Bill's Genealogy Blog

Bill Buchanan is a long-time genealogy enthusiast, living in Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada. This blog will describe my experiences as I research my family history and help others.

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Location: Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada

I am a retired online school teacher. I love family history. Since 2007, I have spent much of my time providing part-time support for the world's largest free family history site https://familysearch.org This is very rewarding. I have helped others with the Family Tree and related FamilySearch products.
In 2010-2018 I served in the Edmonton Riverbend Family History Centre. I have a FHC blog at Bill's Family History Center Blog For information the Latter-day Saints and family history click https://www.comeuntochrist.org/

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Yesterday I had an email from someone adding a lot of information on Islay McCuaig of Glenelg, Grey, Ontario, Canada, born about 1899. This was totally unsolicited. It is a good example of the power of putting your genealogy online. It seems like every week or two I am contacted by someone. Often it is to correct info on my website or add new information. I love it! On April 18th, I am doing Session D3 "Putting Your Genealogy Online" from 3:30-4:30 PM at the AGS Conference. That morning at 10:00 AM I am doing a session on FamilySearch Support at the Bonnie Doon Family History Centre, so it will be a busy day. I like to contribute, but I certainly get nervous. Providing the online training requires a lot of preparation, but is not as stressful. Things have been busy this month , as I have given online training sessions on "Personal Ancestral File Companion", "Get My Ancestors", "Using the Free ClipX Clipboard Utility", and "Running PAF from a Flash Drive". It has been fun, but a little hectic when added to the usual things. I learned that PRFMagnet from Ohanasoftware.com is now free. Formerly it was $20. It will be a good resource for those who want to download family trees from the Pedigree Resource File on familysearch.org On the subject of running PAF from a flash drive, I noted in Lisa Louise Cooke's recent interview with Bruce Buzbee, that he was talking about a new feature in Roots Magic 4 ... the ability to run from a flash drive! I have been doing this with PAF for years!
I have been examining the lineage of the Lairds of Buchanan. The 1723 book "The Family of Buchanan "by William Buchanan of Auchmar is not nearly as detailed as I would have expected. There are no birth dates, and unless they died in famous battles, there are usually no death dates either. And I complain about some of today's researchers!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

I had a phone call today asking me to do a 1-hour presentation on Getting Help From FamilySearch.org It is a topic I know well, after a year and a half in FamilySearch Support. Their meeting is scheduled for April 18th, so I agreed to do the session if it didn't conflict with my session at the ACS Conference that same day. We will see if I am able to do both, if not my commitment to ACS comes first. In the last two weeks I was sent several excellent old photos by a newly-found distant relative Bruce McGregor, discovered in GenesReunited. I also had contacts from other newly-found distant relatives who found me through the internet.