Saturday, July 10, 2010

Google your names and LostCousins website

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I think this will show a copy of a legal notice in 1918 about the probate of the will for Arnold Thomas Lewis, born 1813, father of Richard Cronin Lewis, my father's mother's father's father.
I am new at this - the capturing and publishing of historical sources now available on the internet. This notice has given me more clues on names and middle initials for family history. I did just today enter Edward, Vernon and Wellington Lewis into My Ancestors on the LostCousins.com website.
I recommend this website. The premise is pretty simple. I just have a free membership, and have made contacts with some "lost cousins."

If you can find your ancestors in the 1880 US Census or the 1881 British or Canadian Censuses (available at FamilySearch.org for free), and you can supply LostCousins.com with the line #, page #, film # for those people, then - by the numbers - their computers can notice when someone else logs their same, or related, ancestors - and send you both messages. If you are both related to someone back then, then you are cousins today, and you can collaborate on research. Pretty neat! Check it out.

I attended our Southern Oregon PAF Users Group meeting this morning. There were three presentations on scrapbooking family history - in books, sharing it with family members (duplicating the books), and doing it digitally with the computer. This legal notice is something I would like to use in a PDF or power point presentation on researching. The screens leading up to this find can be captured with the Print Screen button, then show the notice with all the names, and then what I do with the names - confirming information from other sources.

Some fun. Not forgotten :-)

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