful legacy.

      To my husband Gary; thank you for all your support in making this book possible. You gave me the confidence to start this project, encouraged me along the way, and helped me to break through my brick walls. To my parents, Jerry and Dixie; thank you for encouraging me to be an independent thinker and for being nonjudgmental about the decisions I have made in my life. To the distant cousins I have connected with through working on my own genealogy project; thank you for helping me fill in some of the blanks about the ancestors we have in common, and sharing your information about them. To my fellow Daughters of the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, thank you for your friendship and encouraging my ongoing search for family history.

      Introduction

      _______________________

      Tracing your family roots is a fascinating and sometimes challenging project, but it is worth every minute you will spend on it. Not only will you learn about yourself and your ancestors, but you will also be able to leave a wonderful legacy to your descendants.

      This book is an expanded version of my original book Harvesting Your Family Tree, and was written to help get you started on your family research project. I’m going to show you that it isn’t all that difficult. Even if you are an Internet novice, I will show you how to search online for information about your family’s roots. Outside of gathering data from your family members, there are only six online steps you’ll need to take; gathering names and dates, locating official records, using message boards and mailing lists to reach out to distant relatives, using search engines, finding historical archives, and the most challenging; interpreting and making sense of what you have discovered.

      You’ll find that genealogy is an ongoing project, and if you’d like, it can easily become a lifelong hobby. It’s up to you to decide how much detail you want to discover, and I’ll share with you what I feel is the best way to proceed.

      You may decide you only want to research back four or five generations, or maybe you only want to reach as far back as when your ancestors came to this country, or you could wish to try to trace your family back as far as possible. It’s your call; so keep it enjoyable and interesting.

      If you get bogged down in one area, move to a different branch of your family tree, or just take a break from it for a period of time. That’s the nice thing about history; it will always be there, just waiting for you to discover something new!

      I hope you find what you are looking for, and get as much enjoyment searching your family tree as I have from mine, and will continue to do.

      Chapter One

      Getting Organized; Keep It Simple

      _______________________

      Organize –

      Decide how you are going to organize your data. Whether you maintain paper copies, store it on your computer’s hard drive, or keep it online; you must keep your information organized. No matter how excited you are to start learning about your roots, this is a critical first step, and you’ll pay the price of wasted time if you fail to do this.

      I have a distant cousin who has a ton of genealogy data, all on paper. She has been collecting information for forty years; through her own research and that which has been given to her by relatives. If you ask her if she has information on a particular ancestor, her response is always, Yes, let me try to find it for you. She never finds it! Why? Because it’s all on paper, stored in boxes, and with no thought given to order. So please take the time to set up an organized filing system.

      Set up a separate email address for your genealogy research and contacts, and believe me you will have contacts. You’ll see how useful this is as we progress. I recommend doing this so that you keep your research separate from your daily correspondence, online shopping, social media, etc. Don’t use the email platform that your Internet provider gives you; instead, use Gmail, Yahoo mail, or something similar. This way, if you change providers, you won’t have to change your email address for all the various sites you use.

      Once you think you are finished with an email record, don’t delete. Move it into a different folder that is appropriately labeled just in case you need to go back to it. I have folders set up in my email account for each family name I am working with. When I am finished with the correspondence, I know where I’m going to move it to, and where to find it should I need to read it again.

      Keep a copy of all your hard work. If you’re doing it on paper (which I do not recommend), make a photocopy of every document you have, and maintain an orderly filing system.

      If you’re storing your data in computer files, make sure you are backing up your information on removable media every time you make changes or add something. Use a removable USB drive, like an external drive or a high capacity thumb drive rather than disks. Keep your data well-organized. On your computer, create a folder for your family research, and within that folder, have separate folders for each family name; then within that folder, have separate folders for each member of that family. Finally, it is in the folder for each individual that you will store a copy of the documents you find or create. It should look something like this:

      Family Research

      Jenkins

      Jenkins, Alan

      Birth certificate

      1880 Census

      Death certificate

      Headstone

      Jenkins, Lacey (unknown) –At this point, the genealogist doesn’t know what Lacey’s maiden name is, so her information is stored in the Jenkins file.

      1880 Census

      Death certificate

      Portrait

      Randolph, Sarah Ann (Jenkins) –This folder for Sarah Ann will not have anything in it. It just serves as a placeholder to remind the genealogist that she married into the Jenkins family, but was born a Randolph.

      Jenkins, Theodore

      Birth certificate

      1900 Census

      Marriage certificate

      World War I registration card

      Randolph

      Randolph, Lawrence

      Headstone

      Randolph, Mary Margaret

      Headstone

      Randolph, Sarah Ann (Jenkins)

      1900 Census

      Marriage certificate

      Death certificate

      At first glance, you might think it is redundant to store each individual in a folder that is labeled with their last name, then first name within a folder that already contains the family name. But if you ever misplace an individual’s folder by storing it in the incorrect family folder, it will be easy to spot that you’ve got a folder misfiled.

      You may also find it helpful to create an index or spreadsheet of the names of all your ancestors that then links to the folder their information is stored in.

      Using the same family members from before, it would look something like this:

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1