Genealogy Insider - LibrariesAndArchives

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Massachusetts State Library in Danger?
Posted by Diane

First it was the Library of Michigan. Now the State Library of Massachusetts is reporting on its blog that the Massachusetts governor’s office announced during an Oct. 29 press conference that the governor is considering closing the State Library of Massachusetts to cut expenses.

A press release about the state's budget gap, which the governor issued the same day, doesn’t specifically mention the library, but it says state agencies have been asked to prepare for additional cuts.

The state library's blog post links to a petition you can sign, and to contact information for the governor’s office.

The Massachusetts Library Association was already planning a rally at the Massachusetts State House today to support libraries, whose funding has declined over the years even as use goes up.

Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 6:47:37 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

NARA Explains Proposed Research Room Changes
Posted by Diane

The National Archives and Records Administration released a statement correcting what it calls "erroneous" information about planned changes to its Washington, DC, research facility.

The plans were publicized yesterday on the National Genealogical Society (NGS) UpFront blog.

The NGS post said NARA wanted to reduce research space, move and reduce the number of microfilm readers, eliminate the military services research room, and eliminate self-serve microfilm pulling in favor of a system that required staff to pull film. The reason? To expand the exhibit area and shops.

I asked NARA about the changes and was sent this statement, which also will be posted on NARA’s website today.

In short, changes are proposed, but according NARA, research space will increase, the microfilm reading room and self service microfilm will not be eliminated, and the lecture room will remain. Plans for the consultation area will follow the service model at the Archives II research facility in College Park, Md.

Here's the statement:

The National Archives and Records Administration continually looks at ways to improve and increase our services to visitors and researchers. We conduct this review to ensure that we continue to provide the highest level of services to our regular clientele and to extend our services to potential users with different backgrounds and expectations.

It's come to our attention that our researcher community may have received erroneous information about our plans for some adjustments to the Archives I research rooms. The following information is an outline of what we are considering.

Are you reducing the size of the Finding Aids/Consultation Room?

No. Current plans would more than double that space.

The current room on the ground floor of the National Archives Building (Room G-28) serves as the finding aids room, the consultation area, and as office space for three staff members. The area available in this space for consultation with the public is approximately 450 square feet and has three consultation tables.

We are proposing to move the consultation area from G-28 to the adjacent area which is currently the National Archives Library, G-30. We will use approximately 1100 square feet of what is now Library space for this consultation area. The space will have eight tables for consultation.

So, we will more than double the area and number of tables for researchers to consult with staff and use the finding aids. The three staff members who currently have their workspace in G-28 will have new workstations adjacent to the research room that they can use to do other work when they are not providing direct consultation service.

This plan is based on the successful model that has been in place for several years for consultants at Archives II in College Park.

Are you eliminating the Microfilm Reading Room?

No. Over the last few years use of our microfilm holdings has decreased by 70 percent. In fiscal year 2000 we had 53,000 microfilm researcher visits; in fiscal year 2009 we had 16,000 microfilm research visits. When our microfilm reading room was first designed and built we estimated the need for 100 microfilm readers. Because of digitization and other factors, there no longer is the need for so many microfilm readers. So we are considering reducing the number of microfilm machines to 30 and increasing the number of public access computers to meet the demand for the old and the new technology. We will maintain the number of microfilm machines at a level that is needed by those researchers who continue to have the need for microfilm.

Are you eliminating self-service microfilm?

No. For the convenience of both researchers and staff, the National Archives maintains a policy of allowing researchers to browse our microfilm cabinets and select their own microfilm. We will continue with this policy as long as research demand warrants it. We may, however, relocate the microfilm to another public area adjacent to the microfilm reading room.

Are you eliminating the Lecture Room?

No. Our current lecture room on the ground floor (G-24) is used daily for programs such as our very popular "Know Your Records" seminars. Any renovation of the ground floor research area will include a lecture room so our researchers, visitors, and NARA staff can continue to use it for critical outreach and other activities.

What are you doing with the Orientation and Registration Area?

While we may eventually re-locate those areas physically, we have no immediate plans to do so. We of course would not eliminate this critical function, and will ensure it is located appropriately.

These changes to the National Archives Building should improve the services we provide to researchers. No functions or services are being eliminated or reduced.

To ensure that the changes meet the needs of researchers, we intend to continue to have our quarterly meetings with our Archives I user group to keep users informed and solicit their comments.

Libraries and Archives

Thursday, October 22, 2009 2:43:52 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, October 16, 2009

Genealogy News Corral: October 12-16
Posted by Diane

Here are some of the news items we've rounded up this week:

I read an interesting post on the Archives Next blog about NARA’s record digitization agreements with firms such as Footnote and Ancestry.com. The blogger outlines possible good, bad and ugly outcomes when NARA is finally legally able to post online the record images obtained through contracts with third parties.

Pedigree database subscription site OneGreatFamily ($59.95 per year) plans to improve its search function by installing the Perfect Search Database Search Appliance from Perfect Search Corp. Each week, OneGreatFamily makes more than 18.8 trillion comparisons of names, dates and other details in members’ family trees, says CEO Alan Eaton. The new search tool should increase searching capability, improve indexing, and to deliver results faster.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) has added several genealogical journals to its online subscription ($75 per year): Besides its own New England Historical and Genealogical Register, they are The American Genealogist, The Connecticut Nutmegger, New Netherland Connections and The Virginia Genealogist.

Also from NEHGS: Fellow actors, Boston natives, best buddies and People magazine sexiest men alive Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are 10th cousins once removed. Their common ancestor is William Knowlton of Ipswich, Mass., a bricklayer who died in 1655. Read the full story in the Boston Herald.

Family Tree Magazine Plus members can read our article about Matt Damon’s roots—including his link to Ralph Waldo Emerson—here.

Celebrity Roots | Genealogy societies | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Friday, October 16, 2009 7:49:28 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Allen County Library Digitizes Abe Lincoln's Life
Posted by Diane

Staff at one of genealogy’s best-known libraries are digitizing some extra-special records.

Last December, the Indiana State Museum and the Allen County (Ind.) Public Library—whose Genealogy Center is the largest public library genealogy collection in the United States—got word they’d receive the 230,000-piece collection of Fort Wayne’s Lincoln Museum. That museum closed in June, 2008.

Abraham Lincoln lived with his family in Perry (now Spencer) County, Ind., from 1816 to 1830. (The home site is a national memorial.)

The Indiana organizations were selected to receive the collection over a formidable-sounding coalition consisting of the Library of Congress, National Museum of American History, Ford’s Theatre and President Lincoln’s Cottage.

The Allen County library's on-site digital capability helped keep the collection in Fort Wayne, according to a News Sentinel article.

The library will house manuscripts, books, photographs, maps, pamphlets and periodicals from the collection, including genealogical materials on the Lincoln and Hanks (Abraham Lincoln's maternal line) families and Mary Todd Lincoln's “insanity file” (in 1875, she was briefly committed to an asylum). More than 20,000 items will be digitized.

You can view 75 images from the collection on the Allen County library's web site. Library staff also also will dig up historical research so online searchers can get the story behind each item.

Artifacts, such as Lincoln’s wallet and the chair in which he posed for many photos, are at the Indiana State Museum. You'll see some displayed in two Lincoln exhibits to open next year on Feb. 12 (Lincoln’s birthday).

Think you're related to Lincoln or another US first family? Check out our list of books on presidential genealogy.

Celebrity Roots | Libraries and Archives | Social History

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 7:12:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Tuesday, October 06, 2009

400-year-old Books Return to Germany
Posted by Grace

As a sign of "friendship and trust," the US returned two 16th-century books to Germany today. The tomes were taken by an 18-year-old soldier in 1945, who came across the books in a salt mine in Ransbach, Hessen. He was amazed by the stash—about 2 million books plus 200,000 costumes from the State Opera of Berlin were there, sent underground in 1944 to protect the treasures from incoming troops. (An estimated 15 million books were destroyed in Germany during WWII.) Salt mines were a favorite place to stash valuables because of the mineral's ability to absorb moisture.

Robert Thomas, of Chula Vista, CA, said he was returning the books after six decades "because it's the right thing to do." The US Acting Archivist Adrienne Thomas and German Ambassador Klaus Schiaroth exchanged the books from 1573 and 1593 today in a ceremony in Washington, DC.

US Ambassador J. Christian Kennedy, the US State Department’s special envoy for Holocaust issues, thanked Thomas for returning the volumes, according to the statement.

“I hope his decision to take this step will serve as an example for others in this country and elsewhere to step forward and return such items displaced during World War II,” he said.

Sources: National Archives, Bloomberg, Associated Press, AFP, Hamburger Abendblatt

Historic preservation | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, October 06, 2009 7:34:08 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, October 02, 2009

Genealogy News Corral: September 28-October 2
Posted by Diane

It's Friday, and that means it's time to rustle up some genealogy news:

Got St. Louis-area ancestors? Consider subscribing to Genealogy and House History News, a free monthly e-mail update listing additions to the Missouri History Museum's Genealogy and Local History Index (click the “Sign up for the E-mail List” link). If you find a relative, you can order a photocopy of the record.

On Kimberly’s Genealogy Blog at About.com: Genealogy, Kimberly Powell reports that almost 200,000 Scottish burial records from the 1800s are now online on a UK pay-per-view site called DeceasedOnline. See Kimberley’s post for details about the collection.

FamilySearch has added a few more databases to the Record Search Pilot, thanks to its hard-working indexing volunteers. You can search indexes and view images of Protestant church records from France (1612-1906).

The 1920 US census index (but not record images) was added for Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey and South Carolina.

You can browse images of church records from Italy, Slovakia, Argentina and Mexico (these indexes are still being processed).

To find records associated with the place your ancestors lived, click Browse our Record Collections on the Record Search home page, then click an area of the map.

Happy third birthday to RootsTelevision! The free genealogy TV Web site shared a list of its most popular videos, several of which relate to family history happenings that broke into “mainstream” news. See the list on the Og Blog.

My trusty colleagues Allison and Grace will post while I'm sneaking in some vacation next week. I might chime in from afar, or I might be too entranced by autumnal loveliness to make it happen. We'll see.

FamilySearch | International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives | Videos

Friday, October 02, 2009 7:20:23 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Part Library Catalog, Part Blog = Catablog
Posted by Diane

I learned a new word this week. I read about catablogs on the Archives 2.0 wiki (about libraries that use Web 2.0 technologies).

