Friday, March 5, 2010

Family Tree Magazine Online

Family Tree Magazine Online
Kathryn Brannigan Walizer

Family Tree Magazine Online is a great site that affords many free tutorials and great articles I saw a mention of it on the Dick Eastman newsletter online and decided to give it a look.

The first thing I noticed where tabs across the top of the page. starting with the How To tab. Clicking there brings up a page of interesting articles on a variety of topics that rage from How to Care for Old Christmas Ornaments to Strategies for Finding Problem Ancestors
The next tab Heritage brings up different ethnic groups with help in each or a general section that allows you to select from more than 40 ethnic groups. in each of these groups there is a page dedicated to that ethnic group and many research sites. The Irish link as an example gives you a link to Ancestral Counties in Ireland.

Moving along the tabs the next tab is Getting Started, now even if you are an experienced researcher please give these site a look never know what you may find. For example looking at the genealogy FAQ section there is a suite called Where can I find my genealogy online? This will give you access also to many of the questions and more importantly the answers you may have been searching for.

I cannot say enough about the next section, Research Toolkit here you will find Free Forms, Cheat Sheets,101 Best Web Sites Soundex Generator, Software Guide, Article Index, and State Index Guides, wow and we are only half way though the tabs. Ok I wondered what cheat sheets were too so here is what the editors say about them 'Family Tree Magazine offers a variety of downloadable reference charts and quick guides to assist you in your research. All cheat sheets are PDF files—to view or print them, you’ll need the free Adobe Reader software. Most computers come with this program, or you can download it from Adobe."
I went and looked for one as an example and found a Relationship Chart which is very helpful in determining a quick relationship in the family tree,

The next tab Blogs is a plethora of information because it bring up the genealogy blogs. Here you can access the Genealogy Insider blog with many, many great articles, and the Now What blog where the Family Tree Magazine editors and their genealogy experts answer readers' family history questions and offer advice on next research steps. and to top off this section the Photo Detective Tab.

The sixth tab is the Community Tab that gives you a Forum, a place to Contribute and a Queries section. It would take more space than I have here to explain the benefits of this section but interaction with other genealogists is always a benefit so please give this section a try

The next section Audio and Video will let you access Videos and Podcasts always a good option for those with crunch time

The last tab is the Shop Tab. Here you can order back issues of the Family Tree Magazine print magazine. and they even have the entire previous years on CD format.

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