http://www.moniteau.net/cemetery/tiptonmasonic/draffen-bessie-ray.JPG

- Photograph by Alan Sparks,  Moniteau County coordinator of the MOGenWeb Project.

For my first Tombstone Tuesday, I am sharing this link to a photo of my maternal Grandfather and Grandmother’s grave site.  I discovered this photograph on the Internet yesterday while using a search-engine to “refresh” my memory for the name of the cemetery in Tipton, Missouri (Platial map) (Aardvark map) where my grandparents’ final resting place resides.  I found more than I expected.  The search took me to the Tipton Masonic Cemetery page of the Moniteau County, MO project site.  This county site is part of the MO GenWeb Project.  The MOGenWeb Project is the Missouri state site of its parent,  US GenWeb Project .  I was surprised to see a photograph of my Grandmother’s gravestone on the Internet considering she passed just 2 years ago.

The other day I completely uninstalled Firefox including my bookmarks and installed a fresh copy of the web browser.  I simply had too many bookmarks many of which I originally saved and never visited again, and they were not organized well.

These are some of my brand new bookmarks and findings during the past week:

MoultrieCreek’s Research Toolbox, A collection of tools to help genealogists and family historians researching their roots.  9 Firefox add-ons.

New Mexico Genealogical Society Blog shares many free research sites that are helpful to genealogists everywhere not only New Mexico.

I signed up for an account at Diigo.  I saw Diigo was a favorite of MoultrieCreek’s , and I also like what I see.  I started my own list titled “Free Genealogy Research” beginning with the links shared by NMGSB.

I then saw MoultrieCreek had a group at Diigo titled “Genealogy Research Resources” which includes over 1000 links.   There is also a group for Geneabloggers at Diigo.

Learned about GotGenealogy.com at Ancestories.

First spotting of my blog at GenBlog !  Thanks Julie !

A must read every week: Randy’s Best of the Genea-Blogs at Genea-Musings

I am one of this weeks 14 new genea-blogs at GeneaBloggers.com

A great article on gravestone rubbings and photography at Modern Software Experience

Genea-Musings’ excellent advice for a “Study Program for Genealogists” . This article includes a “10-point blueprint that would provide solid grounding and enhanced skills for any genealogist”, by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

List of Online Digitized Collections for Genealogy by Genealogy’s Star

I will be documenting my genealogy findings essentially in chronological order here.  All information I learn about my family which has been shared to me by our members will be given the appropriate credit .  I will contact the member(s) first and ask for permission to use their full name before posting.  If members don’t want their full name used, only the first name given at our group listed as “nickname” will be used.  I do not plan to write about living persons.  If I do, I will ask for express permission from the member and share the post with them before posting.  Any information about our members DNA haplotype will ONLY be used anonymously AND ONLY after their express permission.

I also want to add, that any media shared at the group including photos, video, and stories will not be shared here unless I have the express permission from the contributor of the file.  All appropriate credit will be given and stated as such.

While you visit the blog please subscribe.  Comments are welcome and encouraged.

If you have any questions or comments please reply.  Thanks!

After I deleted the Ancestry.com family tree (see First Post – part 1), I began a new family tree using Family Tree Maker 2008.  FTM 2008 software included  the ability to do research at Ancestry.com and automatically adding the site’s findings into the user’s FTM 2008 file.  On this new family tree of mine, unlike my previous attempt, I worked slowly (well more slowly anyway) and actually viewed the sources before adding them to my file.  I began adding my ancestors with their proper  source-citations, media links and files found at and provided by Ancestry.com to the FTM 2008 file.   I did this without being completely familiar with FTM 2008′s features and capabilities.  I later became aware of  the fact this FTM 2008 file had many errors including missing source-citations missing, missing media files, duplicate source-citations and duplicate media files.  I am not sure if this was because of my unfamiliarity with the program or because FTM 2008 was very buggy.  FTM 2008 has had a reputation of being very buggy, especially in the initial release version before its several service-pack updates.  My problems were probably a combination of the two; my inexperience and FTM 2008 messing things up.

I am now beginning a brand new family tree file using Family Tree Maker 2009.  Early adopters of FTM 2008 received a free upgrade to FTM 2009 because of the numerous complaints from 2008 users.  I understand FTM 2009′s stability is sound compared to the early 2008 version.  I sure hope so.