A catablog, the wiki explains, is a library blog that provides short descriptions of collections in blog posts. The posts are tagged and categorized so visitors can easily find topics they’re interested in.

The library materials themselves aren’t on catablogs, but you can use the catablog post to find out what’s in a collection and link to a library catalog listing or finding aid for the item.

For example, if a relative went to Drexel University in Philadelphia, see the Archives and Special Collections blog. You can pick a type of record from the category list, or browse by decade, century or letter of the alphabet. You’ll learn about resources such as the Programs and Invitations Collection, 1862 to 1965 (graduation programs, banquet invites and the like), or People Photographs 1880-2000.

The Brooklyn Historical Society named its catablog Emma. To see posts, choose a category or browse. In the Business and Industry category, a post on the Bennet Ryder Collection, 1676-1915, tells you it contains wills, deeds, indentures and other documents from the Bennet, Lake, Stillwell and Van Sicklen families of mid-17th century New Amsterdam. The Slavery category has a post on the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims-Henry Ward Beecher Collection, 1847- 1980, which has papers from the abolitionist’s pastorate over the church.

UMarmot from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is the original catablog, according to Archives 2.0. Choose from categories such as Civil War, Rhode Island, and Immigration and Ethnicity. Posts describe collections including the Simeon Bartlett Account Books, 1792-1867 (business records from a Williamsburg, Mass., freight hauler, farmer and sawmill owner), and Civil War Diaries, 1862-1863.

Some library blogs aren’t dedicated catablogs—rather, they combine posts about historical collections with those on events and other news. For examples, see the Library of Congress blog, the Ohio Historical Society Collections blog and the Columbus (Georgia) Public Library Genealogy & Local History blog.

If your library has a catablog or a traditional blog, consider subscribing to e-mail alerts or to its RSS feed (look for this button

to add the blog to a blog reader).

Libraries and Archives | Research Tips

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 9:00:05 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Ways to Say "Woot!" for Family History Month 2009
Posted by Diane

Question of the day: What do we celebrate in October? Columbus Day, yes. Halloween. The start of the Christmas season, in most shopping malls.

October also is Family History Month. In 2001, Congress first passed a resolution introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who wrote, "By searching for our roots, we come closer together as a human family.”

Similar legislation has passed in several years since. I couldn't find an official declaration for 2009 (anyone else?), but family history enthusiasts continue to celebrate Family History Month in October.

Don’t hesitate to hold your own party. Give yourself a whole Saturday at the library or Family History Center, ask a relative your burning family history questions, put some photos in an album, jot down a family story, or tell your state representative how much you appreciate your public library's genealogy resources. The New England Historic Genealogical Society has more ideas.

Here’s a sampling of genealogy classes and other special events we’ve heard about. Check program schedules for your local library and genealogy society to see what’s going on near you.

The California Genealogical Society and Library in Oakland will waive its non-member library use fee and host a range of how-to workshops during October.

Saturday, Oct. 3, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County offers classes, Genealogy and Local History Department tours, and free consultations with Hamilton County Genealogical Society experts. More events happen throughout the month, including a library lock-in Oct. 17. See the Genealogy Section of the library’s October Calendar (a PDF download) for more details.

The Fort Myers-Lee County Library in Florida has a free Family History Month class series on Saturdays in October. For more info, mouse over the listings on the library’s online calendar.

The Indiana State Library in Indianapolis has lots of classes planned, including dating photographs, Indiana marriage laws and getting started.

The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., has something going on every day in October, including sessions on house history, female ancestors and Adobe Photoshop, as well as the first-ever International Black Genealogy Summit (Oct. 29-31).

Online genealogy class Web site GenClass is sponsoring a competition for a free genealogy class—write a 1,200 word essay about a creative way you’ve honored your ancestors and what inspired you. Get the entry instructions here.

Have yourself a happy Family History Month!

African-American roots | Genealogy Events | Libraries and Archives

Thursday, September 24, 2009 3:17:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, September 18, 2009

Genealogy News Corral: September 14-18
Posted by Diane

Without further ado, our genealogy news roundup for the week:

Subscription site Ancestry.co.uk (sister site to the US-focused Ancestry.com) has added London parish records, which among other events cover deaths from the bubonic plague and the 1666 Great Fire of London. They’re part of a collection of London records from 1538 to 1980.

Google Books, where you can search millions of out-of-print books, is partnering with On-Demand Books to let you use any Espresso Book Machine to print books in the public domain that Google has digitized from. (There aren’t a lot of places to find these book machines—click here for locations.) Learn more on the Google Books blog.

Visit the Family History Expos blog for a list of 10 great tips for using social networking sites to do genealogy research and connect with your family.

FamilySearch Indexing has launched new indexing projects from Indiana, Idaho, Canada, Spain, Guatemala, and Peru. The 1920 census index for Ohio is undergoing preparation for publication on the free FamilySearch site. Hooray! (We’re from the Buckeye State.) The 1920 census for Texas; Carroll County, Ind., marriages; and several international collections also are being readied for release.

World Vital Records lowered the price of its World Collection subscription to $99.95 (from $119.95). This collection gives you access to all the site’s US records, plus those from Canada, the UK, Ireland and other countries. See the November 2009 Family Tree Magazine for our guide to using World Vital Records.

Don’t forget to visit the Michigan Genealogical Council Web site for information on an online petition in support of the Library of Michigan, as well as links to news of budget-related library cuts across the country.

census records | FamilySearch | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | UK and Irish roots

Friday, September 18, 2009 3:29:24 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Help Save Library of Michigan Genealogy Collections
Posted by Diane

Michigan Genealogical Council (MGC) members stopped by our booth at FGS last week to share news about the Library of Michigan, which was dissolved July 13 by an executive order that goes into effect Oct. 1.

To save an estimated $2 million in the cash-strapped state, Gov. Jennifer Granholm assigned the library collections to the Department of Education and ordered the department’s director to cut expenses by considering measures such as eliminating participation in interlibrary loan.

MGC is circling an online petition in support of keeping the library’s Michigan collection intact, free and within state jurisdiction.

State senators have introduced bills to transfer all Department of History, Arts and Libraries functions to the Michigan Department of State, with separate funding from the state's general fund. MGC president Cynthia Grostick says the measures have passed the state senate, but fears they may languish in the house. See the council’s Web site for updates and information on how to help.

Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, September 09, 2009 3:02:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Saturday, September 05, 2009

Searching Microfilmed Newspapers
Posted by Diane

This Federation of Genealogical Societies conference is the first confab outside Ohio where I’ve been able to research ancestors. As soon as I got to Little Rock Wednesday, I checked into the hotel and ran off to the state archives.

I didn’t have a specific article to find—rather, I wanted any news item about my great-grandfather’s criminal trial for bootlegging. There wasn’t a name index, so I knew I was in for some heavy-duty scrolling. I had the conviction and incarceration dates, but not a date of arrest, so I had several months to cover in 1913.

First thing when I arrived, I got my very own research card. The archivist had me double-check holdings for the newspapers I wanted. I’d neglected to bring singles or a $5 bill for a copy card, so I also ran to the concession and bought a soda to get change.

Next, I requested a couple years’ worth of microfilm and started scrolling. I started with the dates I knew and scrolled backward through earlier papers, then forward, looking for headlines on the faded pages.

Bootlegging arrests filled the news--apparently the sheriff was really cracking down. The few items mentioning my ancestor’s name told when he was arrested, how he filed for a writ of habeas corpus, and how two others arrested at the same time jumped bail.

Though not the play-by-play trial accounts I was hoping for, the articles also gave me a clue to what might’ve happened to his missing court records. He served his prison sentence in Texas and his case is indexed in Bowie County, Texas, records, but a batch of files that includes his case number is missing.

According to the newspaper articles, some witnesses lived on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, and Bowie County officials traveled to the courthouse in Miller County, Ark., for a pretrial motion. So maybe his case file ended up in Arkansas.

Miller County court records for the years I need aren’t on Family History Library microfilm, so I’ll send a request to the circuit court clerk the minute I get home. Fingers crossed.

court records | Libraries and Archives | Newspapers

Saturday, September 05, 2009 3:23:56 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, August 14, 2009

Genealogy News Corral: August 10-14
Posted by Diane

A summary of news bits we heard about this week:

Summit Memory, an online scrapbook from the Akron-Summit County Public Library in Ohio, now has several digitized historical atlases and maps from the 1800s and early 1900s. Access them in the site’s online map room. Check out the photos and other resources while you're there.
British subscription and pay-per-view site FindMyPast.com has completed a new transcription and added higher-quality images for its 1901 census for England and Wales. Images for the 1881 census are next on the site's to-do list.
A New York Times article on the transfer of early- to mid-century Alien Case Files to the National Archives quoted Schelly Tallalay Dardahsti, Tracing the Tribe blogger and author of our September 2009 Jewish research guide, about the importance of using original documents. Read the article here.
Subscription family tree site OneGreatFamily.com is publishing its free newsletter as a weekly genealogy blog you can subscribe to vis RSS. It’ll include research tips, helpful Web sites and suggestions for using OneGreatFamily.com.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has launched a blog called NARAtions, which focuses on the future of online public access to records at NARA.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | UK and Irish roots

Friday, August 14, 2009 4:40:00 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, August 07, 2009

Genealogy News Corral: August 3-7
Posted by Diane

Got a few updates for this week’s news roundup:

About 450 people attended a rally at the Michigan State Capitol and the State Library complex to protest Gov. Granholm’s executive order to disband the Department of History, Arts and Libraries (more on the plan here).

Read a report on the event and watch a video on the Lansing State Journal Web site.

Jewish genealogy site JewishGen, which is in the midst of a redesign, is showing off a new, streamlined home page and a Get Started feature for beginners. Though many JewishGen databases are now searchable as free collections on Ancestry.com, you still can access them through JewishGen.

The Family History Expo in Sandy, Utah, is right around the corner, Aug. 28 and 29. Hone your genealogy skills in classes on everything from Google to formulating a research strategy, and browse dozens of exhibitors (say hi to Family Tree Magazine editor Allison Stacy in booth 202!). Get more details and register at FamilyHistoryExpos.com.

Genealogy Events | Jewish roots | Libraries and Archives

Friday, August 07, 2009 5:43:17 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Useful Genealogy Tool With the Funny Name
Posted by Diane

It’s a special year for NUCMC (“nuk-muk”), as FamilyTreeMagazine.com Forum member Happy Dae announced in a post.

