How to Find Easter Dates

Easter in 2011 falls on April 24, as late in the calendar year as I ever remember.  It actually hasn't been this late in my lifetime - the last time it fell on April 24 was 1943.

It won't fall on April 24th again until the year 2095; although in the year 2038, Easter will be on April 25.

Easter Sunday can come as early as March 22 or as late as April 25.   Here are Easter dates from 1999 until 2019:

• April 4, 1999 
• April 23, 2000 
• April 15, 2001 
• March 31, 2002 
• April 20, 2003 
• April 11, 2004 
• March 27, 2005 
• April 16, 2006 
• April 8, 2007 
• March 23, 2008 
• April 12, 2009 
• April 4, 2010  
• April 24, 2011 
• April 8, 2012 
• March 31, 2013 
• April 20, 2014 
• April 5, 2015 
• March 27, 2016 
• April 16, 2017 
• April 1, 2018 
• April 21, 2019

Why is it helpful for those researching their ancestors to know the Easter date of a particular year? 

In my family, Easter always seemed to be a family picture day wearing new Easter finery.  I have a slew of old family photos marked Easter 1955 and Easter 1939, etc. and I want to add metadata with the actual date to the scans of the photos.

I also have found a newspaper article about an ancestor that printed his wedding announcement by saying "After Easter services, the wedding ceremony was performed".  The newspaper has a publication date, of course, but it didn't date the wedding date except to say it was on Easter Sunday. Newspaper wedding announcements can appear weeks after the actual service is performed, so all the newspaper told me was the year and that the wedding was on Easter.

You can find Easter dates by using the Easter Date Calculator to help date old photos and historic newspaper articles

Monthly Genealogy File BackUp Day - Using BackupMy Tree

The first of the month is the time I set aside to do monthly genealogy files backup.  Protecting genealogy research that has taken years to gather is a must because, sadly, computers are vulnerable to hard drive crashes, viruses, theft and natural disasters.

This month, I am adding a free "in the cloud" backup in addition to my usual backup plan.  BackupMyTree finds and creates a remote, off-site copy of your family-tree files.  It monitors your family trees and backs them up for you automatically when they change.  And actually since it backs up automatically, there is nothing to do each month except check that I am still logged in.

Although I back up my files automatically to an external hard drive, I know from experience that external hard drives can also fail, and in case of a disaster also be destroyed along with my computer.  That's why off-site backup is so important.

  

BackUpMyTree  FREE backup service provides:

• Support for a wide array of family tree file formats created by popular family tree software packages - Family Tree Maker, Family Tree Builder, PAF, Legacy Family Tree, RootsMagic (version 4 or later), and Family Tree Legends. Industry standard GEDCOM files are supported too. 
• Anywhere access of family tree files – users can access their family tree files securely from anywhere using a web browser. 
• Monitoring of all family trees for changes and automatic backup of the updated files.
• Storage of previous versions of family tree files should anything become corrupted. This feature also protects against accidental deletion of information inside a family tree – enabling users to retrieve any previous version of their data.
• Instant retrieval in case of data loss - by simply re-downloading the latest family tree backups.
• Complete protection of all family tree files using strong SSL security during transfer from computers to the BackupMyTree servers.

To backup your genealogy files onto BackupMyTree, go to BackupMyTree

• Download and run the BackupMyTree installer. BackupMyTree should start automatically after installation, and will appear in the Windows notification / system tray area.  
• After a few minutes, your web browser should pop up, asking you to log in to your BackupMyTree account. 
• Next, BackupMyTree will scan your hard drive for family trees and immediately start backing them up.

When I first used BackupMyTree, it took quite a while (days) to sync all the files and gedcoms I had on my computer, even though it says on the website it only takes minutes.   It  uses minimal resources always working in the background to update the latest version of your genealogy program file, and I haven't noticed any slowdown when it is running.  There is no limit to the files it will backup and I was quite surprised to see how many files it found on my computer.  However, each file backed up is limited to 1 gigabyte in size.

When I go to BackupMyTree, the website always opens up in Google Chrome, which is not my default browser, but I do have it installed on my computer.  I'm not sure, but the program might require a Google Chrome download.

Hint:  If you use FamilyTreeMaker, do a monthly backup (file - backup) within the program and be sure to tick the box called "include media files" .  This will save your data plus all photos and images to a .ftmb backup file which BackupmyTree will backup for you as long as your file is not larger than 1 gigabyte.   Great way to get photos and Ancestry.com record images backed up along with your genealogy database file.

BackupMyTree is from Cliff Shaw who also founded GenForum, GenCircles, and Family Tree Legends.

