Did you know that Ancestry is giving us all a gift of free, quality education? If you can log into Ancestry, as a subscriber at any level, or even with a DNA test or free family tree, you can see Academy presentations for free. You don’t have to be a subscriber, but you do have to be a registered “member.”

Not a subscriber? Not done a DNA test yet? But added a free tree? Simply sign in to Ancestry Academy with your own sign-in information. If you don’t have this, it’s simple to do right on the Ancestry Academy main page by clicking on “Sign Up Today.”

The variety of presenters and topics is amazing. Even the presenters view the videos of other presenters. No one knows everything! Many of the videos are accompanied by extensive handouts.

The two presentation of mine that area already online are:

• Native American Ancestry? Steps to Learn More
• The Lure of the Train Whistle: Researching Railroad Workers

Start learning here!

A large array of Minnesota newspapers is on a new platform that will soon require you to change what you have bookmarked for your search. “The Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub has moved to a new platform – the same platform used by Swedish American Newspapers and Historical Minneapolis Tribune.” It’s just one part of the great Minnesota Historical Society website.

With this change, researchers get the historic Minneapolis Tribune titles, foreign-language titles, and other new content with a promise of more to come.  with more new titles and date ranges on the way.

As the MHS website further states, “The Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub is a searchable website from the Minnesota Historical Society that makes hundreds of thousands of pages of Minnesota newspapers available online. The Hub contains geographically and culturally diverse newspapers published between 1856 and today. Due to copyright law, most newspapers published after 1922 can only be accessed from the Gale Family Library at the Minnesota History Center. Explore the Newspaper Hub.”

MHS has cabinet after cabinet of microfilmed newspapers from all around Minnesota. Several rows of microfilm readers, several printers, and a machine for digitizing the articles you find. Copies are only .35 each. MHS has a large parking lot (fee required), a cafe, great exhibits, and microfilms, books and original records galore. Learn more at www.mnhs.org

Under the guidance and in-depth research work of Eric G. Grundset, Director of Library Publications, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is publishing a series of guides related to Revolutionary War research in various states.  The DAR website states this “provides detailed information on the availability of manuscript and archival material that exists for the state for the period of the Revolutionary War along with listings of historical and genealogical studies that have been published and which supplement the original sources. It is the most extensive gathering of such information ever published, and researchers will find it an essential resource with which to identify materials and studies located in many scattered libraries and archives.” These books are several hundred pages long, have maps, and are indexed. Each is available in print or a PDF edition.

The already published volumes are on New York, South Carolina, Georgia, Rhode Island, Virginia (includes West Virginia, Kentucky and the Old Northwest), Massachusetts/Maine, and North Carolina. The volume for Connecticut, the eighth book in the series, will be available any day. If you are interested in this or others please check the DAR Store’s webpage at: dar.org/national-society/about-dar/dar-publications.

The Georgia printed volume is presently out of print and will likely be reprinted in a couple of months. Next up is the book for Pennsylvania, the ninth in the series. This will be followed in the next year or so by the remaining states: New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and New Hampshire/Vermont.

This morning I gave a talk in Wisconsin and a question was asked that led me to talking about the Fopydo. You read that correctly, I didn’t make up the word or misspell it. According to the company’s website, it is an abbreviation of “photo-copy documents.”

It’s a simple tool that comes folded flat, but when assembled provides an excellent and cheap way to steady your camera when taking pictures of documents, pages from a book, or of a family photo. It really helps if you have any issues holding your cell phone perfectly still to take such pictures.

This is a link to more info on the FopyDo http://fopydo.com/. I learned about these from Cyndi Ingle of Cyndi’s List. I ordered mine from Amazon.

When is the last time you checked the FamilySearch’s Family History Research Wiki for your ancestral cities, counties, states, provinces, and countries? Many are continually being updated. How about the pages about genealogy topics such as census, tax lists and others?

One page that has been updated and has added content is Hanover Military Records. It’s a really good page and makes me wish I had Hanover ancestry.

Not all pages are as comprehensive as this one, but using this in conjunction with Cyndi’s List for ancestral locations really broadens your knowledge and ability to find history and records for your family.

Please join me next week in Hudson, Wisconsin as I present “Controlling Chaos: Organizing Your Genealogical Materials” at the Hudson Area Public Library. Thursday, February 9 at 10:30 a.m. Free, but registration required. www.hudsonpubliclibrary.org/

The presentation is accompanied by a five page handout.