NUCMC, blessedly short for National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, turns 50 this year.

In this free Library of Congress program, staff members enter information about the manuscript collections of participating US libraries into the WorldCat library catalog search engine—making those entries searchable by you.

See a timeline of NUCMC’s history here.

Manuscripts might be old papers, letters, diaries and more from local individuals and businesses. But these unique collections at individual libraries can be hard to locate without a program like NUCMC.

The NUCMC Web site also gives you an interface to search the nearly 1.5 million manuscript catalog entries logged in WorldCat. Since 2006, you can search these and other types of library holdings on the WorldCat site itself—before then, only member libraries had access.

From 1959 to 1985, the NUCMC catalog was produced only as printed volumes—these entries aren’t searchable online. (Your library may have the volumes on paper or microfilm, or through a data service. See this page for more information.)

From 1986 to 1993, NUCMC records are available both online and in print. After 1993, they’re only online.

The NUCMC search is a little complex, so read the search instructions before you start.

WorldCat is more user-friendly to search, and you’ll turn up all types of materials: manuscripts as well as books, journals and more. You also can sign up for a free registration to save your searches, bookmark items and contribute reviews.

You can search both NUCMC and WorldCat on ancestors’ names, but this might not be productive because most names mentioned in a manuscript aren’t included in library catalogs. So try entering counties and towns where your ancestors lived; Civil War units; military battles or other historical events they participated in; an ethnicity, religion or country of origin; an occupation; and an employer or school.

Once you find a promising manuscript or other item, look for the subject heading assigned to the item, and click on the subject to see related materials.

It’s hard to do a comparison NUCMC/WorldCat search because the search forms are different. I got more results in NUCMC than WorldCat when I searched for archival materials with the subject Syrians—United States. So you might want to try both sites.

On WorldCat, click on a search result and then scroll down to see names of libraries that hold the item. On NUCMC, use the directions on this page to learn the name of the institution.

Libraries and Archives | Research Tips

Thursday, July 30, 2009 3:26:00 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, July 27, 2009

Aug. 5 Rally Planned to Support Library of Michigan
Posted by Diane

The Michigan Genealogical Council (MGC) is organizing a public assembly in Lansing to show support for the state library and archives.

Those institutions are part of the Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries, which will be eliminated Oct. 1 in accordance with the governor’s July 13 executive order. Its agencies will be divvied up among other departments and may face severe cuts.

The assembly is scheduled for Wed., Aug. 5 at 9:45 a.m. on north and south lawns of the state capitol in Lansing. The state senate session begins that day at 10 a.m.

Participants will process to the Michigan Historical Center and join hands around the library (the building is about 1,800 feet around). After that, they'll meet with legislators, do genealogy research or visit the museum.

For more information on the assembly, see the press release on MGC’s Web site.

MGC also shared some facts about the Library of Michigan:

It has the largest collection of Michigan newspaper microfilm in the country, with more than 1,700 titles covering all 83 counties and 400 cities, townships and villages.
It has the state's largest collection of Michigan city directories.
The Michigan Collection has copies of resources for lending through interlibrary loan.
The Gorski collection, of resources for Michigan’s Polish heritage, isn’t available elsewhere.
The library funds the Michigan Electronic Library, which includes databases Michigan residents can use from home.
The library's collection also focuses on the Great Lakes region, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

Libraries and Archives

Monday, July 27, 2009 2:38:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Finding Family History in Digital Memory Projects
Posted by Diane

State archives, county historical societies, libraries and other organizations across the country are preserving the history of ordinary people in free online collections of photos, letters, stories and historical documents.

You might find something about a relative in one of these collections. You’ll almost certainly get a good picture of your ancestor's life. Here's a sampling of digital memory sites (I had to stop myself from spending all day surfing for more!) followed by tips on finding a collection relevant to your family:

Allen County Community Album: Images at this Allen County Public Library-hosted site portray people and places in Northeastern Indiana. The library’s well-known Genealogy Center also has an Our Military Heritage site with records and photos from researchers across the country.

Arizona Memory Project: Collections come from the Catholic Diocese of Tucson, Arizona Jewish Historical Society, state archives, City of Glendale, Gila County and others.

Documenting Arkansas: This site's content relates to the Civil War, 1927 Mississippi River flood and other events.

Dominion Institute Memory Project: See 85-plus years of military history through first-hand accounts, photos and artifacts from veterans across Canada.

Greater Cincinnati Memory Project: This site from my hometown shows you historical photos of schools, churches, homes, city scenes, people and special events.

Maine Memory Network: More than 200 organizations have contributed materials to this site, which also supports similar projects for Maine communities such as Bath and Isleboro.

Montana Memory Project: Cattle brand books, the Fergus County Heritage Book and Rocky Mountain College yearbooks are a few of the resources you'll find here.
Terrace Park, Ohio, Building Survey: A local genealogist maintains this site on the history of buildings in an Ohio neighborhood. It has photos, deeds, census and land records, residents' names and more.

The Valley of the Shadow: Censuses, church records, letters, diaries and newspaper articles detail life in two communities—Franklin County, Pa., in the North and Augusta County, Va., in the South—before, during and after the Civil War.

Also explore the digital collections on our 101 Best Web sites list, including Seeking Michigan, the Florida Memory Project, Missouri Digital Heritage and the Library of Congress' American Memory.

To find collections related to your ancestors’ lives, look for links to a memory project or digital archive on Web sites for the state archives, local libraries or local historical society. Many projects are listed on Cyndi's List country, state and local pages; as well as USGenWeb state and county pages.

Also try running a Google search on digital history or memory project plus the town, county or state name, or a topic such as Civil War or pioneer.

Click Comments below to share a link to your favorite digital memory project.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Research Tips | Social History

Thursday, July 23, 2009 1:57:45 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [6]

Friday, July 17, 2009

Genealogy News Corral: July 13-17
Posted by Diane

Here are news bits and pieces we turned up this week:

British subscription site FamilyRelatives.com has added the Civil War Roll of Honor listings of more than 276,000 Union soldiers buried in national cemeteries, soldiers' lots and garrison cemeteries.

The East Central Georgia Regional Library's African-American Funeral Program Collection is online (and free) in the Digital Library of Georgia. The 1,000 funeral programs date from 1933 to 2008, with most dating since the 1960s and coming from churches around Augusta, Ga.

The College of Charleston in South Carolina has launched the Lowcountry Digital Library with about 7,500 images (so far) of historical letters, scrapbooks, photos and more.

New social networking site GenealogyWise caught some flak when it announced a contest many members thought encouraged non-genealogical, superficial contributions, then changed the contest but deleted at least one member’s criticisms. See some of the uproar on Twitter here and here. Webmasters are now gathering feedback on a censorship policy. (Update: Here's an apology to the censored member from FamilyLink CEO Paul Allen.)

Online genealogy company (and GenealogyWise owner) FamilyLink has another site coming next week, as hinted on Twitter by CEO Paul Allen: “41% have pictures of ancestors on the walls of their home ... We are launching a new site soon for the other 59%”

Could it be related to this digitization service, announced in 2007 but no longer offered?

African-American roots | FamilyLink | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Friday, July 17, 2009 5:25:59 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Library of Michigan Faces Elimination
Posted by Diane

The news that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has abolished the state’s Department of Histories, Arts and Libraries—which includes the state library and archive—has genealogists concerned.

Granholm’s executive order, which will save the cash-strapped state an estimated $2 million in the first year, divvies up parts of the department among other state agencies. Of particular interest to genealogists:

Most Library of Michigan functions, including its genealogy collection, go to the Department of Education

The Michigan Historical Commission, which includes the state archives, will be moved to the Department of Natural Resources

In Section B (8) of the order, Gov. Granholm directs the state Superintendent of Public Instruction (head of the education department) to cut state library costs:

Unless the Superintendent determines it to be impracticable, these measures shall include, but shall not be limited to … Eliminating circulation of specific collections (including, but not limited to, the Main, Dewey, and General Reference collections, the Michigan collection, the Michigan Documents collection, and the Rare Book collection) or, alternatively, transferring such collections to other suitable institutions, . . . (c) Suspending or eliminating participation as a participating lending library in MeLCat, (d) Eliminating or transferring to other suitable institutions the Federal Documents Depository and the non-Michigan genealogy collection.”

The order is effective Oct. 1 unless the state legislature rejects it within 60 days.

Genealogists provide 85 percent of the foot traffic to the Library of Michigan, says Michigan Genealogical Council (MCG) delegate Mary Strouse. The library's Abrams Foundation Historical Collection is one of the 10 largest genealogy collections in the United States (see an overview here). Its Seeking Michigan Web site, a partnership with the state archives, was named to our 101 Best Web Sites list this year.

In a July 13 press release, the governor announced a possible “transformed Michigan Library and Historical Center”—the Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention, which would “help equip Michigan citizens for the knowledge-based economy through entrepreneurial and innovative programs,” in partnership with a university or other organization.

What might happen to the library's genealogy collection? Among other consequences, it could be broken up the among multiple locations, interlibrary loan access (through the MelCat system) could be shut down, and access to materials on non-Michigan ancestors could go away.

MCG reports that 10 Michigan senators have introduced bills in response, which would transfer functions of the Department of History, Arts and Libraries to the Department of State.

See the MCG Web site for information on these bills and links to finding Michigan senators and representatives.

Libraries and Archives

Thursday, July 16, 2009 10:14:59 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, July 10, 2009

New African-American Genealogy Database Coming This Fall
Posted by Diane

If you're researching African-American roots, look for a new database this fall from ProQuest, creator of the HeritageQuest Online genealogy service (available free to patrons of subscribing libraries).

ProQuest African-American Heritage will combine records with research guidance.

Records will include censuses, slave and freedmen records; birth, marriage and death records; church records; court and legal records; genealogies and family histories. Other than the US census and Freedman’s Savings Bank & Trust Co. records (both also are in HeritageQuest Online), ProQuest didn’t name specific records.

Social networking tools come from AfriGeneas, a popular Web site and forum on African-American genealogy; an exclusive version of the classic guide Black Genesis by James M. Rose and Alice Eichholz (Genealogical Publishing Co.); and other reference books.

For more information about ProQuest African-American Heritage, to watch a video and to sign up for a notification e-mail when the service is released, visit ProQuest's Web site.

