I recently submitted a research request to Eileen O'Duill in hope of helping me learn more about my McGinty ancestors. Specifically, Eileen is helping me learn more about Michael McGinty and Elizabeth McGarry. Eileen is offering this as part of the Genealogy Cruise 2006.
Eileen recently released a new book on Irish Genealogy - Exploring Irish Genealogy #2: Irish Civil Registration - Where do I start?.
Archive for June of 2006
McGinty Research
June 17, 2006Back up your genealogy data!
June 17, 2006
Fox Lake, the growing city that it is, is subject to occasional power outages. About three years ago, after suffering another power outage, the hard drive of my PC failed. While I didn't lose all of my data, I did lose countless hours of [then] current research which I was in the process of completing at that time. Yes, despite the fact that I am in the IT profession, I did not follow my own advice.
Following that catastrophic event, I purchased a new PC with mirrored hard drives and a backup power supply. I feel better with this new hardware in place but that does not mean that my data is completely safe (I won't even get into the pictures, documents and other media I have in my possession).
A new company, Mozy, is currently offering 2Gb of free storage space online. Once you download the application, it will periodically back up your data either at a specific time or when your PC is not in use.
If you don't use Mozy, make backup copies of your data and store it offsite.
Following that catastrophic event, I purchased a new PC with mirrored hard drives and a backup power supply. I feel better with this new hardware in place but that does not mean that my data is completely safe (I won't even get into the pictures, documents and other media I have in my possession).
A new company, Mozy, is currently offering 2Gb of free storage space online. Once you download the application, it will periodically back up your data either at a specific time or when your PC is not in use.
If you don't use Mozy, make backup copies of your data and store it offsite.
MacKenzie's Found!
June 13, 2006
From various articles and stories we knew that William Alexander MacKenzie, my great-grandfather, was a prominent man in Canada. We knew him to be a store owner, a President of the Kenora Board of Trade and that he was born in Scotland.
I reached out to RAOGK to see if I could obtain a photo of the headstone of William MacKenzie. If I get lucky, I would not only find a volunteer but that volunteer would also find the headstone of Lizzie (nee Green) MacKenzie nearby. Well, I got lucky. Bill & Gwen Zroback volunteered to take pictures of William's headstone. Not only did they also find Lizzie, but they located the headstone of Thomas & Elizabeth Green who are Lizzie's parents. Actually, all four of them are listed on the same headstone. This provided a date of death for Lizzie along with the names, DOBs, etc. for Lizzie's parents. Amy, with the information from the headstones, was able to locate the death records for Thomas Green and Elizabeth Stewart Green.
Bill & Gwen are attempting to locate the obits for William, Lizzie, Thomas and Elizabeth. I am sincerely thankful for their assistance and for the work that volunteers from RAOGK do to help us in our research.
Bill
I reached out to RAOGK to see if I could obtain a photo of the headstone of William MacKenzie. If I get lucky, I would not only find a volunteer but that volunteer would also find the headstone of Lizzie (nee Green) MacKenzie nearby. Well, I got lucky. Bill & Gwen Zroback volunteered to take pictures of William's headstone. Not only did they also find Lizzie, but they located the headstone of Thomas & Elizabeth Green who are Lizzie's parents. Actually, all four of them are listed on the same headstone. This provided a date of death for Lizzie along with the names, DOBs, etc. for Lizzie's parents. Amy, with the information from the headstones, was able to locate the death records for Thomas Green and Elizabeth Stewart Green.
Bill & Gwen are attempting to locate the obits for William, Lizzie, Thomas and Elizabeth. I am sincerely thankful for their assistance and for the work that volunteers from RAOGK do to help us in our research.
Bill
NGS Conference 2006 in Chicago
June 11, 2006
It's been a while since I've added to the blog so I thought that I would take a few minutes to let you all know what I've been up to. Now that I have a small break from school along with the fact that Amy and I just finished attending the NGS Conference 2006 "They Passed This Way", it is a particularly good time.
This is the first NGS Conference that we have attended. I must admit that I did not anticipate that the conference would be as good as it was. Given, not all of the sessions were exemplary but they are all were valuable in the sense that I learned at least one thing from each session. What was particularly interesting to me was the content that takes our searches "across the pond". Paul Milner, a native of Northern England, taught me a lot about Irish and British genealogy. Whether it be looking for the McGinty or Kinney families in Ireland or searching for the MacKenzie's in Scotland, I am much better prepared to continue those searches before they came to the United States. I will be sharing some of what I learned in future blogs.
One other individual that we had a chance to see was Drew Smith who some of you may know from the GenealogyGuys podcast . One of the lectures pertained to using the web to perform surname searches. One site that he shared was the RootsWeb surname list. On this site you can perform a search for your surname and possibly connect with other individuals that are not only searching for the same surname but may be searching for the same ancestors.
I am in Boston this week attending the Microsoft TechEd 2006 conference. One of the new items that I learned about was not from Microsoft but rather from one of their competitors, Google. When you are searching the web you often come across sites which you want to research further. Historically we add the site to our Bookmarks determined that we will take time in the future to look at the site in more detail. I don't know about you but most of the time I don't get around to it. Either that or I have forgotten why the site was of interest. Google has release a notebook that you can not only add links but also include notes. The Google Notebook has become part of my genealogy toolkit.
While I've been busy with school, work and conferences I have had some time to dedicate to researching my family history. The SAR approved my two supplemental applications based on descent from John Porter Jr. and Sr. The site now contains over 15,150 individuals in the tree.
Happy searching!
Bill
This is the first NGS Conference that we have attended. I must admit that I did not anticipate that the conference would be as good as it was. Given, not all of the sessions were exemplary but they are all were valuable in the sense that I learned at least one thing from each session. What was particularly interesting to me was the content that takes our searches "across the pond". Paul Milner, a native of Northern England, taught me a lot about Irish and British genealogy. Whether it be looking for the McGinty or Kinney families in Ireland or searching for the MacKenzie's in Scotland, I am much better prepared to continue those searches before they came to the United States. I will be sharing some of what I learned in future blogs.
One other individual that we had a chance to see was Drew Smith who some of you may know from the GenealogyGuys podcast . One of the lectures pertained to using the web to perform surname searches. One site that he shared was the RootsWeb surname list. On this site you can perform a search for your surname and possibly connect with other individuals that are not only searching for the same surname but may be searching for the same ancestors.
I am in Boston this week attending the Microsoft TechEd 2006 conference. One of the new items that I learned about was not from Microsoft but rather from one of their competitors, Google. When you are searching the web you often come across sites which you want to research further. Historically we add the site to our Bookmarks determined that we will take time in the future to look at the site in more detail. I don't know about you but most of the time I don't get around to it. Either that or I have forgotten why the site was of interest. Google has release a notebook that you can not only add links but also include notes. The Google Notebook has become part of my genealogy toolkit.
While I've been busy with school, work and conferences I have had some time to dedicate to researching my family history. The SAR approved my two supplemental applications based on descent from John Porter Jr. and Sr. The site now contains over 15,150 individuals in the tree.
Happy searching!
Bill