Genealogy Lesson 16 - Make the most of eBay for genealogy research

One of the most under-rated places on the Internet to find genealogy resources is eBay.  Most of you are probably familiar with eBay, if not you must be living under a rock!  EBay is an online auction site where average people sell items to other average people around the world.  It took me awhile to realize it but eBay is an untapped jewel when it comes to genealogy.

There is a place in your eBay account where you can set up a favorite search and have the results e-mailed to you on a regular basis.  Most people do not like subscribing to anything but trust me, this is not spam! I have found many valuable family documents and items because of this service.  It does not cost anything and only takes a few minutes to set it up.

All you have to do is log into your eBay account and go into "My eBay." Click on the "Saved Searches" link and then "Add new Search." From there you can add or remove search terms/words, pricing, location or other parameters from your search.  When you are finished, your search would look something like this:

"+lett +(virginia, VA) -beantown -looney -jazz -funk -beer -killian -killians -"della reese" -"lett-lopi" -lopi -engine -baseball -music -songs -football -leon -dallas -cowboys -bronze -canada -latvia -benchwarmer -italy -mail Sort: Ending First, Located In: United States, Currency: U.S. dollars"

This might look like a foreign language but it is my search for the name Lett. I had to specify that I wanted Virginia only, nothing about Letts in Montana or Nebraska. I also removed a lot of terms that do not interest me. For example, I do not want to see items about the Dallas Cowboy's Leon Lett nor do I want to see anything to do with the singer Earl Lett on Beantown Records. This search allows me to find only items that interest me. It might seem confusing but eBay makes it quite simple to set up, just follow the on-screen instructions.

Every day I get an e-mail from at least one of the many searches I have set up. It lets me know when an item of interest has been posted. Sometimes it might be a reference in the index of a book. Other times it might be an old Bible or family photo. I recently bought a collection of original estate papers, including a handful of family photos, concerning my great-great-great-grandfather, Edward Thomas Cole of Mecklenburg County, Virginia. I have also purchased various old letters, envelopes and even a few newspapers from the communities in which my ancestors lived.

Without the favorite search function on eBay, I would probably have missed out on a lot of neat items that I was able to pick up. The service is free and takes only a few minutes to sign up for. There is no reason not to sign up for it. You obviously have to have an eBay account but that is free as well.

The only thing you will have to do thereafter is bid on the items  that are found and hope that you win! Be careful not to get carried away with the bidding process, although I understand that it is almost impossible to pass on a potential family heirloom. I paid over $500 for the estate papers I mentioned earlier, simply because I slipped and let the seller know that I was desperate to get them. Play it cool, bid with confidence and let me know if you find something good!

Virginia Genealogy Book Blow Out

I just listed a bunch of Virginia genealogy books on eBay, all with $0.99 starting bids and no reserve.  I think there are 18 books in total, most marriage and death records.  Check it out if you are interested:

Kevin's Genealogy Book Auctions on eBay!

eBay comes to Ancestry... sorta

I got this press release today about a new top gun at Ancestry.com. It seems they are still shaking things up after the Family Tree Maker 2008 disaster. They have gone out and grabbed one of eBay's brightest. Hopefully Eric can help bring some of prestige back to the product line.

"Eric Shoup, Former General Manager for eBay Stores, Joins The Generations Network as Ancestry.com's Vice President of Product
Management Leader to Play Key Role in Bay Area Growth of Ancestry.com

PRNewswire
PROVO, Utah

PROVO, Utah, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The Generations Network (TGN), parent company of Ancestry.com, today announced the hiring of Eric Shoup as vice president of product for the Ancestry.com business unit. As a new management leader, Shoup will be responsible for the product strategy, product definition and design for the global platform of Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource. He will lead the product management and user interface design teams. Bringing more than 15 years of product marketing and general management experience, he will be based in the company's San Francisco office.

"We're thrilled to have Eric Shoup join Ancestry.com during this time of accelerated growth," said Andrew Wait, senior vice president and general manager of family history for Ancestry.com. "Eric is key to the continued expansion of Ancestry.com and to our company's increasing presence in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. His impressive background and strong leadership skills make him the best person to lead this effort while nicely complimenting our team in Utah."

Prior to joining TGN, Shoup was at eBay for five years, where he focused on growing several of eBay's growing businesses, most recently as the general manager for the eBay Stores and ProStores business units. In a previous position, Eric assembled and led eBay's first global mobile product team. During his eBay career, Shoup also played key product leadership roles over different areas such as eBay Stores, Shipping and Merchandising.

Prior to eBay, Shoup drove key product marketing and management initiatives at Commerce One, a leading provider of global e-commerce solutions for businesses. While at US Interactive, Shoup designed and managed consumer ecommerce and marketing Web sites for established companies such as Lexus and Wellcome Supermarkets (Hong Kong).

As a new member of the management team, Shoup will work closely with a strong team of professionals in Ancestry.com's new San Francisco office, including Cheyenne Richards, recently promoted to vice president of marketing and a former executive with Avenue A Razorfish, as well as co-workers recently hired from Yahoo, Apple, Organic, CNET, Zenith Optimedia and Expedia.

