Don Smith
Curator/Manager
Cornwall Community Museum
In researching my own family history and while helping others with theirs, I have embraced strategies that others may find useful.
For those unwilling or unable to deal with monthly fees on the Ancestry.ca website, an option is to sign up and primarily use only the free service. The free site allows for the creation and maintenance of a family tree without access to premium services. A person can enter their own information, parents, and grandparents and more if known. Otherwise, one can sign up during a short free trial and maximize their time online during the trial before reverting to the free service.
FamilySearch.org does require a free subscription, but anyone can contribute to shared records. The site also features free access to select government and other premium records.
A Newspapers.com paid or free trial subscription affords access to almost 30,000 historic newspapers, including thousands of Cornwall editions. Accessing the service is free through many public libraries and from anywhere for a fee. Savings are available by bundling a subscription with Ancestry.ca and Fold3.com for military records or for best access to Canadian records, choose their ca.ForcesWarRecords.com site.
The worldwide FindAGrave.com site is completely free unless a person opts to pay and forgo the advertisements. No account is necessary to view the site, but it is a clever idea to create a free account. Doing so enables users to create missing memorials and suggest additions/corrections to existing memorials. By connecting memorials to parents and spouses, a family tree quickly emerges. I encourage everyone who can to register and help grow this incredible resource. Some people have created thousands of memorials. Others have added known information to memorials. Stating the newspaper and publication date for transcribed or uploaded death notices is helpful. It is quick and easy to copy/paste info from online obituaries. The site allows for flagging veterans as well as custom directories called Virtual Cemeteries. Another way to contribute is to visit cemeteries and take photos of tombstones/markers not yet on the site.
Users can add information and clippings from other sites to their free family tree at Ancestry.ca. In fact, Ancestry.ca hints often include records shared by volunteers on their free FindAGrave.com site.
A wealth of information is at our fingertips, but not everything online is completely accurate. For example, when using Ancestry.ca, a recommended practice is to avoid blindly accepting every hint offered by the site. Such hints often appear due to similarities between our own tree and those of others. If someone adds incorrect information on their tree, it may be proposed to other similar trees and one person’s error can quickly become accepted as Gospel truth across a dozen trees. I find it best to stick to using hints for Census, military, burial, and other vital stats rather than agreeing to have the site clone parts of someone else’s tree unless accuracy can be determined.
Happy ancestor hunting!
L’article Climbing the family tree for free est apparu en premier sur Cornwall Seaway News.