African-American roots | Libraries and Archives

Friday, July 10, 2009 7:58:59 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Tuesday, July 07, 2009

World’s Oldest Bible Reconstructed Online
Posted by Diane

A Bible handwritten in the fourth century, edited as many as 800 years later, and portioned off in the 1800s has been made whole online.

The Codex Sinaiticus (“Sinai book”), the world’s oldest Christian Bible at 1,600 years old, was in a Sinai desert monastery when a scholar found it in 1844. He removed portions over the years to publish them, and most of the ancient Greek text ended up in Britain via St. Petersburg.

The institutions that hold parts of the manuscript—the United Kingdom’s British Library; the University Library in Leipzig, Germany; the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg; and St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai—joined the project to put the Codex Sinaiticus online.

Its 400 leaves of parchment (prepared animal skin) include the complete New Testament, much of the Old Testament, plus books not officially part of either.

You can browse the pages by book, chapter and verse; read an English translation for some of it; learn how the book was created, digitized and conserved, and read historical research about it.

Though Codex Sinaiticus isn’t a strictly genealogical project, the in-depth look inside a globe-spanning historical digitization project is fascinating.

Historic preservation | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, July 07, 2009 7:39:32 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, July 02, 2009

Genealogy News Corral: June 29 to July 2
Posted by Diane

This week’s news roundup is coming at you a day early, but it's still chock-full:

The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com, has a poignant new ad campaign you’ll probably catch on some media or other (if you’re worried you’ll miss it, see it on Ancestry.com’s YouTube channel).

Ancestry.com also has developed an Ancient Ancestry Finder that guesses your haplogroup (ancestral origins) based on a few questions. It’s fun, and the haplogroups have cute names such as "Boatbuilders" and "Inventors," but keep in mind it's not necessarily accurate. At the end, you get a pitch to buy a $79 DNA test to determine if the Finder is correct.

If you’ve been thinking of trying the databases at NewEnglandAncestors.org, now might be the time. The New England Historic Genealogical Society is offering $15 off new memberships during July.

This week, FamilySearch enhanced its free Record Search Pilot with 12 new collections, which have records from Argentina, Australia, Mexico, Netherlands, and Spain. New United States collections were added for Delaware, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Utah.

International indexing projects now underway involve records from the Czech Republic; Baden, Germany; and South Africa—click here if you’re interested in volunteering.

Following on the heels of Footnote’s partnership with newspaper publisher Gannett, ProQuest announced it’s adding Gannett papers to its Newsstand data service (offered through libraries). ProQuest will offer the papers back to 1977; Footnote is digitizing older editions.

The Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC) at the Houston Public Library's downtown Julia Ideson Building is changing its research hours during a renovation. Now through Aug. 31, HMRC is open Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, it'll be open by appointment—call (832) 393-1313 to make one.

Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:18:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, June 29, 2009

New Online Local History Collection Launches for Libraries
Posted by Diane

A local history-focused genealogy database may be coming soon to a library near you.

Arcadia Publishing and the electronic publisher Alexander Street Press have launched a new site called Local and Regional History Online: A History of American Life in Images and Texts.

It’ll eventually contain more than a million photos, postcards and maps, plus stories of immigrants, laborers and newsmakers, from all over the United States and some parts of Canada. They're from Arcadia’s 5,000 photo-rich local history books. Click here to see titles of books included so far.

If your library subscribes, you'll be able to use Local and Regional History Online at the library or from home through the library’s Web site.

You can search texts for a name or other term, or search for a book title, author, place it’s about, subject, “featured” person, historical event, date range, organization name or ethnic group. You also can browse these categories.

I was lucky enough to try out the search. If you get to use the site, search for ancestors’ names, but also try names of churches, schools, parks, organizations, employers, neighborhoods, streets, ethnic groups, events and other topics.

This may be a glitch, but my search results didn’t link directly to the page with the match—instead, I was taken to the main page for the book with the matching term. Then I searched again to go to the right page.

Note that many Arcadia books are available for limited preview in Google Book Search, which is how I found this 1920s photo of my great-grandmother’s house in Bellevue, Ky.

Learn more about Local and Regional History Online here. Thanks to Family Tree Magazine contributing editor Sharon DeBartolo Carmack for this tip.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Social History

Monday, June 29, 2009 9:10:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Friday, June 26, 2009

New Live Roots Tools Manage Your Genealogy Research Projects
Posted by Diane

Genealogy Today enhanced its Live Roots genealogy metasearch site—one of our 101 Best Web sites for genealogy in 2009—with tools that help you manage your research projects.

We told you a bit about these about last month. The new tools will help you keep track of resources you turn up using Live Roots, as well as your offline searches.

For the site to remember your research information, you first need a free Team Roots membership. Then you can use the project management tools via four new buttons that appear throughout the site:

Follow: bookmarks resources
Comment: lets you comments on resources
Record: keep a research log of Live Roots and other searches
Share: e-mail notices about resources to friends and family

You can create as many projects as you want—say, one for your mom’s grandfather, who seems to have disappeared between 1885 and 1900; another for your dad’s paternal line in New England; a third for your spouse’s Missouri family; and so on. Within each project, you can track your:

Recent Activity: a running history of your interaction with Live Roots features
Ancestor Notecards: profiles of your brick wall ancestors, which remain are accessible throughout Live Roots (so you don’t have to retype the name every time you search)
Related Resources: items you’ve "followed", so you can quickly revisit them; you can search across the transcriptions you’ve followed
Research History: your research log
Personal Library: catalog your own private collection
Research Notepad: a simple way record miscellaneous genealogy notes, such as a to-do list or the phone number for the library in Granddad’s hometown
External Resources: lets you configure links to your research activities on other sites, such Flickr or Twitter

See more information on Live Roots’ new project management tools here.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Research Tips

Friday, June 26, 2009 3:55:31 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Free: Search Louisiana Obituary Index 1804-1972
Posted by Diane

The Louisiana Biography and Obituary Index is now online at the New Orleans Public Library Web site.

The database has references to obituaries and death notices published in New Orleans newspapers from 1804 to 1972, and biographical information from older Louisiana biography collections.

You can use three options to find a name in the database:

Use the basic search form (below) to search by surname, first and middle names, and the death date. You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard at the beginning or end of a name. A Browse button by each field lets you select from an alphabetical listing of all available terms for that field. The Search button is at the bottom of the form.

Click the Advanced Search link to add age, birth date, cause of death and other terms.

At the bottom of the basic search form, click a letter of the alphabet to browse entries for surnames beginning with that letter. (I wasn’t able to get any of these surname listings to load.)

Matches give you the publication name, date and page number where you can find the original obituary or biographical information. Click Ordering Obituaries for instructions on requesting the item (the cost is $2 per item).

The index is from the New Orleans Public Library's card file of more than 650,000 names. Putting it online was a nearly-10-year endeavor of the library and the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Free Databases | Libraries and Archives | Newspapers | Vital Records

Thursday, June 25, 2009 6:55:39 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Friday, June 19, 2009

Genealogy News Corral: June 15-19
Posted by Diane

Passing on these genealogy news bits we rounded up this week.

The Connecticut State Library, which is facing a staff reduction due to the state's Retirement Incentive Plan, will be closed on Mondays for the summer. Starting July 1, the library’s new hours will be Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

After record additions throughout the first half of the year, the 1911census.co.uk site (developed by subscription and pay-per-view site FindMyPast.com with the British national archives) now has the complete 1911 census for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It also includes full details of British Army personnel and their families stationed overseas.

Read more about 1911census.co.uk in our post from last week.

The free FamilySearch Record Search pilot added 6 million new records this week, including Louisiana and Idaho death records; the 1920 census for Delaware, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico; and digital images of church records were also added for Mexico (the states of Baja California and Baja California Sur).

We hear that MyGenShare.com is almost ready for beta testing. Founder Barry Ewell said the launch was delayed until late summer to expand the site’s educational resources and take advantage of better technology to improve user experience.

FamilySearch | Free Databases | Libraries and Archives | UK and Irish roots

Friday, June 19, 2009 7:11:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, June 18, 2009

See Great Depression, WWII Videos on Archives' YouTube Channel
Posted by Diane

Look for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to launch a YouTube channel tomorrow (June 19) in conjunction with its 75th anniversary celebration.

We should see some fascinating footage released over the coming weeks: videos documenting the “space race” and Moon landing, a series on NARA’s presidential libraries, US Department of War WWII reels, and Department of the Interior Great Depression footage.

Tune in tomorrow at www.youtube.com/USNationalArchives (the channel isn't available quite yet).

Libraries and Archives | Videos

Thursday, June 18, 2009 9:37:38 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Chronicling America Helps You Find Even More Old Newspapers
Posted by Diane

We’re big fans of the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America site, where you can both search digitized newspapers published in 11 states and Washington, DC, between 1880 and 1922, and search a directory of historical newspaper titles by date and place.

I used the directory to compile a list of papers that might have articles naming my Bowie County, Texas, ancestor in 1913 and 1914. It even gave me information on repositories that hold each title, which years they have, and whether the paper’s on microfilm or in print.

The Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, partners in the National Digital Newspaper Program, awarded new digitization grants to the University of Illinois, Urbana; Kansas State Historical Society; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Montana Historical Society; Oklahoma Historical Society; University of Oregon, Eugene; and University of South Carolina, Columbia.

That means you’ll start seeing newspapers from these states on Chronicling America. The site recently added its 1 millionth newspaper page; a number that eventually will grow to 20 million pages dating back to 1836.

Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Research Tips

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 2:35:15 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Friday, May 22, 2009

Genealogy News Corral May 18-22
Posted by Diane

Here are some quick genealogy news updates for the week. We hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and get an opportunity to reflect on your ancestors’ sacrifice for their country.

Historical records subscription site Footnote is giving away several lifetime memberships. To be eligible, you have to create or find an I Remember page on Facebook (using Footnote’s recently released app) and get five people to click the I Remember button for that person. See more details here.

British subscription and pay-per-view site Familyrelatives.com added more than 200,000 Canadian civil service records from 1872 to 1918. The records reveal the civil servant's name, position, department, length of service, salary and date of appointment. The earliest ones also provide civil servants' national origins and religion.

FamilySearch has added a total of 3.5 million-plus new records to 13 collections on the free FamilySearch Record Search pilot. The additions come from Brazil, the Czech Republic and Italy; and the US states of Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The State Library of North Carolina and the North Carolina State Archives have posted a free collection of North Carolina family records including nearly 220 family Bible records and the six-volume Marriage and Death Notices from Raleigh Register and North Carolina State Gazette: 1799-1893.