About the Ancestry Global Network

The Ancestry global network of family history Web sites is wholly owned by The Generations Network, Inc. It consists of nine Web sites -- http://www.ancestry.com/ in the U.S., http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ in the UK, http://www.ancestry.ca/ in Canada, http://www.ancestry.com.au/ in Australia, http://www.ancestry.de/ in Germany, http://www.ancestry.it/ in Italy, http://www.ancestry.fr/ in France, http://www.ancestry.se/ in Sweden and http://www.jiapu.cn/ in China. Ancestry members have access to 7 billion names contained in 26,000 historical record collections. Tree-building and photo upload are free on all Ancestry websites. To date, Ancestry.com users have created more than 7 million family trees containing 675 million profiles and 11 million photographs. Nearly 5.4 million unique visitors logged onto Ancestry.com in July 2008 (comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide).

SOURCE: Ancestry.com

CONTACT: Sara Black of PainePR, +1-213-996-3812, sblack@painepr.com, for
Ancestry.com

Web site: http://www.ancestry.com/"

Win a Walt Disney World Vacation from eBay!

I know this really has nothing to do with genealogy but I wanted to pass it along. My wife, kids and I have fallen in love with Disney World over the past two years. We have spent both Summer vacations there during 2007 and 2008. I think we are going to skip 2009 and plan another trip in 2010 (when our son is a little older).

Disney and eBay have teamed up to give away a Grand Prize every month for the rest of the year, until October I think. This month the prize is a trip to Walt Disney World. I just tried it tonight but did not win. To participate, you have to have or sign up for an eBay account. It does not cost anything to sign up for an account if you do not have one. Then you have to give them your e-mail address to enter but you can opt not to let Walt Disney World contact you.

Once signed in you get to pick one of three gift boxes. I obviously picked the wrong one and did not win a real prize. (I picked the third box with yellow bow!) I got a free download of a Steamboat Willie cutout/origami figurine...nothing special. I think if you pick the right box you get an actual prize and are also entered for the Grand Prize. I think you can play once per day but I am not sure about that. I also think if you buy items off eBay you can also get more entries.

Anyway, if you want to try your hand at picking a gift box and maybe winning the trip, follow this link: eBay & Disney Contest

Good luck and let me know if you win anything good!

New Site Launch - USA Family Tree

I launched a new site today. It isn't exactly new but it is "re"newed at least. The site is called USA Family Tree and features live genealogy auctions that are ending soon on eBay. I have found lots of great items on eBay and think it is a valuable tool for genealogists. You never know who might have found your great-grandmother's Bible at a yard sale in Petersburg and has since listed it for sale on eBay. I have bought many old family letters, papers, deeds and used envelopes on the auction site.

USA Family Tree is broken down into several categories, each focusing on a different part of our hobby - genealogy. They are as follows:

Births, Marriages, Deaths

Census Records

City, State Directories

Coat of Arms

County, State History

Family Trees

Immigration Lists

Maps

Military Records

Feel free to browse the site. It has a full search feature, with an advance search option. You should be able to enter your family name or maybe the county or state you are looking for and it will bring up all of the items it finds currently on eBay. (Be sure to check the "Search title and description" button to find all of the items available).

If you click on any of the items, it will take you to the main eBay site and the listing for that given item. You can then bid on the item like any other auction on eBay. If you are not a current eBay member, no problem. You can sign up for a free account and it only cost you money if you win an item - you obviously then have to pay for the item! Bidding is fast, easy and safe. I have personally sold and/or won over 700 items and have had few, if any, problems completing transactions.

If you go to an item that you to turn out not to be interested in, you can either use eBay's search feature to find additional items or simply press the back button until you get to USA Family Tree again. Happy bidding and do not forget to bookmark the site. The auctions are live so they change constantly. Check back often.

Out of Town, Out of Mind

I am sorry for the delay in posting. I took the wife and kids to Disney World for ten days. When I got back, I had to go on two service calls for work. Needless to say I have been pretty busy and posting to the blog has not been really high on my list of things to do lately. I have to cut grass, help my wife wash clothes; all of the things associated with coming back after a long trip.

I tried to go to the archives today but I just could not make myself do it. I was within a mile of the building and turned the other way. I am still in a bit of a funk when it comes to genealogy. I have been like this for the past few months. Family Tree Maker 2008 has a lot to do with my losing interest in the hobby. I am at a crossroads and just do not know how to proceed yet. I am not sure if I want to keep going with 2008 or go back to FTM 16.

I have also been thinking a lot lately about how to make money online. That would be a great thing to do, in theory, but it is much harder than it sounds. It would be nice to quit work and stay home, just to play on the Internet for a few hours a day. I have been studying all of the methods of making money on the net, for about the past two years, and all I have done is waste money and time. I have spent probably $4,000 in the past twenty-four months and gotten very little return.

