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All Levels of Genealogists

Unusual Places to Look for Genealogy

We all do it. We search and beg and pound the keyboard mercilessly, desperate to find someplace to glean just one little bit of information that will break down that unassailable brick wall that keeps us from the Holy Grail of Genealogy—The Unfindable Ancestor. I’ve destroyed my share of keyboards and still have a brick wall so unscalable that I truly believe my Unfindable Ancestor was beamed up by aliens, which may explain my siblings’ love of science fiction books, my crush on Chewbacca and my obsession with the genealogy program Reunion for Mac, which includes a person status for Alien Abductee. During my many years of Maalox-assisted genealogy research, I’ve accumulated a list of Unusual Places to look for genealogy, which I’ll share with you here.

Protecting Family Documents, a Genealogist’s Most Precious Treasure

Genealogists spend most of the time looking for old documents, however we should spend a little time preserving not only our historical documents, but also the ones we produce in our daily lives.  If a disaster happened in your life today, would your papers and photos be safe or would you be devastated by the [...]

Saving Water Soaked Photos, a Genealogist’s Window to the Past

Without question, losing a family member is the most devastating thing that can happen in a disaster. The second hardest loss is Family Photos. Going back to what is left of your home and seeing the remnants of your former everyday life is unbelievably painful. And seeing those irreplaceable photos lying in a water-soaked heap will break your heart. What should you do with that heap of wet photos? Many people think they are hopeless and throw them away. Don’t. Here is what you can do to try and save both them and valuable documents.

Military Records – A Regiment of Valuable Information For Genealogists

I don’t know a lot about the Military, other than I’m grateful for every person who ever served our country and that I never had to go through boot camp myself, but I do know that Military Records are proof that the American Government loves Genealogists.

Almost any Military Record can provide good information about your ancestor, and possibly not just military information, either. I’ve found some Revolutionary War records where in the regimental roll call they listed the height, complexion, and hair and eye color of the men. A few men even had their occupations listed. WWI and WWII draft registration cards had these personal statistics, too, along with who their wife was, their current address, and where they worked. If they weren’t married, their parents’ names were listed. What a treasure all this information is!

Genealogy.com Stops Adding New Data to Website

I was recently contacted by Genealogy.com, at which time their spokesman stated, “We have stopped adding information to Genealogy.com . . . ” Ali, Genealogy.com.
It’s sad to hear this. Genealogy.com has been a great addition to family history websites for many years.

The National Archives to Digitize Part of It’s Holdings

What a great announcement! A portion of the National Archives’ massive holdings is going to be digitized by Ancestry.com and uploaded to its online subscription database. Oh happy day! Although digitizing the National Archive records will be a five-year task for Ancestry, their reward will be adding a huge dollop of vital statistics, immigration and military service data to their website. The National Archives will also receive a copy of the digitized records for use in what they are calling “archival control.” Without a doubt, that doesn’t mean free, online, public use. Too bad.

Free Civil War Website Available Through June 30, 2008

Alexander Street Press has announced that it is once again allowing public access to its entire Civil War series, The American Civil War Online, through June 30, 2008. Included in this series is The American Civil War Research Database, which was open to the public in April of this year. The success of that enterprise convinced them to allow this additional period of open access. Genealogists and researchers everywhere should take this chance to use this wonderful archive.

Deciphering The First, Middle and Nicknames of our Ancestors

A Rose by any other name might be called Polly, Molly or Maude. And John can be known as Jack, Archibald as Balt and Christopher as Chris, Christy or Christian. I even have an Uncle Cecil who was known as Peiko. Where did that come from? That’s right, it’s not just surnames we have to worry about when searching for our ancestors. (See my post on April 20th, Hooked on Phonetics . . . The Many Misspellings of our Ancestors’ Names.) A man may have been known by his middle name until he reached maturity, and then switched to his first name. Some men and women used nicknames instead of their first names even for legal documents—but not every time. This makes them difficult to research.

Hooked on Phonetics . . . The Many Misspellings of our Ancestors’ Names

From the moment the first European ship hit American soil, our ancestors’ surnames have been cruelly treated by the people inscribing them on parchment, paper and in printer’s ink. The reason is simple. Many people didn’t know how to spell them: not the person owning the name, the person writing it or the person setting the type. The way this problem was dealt with was Phonetics. If a man didn’t know how to spell a name, he spelled it as it sounded, and every man responsible for recording those names had a different idea how to spell what he heard. To complicate the matter, many of the people speaking the names and those writing them spoke different languages.

Free Civil War Website Available - But For a Limited Time, So Hurry!

It’s free, it’s great, and it’s for a limited time. Best of all, it’s everything a genealogist wants to know about the Civil War; who the soldiers were, what battles their regiments fought in, what songs were the men singing as they marched to battle and who was writing diaries about the whole affair. The Alexander Street Press is a database that has lots of great information–but it’s usually only accessible at libraries, colleges and universities that subscribe to their website. That is until now, and I mean right now.