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Category: Research Tips

Shortening Old Fulton New York Post Cards URLs

Shortening Old Fulton New York Post Cards URLs

So, you’ve found an article on Old Fulton New York Post Cards (https://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html) and it’s time to create the citation. What do you do with the long URL that refers to the highlighted image returned by search? Shortening the URLS Here’s a way to come up with a shorter URL by working some search-and-replace magic: First, copy the big old long URL to a word processing document. You can get it by right-clicking a sidebar image link. It will look…

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Finding Alternate Surname Spellings for Index Searching

Finding Alternate Surname Spellings for Index Searching

There’s a death date and place mystery associated with the surname “Macaluso” that I would dearly like to solve. And, there’s a microfilmed index that might help me solve it. But, it has to be skimmed the old-fashioned way and the name I’m looking for doesn’t appear under the obvious spelling. Before I leave the index behind, I want to make sure I’ve been thorough, so this morning, I tried to see if I could come up with a comprehensive…

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An Education in Early Textiles

An Education in Early Textiles

This morning I’m working on transcribing pages from a probate file for Abraham Trafford who died in Shrewsbury, Monmouth, New Jersey in 1871. I’m not sure why yet, but the inventory has page after page listing cloth by the yard. I’ve been sewing since I could treadle a machine (I’m not THAT old; we just had a vintage Singer in the house when I was young) and so I can picture many of the fabrics listed: gingham, linen, “moslin,” and…

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Save Time and Energy with System > Keyboard > Text > Replace/With

Save Time and Energy with System > Keyboard > Text > Replace/With

I don’t remember who it was that clued me in on the System > Keyboard > Text method of typing long phrases with a few keystrokes, but whoever it was — thank you! I’ve set up a few combinations and it’s saved me lots and lots of typing. I’m not lazy, by the way; I just like to be efficient. So, here’s what I mean. As a genealogist, I have need to type “Family History Center” over and over and…

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14 Day Challenge #4: Analyze the Sources

14 Day Challenge #4: Analyze the Sources

[I’m participating in the 14 Day Mini Research Like a Pro Challenge. Thanks to Diana and Nicole at Family Locket for sharing their expertise and guiding us through the experience.] Today’s challenge is to carefully examine the two English census records that provide the information that serves as evidence for my great-great grandfather’s death. Building a strong foundation for new research is very important, right? In the works-for-me research process that I’ve developed over the last few years, this is the…

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Calculating Birth Date Ranges

Calculating Birth Date Ranges

It took me a long time to wrap my mind around the idea of calculating birth date ranges from an age on a particular day but now that I understand how it works, I find it much more useful than just subtracting an age from a year and it isn’t that much harder to do. Let’s use Frank M. Smith as an example. On 2 July 1885, he stated, under oath, that he was forty-eight years old. [1] Subtracting 48…

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Digital Image Hard to Read? Look for Another

Digital Image Hard to Read? Look for Another

This morning’s goal was to locate a death notice or obituary for Margaret B. Richardson who died 9 April 1896 in Baltimore. First, I searched The Sun using my GenealogyBank subscription. I found two matches for death notices which was satisfying. But, the digital image was a black and white copy and there were two key things I couldn’t read–Margaret’s age and the street number for her daughter’s address. Next, I decided to see what I could find using my Newspapers…

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