FREE LIVE Streaming CLasses from SCGS June 3 through June 5

Jamboree 2016: Registration Now Open for FREE Jamboree Live Streaming

 To Register for the FREE STREAMING CLASSES FRIDAY THRU SUNDAY FOR THE SO CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, GO TO http://streaming.webcastandbeyond.com/jamboree/

The schedule for the FREE live streaming 

from the 47th Annual Southern California Genealogy Jamboree.  

Registration is now open!

We are very grateful to our Diamond Sponsor, Ancestry, which is underwriting the cost of the Jamboree live stream. With their support, SCGS is able to bring you 14 hours of high-quality family history education absolutely free. Handouts will be provided with each session.

The live-streamed sessions from Jamboree are listed below. Session descriptions, speaker bios, suggested experience levels and schedule details are available on the Jamboree website.  Times Below have been converted from PDT to CDT (2 hours ahead)

Friday, June 3

3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. FR008  German Immigrant Waves: Contrasts and Sources by James M.Beidler 
  
4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. FR018  Problems and Pitfalls of a “Reasonably Shallow” Search by  Elissa Scalise Powell, CG®, CGL®

6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. FR027  Tracking Migrations and More: The Records of Old Settler Organizations by Paula Stuart- Warren, CG®, FMGS, FUGA 

7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. FR035  Principles of Effective Evidence Analysis by George Goodloe Morgan 

Saturday, June 4

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. SA009  Getting Started with Eastern European Research by  Lisa A. Alzo, MFA 

12:00 noon. - 1:00 p.m. SA018  Be Your Own Digital Archivist: Preserve Your Research by  Cyndi Ingle 

1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. SA022  German Names: Their Origins, Meaning and Distribution by C. Fritz Juengling, PhD, AG®

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. SA032  Using Military Pension Files to Fill Gaps in Family History by   J. H. Fonkert, CG®  

5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. SA037  Maximizing Your Use of Evidence by Thomas Wright Jones, PhD, CG®, CGL®, FASG, FUGA, FNGS  

7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. SA052  German Genealogy on the Internet: Beyond the Basics by Michael D. Lacopo, DVM  

Sunday, June 5

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.  SU009  The Firelands, the Connecticut Western Reserve and the Ohio Territory by Peggy Clements Lauritzen, AG®

12:00 noon. - 1:00 pm SU010  Avoiding Shiny Penny Syndrome with Your Genealogy by  Tessa Ann Keough 

2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. SU027  All Aboard: Staying on Track with Your Research by Barbara M. Randall 

4 pm - 5 p.m. SU031  U. S. Passport Applications by Debbie Mieszala, CG®

If you can't watch a session in real-time as it is being live streamed, you will be able to watch it at your convenience before July 5, 2016, on the live stream website (not to be confused with the SCGS website and the Extension Series Webinar archives available for SCGS members).

Registration for the pay-per-view and free Jamboree sessions will remain open through July 5, 2016 when the special archive will close. 

·  Each registration will generate a confirmation email containing your username (email) and automatically generated password.

·  Jamboree live streaming is FREE and available to the public, but viewers need to register. Preferably in advance.

I Have My Tree Back to Adam--do you really?

“I Have My Family Tree Back to Adam and Eve”

Dick Eastman · April 21, 2016 · Genealogy Basics · 26 Comments

This is another bit of fiction that needs to be wiped out. I have often heard people (I won’t call them “genealogists”) at various times make the claim they have traced their family tree back to Adam and Eve. Of course, the “documentation” is always sketchy.

Robert C. Gunderson was a Senior Royalty Research Specialist, of the Church Genealogical Department, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). He was an expert in medieval genealogy and started the Royalty Identification Unit in 1972. He passed away in 2003. However, before his death, Gunderson once was asked if such research was possible. He replied:

“The simplest answer is No. Let me explain. In thirty-five years of genealogical research, I have yet to see a pedigree back to Adam that can be documented. By assignment, I have reviewed hundreds of pedigrees over the years. I have not found one where each connection on the pedigree can be justified by evidence from contemporary documents. In my opinion it is not even possible to verify historically a connected European pedigree earlier than the time of the Merovingian Kings (c. a.d. 450–a.d. 752).

“Every pedigree I have seen which attempts to bridge the gap between that time and the biblical pedigree appears to be based on questionable tradition, or at worst, plain fabrication. Generally these pedigrees offer no evidence as to the origin of the information, or they cite a vague source.”

François Weil, a director of studies (professor) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris and currently the chancellor of the universities of Paris, is another expert in medieval pedigrees who agrees. Weil provides authoritative answers to these questions in his book Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America (2013) published by Harvard University Press.

