Family History – Page 17 – International Institute of Genealogical Studies

Transcription Tip: Finding George

Our students at The National Institute for Genealogical Studies are encouraged to access original documents whenever possible. These are usually either fully handwritten, or have handwritten entries on forms. It is advised to transcribe all of documents we gather for our research projects. As we continue to explore developing our Transcribing Skills, we will discover the value of spending the time necessary to transcribe our original documents, especially those that are hard to decipher. All family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire these core research skills. See below for links to our courses designed to equip our students with this vital ability. When we search original records, we will encounter many different styles of handwriting, even when they are using the same script of a certain time period. Just as today, we all have our own handwriting styles. We tend to always make certain letters in the same way, but for other letters it may vary, even depending on the word we are writing, or where the letter is positioned in that word. In the same way that other people become accustom to reading our handwriting, we begin to recognize the handwriting styles of those clerks and census enumerators in the documents we are accessing. Specific characteristics show up on the same page or for the entries for a district, like in civil registrations or church records. We can easily tell when the entries are made by a different person. Today’s Transcription Tip is the use of Transcription Cheat Sheets. As you find letter variations written in documents, cut and paste them to a document. Create an Alphabet Checklist and use it to “break the code” and transcribe the words, even those with unfamiliar letters. Here is an example on FamilySearch that you can print out for future reference. If you are looking for help with transcribing documents from a different language, check out FamilySearch resources here. They also have lists of common words used in documents. You will begin to recognize these as you become more familiar with the records. Finding George When searching census records, civil registrations or church registers, you will be looking for specific names and surnames. In the same way, you can make a Name Cheat Sheet with all of the variations you have discovered. Be sure to check for spelling variations and take note of misspellings of the names and surnames. Entries may have been written phonetically, or…

Transcription Tip: Line Numbering

As The National Institute for Genealogical Studies students begin the October rotation of courses, we continue to explore the foundational research practise of developing Transcribing Skills. See below for links to our courses designed to equip our students with this vital ability. All family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire these core research skills. When preparing to make a transcription, it is good practice to make a digital scan of the original document and then put the physical document away. This keeps your original safe with as little handling as possible. Once you have the copy, you can make a print out and mark on it as you wish. Viewing the digital image on your computer allows you to enlarge difficult-to-read sections. Today’s Transcription Tip is the use of Line Numbering. On your printed working copy (never the original!), number the lines on the page. This will keep you on track as you start transcribing. It is so easy to lose your place and skip to the line before or after the line you are working on, especially in a document with repetitive wording. If the lines are written unevenly, you may also want to draw lines between each numbered line to keep them separated to work on each individually. Remember our Transcription Definition: A transcription is a true word-for-word rendering of a document with the original punctuation and spelling (i.e., an exact copy of the original, line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word, and letter by letter). All notes and marks on any page are copied as faithfully as possible in the presented formatting. It includes all spellings, capitalizations and punctuations as it was written. No corrections are made to spelling or capitalization. It includes the whole record—front and back, with all its headings, insertions, endorsements, notations, etc. Transcribe each line word for word – EXACTLY as it is appears on your document. Keep all of the words together on their own line. Line 7 on your transcription should only have what is written on line 7 of your document. This makes it so much easier to go back later to work on the difficult-to-read letters of words on that line. Be sure to keep all of the original spelling, capitalization and punctuation. When all of the words on a line have been fully transcribed, mark it as completed on your working copy. When you step away and…

Family History and Cultural Heritage

As the calendar turns another page to reveal a new month, The National Institute for Genealogical Studies is preparing to open the next round of online courses for family historians and genealogists on the first Monday of the month. Various organizations have set October as Family History Month or Heritage Month for numerous Ethnic backgrounds. It reflects a growing interest in exploring our cultural roots and a desire to discover more about our Heritage. Many of our courses are designed to teach research methodology and where to find relevant resources, but we also have courses that explore the historical and cultural aspects of the regions and peoples you may be researching. Our country-themed Certificate packages focus on all aspects of research in a specific country. A list of certificates can be found on our website. When you choose one of the certificates, a list of the compulsory courses will appear directly below, with all other courses listed under Electives. Choosing a different certificate will display its compulsory courses. This is a good way to see which courses are specific to a particular certificate program and which courses are compulsory for more than one certificate. TIP: Choose compulsory courses from a second certificate as electives and completed two certificates at once. Valuable Courses for Researching Your Cultural HeritageDemystifying Culture & Folklore Life of Our Ancestors Research: Grandmothers, Mothers & Daughters-Tracing Women Research: Social History Whether it is Autumn or Spring for you, ENJOY the month of October! Be grateful for all you have discovered on your genealogical journey so far. Use family holidays such as Thanksgiving as opportunities to ask about food traditions and how holidays were celebrated in the past. Ask family members about their memories and if they have photos. Seek out your family history stories and dig a little deeper to discover your cultural heritage as well. Names, Dates and Places are a great start (and we need them!), but don’t stop there. Find the rest of your family’s story. It is YOUR Heritage. Preserve it – so you can pass it down to the next generation. —————————————————- The National Institute for Genealogical Studies offers quality online education with over 230+ courses to choose from. Some of our courses are topic/country-specific, or provide insight into research methodology, while others are skill-building courses to maximize your research time. The first Monday of a new month means another rotation of courses will start on October 4th. Most…

