ShoeString Genealogy

Mission Statement
Chat Calendar
Tip o' the Dae

Mission Statement

ShoeString Genealogy provides Family Historians with information about how to research their ancestors both on the Internet and in libraries and other repositories. Besides how, we will show you where—locations for free and inexpensive information and the relative value of each.

Weekly Chat Calendar

Currently, we do four GENTREK chats each week; Jayne McCormick also does two American Civil War chats. We publish other chats and activities here, too.

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Tip o' the Dae

Genealogy techniques that can make your researches easier and/or more efficient. Computer and Internet tips that you'll also find useful.

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Tip o' the Dae

Google Docs

Upload an image file of text or a scanned PDF to Google Docs, then check the option that says "Convert text to Google Docs format" and Google Docs will perform OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the file before saving it to your account. If the OCR operation is successful, all the extracted text is stored as a new document else Google Docs will store your original image without any modification. You may perform OCR on images and PDFs as large as 2 MB. The character recognition accuracy is excellent and there seem to be no limits on the number of files that you can process in a day. Yes, it is FREE.

by Dæ Powell

The Source Online

In 2010, Ancestry.com digitized the content of The Source and made it available in wiki format as one of the foundational sources for the Ancestry.com Wiki. Each chapter has been broken into one or more series of articles, links to which are found below:

Third Edition Table of Contents

List of Appendixes

Abbreviations and Acronyms

National Archives Launches Our Archives Wiki

The National Archives has launched its first public wiki called Our Archives on Wikispaces located at: Our Archives.

Our Archives is an available space for members of the public, researchers, and staff to share knowledge about National Archives records, resources and research. The wiki represents an chance for historians, researchers, archivists, and citizen archivists to collaborate building pages on specific records or topics and to share information and resources to connect with multiple other researchers.

by Dæ Powell

Univ. of Tennessee Wins Grant to Digitize Newspapers

In two years, students, historians, and anyone else curious about nearly a century of history should have 100,000 pages of Tennessee newspapers at their fingertips. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize local newspapers from 1836 to 1922.
More . . .

Genealogy Chats Calendar

Mondae, 6-Sep-10, GENTREK presents "How to Build Your Genealogy Library." When I began doing genealogical research in 1972, I had but a single genealogy book, and it grew from there. I walked around my place today and estimated my household collection of books numbers in the six-to-eight thousands. Join us at 9:00 pm EDT in the AOL Genealogy Chatroom.
Mondae, 6-Sep-10, GENTREK presents "A Genealogy Attitude." A golden goodie from DarlaJo Vader. ATTITUDE is defined as: an opinion or way of thinking. This attitude, or way of thinking, affects not only my personal research, but my ability to help others learn more about researching. I am often suggesting "other" records to folks in the chat rooms, resources they haven't tried yet. It is this "way of thinking" that I would like to discuss in this presentation. Join us at 10:00 pm EDT in the Genealogy Wise Chatroom.
Thursdae, 9-Sep-10, GENTREK presents "National Archives of England." Americans researching British or Colonial ancestors should visit the website of The National Archives. One of the largest web sites for British research, it contains information for beginners learning to trace their English ancestors, and contains a wealth of resources for more advanced researchers looking for research alternatives. These additional resources may not be available in North America, but you will know where to seek at the end of this presentation. We'll begin at 10pm in the chatroom of Looking4Kin.
Thursdae, 9-Sep-10. The American Civil War History chat will offer "A True Story," the story of the family of a former member of the chat room. We will begin at 11 PM EDT in the AOL chatroom, Ancestral Digs.
Fridae, 10-Sep-10, the American Civil War History will present "A Fitful Sleep." Between his initial entombment in May 1865 and his final burial in September 1901, Lincoln's body was moved more than a dozen times, his coffin opened on several occasions to see if he was still there. Originally presented by James L. Walker in the American Civil War History chatroom on AOL. Join us, won't you, at 10 PM EDT in the AOL chatroom, Ancestral Digs?
Saturdae, 11-Sep-10, GENTREK will present "Myths in British Genealogy." A true student of genealogy learns to respect facts, to assess them, to combine them and to draw conclusions from them. He further knows that when direct evidence is not available, reasonable conclusions can be reached from the weight of indirect evidence. To reach such a conclusion not only must there be sufficient, indirect evidence pointing to that conclusion, but there can be none that leads in the reverse direction. Come see us at 10:00 AM EDT next week in the Genealogy Wise Chatroom.

Classic Sketch

"Queen Autumn"
by Juanita Hamel, September, 1921

Flaming scarlets and russet browns, deep purples, wondrous yellows and gorgeous greens — these are the chief colors of Queen Autumn when she sweeps across the hills. Ripened fruits and flowers' last bloomings are in her train, borne on the wings of the first frosts. And Cupid crowns her — be she the Season or a fair maid dressed to represent her — with the diadem of Autumn days. Chill may be the breezes, but her heart is warm and warmed by eager love lit by the fire in her own eyes.

Text by Dæ Powell