NBC’ continues to string along genealogists eager to see its “Who Do You Think You Are?” The on-again, off-again series didn't make it onto the network's fall lineup, but still may show up as a mid-season replacement, according to California-based Genealogy Gems blogger Lisa Louise Cooke.

Canadian roots | Free Databases | Genealogy Industry | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Friday, May 22, 2009 9:38:34 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Where to Find a Genealogist-for-Hire
Posted by Diane

When it starts accepting clients in June, Ancestry.com’s ExpertConnect service (read our post about it) will be just one option for hiring people to do research tasks, such as photographing a gravestone or photocopying a record. Here are a few others:

Genealogy Freelancers: This site lets you post your project details and get bids from professionals around the world.

Genlighten: Here, you also can collect bids for research tasks. The focus here is on lookups, record retrieval and similar services.

Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness: These volunteers have signed on to do simple research favors for free (except expenses such as mileage and photocopying fees). You’re encouraged to return the favor by helping out someone else.

Repositories sometimes keep lists of nearby professional researchers (contact the genealogy department). For example, if you want to hire someone to copy your ancestor’s Civil War pension file, see the National Archives’ list of local researchers by topic and location.
For long or more-complicated research projects, you can find directories of professional genealogists on the Association for Professional Genealogists Web site, ProGenealogists, and the Board for Certification of Genealogists.

Ancestry.com | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Research Tips

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 3:59:01 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [4]

Friday, May 08, 2009

Genealogy News Corral, May 4-8
Posted by Diane

Here are the news bits that came across our desks this week

Subscription genealogy site Ancestry.com launched a collection of German phone directories dating from 1915 to 1981. The books, which are, of course, in German, list names and addresses of more than 35 million people who lived in Germany’s major cities, as well as many businesses.

British subscription and pay-per-view site FindMyPast.com added merchant seaman crew indexes with 270,000 names of seafarers between 1860 and 1913. British ships created these lists every six months, including everyone from captains to able seamen, from engine room staff to stewardesses.

The 1916 census of Canada is now available free at Family History Centers through their on-site Ancestry.com service. (Meaning this census isn’t on the FamilySearch pilot site—you must go to a Family History Center to search it.)

The National Archives granted its first Excellence in Genealogy Awards to Myron McGhee of Decatur, GA, who took first place, and Stephanie D. Smith of Richtor Park, IL, who took second. Read about their entries on the archives’ Web site.

The heritage travel Web site Go With a Purpose launched a new section called Go Connect, where users can upload photos with their reviews of historic destinations. Learn more on the site’s blog.

A late addition: The New England Historic Genealogical Society is adding digitized back issues of the journal The American Genealogist, to its subscription databases at NewEnglandAncestors.org. Vols. 1 through 8 (published as Families of Ancient New Haven) and Volumes 9–13 (dated from 1933 through 1937), are available now in separate databases. Additional volumes will be added. NEHGS memberships start at $75.

Ancestry.com | Canadian roots | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | UK and Irish roots

Friday, May 08, 2009 7:02:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, May 04, 2009

Live Roots Adds Family History Library Catalog Search
Posted by Diane

Just a heads-up that you can now search the Family History Library (FHL) Catalog from within the Live Roots online genealogy resource directory.

Go to Live Roots’ search page and scroll down to the list of partner sites. Type your search into the FHL box and select the type of search. The place and keyword searches are my favorites—the place search finds all kinds of records associated with the place you enter; a keyword search finds resources with you search term in any part of the catalog listing.

Then click the Search FHL Catalog button.

In the search results, click a record title for more details. You’ll see the listing from the FHL online catalog, except that the right side of the page has tips for accessing the record (including visiting a Family History Center near you).

In these instructions, you can click Help (at the bottom) for an in-depth explanation of FHL catalog listings.

Other Live Roots partner sites include the subscription sites Ancestry.com, Footnote, Genealogy Bank, World Vital Records (you need a subscription to those sites to view results from their premium databases), eBay, Twitter and others.

Note that for some of these partner sites, particularly the genealogy database services, you may get better results by going to the site and using its search form. The addtional search fields for life dates, place, nationality, etc., will help you target your search.

For more information on Live Roots, see our previous blog posts.

FamilySearch | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Research Tips

Monday, May 04, 2009 2:38:42 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

See World's Historical Documents Free on New Site
Posted by Diane

The World Digital Library, a free, online collection of documents, photos, maps and art from countries and cultures around the world, launches today.

You can choose from seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) for viewing descriptions of the materials. Text on the records themselves isn’t translated.

On the home page, click on the map to see a sample of content from that region. Use the slider on the timeline at the bottom of the screen to change the era from which the samples are taken.

Links at the top of each page let you search the record descriptions or browse by place, time, topic, type of item or originating institution.

Images from Syria, where my great-grandparents were born, include a late-19th century panorama of Beirut—showing what it would’ve looked like about the time they lived there.

More examples of digitized content: centuries-old calligraphy from Iran, an 1851 John Tallis and Co. map of Brazil, the 1866 book The Gabrovo School and Its First Trustees from Bulgaria, and a photo of African-American major league baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson from the United States.

There’s some content from nearly every UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) member country. (On the country listings page, you can click to see content from each place.)

World Digital Library is hosted by the Library of Congress, with support from UNESCO and partner institutions around the world. Partners are seeking more materials and the means to digitize them, especially for the developing world.

Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 2:10:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [3]

Friday, April 17, 2009

If Books Could Talk...
Posted by Grace

Don't you wish sometimes that you could ask the books you read questions? Well, the Santa Monica Public Library has a special Living Library program going on tomorrow where you can check out a person.

The offerings include "a Mormon, an animal rights activist, a police detective, a fat activist, a feminist, a married Jewish lesbian mom, a little person and an ex-gang member," among others, according to the LA Now blog. You can borrow one for a half hour conversation, as long as you return the "book" in the same condition you received it in.

Libraries and Archives | Oral History

Friday, April 17, 2009 7:40:24 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Genealogy News Corral, April 13-17
Posted by Diane

The Washington Digital Archives—a Family Tree Magazine 101 Best Web Sites pick several times over—has added WWI service statement cards resulting from a 1919 Congressional act directing the US Department of War to provide states with summaries of each WWI veterans' wartime records.

Card images are online. Click here to search (scroll to the bottom of the page), then click a match to download (I was missing a necessary plugin, but another button let me open records in JPG format). There’s also a glossary to the military abbreviations in the records.

Add the Minnesota Historical Society (whose Web site also is a 101 best site) to the list of state archives facing slashed budgets. The governor’s proposed budget would close three sites and lay off or cut hours for nearly half the staff, according to this Star Tribune article. The society also is coping with charitable giving reductions.

Pat Richley, the long-time Dear Myrtle genealogy blogger, has partnered with Moorshead Publications to start the Internet-Genealogy blog. She’ll post her takes on the news and information from the company’s history and genealogy titles.

MyGenShare, a free Web site where you can get and share knowledge-based genealogy articles, podcasts and videos, is set to launch in May (the launch was originally slated for last fall). You can sign up to get an e-mail when the launch happens.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Friday, April 17, 2009 6:32:47 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, April 13, 2009

Free Download: Where to Find 1880 DDD Census Records
Posted by Diane

I wanted to let you know we’ve just uploaded a new genealogy Cheat Sheet to our online Research Toolkit: A state-by-state listing of where to find 1880 supplemental census schedules of “defective, dependent and delinquent" classes (“DDD schedules” for short).

Download it as a PDF from our Record References page.

You'll know to look for your ancestor in DDD schedules if his 1880 US census listing has a mark in columns 15 through 20, showing whether he was ill or had a physical or mental disability. If so, DDD schedules might give more information about his condition or reasons for being institutionalized.

These special schedules, recorded only for the 1880 US census, aren’t in online databases such as Ancestry.com’s. Some states’ DDD records are on microfilm at the National Archives and/or genealogy libraries; other states' records are in original form at state archives and libraries. Few are indexed.

We can’t promise our listing is comprehensive, but it does give locations and Web site addresses of repositories where we could find DDD records for each state or territory. If you’re still having trouble finding DDD schedules for your ancestor, start by contacting the state archives where he lived.

For help using DDD and more special census records—including agriculture, manufacturing, mortality, slave and other schedules—look for our guide in the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine. It starts mailing to subscribers this week.

census records | Family Tree Magazine articles | Libraries and Archives

Monday, April 13, 2009 3:46:08 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Lives, History Lost in Italy Earthquake
Posted by Diane

Monday’s 6.3 magnitude earthquake in central Italy killed 250 people (a toll that may grow) and severely damaged historical buildings in the town of L’Aquila, where the quake was centered.

On the Genealogy Blog, Leland Meitzler reports on the damage to the Archivo di Stato (archives), National Museum of Abruzzo and other buildings.

Also see photos on Tom Kemp’s GenealogyBank blog.

The extent of historical records loss isn’t yet known. The Family History Library has some microfilmed civil registration records from the L'Aquila archives.

L’Aquila, founded around 1240 AD, is about 70 miles from Rome in mountainous central Italy. It's the capital city of the Province of L'Aquila and of the Abruzzo region.

International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, April 08, 2009 1:34:52 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Monday, March 23, 2009

What's NOT in Ancestry Library Edition
Posted by Diane

In Family Tree Magazine articles including our May 2009 guide to the subscription genealogy site Ancestry.com, we often suggest Ancestry Library Edition—free to patrons at many public libraries—as a budget-friendly way to access most of Ancestry.com's collections.

What exactly do we mean by “most”? Here’s a list of Ancestry.com databases that aren’t in Ancestry Library Edition (due to licensing and other issues), and some alternate resources for each:

Family and Local Histories Collection
These town, county and family histories and journals aren't in Ancestry Library Edition, but they are part of HeritageQuest Online, another service many libraries offer (and it's usually accessible to patrons from home via the library’s Web site).

Historical Newspapers Collection
See if your library offers access to ProQuest Historical Newspapers or GenealogyBank.

OneWorldTree
This is a search for user-contributed family trees. You'll also find trees in RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project and FamilySearch’s International Genealogical Index.

Passenger and Immigration Lists Index
The original data in this index to approximately 4,588,000 individuals came from P. William Filby’s Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s. Though it's not as up-to-date, see if the library has the book. Note Ancestry Library Edition does have the Ancestry.com database of National Archives immigration passenger lists.

