OneGreatFamily Blog

• 'First Names and Surname' Widget On Family Dashboard

  10/22/2012 12:00:00 AM

  Family Dashboard at OneGreatFamily has many interesting widgets that give you interesting information about your family tree. This week we are featuring two closely related widgets that will give you a whole new perspective on your family tree.

  

  Sample First Names from Your Family Tree: This widget will list 3 random first names from your family tree along with the number of your ancestors with that first name. By clicking on the "More" link you can see a list of all the first names of all your ancestors (see the image below).

  The list can be sorted by popularity or alphabetically. By clicking on a specific name you can see all your ancestors that share that name.

   

  

  
  

  

  Sample Surnames from Your Family Tree: This widget on the Family Dashboard page will list 3 random surnames from your family tree along with the number of your ancestors with that surname. By clicking on the "More" link you can see a list of all the surnames of all your ancestors.
   

  The list can be sorted by popularity or alphabetically. By clicking on a specific surname you can see all your ancestors that share that last name.

  

  Visit Family Dashboard by logging into OneGreatFamily.com

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• Genealogy Clues You Can Find On An Ancestor's Headstone

  10/19/2012 4:46:00 PM

  Researching your family history can take on a variety of different appearances. Many professional genealogists consider themselves more like detectives than researchers, where the clues can come from a variety of different locations. Today, we'd like to look at a rather unusual location for finding valuable genealogical information about an ancestor, their headstone.
  
  You see, headstones and grave markers often list much more than just a name, birth date, and death date. Some headstones list the names of family members. Some quote favorite verses of the Bible. Some list the place an ancestor was born or the church she belonged to. Visiting an ancestor's grave is like searching for buried treasure (but please, no actual digging), you never know what new information you'll find listed on a tombstone.
  
  It's not difficult to find out which cemetery someone was buried in. If you know where your ancestor was living near the time of his death, you will most likely find him in that town's cemetery. If your ancestor was not buried in the town that he died in, he was probably moved to be buried near his spouse or another family member who preceded him in death. Many cemeteries have been indexed by volunteers, and the indexes are searchable online. Every cemetery also keeps their "sexton's records" that list who is buried in a cemetery and the specific plot in which they are buried. These records, along with a map of the cemetery, are available at the cemetery office (if it is a large cemetery) or in the local county office (if it is a small cemetery).
  
  Sexton's records are lists of who is buried where; they are not extractions of everything that is engraved on a tombstone. To read what is written on an ancestors' tombstone, you'll have to go to the actual grave. Just remember that just because a headstone engraving is "written in stone" doesn't mean that it's infallible. Headstones, like any other record, can contain errors, so compare the headstone with the information that you already have and evaluate it carefully.
  
  It's also a good idea to pay attention to the graves around your ancestor's, since families were and still are often buried together. You may find new information about other ancestors, and you may even find new family members that you never knew about. If a child died at a young age at a time when birth records were not made, she may not show up in any records except her tombstone.
  
  When you go to the cemetery, wear clothes that can get dirty so that you can kneel on the ground and get a close look at the tombstones. Sometimes grass grows over flat headstones or headstones that have fallen down, so bring a small trowel to remove the grass and dirt. Bring gloves to wear in case the grave site is overgrown with weeds.
  
  Always make a record of any headstone that you find so that you'll have it for future reference. The best way to do this is to take a digital photo. Hint: when taking a digital photo, a mirror can come in handy to reflect sunlight onto the stone and to create shadows to make the words more visible. But never use shaving cream or chalk on a tombstone to make the lettering easier to see as this can cause irreparable damage the tombstone. If you choose to make a rubbing, be very careful not to scratch or wear away the stone. Don't take a rubbing of a sandstone monument or a headstone that looks worn or weathered; it is important to preserve headstones for others who will come to see them in the future. Once you have a photo or a rubbing of a headstone, record the new information that you found, and make copies for interested family members. With any luck, you may get a new companion for your next cemetery excursion!

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• Upload Your Gedcom via Family Dashboard

  10/17/2012 3:52:00 PM

  One of the quickest ways to upload a Gedcom into OneGreatFamily is through the Family Dashboard. Before explaining the exact steps you will take to do this, first allow us to explain how a Gedcom is handled by our system. At OneGreatFamily, when a Gedcom is submitted for upload, the file must undergo a tremendous amount of processing before it becomes available to its owner and the rest of the OneGreatFamily community. Here are the stages it goes through:

  • Uploading
  • Importing
  • Matching
  • Merging
  • Dashboard processing

  The new process allows you to upload your Gedcom in Genealogy Browser or you can do it online by clicking on the link located in the "Your Family Tree" box located at the top:

  

  Once you click the link in Family Dashboard, you'll be presented with a dialogue window that allows you to select your Gedcom file and then Upload it.

