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How does OneGreatFamily save me time when doing my genealogy research?

With all of our busy schedules we don't have much time in the day to do what we would really like to do, such as our hobbies or spending time with those we love. Genealogy in particular is something we postpone because of the time it takes to uncover just one family name or new piece of information. Most of us think the task at hand is too great, so we give up even before we start. OneGreatFamily was created for the very purpose of saving people time and money.

There are many different ways in which OneGreatFamily can search for ALL your ancestors ALL the time. This process saves YOU hours or even years of time! There are only two steps that you need to take. The first is to submit or create what you already know about your family in the form of a family tree. Include as many relationships as you can, including aunts and uncles. More relationships give OneGreatFamily more information for its unique matching service. With more than 115 million names already submitted and between one and three million new names being submitted each month, you are sure to find your ancestors at OneGreatFamily . . . in the near future, if not today. Many of the names submitted to OneGreatFamily come with supporting data, such as information on life events (birth, marriage and death), sources, notes, photos, and biographies.

Once your family tree is submitted, an automatic review process looks at each individual in your family tree and begins searching for individuals that are identical within OneGreatFamily. Each match makes new information available to you . . . on a specific ancestor or even an entire branch of your family tree! A match with someone else's data also provides a point for further collaboration within OneGreatFamily.

OneGreatFamily also efficiently reduces duplicate family trees and relationships by creating ONE FAMILY TREE. You don't need to spend hours wading through hundreds of thousands of family tree fragments or weighing evidence to determine which entries are of most value to you. OneGreatFamily lets you see all information available for any given person at one time (including conflicting information, alternate spellings, notes, and other important clues).

Matching and merging can also be completed for individuals that are close matches. If the individuals are close matches, a hint (light bulb) appears in the Starfield View (pedigree). You then take the second step of determining if they are the same person and merge the records together. When collaborating, it is important to verify the information that has been submitted by others. This process of matching and merging allows distant relatives to help each other grow their family trees and also saves time that was previously allotted to researching, traveling, and sifting through billions of names in databases.

So take the first step in completing your genealogy by first submitting your family tree. Remember, OneGreatFamily is working all the time, so you don't have to!

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Baptist Church Records

Vital records began being kept very early in some of the New England States, but for most of the United States they were not recorded until the late 1800’s or early 1900’s.  Therefore, vital information recorded in Church records becomes very important to the American genealogist.   As has been mentioned before, however, church records were kept to meet the needs of the churches, not the needs of the genealogists.  The records of some of the churches contain only a few vital statistics, but the importance of searching these records should not be overlooked.

One of the churches that didn’t record vital statistics is the Baptist Church.  Occasionally you will find vital statistics in a minister’s diary, if that diary has been preserved.  Within the church records you may find an occasional death or marriage record.  You might find biographical material of the more prominent ministers and information about the service of especially hardworking members.  Each church made a record of members moving into their congregation; this can help you understand the makeup of a family.  It is also possible to learn about economic or social status, migration patterns and occasionally a disciplinary note will be recorded of exclusion and/or reinstatement.  Local church record books recorded proceedings of regular and special conferences.  These usually included a list of church members.  Church membership rolls have the names of family members as they join.  Before 1910, little children were not usually members of the church. They became members by “baptism” or “experience.”

Baptist records are not centralized, but are being gathered into large Baptist Colleges or Universities and, in a few instances, the State Convention Office.

Two such valuable collections are at the American Baptist historical Society, 1106 Goodman St., Rochester, New York 14620 and the Southern Baptist Historical Commission at 127 Ninth Ave. North, Nashville, Tennessee 37234.  “Baptist Roots” at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~baptist/ is a good online source.

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• Visit the OneGreatFamily Learning Center for more helpful genealogy articles by Lisa South
  
  

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