Biography and Genealogy Master Index
This database lists millions of Americans who’ve been profiled in collective biography volumes such as Who's Who in America. Some libraries offer this index separately.

Freedman’s Bank Records
You can find these in HeritageQuest Online and now on FamilySearch.

PERSI
The Periodical Source Index, a collection of 2 million-plus references to family history articles published in US and Canadian periodicals since 1800, is searchable (in more-updated form) using HeritageQuest Online.

Ancestry.com | Libraries and Archives

Monday, March 23, 2009 1:50:31 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Friday, March 20, 2009

Genealogy News Corral, March 16-20
Posted by Diane

Roundin’ up the week’s genealogy news bits. Yee-haw!

GeneaBloggers compiled a list of “10 Companies All Genealogists Should Follow on Twitter.” See anymagazine you recognize?

Click here to see Family Tree Magazine's Twitter page and follow us (you need a free registration with Twitter to follow someone).

Or click here to learn more about Twitter.

The subscription service GenealogyBank created an area of the site dedicated to Philadelphia newspapers. The City of Brotherly Love is where Benjamin Franklin made the Pennsylvania Gazette one of the British Colonies’ most successful newspapers.

LibraryJournal.com has reviewed institutional genealogy subscription services. Since librarians might use the information to help decide which services to offer, take a look and post your thoughts in our Hot Topics Forum. (We’re a little puzzled by Genealogy.com’s high marks—it’s not being updated, and just about all its records are easier to search elsewhere.)

Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter got a makeover (or maybe a makeunder, to those keen on the new subtle colors). Go on over and have a look.

Subscription genealogy site WorldVitalRecords.com added a search by date field (labeled “Year”) to its search forms. See the World Vital Records blog for tips on using it.

Genealogy Industry | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Friday, March 20, 2009 7:34:01 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

To Save or Not to Save?
Posted by Diane

My mom’s been helping clean out Grandma’s garage. Last night when I visited, Mom was telling me about the piles of old receipts Grandma’s been hanging onto all these years.

Mom had pulled out some papers—the hospital bill for my aunt’s birth, the building materials order for the family’s first home—and the rest were in what-do-we-do-with-this? limbo.

Of course, I had to go through it all. I took a bunch of papers, including the bill for Mom’s first communion around 1954

and the receipts for her second-grade schoolbooks (someone played connect-the-dots on the back)

and 12th-grade tuition (including a $25 graduation fee).

I’ll definitely save stuff related to my mom. But what about the other kids’ schoolbook lists, random furniture receipts, a refrigerator repair ticket, ancient correspondence from an insurance company, BBB reports on business schools an aunt was thinking about attending, and similar items?

Theoretically, it’s great to keep every piece of paper. But with limited space and crowded lives, reality demands most of us be choosy about what we save. What would you do with these papers? Click Comments (below) to reply.

Added to my to-do list: Review the February 2007 Family Tree Magazine guide for what to do when you inherit the family archives (print copies are sold out, but this issue is available as a PDF download). And if you're considering donating family materials to a historical archive, see the advice on our Now What? blog.

Family Heirlooms | Family Tree Magazine articles | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 2:15:12 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [13]

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Cologne Archive Collapse: All is Not Lost!
Posted by Grace

When the Stadtarchiv Köln—or City Archive of Cologne—collapsed Tuesday afternoon, two people died, surrounding buildings were irretrievably damaged, and more than a thousand years of records were buried in the rubble.

The archive contained 65,000 documents, the oldest coming from the year 922. The archive's holdings—more than 16 miles of files—included tens of thousands of maps, photos, posters and one-of-a-kind artifacts from the Middle Ages. The collection was valued at $500 million, according to Welt.

The city archive, which first found a place in Cologne city hall in 1406, withstood World War II with no losses. Officials say the building fell into a crater created by work on a nearby subway line. The building that collapsed was built in 1971. According to Wikipedia, it was built with an estimated service life of only 30 years. The archive reached its holding capacity in 1996; some material has been removed for storage elsewhere.

While emergency workers attempted to stabilize the building with concrete, about 100 volunteers have pitched in to save valuable documents from the rubble since Tuesday night, according to a city press release. A small portion of the archives was in an unharmed area of the building. Rain is expected over the next few days, so a temporary roof will be set up over the collapse site to attempt to save more documents.

Hamburg genealogist Andrea Bentschneider did research at the Cologne archive once and describes its holdings as "gigantic."

The collapse comes at an especially bad time, she says, because German privacy law recently changed to allow easier access to civil records. The city archive of Cologne had announced that as of this month, all death records up to 1978, marriage records before 1928 and birth records before 1898 would be available for research without restriction.

"We can only hope that these civil records as well as all other records were secured and saved on microfilm or a similar medium. Otherwise 1,000 years of Cologne's history may be lost forever," Bentschneider says.

It seems that much of the archive's content may be safe. Welt reports that former city archive head says a large part of the archive’s pre-1945 files were microfilmed; the backups are stored in the Barbarastollen archive in the Black Forest.

And FamilySearch filmed 171 rolls of film from the Cologne archive in 1984, says public affairs manager Paul Nauta. The library has been able to help other archives before by providing copies of the lost documents. FamilySearch’s holdings include these items from the Cologne archive:

Genealogy and coast of arms 1350-1880
Tax lists 1487-1703
Orphans house registers 1592-1788
Soldier pay records 1552-1613
Court records, inheritance and land 1220-1798
Court minutes 1413-1652
Town council minutes 1440-1653

"This is one of the clarion calls for why preservation services offered by FamilySearch and other like organizations can be so critical. Most genealogy consumers are aware of the convenient access value, but the tragedy of the Cologne archive reiterates the value for preservation," Nauta says.

Historic preservation | Libraries and Archives | Public Records | Vital Records

Thursday, March 05, 2009 2:39:31 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [2]

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Cologne, Germany, Archives Building Collapses
Posted by Diane

Dick Eastman blogged that a six-story building housing the archives of Cologne, Germany, collapsed Tuesday. It’s believed everyone inside the building escaped safely, but the condition of the archives’ centuries-old records is unknown.

Expatica.com describes the archives' holdings as "65,000 original documents dating from the year 922 as well as maps, films and photos and items left to the city by figures like composer Jacques Offenbach and Nobel Prize-winning author Heinrich Boell."

See CNN’s report here.

International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, March 04, 2009 1:51:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Pennsylvania State Library May Face Severe Cuts
Posted by Diane

According to the Web site PennLive.com, the State Library of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg will see massive cuts if Gov. Ed Rendall’s proposed budget for 2009-2010 goes through.

Of the library's 57 positions, the plan would eliminate 50 and transfer one, leaving six staff members to maintain public access to the library’s resources.

Those resources include government publications, a book collection Benjamin Franklin started, historical newspapers, and a genealogy room with maps, state and county histories, church and cemetery records, and more.

The library’s budget would be half its current $4.8 million.

Read the PennLive article here and see the budget proposal on the Pennsylvania Library Association Web site.

Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, February 18, 2009 5:23:06 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [2]

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

ProQuest Expands Historical Periodical, Newspaper and Map Offerings
Posted by Diane

These news items come from ProQuest, which provides libraries with services such as ProQuest Historical Newspapers and HeritageQuest Online that are free to patrons.

ProQuest is getting together with the Center for Research Libraries (a consortium of 240 college, university and other libraries) to offer digital access to 3 million pages of US trade, special-interest and general periodicals from the 19th and 20th centuries. Magazines include American Annual of Photography, The Labor Journal, American Jewish Advocate and Woman’s Protest Against Woman Suffrage and others.

Even if these titles don’t mention your ancestor, they'll enlighten you about his of her occupation, hobbies and interests, and suggest where to look next for records.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers is expanding to include The Baltimore Sun from 1837 to 1985. The span covers Baltimore’s role as a busy immigration and trade center, as well as Maryland’s role as a slave-holding border state during the Civil War.

Finally, Historic Map Works Library Edition, which lets you search detailed, full‐color historical maps, has doubled its map collection.

Check your local library’s Web site or call the reference desk see if it offers access to these data services. You may be able to use them from home through the library Web site.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Social History

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 3:39:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Closures Next Week at DC Repositories
Posted by Diane

A reminder if you're planning on doing genealogy research in the Washington, DC, area next week: Some repositories will close or change their hours on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Monday, Jan. 19, a federal holiday) or Inauguration Day (Tuesday, Jan. 20), or both.

For example, all National Archives and Records Administration research rooms will be closed Monday; Washington, DC-area research rooms also are closed Tuesday (but the museum will stay open). The Daughters of the American Revolution Library will close both days.

Call ahead to ask about special hours at the repository you plan to visit. Check Inauguration Day road and bridge closures, too.

Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, January 14, 2009 1:45:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

New Online Index Guides You to St. Louis Ancestors
Posted by Diane

Dennis Northcott, archivist at the Missouri History Society in St. Louis (my old stomping grounds) wrote me about the new Missouri History Museum Genealogy and Local History Index.

The index includes references to hundreds of thousands of St. Louis ancestors who appear in more than 225 museum research sources.

That includes St. Louisans’ Civil War-era loyalty oaths, early 20th-century yearbooks, Who’s Who publications, local censuses, WWI service member questionnaires, newspaper clippings, church histories, business letterheads and others.

You can search the index by a person’s name, business/corporate name, or street address (great for researching the history of your house and its former occupants).

You’ll find a search tips link on each search form—Northcott suggests checking out those tips before you start.

Matches give source information for the resource the name or address appears in, then you can click to order a photocopy.

Learn more about the index in Voices, the Missouri History Museum’s online magazine, and see the museum’s Web site for additional St. Louis-area research help.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, January 07, 2009 1:22:20 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

"Finest State Genealogy Library" Planned for Ohio
Posted by Diane

Ohio genealogists will soon get a new research destination. “We have achieved full funding for our new building project,” reports E. Paul Morehouse, president of the Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS).

Construction starts early next year on "the finest state genealogical library in the country," says OGS spokesperson Wally Huskonen in an announcement.

The 18,000-square-foot library near Mansfield, Ohio, will have climate-controlled space for archives, a reading room, a preservation and digitization lab, meeting space, classrooms and offices.

In mid-November, a $350,000 grant from the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission brought the total to $2,564,889—just past OGS' $2.5 million goal. Fundraising continues, though, to pay a loan from the Department of Agriculture and build a maintenance fund for the facility.