  Note that closing the webpage or navigating to another website will not cancel or slow down your Gedcom processing once the uploading phase is completed.  The processing is all done on our computers here in our offices, so you can feel free to go about your business.

  Once the system finishes importing your Gedcom, it will begin "Matching." Matching is the process of seeing if any of the people in your Gedcom are the same as any of the people already in the OneGreatFamily family tree.

  When the Matching process has finished, the OneGreatFamily system will begin "Merging." Merging is when OneGreatFamily combines together ancestors identified in the Matching phase, removing any duplication while preserving any differences in information.  Merging causes ancestors to be added to your family tree. 

  When the Merging process has finished, your family tree will be prepared for Family Dashboard. Once this has been completed, you can enjoy your Gedcom on Family Dashboard by clicking on the button on the Upload Complete Page "Make this my new Dashboard Anchor":

  

  Or you can click on the link: "Change who this information is about" on Family Dashboard. Here is where this link is located on Family Dashboard:

  

  Or you can click on the "View Or Edit My Family Tree" button to view your ancestors in Genealogy Browser.

  One final note, if you have a large family tree, please be patient as the process may take some time as we add, match and merge your ancestors.

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• Family Dashboard Spotlight: Relationship Calculator and Migration Calculator

  10/15/2012 4:02:00 PM

  Let's Look At Two Fascinating Features Of Family Dashboard

  As far as we can tell, OneGreatFamily.com is the only website currently offering a robust dashboard full of unique ways of viewing one's family tree. In addition to the valuable service of constantly searching for ancestors to add to your tree, we've developed a variety of different tools and calculators you can use to answer specific questions about your family tree. Today, we'd like to highlight a couple of those handy calculators: the Relationship Calculator and the Migration Calculator.

  Both of these tools allow you to select two individuals within OneGreatFamily and perform calculations between them. To select a person other than the name displayed, click on the drop down arrow to the right of the name. This will open a menu that gives you five choices. The five choices are as follows:
  

  • Current Dashboard Anchor
    In the example below, Heather Hansen is the anchor.
  • Immediate Family
    A list of the immediate family members to the anchor is produced and you can choose any name on that list.
  • Famous People
    A list of famous people in OneGreatFamily is produced where you can choose any name from that list.
  • Search by Name
    A window is opened in which you can enter any name to search within OneGreatFamily. Select any name from the search results.
  • Browse Heather Hansen's Family Tree
    A window is opened listing all the names in the anchor's tree. Browse through and pick any name.

  Relationship Calculator

  

  The Relationship Calculator allows you to see whether or not a relationship exists between any two people in the OneGreatFamily database and displays a chart showing both people's relationship to their common ancestor.

  The widget on the Family Dashboard page allows you to quickly choose individuals in your immediate family, famous people, search for a name in your family tree or OneGreatFamily or you can browse your family tree for names too.

  Once you click on the "Show Relationship" button, it will bring you to a page that shows the amount of time OneGreatFamily is taking to find the relationship. If there is no relationship, OneGreatFamily will report to you that we could not find a relationship.

  Note: Keep in mind that OneGreatFamily is only using the information from the OneGreatFamily database. If you are sure there is a relationship, it probably means more information needs to be added.

  If there is a relationship, the following chart will appear showing you how the two people are related:

   

   

   

  

  Migration Calculator

  

  The Migration Calculator is a fascinating tool that will create a Google map with pushpins identifying the birthplaces of the direct line ancestors between any two people in OneGreatFamily. 

  Just like the relationship calculator, you can choose yourself, your immediate family, search OneGreatFamily or your family tree, or browse your family tree to find the names of two people you want to compare.

  Once you have decided on two people and you click on the "Show Migration" button, you will be taken to a page where you can see the map and the pushpins showing the birthplaces between two people.

  Here is an example of what the results page looks like:

   

   

   

   

   

   

  

  Check out the Relationship and Migration Calculators at OneGreatFamily today and see for yourself how useful and entertaining these tools can be.

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• OneGreatFamily: Simply Put...

  10/12/2012 8:00:00 AM

  So, what are you getting when you buy a OneGreatFamily subscription? Simply put, you are paying for a service that searches across millions of family tree names to find duplicates and then merge, or combine, those duplicates into a single tree. If you are researching a specific line, wouldn't you like to know if someone else, a distant cousin perhaps, has already completed the research. If that distant cousin has entered their tree into our system, it would take us hardly any time at all to merge matching names from their tree into yours. Additionally, we'd enable you to collaborate with that cousin to work on a combined research plan to continue working on the next road block.

  As an added bonus to your subscription, we give you full access to our PC-based genealogy software, GenealogyBrowser. To this day, GenealogyBrowser remains the only genealogy software on the market that allows you to view your entire family tree at the same time with our patented Starfield view. With our Handprint view, you can see all the immediate relationships of an individual in a quick glance, making it easy to see where the holes are.

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