Both Gunderson and Weil agreed: European royal pedigrees cannot be verified before the 500s A.D.

To learn more, read:

Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America. By François Weil. Published by Harvard University Press, Online bookstore; 2013. ISBN 9780674045835. 320 pp. Indexes. Hardcover. $27.95 • £20.95 • €25.20. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674045835 or available on Amazon as a Kindle ebook or as in a hardcover book at http://goo.gl/12RlV4.

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is Still Available! by Dick Eastman

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is Still Available! 

For the entire article and comments, please visit https://blog.eogn.com/2016/05/12/the-social-security-death-index-ssdi-is-still-available/

 Dick Eastman · May 12, 2016 · Genealogy Basics · 6 Comments

The Social Security Death Index (often called the SSDI) is a valuable tool for genealogists. It lists deceased people within the United States. When first created, the SSDI only listed those people who were receiving Social Security benefit payments at the time of death. However, as the years went by, the database was expanded to include ALMOST ALL DEATHS, whether receiving benefits or not.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) Death Master File (DMF) contains more than 80 million records of deaths that have been reported to SSA. This file includes the following information on each deceased person, as applicable: name, date of birth, date of death, state or country of residence (prior to Mar 1988), and ZIP code of last residence.
Due to false concerns over identity theft, the Social Security Administration stopped releasing updates to the SSDI a few years ago. A few web sites that previously had made the SSDI available online have since deleted the records from their web sites. Now many genealogists believe the SSDI is no longer available.
Not true! The SSDI hasn’t been “lost.” It is still available in several places today, and you can search it online.

In fact, the Social Security Administration has stopped issuing UPDATES to the Death Master File. However, the original database, current through January 2011, remains in the public domain and is still available online from a number of web sites. Later deaths are not publicly listed, however.

NOTE #1: Genealogists have always referred to this database of deceased persons as the “SSDI.” However, employees of the Social Security Administration and many others call it the Death Master File, or DMF. The reason for the discrepancy in names appears to be confusion with another service of the Social Security Administration.

If you mention “the SSDI” to an employee of the Social Security Administration, he or she will probably think you are referring to Social Security Disability Insurance, something that is unrelated to the Death Master File except that both are available from the Social Security Administration. When talking with non-genealogists, you probably should always refer to this database as the “Death Master File.”

NOTE #2: In most cases, only the first ten letters of each individual’s first name are shown in the SSDI. For instance, the name “Christopher” is abbreviated as “Christophe”. Also, middle initials are shown, but complete middle names are not recorded in the database. The search rules will vary from one web site to another. I find it best to only enter the first ten letters of longer names. That seems to always work. Entering all the letters of first names with more than ten letters sometimes results in a “not found” error on some web sites although not on others. When in doubt, use only ten letters.

NOTE #3: Not all the online databases will display all the available information about the person listed in the SSDI. You may have to try several online services in order to find what you seek.

NOTE #4: Information about geographic allocation of Social Security numbers can be found at http://www.ssa.gov/employer/stateweb.htm. Keep in mind that Social Security Numbers used to be assigned by the location where the Number was ISSUED, not by the place of birth of the individual.

I suggest you access the Social Security Death Index (Death Master File) at any of the following:

MyHeritage: https://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-10002/us-social-security-death-index-ssdi

Steve Morse’s One Step Genealogy: http://www.stevemorse.org/ssdi/ssdi.html

FamilySearch: https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1202535

Ancestry: http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693 (Ancestry allows anyone to view a short version of the record, but viewing all the details requires a subscription to Ancestry.com.)

GenealogyBank: http://www.genealogybank.com/explore/ssdi/all (You must be a paid subscriber of GenealogyBank to view the details of each record.)

American Ancestors operated by the New England Historic Genealogical Society: http://www.americanancestors.org/databases/social-security-death-index/about/ (That page states, “Access to the SSDI is FREE to all who visit AmericanAncestors.org.” However, you must either register for a FREE guest account or pay for a subscription to view your SSDI search results.

WorldVitalRecords.com: http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/indexinfo.aspx?ix=ssdiall&affpid=1022 (Requires an account with WorldVitalReords.com. However, a FREE 7-day trial account is available.)

NOTE: Also included in the WorldVitalRecords.com version of the SSDI is See Neighbors which is a list of those persons who died during the same year and in the same zip code as the deceased who is being searched. Finally, when a residence at death is included in a listing, a geo-coded Google Map is included with the place where the person died and their nearest cemeteries.

… and probably some other places as well.

You also can download the entire SSDI record set yourself at http://ssdmf.info/download.html although that is the 30 November 2011 edition. No later records are available.