OGS is the country's largest state genealogical society, with more than 6,000 members in 95 chapters.

Genealogy societies | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, December 02, 2008 1:47:30 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [2]

Monday, November 24, 2008

Free Database: Local and Family Histories
Posted by Diane

FamilySearch and the Houston Public Library (whose Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research is among the country’s best places to research your roots) have announced a collaboration to digitize some of the library's resources and post them online for free.

That includes county and local histories, registers of individuals, directories of Texas Rangers, church histories and biographical dictionaries. The records cover the years from 1795 to 1923.

The project will start with Texas records (yay for me; my Dad’s branch was in the Lone Star State for a time), followed by other Gulf Coast states. It'll take up to five years to complete.

A few books are already digitized and free (they're part of Brigham Young University's Family History Archive; you also can get there from FamilySearch by hovering over Search Records and clicking Historical Books).

You can browse; keyword search on a surname, author or title; or every-word search on any term. Your search results link to digitized images.

If a digitized book is among your Family History Library catalog search results, the catalog listing will link to it.

The digitized Houston Public Library records also will be available free on the library's Web site.

FamilySearch | Free Databases | Libraries and Archives

Monday, November 24, 2008 6:30:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [1]

Friday, November 07, 2008

The Other Insider Inside the National Archives
Posted by Diane

If you’ll be lucky enough to visit the National Archives and Records Administration facilities in Washington, DC or College Park, Md. (Archives I and Archives II, respectively) in the foreseeable future, get ready for the trip by perusing that other Insider’s blog posts about his recent journey there.

The anonymous Ancestry Insider goes over where to eat, how to get around the area, the archives’ record-pulling rules, getting a researcher ID card and more.

(Just between you and me, I think the Ancestry Insider's ID looks a little fishy.)

Libraries and Archives

Friday, November 07, 2008 10:17:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [0]

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Fun at the Fair
Posted by Diane

Congratulations to Jean Nathan of Cincinnati, winner of Family Tree Magazine’s door prize at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County Family History Fair last Saturday.

She was one of the researchers who attended how-to classes and visited with representatives of local genealogical societies, the Hamilton County Recorder’s Office and others. It was great to see familiar faces from other genealogy gatherings and talk with newbie researchers.

Jean will go to her mailbox in a few days and find The Family Tree Guide to Finding Your Ellis Island Ancestors by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, our International Genealogy Passport CD and our November 2008 issue.

The fair marked Family History Month, observed in October in many states. See if your local genealogical society (run a Google search or look here for links) or library (find links here) has any events going on.

Genealogy Events | Genealogy fun | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, October 21, 2008 8:37:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Monday, October 20, 2008

Family Tree Firsts: Inside a Library Lock-in
Posted by Diane

I’ve always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of girl. As a kid, I was the first one to fall asleep at slumber parties and get her hand dipped in warm water (it doesn’t work, by the way).

So when I signed up for last Friday’s genealogy lock-in at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, I was worried I’d pass out on a city directory and end up with street names tattooed on my forehead. But I managed to last almost 'til the end.

If you've never been to a lock-in, it’s an after-hours research session at a library. Around 30 researchers (all the tables were taken!) had the genealogy and periodicals departments all to ourselves. I recognized a few people from April’s Ohio Genealogical Society conference.

The pursuit of family history kept everyone awake and focused, including me. I hadn’t made a firm research plan, so I wasn’t expecting thrilling discoveries. And I didn’t make any, but I got some groundwork laid.

I started off using the library’s free wireless to try some Ancestry.com searches for my dad’s family, who remain absent from the 1920 census. I did find the Social Security Death Index entry for the man who vouched for my great-uncle when he applied for a delayed North Carolina birth certificate in 1971.

Next I turned to Cincinnati city directories. My great-great-grandfather on my mom’s side started a cigar store in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, and his family ran it for years. When I was little, my mom drove me by the building—it had an outline where the “H.A. Seeger Cigar” sign used to be.

Here's a photo from around 1910:

(My great-great-grandfather is third from left; his son is in the doorway).

I wanted to see how long the store was open. My ancestor H.A. Seeger showed up in printed directories starting in 1875, when he boarded downtown, then in 1877, when he opened the cigar store (the family moved in above it). The store's listing disappears after 1955. Here’s a Google street view of the building today:

It was late by the time I was through photocopying directories. I decided to save map research for my next library trip, and browsed the compilations of vital records, church records and cemetery transcriptions from counties across the country.

Then I found my husband’s late-80s photographs among the high school yearbooks. That was entertaining.

I don’t know if it was the 80s hair or the hour, but I could feel my brain switch to Off mode, so I packed up my laptop and papers, checked my forehead for accidental tattoos (none), said goodbye to the bleary-eyed souls still scrolling microfilm, and went home to get some shut-eye for the next day’s Family History Fair. I’ll write about that tomorrow.

Family Tree Firsts | Genealogy Events | Genealogy fun | Libraries and Archives

Monday, October 20, 2008 5:20:27 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Library Holds Treasure Hunt
Posted by Diane

Are you the owner of a local, national or even international treasure in printed form?

The genealogy department of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County is holding a digitization contest to find “unique or rare books, documents, or photos in private hands so that they can be digitized to share with the world via the Library's Web site.”

To enter, you just fill out a form—no need to drop your heirloom in the mail. See the details and submit entries on the library Web site.

Historic preservation | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 7:27:08 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

NARA to Release Records on WWII Intelligence Officers
Posted by Diane

On Aug. 14, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will open more than 35,000 personnel files of men and women who served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the country’s intelligence agency during World War II.

The files, located at NARA’s College Park. Md., facility, cover civilian and military OSS personnel who died while in service or were transferred, discharged or reassigned prior to 1947.

Records document applications, training and work assignments, pay, leave and travel, evaluations, basic medical information, awards and decorations, and discharges. Some files have special citations for combat actions or major intelligence missions.

The files are arranged by name, so you can use NARA’s Archival Research Catalog to search for people with OSS files. It’s a little tricky—here’s how I did it:

1. In the Archival Research Catalog, make sure the Archival Description tab is selected (it should be the default).
2. Type 1593270 (the OSS ARC identifier) into the search field and click Search.
3. Click the link for the single result.
4. Scroll down and click the Search Within This Series icon to search for a name (the search may take awhile). Or, to browse names, click the link “15,169 file units described in ARC.”

You don’t get much identifying information, just the person’s name and serial number, which you can use it to order copies from NARA.

Fun fact: Julia Child (then Julia McWilliams) served in the OSS, where she helped develop repellant so sharks wouldn’t foil US efforts to blow up German U-boats. She also met her her future husband, Paul Child, another OSS member.

See NARA’s Web site for more background information on OSS records.

Libraries and Archives | Military records

Wednesday, August 13, 2008 3:33:58 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Free Database of the Week: Virginia WWI Veterans Surveys
Posted by Diane

In 1919, as part of an effort to preserve the stories of Virginians in the Great War, a governor-appointed Historical Commission sent questionnaires to the state's returning WWI soldiers and nurses.

A full narrative of the completed questionnaires was never published, and the records ended up with the Library of Virginia.

Now they’re in a database of more than 14,900 records, one for each respondent, linked to digitized images of each questionnaire page plus any accompanying photographs or other material.

The completed questionnaires hold a wealth of data, including names, dates, places, educational and religious background, and military service details. Soldiers also answered questions about their wartime experiences and how war affected their personal values. See the library Web site for more on this collection.

You can search on a keyword (such as a name or hometown) or phrase, or enter a word to browse alphabetically adjacent records.

Search results come in table form; click the number on the far left to bring up the catalog entry. Next, click the URL next to the document icon, then click the link to a page of the questionnaire.

Free Databases | Libraries and Archives | Military records

Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:40:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Monday, July 28, 2008

Video Tour of Cincinnati Library Genealogy Center
Posted by Diane

We’re lucky enough to work up the road from an excellent research resource—the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s Genealogy and Local History Department. It’s one of the biggest and best genealogy collections in the country. Our latest video tells you how a recent reorganization stands to benefit genealogists, and highlights resources that just might lead to ancestral answers in your tree.

You’ll find more video tours and how-tos on Family Tree Magazine’s You Tube Channel.

Libraries and Archives | Videos

Monday, July 28, 2008 8:10:50 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Iowa's Libraries and Museums Assess Flood Damage
Posted by Diane

Freelance writer Dana Schmidt, of Ames, Iowa (you may remember her as a former Family Tree Magazine staffer), sent us this report about how the recent recording-setting floods have impacted libraries in her state:

Now that it’s been a couple weeks since rivers flooded parts of Iowa, we’re beginning to get a clearer picture of how devastating damages are in some libraries, and how other libraries escaped the worst.

In hard-hit Cedar Rapids, where the Cedar River crested at about 31 feet—nearly 20 feet over flood stage, beating the former high set in June 1851—nearly 5 feet of water submerged theground floor of the Cedar Rapids Public Library. According to a State Library of Iowa report, floodwaters rose three bookshelves high and humid conditions have contributed to the loss of the library’s entire adult book collection. The Cedar Rapids Gazette also reports magazines, journals and reference books, which were housed on the ground floor, are likely ruined, and the library may remain closed for a year.
The Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids also suffered. Ten feet of water surrounded the building and rose to the ceiling inside. According to the state library, about 20 percent of the museum’s artifacts were removed before the flood, but little of the remaining collection will be salvageable. Museum staff continues to update the Web site with recover news.
Inside Iowa’s New Hartford Public Library (near Waterloo), 18 inches of water covered the floor; it’s expected the building will need to be gutted. The library lost 82 percent of its collection.
In Iowa City, the University of Iowa’s Main Library managed to keep its collection dry, despite basement flooding. Cedar Rapids’ African-American Museum also was affected, but more than 90 percent of its collection is expected to survive. The museum's online flood timeline tells about the museum’s collection preservation efforts.

Do you live in Iowa? click Comments (below) to tell us what you saw.

Libraries and Archives | Museums

Sunday, July 06, 2008 9:42:59 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [4]

Friday, June 27, 2008

MidContinent Public Library Open for Research
Posted by Diane

The new Midwest Genealogy Center—one of the country's largest public library genealogy collections—is now open in Independence, Mo. (just outside Kansas City).

Genealogists were deep into research within minutes of the June 21 ribbon cutting, the beginning of a daylong celebration featuring historical re-enactors, musicians and genealogy classes.

