Spend 5 minutes with Anne Gillespie Mitchell aka Ancestry Anne as she walks you through 6 genealogy myths and why they aren’t true. 1. Native American Ancest…
Google News Timeline is an ideal tool for family historians who want to further their genealogy research. Lisa Louise Cooke, host of the popular Genealogy Ge…
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Very nicely done.
I would say though that the family tree myth is that they are all accurate.
I know so many people who think they’ve hit the jackpot and will simply
add them to their own trees. The truth is just as the video says, that
they can help you break down brick walls. I use the additional info (like
a maiden name or married name) to help me in my searches. But I still
independently verify everything. And at least once I’ve found my ancestor
in someone else’s tree but it turned out their ancestor was someone else
with the same name (which I shared of course).
The Ellis Island name change myth is number one that I hear among fellow
Jews. There were a few in my family too, which I have debunked.
Some others I’ve seen:
“All European Jewish records were destroyed in the Holocaust.” Not even
close to true. The Nazis destroyed many current records at the end of the
war (and cemeteries throughout) but otherwise were completely uptight about
saving and creating records. Even the Torah scrolls they stole from
synagogues were cataloged.
“I’m descended from such and such famous Rabbi.” This is the Jewish
equivalent of being descended from a Cherokee princess.
“We were lucky; none of our family perished in the Holocaust.”
Unfortunately, once you start researching extended family before the
1930’s, you’ll often find that, most Jews in Central and Eastern Europe who
did not immigrate far enough away did not survive (and virtually none
survived with their families intact). For many of us, this includes some
fairly close cousins.
“My ancestors spoke Hebrew for their everyday language.” “My ancestors
spoke Yiddish for their everyday language.” US Census forms and other
documents often recorded the mother tongues of Jewish immigrants as
“Hebrew” or even “Jewish.” Very often it was “Yiddish.” Hebrew was only
used for religious purposes. Until the creation of Israel, it was not used
regularly. Yiddish of course was very common. But a lot of immigrants
didn’t speak it in their home countries. My grandmother, for example,
reports that when her parents immigrated from what is now Belarus, they
only spoke Russian but had to learn Yiddish to get along.
Good to know. Although, I’ve come across more questionable family trees
than accurate ones.
So many people don’t know how to use them properly, and seem to click on
everything they see before doing any research.
Members should be forced to watch a tutorial on “family tree hints” before
starting a tree.
Ancestry.com has uploaded Five Minute Finds: Favorite Genealogy Myths
Debunked
http://tinyurl.com/nmk2krq
They killed Google Timeline.
Thank you for sharing…
Excellent! I had no idea that this timeline feature of Google even existed.
Well done, thank you!
Can anyone tell me how to get the complete google tool bar? Thanks
Thank you for the update 🙂
this has changed since this aired…. I can not get the dates running
across the top…. nothing called LABS….. so now just looks like regular
news…. sure wish it worked for me
I really enjoyed this video, extremely helpful and informative. Looking
forward to the next one! Will really help with my genealogy research.
Thank you for this video. I will add it to my research programs.
Unfortunately Google closed down “Labs” and that included the News
Timeline. For now you can still access historical newspapers from the
Google News Archive. However, a little bird once told me that we may not
have seen the last of timelines. Keep your fingers crossed!