Genealogy Lesson 22 - Setting a genealogy budget

In today's economy, budgets are more important than ever.  Genealogy is a great hobby but let's face it, it can get quite expensive.  You pay for memberships to websites; you buy software, you order books and buy copies of documents.  I personally blow about $500 per year on my genealogy.  I say that the money is "blown" because I cannot get it back, there really isn't much of material value to show for it, and it cannot keep my kids from starving if they were hungry.  Money spent on genealogy is pretty much a luxury, rarely a financial investment.

With that said, most of us have to limit the things that we commit to each year.  I always renew my Ancestry.com membership but I might let Footnote or Genealogy Bank lapse...unless they run a really great sale!  I also buy the yearly upgrade for Family Tree Maker and set aside money to make copies at the archives each month.  What I have been unable to budget for are trips to national genealogical conferences.  I would love to go but I cannot justify the financial return.  Sure, I am missing out on a lot of learning opportunities, but I cannot see paying $1500+ for travel expenses.

I know a lot of people would love to have an Ancestry.com membership but cannot afford it.  Well, the grass is not much greener on my side of the fence either!  No matter what we have in life, we always want more.  We have to understand that each of us have means in which we must learn to live.  If you cannot afford an Ancestry membership, go to a local library that provides free access.  It's not that easy for me to attend a conference, but when one comes to my local area, I will eventually be able to attend.  Make lemonade with those lemons!

Decide how much you can afford to spend each year on genealogy and do your best not to go over that amount.  It will cause you to assign value to things and to decide what is really important to your short and long term genealogy goals.  My short term goal is more inline with buying an Ancestry.com membership this year.  My long term goals are more inline with going to conferences.  I can achieve that long term goal, maybe when I retire or pay my house off.  It's not ideal for my wants but it is the most feasible path at this point for my needs.

One way to stretch your genealogy budget is to do what I suggested in a past lesson...get a buddy or join a group.  If two or more people pool their resources, you can gain access to more resources than you could on your own.  A local genealogical society can get group access to online databases.  Your genealogy buddy can go half with you on the cost of a needed book.  Being creative and resourceful can help squeeze more out of the money that you spend, getting you closer to your goals, sooner.

Footnote + Facebook = I Remember

Footnote.com has started a new, free service called "I Remember." To put it bluntly, it is Facebook for dead people. Using this application, you can create Facebook pages for people that have passed away. I have not tried it yet but you can check out the service here:

I Remember

Sample I Remember pages:

• Edmund Lambert Macneil, III
• Jason Malone
• Craig L Christiansen
  

Footnote Pages Press Release

This is a follow-up to a posting I did yesterday, Footnote Pages. This is the actual press release from Footnote.com that will explain all of the specifics that perhaps I did not.

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Footnote.com Takes Social
Networking into the Past

Footnote.com launches
Footnote Pages at TechCrunch50

San Francisco -- September 10, 2008 Losing a loved one can result in a range of emotions, from the grief and sorrow to comfort, which often comes from reminiscing stories and memories with family and friends. The challenge arises when there is no single place where all of these stories can easily come together to be shared, enriched and preserved.

Now at Footnote.com, anyone can find or create Footnote Pages where users connect and share stories, photos, and information about the people important to them.

To kick-off the new Footnote Pages, Footnote.com today released over 80 million of these pages created from data from the Social Security Death Index. Most visitors will find existing pages about several deceased friends and family members already on the site.

Footnote.com was selected from over 1,000 applicants to launch Footnote Pages at this year’s TechCrunch50 held in San Francisco. Russ Wilding, CEO of Footnote, demonstrated Footnote Pages to an audience of over 1,500 investors, bloggers, and major media outlets.

“We encourage people to upload their personal shoeboxes of photos and documents to Footnote.com,” explains Wilding. “Now with Footnote Pages, friends and family can come together to share stories and memories about the people they care about.”

Described as Facebook for the Deceased, [emphasis added] these pages feature a photo gallery, an interactive timeline and map, and other tools that bring people together to create a more colorful and rich picture of the past. “Social networking is not only for the younger generations any more,” explains Wilding. “We are seeing Baby Boomers contribute and connect online in increasing numbers. Footnote Pages are an easy way for this audience to interact with each other and learn things they would not otherwise know about deceased friends and family.”

Beyond profiling people, Footnote pages can also be used to document and discuss historical events or places including: the Vietnam War, the Assassination of JFK and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

-more-

Unlike other social networking sites, Footnote.com provides content that enables users to tell and share stories from the past. Through its partnership with the National Archives, Footnote.com has digitized over 43 million documents including historical newspapers, military records, photos and more.

Footnote.com adds about 2 million new records to the site every month.