Transcription Tuesday: Handwriting

One of the very first basic skills to develop as a Transcriber is learning to read various handwriting scripts. Start with modern day cursive handwriting. If you cannot master every day current handwriting styles, you will really struggle with older scripts. Practice reading whenever you can. Read handwriting from different people. Everyone develops their own style. Learn to write in cursive yourself. It is a skill that will help you as you are trying to decipher handwritten documents. Soon you will be tackling more difficult handwriting on older documents. These are a few quick examples. The top one is an address from 1891. The first word “Davenport” is not too difficult. Knowing it was an address, helps us to figure out that the second word is “Road.” For this word, the “a” is clear and the “d” will become familiar with its upward curl. The “Ro” is more difficult. The word directly below it is “Richard” and has the same “R” at the beginning. The other two names beside it are both “Wm” – the abbreviation for William. They can look different, depending on who is writing it. These names are from Ontario Birth Registrations in 1880. The third example is a record from the Drouin Collection in 1791. The handwriting can be quite challenging, especially if the record is in French or Latin! Deciphering the text is compounded when having to translate from an unfamiliar language. If you are researching records in a language you do not understand, the Family Search Genealogical Word Lists will be very helpful to you. Another useful website is the Brigham Young University (BYU) Tutorial – Making Sense of Old Handwriting. You should bookmark it and explore the resources as you begin to develop your Transcription Skills. We will explore more aspects of reading old handwriting in next week’s Transcription Tuesday.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Remember: Transcribing takes practice and patience. Check back next week for more skill-building tips.Previous Transcription Tuesday blog posts:Census Names Transcription DefinitionTranscription Tuesday Index~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These three core courses demonstrate Transcription principles. They are offered monthly, beginning on the first Monday of every month: Register today!Methodology-Part 2: Organizing and Skill-Building (Basic Level)Skills: Transcribing, Abstracting & Extracting (Basic Level)Palaeography: Reading & Understanding Historical Documents (Advanced)—————————————————-Visit our website for a complete list of online courses offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. Check our Course Calendar here. Follow us on Social Media: Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. *Note: Please be aware our social media accounts are monitored regularly, but NOT 24/7. If you…

British Home Child Day

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies offers a number of courses covering immigration, emigration and migration. For some of our ancestors and extended family members, they seldom stayed in the same place for multiple generations. These major, life-changing decisions were made as a result of multiple factors, which varied dramatically depending on their unique situations. For some young migrants, these decisions were made for them. This is true for the Child Migration schemes from Britain. We have designed a course which specifically explores this topic. Research: Child Migration from Britain From the Course Description:This course provides an overview of the history of child migration from Britain and an introduction to the records that can be accessed to research them. Britain has a very long history of exporting children. Child migration from Britain occurred over a period of nearly 350 years through various private and government sponsored emigration schemes. This course is a good starting point for anyone who knows, or even suspects, that they have a British child migrant ancestor in their family tree. Children were sent to the American Colonies, the West Indies, Australia, Canada, Southern Rhodesia, South Africa and New Zealand. The major recipients of children, based upon numbers, were Canada and Australia. The course is structured to address research in each of the receiving countries, in Britain and from the sending agencies themselves. The course concludes with a case study which uses a child who migrated to Canada during a time period when child migration to Canada was near its peak.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One of these schemes was for the British Home Children. This was a difficult time period and impacted many families – for both those who were sent to a new land and those who were left behind. The young migrants sent to Canada are covered in Modules 2 and 6 of this course. On September 28th, we remember the estimated 100,000 children who were sent out to Canada to find a better life than what they were leaving behind. This date was declared by the Government of Canada as explained here in the announcement for the British Home Child Day Act, 2011. To begin your British Home Children Research, start by checking these web pages:Home Children, 1869-1932 – Library and Archives Canada (LAC) Canada Home Children British Sources (National Institute) – FamilySearch Wiki Canada Home Children Bibliography and Suggested Reading (National Institute) – FamilySearch Canada Home Children – FamilySearch Wiki Be…