Free Online Backup Storage for Your Genealogy Files

Google recently announced that any file type can now be uploaded to Google Docs storage. Google gives 1 GB of storage for free and more storage if you pay.  A single file upload is limited to 250 MB.  Google says  “This makes it easy to backup more of your key files online, from large graphics and raw photos to unedited home videos taken on your smartphone.”    Look for a “bubble notification” when signing in to know when this feature becomes available to you.

I created a folder in Google Docs called Genealogy Backup and began uploading to see if I found Google Docs a viable backup storage solution for my genealogy files.

I uploaded my genealogy files .ftm, ftmb, and .ged files to my Genealogy Backup folder.  All uploaded successfully and once uploaded I then had the options to download these files or to share them.

I next uploaded multiple pdf files - all the reports that I had saved which were produced by my genealogy program.  These also uploaded successfully and  not only can I download and share these pdf reports, I can also read them online and print them.

I then tried my media file which includes all my downloaded census and other record images.  I wish I could have uploaded the folder as a whole, but Google Docs made me upload them by record by record.  I could select multiple records to upload at a time, but when I tried to select all, Google Docs gave me an error message and told me to select less records to upload.  Uploading all these record images took quite a bit of time and used up a lot of my free storage space - not very practical.  I hope Google will soon allow uploading a whole folder at one time.

Overall, I am pleased to have another free place to backup my genealogy files, but I'll just be uploading my ftm genealogy files and not the individual record images.  The upload is manual and not automatic like the backup service Mozy (Mozy not only gives 2 GB storage for free, but does the back up automatically).

Here is my Genealogy Files Backup Plan.  I used to copy my files to CD's, but now copy to a flash drive.  With Google Docs, I like the idea of also having my files saved somewhere away from my house in case of a real disaster where both the computer AND flash drive were both destroyed.  I think saving to the Google Docs cloud makes a lot of sense.

The best discovery with uploading genealogy files to Google Docs is that I can now easily share my genealogy with family members by uploading and sharing my reports.  All free.

My genealogy files are small and Google Docs suits my needs for a secondary genealogy backup storage.  If Google Docs doesn't have enough online storage for your needs, Mozy offers 2 GB storage for free and has automatic backup. Microsoft SkyDrive offers 25 GB of free storage with a manual backup and ADrive offers 50 GB of free storage with manual backup. Or you can always email yourself genealogy files using your gmail account.  Gmail offers more storage than Google Docs and the amount is constantly being increased.  I suspect at some point in the future Google Docs will follow suit.

Backup and Security Plan for Genealogy Research

Back Up Your Data!

Protecting genealogy research that has taken years to gather is a must because, sadly, computers are vulnerable to hard drive crashes, viruses, theft and natural disasters. It's possible to lose all your files in an instant. Scary thought. We all need to have both a comprehensive backup plan for our digital research files and a security plan for our hard copies and photos.

Here is my Comprehensive Backup Plan.

First - An ounce of prevention. I want to do all that is possible so that I don't have a need to use backup. To protect my computers from virus attacks, I use e-trust Internet Security by Computer Associates. And since I live in the lighting capital of the world, I also have a surge protector to keep the insides of my computer from being melted if lightning strikes.

Backing up My Digital Genealogy Files

Hard Drive Backup

• Every night, I automatically back up my genealogy data files and scanned images on the Iomega External Hard Drive I recently purchased. It has 500 GB and can be set to automatically back up on a regular schedule. It's easy to do and doesn't take any extra thought on my part. I set it to back up daily at 2 A.M.
  
  I didn't want to do a backup every night without knowing that the backups would restore correctly if and when I ever need them. I wanted to know for sure that the Restore feature works, so after my first backup after installation, I restored a file to make sure all worked as I expected. It did.
  
  
• Because external hard drives can also fail (as I found out the hard way recently), once a month I verify the unit is still backing up and capable of restoring. I do this on the first day of the month as an easy memory aid, but I also have added this to my calendar as a to-do task

• My laptop and desktop computer are networked together, so each time I save my genealogy program file to my laptop, I take an extra minute and save the same file to my desktop. Not only does it keep my data files in sync on both computers, it gives an extra layer of backup. This is something I have to remember to do, but after a few times of doing it, it became automatic.

Online Backup

Because computers and external hard drives can both fail, and would probably be destroyed together in a natural disaster, I want an online backup to my backup. Sound like overkill? Not if you have ever lost irreplaceable files. I live in hurricane susceptible area, so having an off site backup makes plenty of sense to me.

• I have started backing up my genealogy files to Mozy, a secure online backup system that is inexpensive and easy to use. It gives 2GB of storage for free, so you can try it first to see if you like it.