I used to run Google ads on this site and made around $20.00 per month. That is hardly worth the trouble and not even enough to cover my expenses. I have tried doing other things. I have a genealogy auction site www.usafamilytree.com but it is not exactly a big hit. Genealogy is not a big money topic anyway so I was probably doomed from the start. I have spent a lot of money advertising that venture and also received very little in return.

I know I am getting a little off topic but this is what has been on my mind lately. Some days I feel good about genealogy and the prospects of making money with it. Other days I wonder why I even bother. I like to share what I find yet I would love to get paid to do so. The idea is to be able to give my readers the info for free and make advertisers, like eBay, pay me a commission for sending people their way. Everyone wins in that situation.

That sounds easy but trust me, nothing about it is easy! No one clicks on ads anymore. Everyone knows they are ads and totally ignore them. The only way to get someone to click an ad is to trick them but what good does that do? You might make a few pennies but you piss off your viewers. It is a vicious circle.

In short, I am still less than interested in genealogy and I want to make more money than I make now. This sounds like a recipe for depression. Hopefully I will be back to me usual, productive self in a few days.

Get paid for your genealogy research? (part II)

Google is not the only form of advertising revenue. You can pitch products or sign up as an affiliate with Amazon or eBay but you have to get a lot of traffic to your site to make any money. You do not get paid for viewers clicking on their ads; people actually have to buy something for you to get commission. You might get one commission off of a thousand clicks on their ad. In short, you might as well forget it. Genealogy is not that popular in the big picture and it is losing momentum as a hobby. Fewer people search for genealogy sites each month - check the Google trends if you do not believe me.

The biggest problem with a genealogy web site is that genealogy hobbyists hate advertising! People think that all genealogy should be free for everyone and that making money off genealogy is evil! Rootsweb is in turmoil right now because Ancestry is adding their banners to all sites hosted on Rootsweb. Forget that Ancestry has given them free server space for years; Ancestry is now evil for wanting a little something in return. People focus too much on keeping genealogy “free.” If no one got paid for their work, there would be no genealogy books, microfilm or records. Even the county clerk gets paid to record the deeds and wills.

I am getting a little off track here but look at the big picture. Even if you get $100 per hour or $5.00 per click, you have to pay taxes and insurance. By the time you pay Uncle Sam and Blue Cross, what will you have left to eat? What about gas? How are you going to pay for $5.00 per gallon gasoline when you are driving to and from all of those courthouses and libraries? Don't forget about the kids needing braces, your adjustable rate mortgage, your car note and that momma needs a new pair of shoes.

Anyway you slice it, unless you are the CEO of the Generations Network or you invented DNA testing for genealogy purposes, you are probably out of luck. If anyone knows how to make money in genealogy, please let me know. I have been trying for years and just cannot figure it out. I love this hobby and would like to do it fulltime. I doubt I will quit my day job anytime soon, unless you can give me the answer. I am waiting for your response…

eBay - a great place to find family documents and artifacts

I stumbled upon something a few years ago that changed my life – at least the genealogy portion of it. There is a place in your eBay account where you can set up a favorite search and have the results e-mailed to you on a schedule. Most people do not like subscribing to anything but trust me, this is not spam! I have found many valuable family documents and items because of this service.

All you have to do is log into your eBay account and go into “My eBay.” Click on the “All Favorites – Searches” link and then “Add new Search.” From there you can add or remove words, pricing, location or other parameters from your search. When you are finished, it would look something like this:

“+lett +(virginia, VA) -beantown -looney -jazz -funk -beer -killian -killians -"della reese" -"lett-lopi" -lopi -engine -baseball -music -songs -football -leon -dallas -cowboys -bronze -canada -latvia -benchwarmer -italy –mail Sort: Ending First, Located In: United States, Currency: U.S. dollars”

This is my search for the name Lett. I had to specify that I wanted Virginia only. I also removed a lot of terms that do not interest me. For example, I do not want to see items about the Dallas Cowboy’s Leon Lett nor do I want to see anything to do with the singer Earl Lett on Beantown Records. This search allows me to find only items that interest me. It might seem confusing but eBay makes it quite simple to set up, just follow the on-screen instructions.

Every day I get an e-mail from at least one of the many searches I have set up. It lets me know when an item of interest has been posted. Sometimes it might be a reference in the index of a book. Other times it might be an old Bible or family photo. I recently bought a collection of original estate papers, including a handful of family photos, concerning my great-great-great-grandfather, Edward Thomas Cole of Mecklenburg County, Virginia. I have also purchased various old letters, envelopes and even a few newspapers from the communities in which my ancestors lived.

Without the favorite search function on eBay, I would probably have missed out on a lot of neat items that I was able to pick up. The service is free and takes only a few minutes to sign up for. There is no reason not to sign up for it today! You obviously have to have an eBay account but that is free as well.

The only thing you will have to do is bid on the items and hope that you win! Be careful not to get carried away with the bidding process, although I understand that it is almost impossible to pass on a potential family heirloom. I paid over $500 for the estate papers I mentioned earlier, simply because I slipped and let the seller know that I was desperate to get them. Play it cool, bid with confidence and let me know if you find something good!