Visit Footnote.com to learn more about Footnote Pages and get a new perspective on the lives of your own friends and family who have passed away.

About Footnote.com
Footnote.com is a history website where real history might just surprise you. Footnote.com features millions of searchable original documents, providing users with an unaltered view of the events, places and people that shaped the American nation and the world. At Footnote.com, all are invited to come share, discuss, and collaborate on their discoveries with friends, family, and colleagues. For more information, visit www.footnote.com.

About TechCrunch50
Founded in 2007 by leading technology blog TechCrunch and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, the TechCrunch50 conference provides a platform for early-stage, and frequently unfunded, companies to launch for the first time to the technology industry’s most influential venture capitalists, corporations, angel investors, fellow entrepreneurs, and the international media. Companies are selected to participate exclusively on merit. TechCrunch50 is supported by corporate sponsors Google, Microsoft, MySpace, and Yahoo!, as well as venture capital firms including Sequoia Capital http://www.sequoiacap.com, Mayfield Fund http://www.mayfield.com, Clearstone Venture Partners http://www.clearstone.com, Charles River Ventures http://www.crv.com, Founders Fund and Fenwick & West http://www.fenwick.com."

Footnote Pages

Footnote.com, a rival to Ancestry of sorts, has launched a new feature - Footnote Pages. I have not played with it too much but it seems interesting. They basically took the Social Security Death Index and made individual pages for every person contained within that index. Each page contains some basic information on the person, whatever was included in the SSDI, plus a historical time line and map. It also allows contributors to add photos, stories, facts and links. Think of this as a MySpace for dead people.

It is a pretty neat idea in general, giving a social aspect to genealogy. You can leave notes on their page telling others to contact you for more info. It is a way to both share what you know about a deceased person plus meet others interested in that individual. I would not expect a lot of connections to be found as these people have not been dead very long. You probably know their descendants to begin with. If Footnote Pages took all of the names from like the 1850 census instead, maybe it would help make more connections, some older sources of names.

I am pretty sure you have to be a member of Footnote to use all of the features. I am a member so I was able to play around with it a little bit. I added a few things to the page for my grandmother, Pearl Malissa Lawson Lett. It took me about one minute to add a photo and a link to a blog post I did on her family. The program flows very smoothly.

Overall, I think this is a neat idea but I doubt it will catch on with established researchers. They are less interested with modern history and this pertains to life, pretty much after 1950. Some of the people in the SSDI were born in the late 1800s but not a large population. I think people might find updating a few pages fun but will get bored with it in short order. If Footnote Pages could import data from your GEDCOM, that might make it more interesting and allow for importing more data.

Younger people just getting interested in genealogy will like this, especially to start the ball rolling. It is a social format that they can relate to and it will probably spike their interest. In all honesty, it would probably serve Footnote better to give this part of their site away for free. They can sell ads to help bring in revenue. Younger people are probably not going to subscribe to such a service when things like MySpace and Facebook are free. This advertising model brings in millions of dollars for them.

If any of you are members of Footnote, try out the Pages section and let me know what you think. If not, you should be able to get a free trial by clicking on one of the links in this posting. I think it is only for like three days but that is long enough to try it out. If you have a membership or get a trial, you can check out the page for my grandmother, the one I was playing with. Just click here...

Footnote Prices Set To Increase

If you plan on joining Footnote.com, do so before September 1, 2008. They are increasing prices significantly, from $59.95 to $69.95 for an annual membership (around 17%).

If you have not heard of Footnote, they have a lot of great records and are expanding rapidly. I use them mostly for Civil War service records. They made their name as the first major genealogy company allowed to scan at the National Archives in Washington, DC.

Footnote Offers all of their Historical Military Pictures and Photos from WWII & Vietnam for FREE!!!

Footnote.com sent me a note to say that...

"Shortly before Memorial Day, Footnote announced that our entire collection of military photos would be made permanently free on the site. The collection features over 80,000 photos from WWII and Vietnam, making it the largest collection of its kind on the web.

Through our partnership with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Footnote has digitized and indexed the photos, which include images of downed aircraft, aerial photos of bombings, photos of fighter groups and combat photos. What makes the photos unique are the short captions included with the photos, which provide interesting details about the events and people featured."

To view these photos click here.

Footnote Search Engine Update

Footnote.com has updated their search feature and it frankly used to suck. The new search engine, at least the advanced engine, is still in BETA testing, but it is available to the public. I was in on its Alpha testing and found the new, advanced engine to be much better. The old version let you search with only one search box for everything. The new, advanced search allows for separate searches on first and last name, place, year range, keyword and by collection or category. It is much more functional than the old version.

Chris Willis, who works on the website at Footnote, has created a tutorial explaining the features of the new search engine. It is kinda long but you can watch it below, just click on the center of the video for it to start.