• I have begun to upload my photos to Google Picasa Web Albums as a backup. Easy to load and organize, the photos can be mapped and viewed by family.

CD Backup

• Once a month, I burn my genealogy files to a CD. I alternate where the monthly copy goes. The first copy I keep in my bank safe deposit box, but after seeing hurricanes and subsequent flooding of bank vaults on TV, I realized this isn't as safe as I originally thought it was. Keeping a backup CD in a safe deposit box is no longer a full proof plan. So, on alternate months, I send CDs to other family members. This has the added benefit of keeping family members current on genealogy.

I have three layers of backup - an external hard drive, online backup and CD backup. Each one covers me in a different type of disaster. Now that I feel comfortable with my backup plan for my genealogy computer files, it is time to think about the paper records and photos.

Security plan for hard copies and photo.

Paper and photos are the real irreplaceables. If these are destroyed in a natural disaster, it would be heartbreaking. I feel, as the family historian, that it is my responsibility to do all I can to keep them safe. Since I know that safe deposit boxes are not flood-proof (and not fire-proof either), I believe that having these papers protected in my own house would be safer option for me.

• Put all my photos in small acid-free boxes which I then line up inside large waterproof containers with a tight fighting lid. I don't think that there is such thing as a hurricane proof lid capable of withstanding 120 mile hour winds, but a tight waterproof fit is a good start. And the acid-free box will protect the papers from deterioration.

• Keep all containers stored together, so that if a disaster requires evacuation, we can easily grab these irreplaceable photos and papers. I also plan to grab the laptop and external hard drive on the way out the door.

• Scan the documents and photos as a backup so all is not lost should the paper be destroyed.

I've got the plan. Now I will start the implementation.

ProGenealogists Announces the 50 Most Popular Genealogy Websites

Kory L. Meyerink, an adjunct professor of family history at Brigham Young University, felt an objective list of genealogy sites based on web traffic was needed. Why base a top 50 genealogy list on web traffic? Because the most useful genealogy sites will have the most traffic.

The methodology of combining results from different sites that measure web traffic is a pretty clever way to determine results. Since the different web-traffic sites use different methods of measurement, combining results should smooth out any outliers. To get the top 50 genealogy sites, he merged the rankings from:

• Alexa.com - Alexa measures website traffic from those users who have the Alexa toolbar installed. If Alexa's user base is a fair sample of the Internet user population, then Alexa results for genealogy sites should be pretty accurate.
• Quantcast.com, - Quantcast combines directly measured audience data with panel-based estimates. In other words, it surveys a sample of people and extrapolates just like polls do.
• Compete.com - Compete.com uses multiple sources, including ISPs, the Compete Toolbar and opt-in panels - a combination of what Alexa and Quantcast do.
• Google PageRank - Google measures the number of overall links to a web page as an indicator of an individual page's value. This value is called Google Page Rank or PR, and is visible on Google's Toolbar when you visit a website. The higher the Google PR generally, the higher the website appears in Google's search engine rankings.

While Alexa, Quantcast and Compete measure website traffic, Google PR measures incoming links to the site. Kory also used link directories (subjective by nature) such as Kip Sperry’s Link List, Genealogy Sleuth List, and Yahoo and Google Directories to compile the list.

Here is the press release. Explore and enjoy.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – 2 April 2008.
ProGenealogists, Inc. released today the results of a study that identifies, for the first time, the 50 most popular genealogy websites.

The popularity of genealogy on the Internet has long been established, but for the first time, it’s possible to say which of the thousands of genealogy sites are the most popular in this growing field. The list uses a “places rated” approach to average the website traffic rankings from four major web analytics companies.

The top two websites actually tied for first place and are well-known to web genealogists: Ancestry.com and its sister site, RootsWeb.com. Third place, however, is the somewhat lesser known MyHeritage.com whose popularity is attributed to its many users in Europe and Israel. Next is Genealogy.com, with FamilySearch.org, provided by the LDS Church, rounding out the top five.

“The importance of this list for genealogists cannot be underestimated,” said Natalie Cottrill, ProGenealogists’s President and CEO. “If a site is popular, as measured by
actual traffic, it must be providing useful information, and genealogists are always seeking more sites to help with their research. Everyone will find sites on this list they have never heard of, or visited. We are very pleased to make this information available for free to the entire genealogical community”

The rankings are the result of research conducted over the past three months by ProGenealogists’s Vice-President of Marketing, Kory L. Meyerink, who is also an adjunct professor of family history at Brigham Young University. “Only full-fledged genealogy websites could be considered for this ranking, due to the way the web analytics companies conduct their research,” Meyerink commented. “Individual pages on a government website, cannot be ranked independent of that government site’s own traffic. The same is the case for genealogical pages that are part of a larger, non-genealogical website.” Sites of only passing interest to genealogists, such as the meaning surnames or promoting coats-of-arms, were also excluded.

