Yesterday I wrote about uploading your family tree to other genealogy sites. Thankfully I got messages from Bobby and Geniaus letting me know that on www.genesreunited.co.uk anyone with a paid subscription can see everyone in your tree dead or LIVING!! Here are there comments:

Bobby. said…

Hi Kylie,
I also got excited about genesreuntied. I added my tree and chose to keep living people private in the settings which is something we all have to do. Sure people made contact with me and that was great. However, what they dont tell you on their website is that even though you can make ‘living’ people private it is still shown to paid up members. I started seeing my close family members being added to trees, and i wondered how this could be. Made further inquiries and found out all my info was being shared to all paidup members on the site even though i chose to hide living folks. So be careful and probably best to upload a gedcom without living folks. Needless to say I no longer go there or have my gedcom on any website except my own.

Geniaus said…

Kylie, I had the same experience as Bobby and found out when a not too happy cousin complained about her details being made public on Genes Reunited. I only have a gedcom for people not living on that site and do not update it. Like Bobby I now have my data on my own site http://www.geniaus.com where I have full control over what is seen and not seen. Regards, Geniaus

I’ve deleted my current genes reunited tree and will make a new gedcom without living relatives for uploading to various sites.

Please be wary of all family tree sites and check what their privacy settings are, as I should’ve done 🙁

If you think you may have ancestors who served in World War Two go to the World War Two Nominal Roll website. From the site:-

The World War Two Nominal Roll was created to honour and commemorate the men and women who served in Australia’s defence forces and the Merchant Navy during this conflict.

This site contains information from the service records of some one million individuals who served during World War Two.

You may search for service record details by specifying name, service number, honours, place (of birth, of enlistment, or residential locality at enlistment). Once you find an individual service record you can print a certificate, if you wish.

Do your search:

Here’s a result:
(This is my uncle Bill Willison’s certificate. He passed away in May 2002 and is greatly missed.)

Above the search result it says:

In addition to viewing this service record, you can also produce a certificate of this service record

Click on ‘Produce a Certificate’

You can print the certificate but make sure you check it in print preview first. It may not print very well. Instead I like to save the certificates as an image, keep a copy on my computer and also upload a copy to my online family tree. Here are the steps to do this.

When you have the certificate showing in your web browser, as above, press the Print Screen button on your keyboard. It may be abbreviated to Prt Scr.

The computer creates an image containing everything which is showing on your computer monitor (screen) at that time.

If you use the Microsoft Windows XP or Vista operating system then open Microsoft Paint by clicking on the Start button > All Programs > Accessories > Paint. This will open the Paint program. On the menu bar at the top left, click on Edit and click on Paste. This will put your screenshot in the Paint program.

Click on the select tool near the top left hand corner of the screen. Drag the select square over the certificate so that the square is around the parts of the certificate you want to keep. It may take a couple of tries to get it where you want it.

Click on the Edit menu and click on Copy:-

Click on the File menu and click on New:-

Click on the Edit menu and click on Paste:-

The final image:

Now you have a nice image which didn’t cost anything other than a bit of time. It may seem like a long process at first but the more you do it the more you’ll get used to it. You could also print it and it should come out very nicely. Hope this is helpful to someone!!! Kylie 🙂

Went to the display Australia’s Christian Heritage at Adelaide Christian Centre today. I was very impressed. It was a large work, very detailed historical facts, well presented, easily readable and understandable, large print, and well balanced – not too busy with too many things in the presentation.

I’ve got a nice stack of leaflets to read through – Captain Charles Sturt, Proclamation of South Australia, The Christian Settlement of South Australia, and some great books and websites to look up as well.

You Can Be Another Great Australian – The Challenge of Australia’s Christian Heritage by Margot Ogilvie.
Discovering Australia’s Christian Heritage by Col Stringer
800 Horsemen by Col Stringer
colstringer.com
Australian Christian History Research Institute

I went to a talk on findmypast.co.uk the other day and one of the things they suggested was to set up a free account and upload a gedcom file (the format used by most family tree software programs) to genesreunited.co.uk I did it, not really thinking I would get much out of it and I’ve had seven people contact me about my tree in just ten days!!

This is well worth doing. If you’re someone who already uses either of these sites then you might consider uploading your tree to ancestry.com.au to see what contacts you get from other genealogists. Maybe you’ll find that elusive missing relative or break through a frustrating road block in your research.

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Go to the blog, linked above, and look at the rest of the Geek Alphabet. Thanks Robyn for showing me this!!