Free Tip of the Day

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Your phone is capable of really good reproductions, with good image quality and detail to print quite large if you follow these tips:

1. Hold your phone or camera exactly parallel to the document (or section of the document if it's really big), 
2. Nearly fill the screen with the document, just leave a little space around the edges; 
3. Have the light in front of (not behind or above) the document to avoid shadows;  
4. Brace yourself to hold steady. 

That's one free tip and three bonus tips...free! Better than late-night TV ads!

Here are three tips for helping you read that name when the handwriting is challenging: 

1. Search for the subject's siblings and hope that a different clerk with better penmanship wrote the record or had less coffee that day! 
2. Go through the indexes at the end of several books and see if there are other family members with a surname that looks similar to your subject. It would be rare that there would be no one with that same name in, say, a ten-year period - an uncle, aunt, sibling, or someone not necessarily related. Most surnames concentrate in certain towns and areas. 
3. Look for the parents' marriage record. Usually, 1-20 years before your subject was born, her/his parents were married. Look for that and you might find that document easier to read. A bonus: you get new names to add to the tree! 

You know about the Family Search Research Wiki, right? NO?! You should! Take the time to familiarize yourself with this great resource now. 

1. Log in to www.familysearch.org 
2. Under the "Search" drop-down menu, select "Research Wiki"
3. Choose your location from the map. 
4. Narrow down the location from the pop-up menu on the left.
5. Start reading...FamilySearch has billions of records online.

More will be coming as I think of them.