Bryce Barnett, Operations Manager for ProGenealogists, remarked, “The findings of this study are fascinating. Nine of the 50 sites are subscription sites, illustrating that
genealogists understand the value of paying for information. Indeed, half of the sites are primarily data-oriented sites. Another quarter are sites that provide links to genealogical data.”

ProGenealogists has posted the list at http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2008.htm, notified the 50 websites, and provided an award icon they can display on their website. A detailed article, exploring the methodology and numbers behind this ground-breaking study is planned for a pending issue of Digital Genealogist, the popular Internet magazine.

ProGenealogists, a privately held Utah corporation, is one of the nation’s premier genealogical research firms, with offices in Salt Lake City, and Sandy, Utah. Founded in 1998, it brings together many of the nation’s best genealogists in an environment fostering high quality, scholarly genealogical research. ProGenealogists’s own website has been nationally recognized for the design, layout and quality of its content by USAToday, “Yahoo Internet Life” Magazine, Family Tree Magazine, and “The Internet Scout Report” sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Which Day Did your Ancestors Get Married?

I decided to look up the day of the week on which each of my ancestors got married and this has added some interesting background and questions to my family story.

None of my ancestors (at least those for whom I know wedding dates) were married on a Saturday, the day I have always thought of as a traditional day to be married.

My grandparents were married 15 Aug 1906, a Wednesday. My grandfather had his own shoemaker shop in NJ and so I wonder why he would have been married on a workday. I find it an intriguing question.

Europe
My great-grandparents, farmers in Hungary, were married on 19 Jun 1870, a Sunday. Now this makes sense as these farmers worked their fields every day except Sunday, the day they attended church. The only surprise to me is that they were married in June before the harvest was in, but this is probably more a matter of when the priest was available.

My husband's great-grandparents were married in Belfast, Ireland, on 26 Dec 1865, a Tuesday and also Boxing Day. I know that Boxing Day became an official holiday during the reign of Queen Victoria, but I'm not aware if there is any significance to being married on Boxing Day other than it might have been a day off from work for the couple.



Back to the U.S.

My husband's grandparents were married on a Wednesday in 1901 in Pennsylvania. He worked for the railroad.

Another of my great-grandparents were married in Pennsylvania on 21 Apr 1889, a Sunday. My great-grandfather worked in a factory when the work week was 6 days long. Sunday was his only day off from work.

As I kept checking the wedding dates of our U.S ancestors, I find that all in my family tree in the 1800's were married on a Wednesday with the exception of two couples on Tuesday and one on Sunday. None on Saturday.

Were most people married on a Wednesday in the 1800's? Did everyone already know this but me? Or is my family unusual? Did this Victorian poem about weddings really reflect popular thinking of the time?

"Monday for wealth
Tuesday for health
Wednesday-the best day of all!
Thursday for crosses
Friday for losses
Saturday-no luck at all!"

If you want to learn the day on which your ancestors were married so that you too can ponder why your ancestors married on the day they did, you can use the Day of the Week Calculator .


The calculator used the Gregorian calendar so be aware of when the calendar changed from the Julian to Gregorian calendar in the country for which you are performing the calculation.

You may also start wondering as to why your ancestors chose the day they did for a wedding day, how difficult it must have been to get married on a work day and how difficult it may for others to attend the ceremony.

Hurricane Season is Here. Is your Genealogy Data Protected?

What does June 1st mean to you? To me it signifies the beginning of hurricane season. And this year is predicted to be a doozy.

I've lived through nine hurricanes in the last few years, so I know the drill. We are warned to have bottled water, food that doesn't need refrigeration, a battery-powered radio and extra batteries.

But what I really have been thinking about recently is all my irreplaceable genealogy data - my genealogy files and all my scanned photos and documents. I have the Maxtor OneTouch Mini External Hard Drive which backs up my files every night. That gives me great piece of mind if my computer should fail, but I realize it won't help if we are hit by a hurricane. It sits right behind my computer, so if the room with my computer is damaged, the backup drive will be damaged also.

I have backup CDs of my genealogy that I keep in the bank safe deposit box, but I have seen on TV some banks vaults that have been flooded after hurricanes. I've sent CDs to other family members but they live in hurricane areas also.


So, the question is what can I do to make sure I don't lose my genealogy data if we should be hit by a hurricane?


Today, I'm going to take a look at Mozy. It gives 2GB of storage for free where I can upload my photos and files. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't give it a review, but I figure June 1, the first day of hurricane season, is the appropriate day to sign up and give it a try.

Easy Google Genealogy Searcher, Part II

This genealogy search tool, powered by Google, offers specialized searches for finding ancestors in historic books, historical society and other scholarly articles, genealogy blogs, and US patent searches. The Google Genealogy Searcher Part II uses Google to search databases that you may have not known existed.

Easy Google Genealogy Searcher, Part II

With the Google Searcher, Part II, you can search:

Google Books
Search the full text of public domain books that Google has digitized. You can download, save and print the book for free. These books include genealogy books, county history books, military books, municipal annual reports, and other out-of-copyright books that include the names of regular folks. This is a great resource. I found my Civil War ancestors in their regimental histories, and biographical data of other ancestors in county books. And Google continues to scan and digitize books.

Google Scholar
Search historical society papers, journal articles and college thesis for your ancestor. (I actually found a college thesis about an ancestor of my husband who had been a city mayor about 100 years ago - so you never know what you will find until you search)

Google Patent
Google Patent Search Search US patents issued from 1776 to the present. Patents were not just issued to inventors and researchers, but also to factory workers, farmers, miners and many other regular people. I searched for the county where my ancestors lived, and browsed the many patents. While I didn't find anything specific for my family, I was able to get a general sense about the county during the time my family lived there.

Google Blog
Search for ancestors, genealogy topics, locations, or relatives. There are thousands of genealogy blogs today. Some genealogy blogs are about individual family research and some blogs make genealogy database announcements complete with surnames. This is a huge untapped resource to search for your ancestors.

And don't forget the original
Easy Google Genealogy Searcher
Puts advanced Google features useful for genealogy searching on one page with suggested keywords and ideas for use in genealogy to help make the most of your genealogy Google searches.

Easter Date Finder

Easter, April 8, 2007 will be here soon. Just take a look at this year's calendar and you can find the date.

But what if you are trying to date a photo from years ago that is simply marked Easter, 1948?

Or if you are reading an old newspaper clipping that says a wedding took place on the Saturday after Easter, 1922?

Or a death happened on the day before Easter, 1887?

How can you determine those dates? It is easy with the online

Easter Date Finder
Just enter the year to find the date on which Easter fell.

Cousin Relationships

Are you confused by the term "removed" in cousin relationships? Have you wondered how to determine who is your second cousin once-removed or first cousin three-times removed?

The word "Cousin" is usually good enough when we are meeting someone casually, but genealogists like to know precise relationships.

When the word "removed" is used to describe a relationship, it indicates that the two people are from different generations. You are in the same generation if you have an equal amount of generations from the common ancestor, whether grandparent, great-grandparent or even further back.

"First cousins once removed" describes two individuals with one cousin's grandparents as the common ancestor but who themselves are one generation different from each other.

Generation when defining a cousin relationship has nothing to do with age. You can be 50 years difference in age, yet still be in the same generation as cousins.

Confused?

Try the Cousin Relation Calculator.

Play with the cousin calculator, display a relationship chart, and read the relationship definitions.

Soundex Search

What does it mean when a database offers a soundex search?

Soundex sorts together surnames that sound similar but have different spellings. A soundex code begins with the first letter of the surname followed by a three-digit code that represents the first three remaining consonants. Zeros will be added to names that do not have enough letters to be coded.

Soundex Calculator
Calculate the soundex codes for your surname.

Searching a genealogy database using a soundex search option is a way of doing a phonetic search. Searching for Johnson in a database with a soundex search will bring results that include Johnson, Johnsson, Johnsen, Johanson and any other surname that has the soundex code of J525.

Even if you think your surname has always been spelled the same, the name may have been mis-transcribed into the database.

It's not a good idea to begin a database search with a soundex search as you will receive many more results than from a non-soundex search. A soundex search is best after being unsuccessful in a first search OR if you are unsure how to spell a name.

Some genealogy databases offer soundex searches. Take a look at the little pull-down tab on the search box. If it offers a soundex search in addtion to an exact search, take advantage!

Roman Numeral Converter

Many tombstones and genealogy documents have the date of death and/or birth written in Roman Numerals. You may see numbers such as MDCCXLIX or MDCCCII.

Now you can easily and accurately convert a Roman Number to a decimal number.

Just go to the online

Roman Numeral Converter
Online Roman Numeral Converter

Converts a Roman Numeral to a Decimal Number.
Also converts a Decimal Number to a Roman Numeral.