At 52,000 square feet, the new center is four times the size of its predecessor, the Mid-Continent Public Library Genealogy and Local History Branch. (The marked difference in the two facilities stands out in our May video tour.)

The space allows plenty of room for resources including a circulating collection, almost completely open stacks, microfilm reader-printers, self-digitization stations, classrooms and research consultation rooms.

Libraries and Archives

Friday, June 27, 2008 7:24:33 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

National Archives Opens Online Digital Vault
Posted by Diane

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is even more than a repository for the census, military and immigration records naming individuals.

NARA also holds pieces of our nation’s collective history—and it just launched a new Web site to display them. Digital Vaults hosts historical photographs, maps, posters and document images from NARA’s file drawers.

You start with an array of small images. Click one and it swirls to the center (above). Click the magnifying glass under it for a closer look and details about it (below).

Then click another document or photo and the screen starts swimming again until that selection surfaces in the middle. If you like an image, more clicks add it to your Collection or link you to related resources at NARA.

Look to the left to see the Filter window, which lets you filter records by time frame, media type (such as Photo or document) and other parameters. Tags lets you view items tagged with certain topics.

Click Pathways at the bottom of the screen to create a challenge for others to follow: You choose records or photos, and use the details about them to write clues about how your picks are related. Click Create to make a poster or movie using records from your collection or from preselected records, then save it or e-mail it to people.

You also can click Search and find, say, all the immigration-, World War II- or Elvis-related items.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Social History

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 1:21:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Free Military Records 'Til May 31 Mark Ancestry.com-NARA Agreement
Posted by Diane

To celebrate the signing of a five-year digitization agreement with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), The Generations Network (TGN) will make Ancestry.com’s military records collection free May 20 through May 31. (Normally, you'd need an Ancestry.com subscription at $155.50 per year.)

Some notable records in that collection include the Civil War pension index, Revolutionary War and War of 1812 bounty land warrants, and WWI and WWII draft registration cards.

Now for the new agreement: NARA and TGN already have been collaborating to digitize records, but now TGN staff and equipment will be on-site at NARA to speed up the process.

TGN will index the records and make them available to Ancestry.com subscribers; access will be free in all NARA research facilities. TGN also will give NARA copies of the record images and indexes.

Digitizing will start with Immigration and Naturalization Service passenger and crew arrival and departure lists (1897 to 1958) and death notices of US citizens abroad (1835 to 1974). Neither record set has been available outside NARA research rooms.

In the future, look for immigration, birth, marriage, death and military records.

NARA also has non-exclusive digitization partnerships with other organizations, such as FamilySearch and subscription historical records site Footnote. You can see details of those partnerships on NARA's Web site.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Military records

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 4:22:16 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Monday, May 19, 2008

Video: Sneak Peek at the Midwest Genealogy Center
Posted by Diane

While in Kansas City last week for the National Genealogical Society conference, we ventured a few minutes down the highway to Independence, Mo., where we were lucky enough to get a peek at the Mid-Continent Public Library’s genealogy branch and its soon-to-open Midwest Genealogy Center.

Around the beginning of June, the 12,000-square-foot genealogy branch will move its overflowing resources into the 52,000-square-foot genealogy center. But you'll get an insider’s peek at both facilities—and learn what you can look forward to after the move—in our short video. (Note the genealogy branch will close May 27 through June 1 while staff members pack and unpack.)

And you’ll see why the library’s genealogy collection makes it one of the July 2008 Family Tree Magazine’s Libraries to visit Before You Die.

Libraries and Archives | Videos

Monday, May 19, 2008 8:13:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Sneak Peek: New Midwest Genealogy Center
Posted by Diane

Last night, the not-quite-finished MidContinent Public Library’s Midwest Genealogy Center (which tried very hard to be open in time for the conference) hosted a recption to give National Genealogical Society conference attendees a chance to preview the new facility.

At 52,000 square feet, it’s more than four times the size of the current Genealogy and Local History Branch. That library was already a tremendous resource—in our July 2008 issue, we designate it one of the nine genealogy libraries to visit before you die—but the spacious new digs will make it’s materials and staff even more accessible and useful.

Tuesday, editor Allison Stacy and I took a look at the current genealogy branch (it’s truly bursting at the seams) and got our own hard-hat tour of the in-progress Midwest Genealogy Center. We’re putting together a video for you, but in the meantime, here are some pictures from last night’s reception.

A light-filled atrium is the first thing Midwest Genealogy Center patrons will see.

Here you can see the curved circulation desk and future public lounge (lower level). The upper level will be mostly open stacks.

These reception attendees stand in the future periodicals area.

Researchers can get staff help in two consultation rooms (right); a large classroom will host public programs.

Other rooms will house rare books, a computer lab (with equipment for digitizing your family photos or video tapes), microfilm cabinets and a microfilm reading room.

Genealogy Events | Libraries and Archives

Thursday, May 15, 2008 3:44:48 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [2]

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

200 Years of Children's Books on Display
Posted by Grace

Before Webkinz and Tamagotchis, children had to find amusement in analog activities, such as rolling hoops, kicking cans and—gasp!—reading books.

I recently stumbled across the University of Delaware's online exhibit "World of the Child: 200 Years of Children's Books," which gives an in-depth look at what kids read as well as the education philosophies behind the often dry books.

You can view sample pages of instructional books, primers and poetry collections, as well as more modern pop-ups and storybooks. The explanations can give you a whole new perspective on your ancestors' childhoods:

"Until the middle of the nineteenth century, all books for children were religious books in the sense that all literature was seen as requiring a stated moral perspective. Since fairy and folk tales, beloved by children in both oral and written form, were seen as threatening to the established moral order, a body of literature was developed to ensure that children's reading would reflect the conservative Protestantism of the time. The high infant mortality rate and large numbers of women dying in childbirth, also contributed to the focus in children's stories on pious lives and early deaths."

Sure is a far cry from Pokemon. Click here to browse the collection.

Genealogy for kids | Libraries and Archives | Social History

Tuesday, May 06, 2008 2:46:30 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [1]

Friday, March 21, 2008

Smithsonian Develops Photo Initiative
Posted by Grace

The Smithsonian possesses more than 13 million images in 19 museums and 700 collections, organized by discipline. In the past, it's been difficult for researchers—and even curators—to know where all the images pertinent to a topic might be found.

The Smithsonian Photography Initiative aims to change all that, making the institute's massive collection accessible for the general public and inviting history fans to get involved.

One facet of the initiative, click! photography changes everything, is a repository of essays on how the medium has altered the world we live in. Right now, 100 experts' musings can be found on the site; in the fall, click! will invite the public to submit images and comments. (Click here to read about our Photo Detective Maureen Taylor's translation of her own grandmother's wedding portrait and how it changed her perception of Nana from a static portrait to a living woman.)

Enter the Frame encourages Web site visitors to "tag" Smithsonian photographs to make them more easily searchable. When you tag a photo, you apply keywords that describe the image. This could include dates, locations, seasons, topics, descriptions of people in the photo, objects in the photo, etc. For example, the photo at right (from our Photo Detective blog) might get tagged with mourning, black dress, woman, gloves, seated, veil and hat.

Click here to see a list of all the Smithsonian Photography Initiative projects, including click! photography changes everything and Enter the Frame. You can read more about the benefits of tagging in Family Tree Magazine's May 2008 Toolkit article "Tagging Along."

Historic preservation | Libraries and Archives | Museums | Social History

Friday, March 21, 2008 8:29:47 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Find Old Newspapers at Free Library of Congress Site
Posted by Diane

The Library of Congress has added more than 79,000 digitized newspaper pages to its free Chronicling America Web site, for a total of 500,000 pages and 61 titles.

The papers date primarily from 1900 to 1910, and come from California, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Utah, Virginia and Washington, DC. Among these pages are articles about the 1901 assassination of president William McKinley and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (below).

But even if you have no ancestors in those states, you can use Chronicling America's searchable directory of US newspapers from 1690 to the present. Say you want to find articles about a trial your ancestor was involved in. Search the directory for titles of local papers by entering the state, county and town; the year of the trial; a keyword appearing in the newspaper's title; publication frequency (such as daily or weekly); or type of paper (such as an ethnic or labor press).

You’ll get a list of papers that might have articles on your relative. Click each title and the View Complete Holdings Information link to see libraries that have the paper, and which year's that library's collection covers.

If none of the libraries are near you, see if you can submit a search request or borrow papers on microfilm through interlibrary loan.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Monday, March 17, 2008 1:45:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Maps of historic London
Posted by Grace

If your family hails from London (or you just like cartography), you'll love this site: the British Library's virtual exhibition of historical maps of the city.

The 40 historic plats are organized on a Google map, making it easy to determine what areas they represent. The maps and images are also divided by time period, and you can access a zoomable version to see them up close. I especially like the map from 1653 with the lengthy title "A guide for Cuntrey men In the famous Cittey of LONDON by the helpe of wich plot they shall be able to know how farr it is to any Street."

For more resources for researching your English roots, you can always refer to our Ethnic Toolkit. The University of Texas also has a large collection of historic British maps in its Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.

International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, March 05, 2008 9:25:24 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

NARA Posts Free Passenger Indexes Online
Posted by Diane

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has added passenger lists of Russian, German and Italian immigrants to its free Access to Archival Databases (AAD) service. (Irish passenger lists already were available here.)

Each collection consists mostly of immigrants who identified their nationality as Russian, German or Italian and arrived at the ports of New York, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans or Philadelphia during the 19th century.

The database for each nationality also contains some names of immigrants from other places. For example, 90 percent of people in the German records said they were from Germany or a “German” area—the other 10 percent came from elsewhere.

The data are from passenger list indexes created by the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies. Keep in mind they’re not complete listings of all Russian, German, Italian or Irish immigrants.

For each collection, you'll see a Manifest Header Data File and a Passenger Data File. The search isn't the most intuitive we've ever seen, so get started with these tips:

1. From AAD, click Passenger Lists under Genealogy/Personal History. Then, click the Search button to the right of a Passenger Data File to look for an ancestor. (NARA calls the search terms you enter “values.”)

2. In your results, click View Record on the left to see first and last name, age, sex, occupation, last residence, destination and other information.

3. Use the ship manifest identification number to determine the port of arrival. Click View the FAQs and scroll to the chart showing ports and the range of manifest numbers assigned to each port’s records.

If you think you've found an ancestor, you can search the database for his or her passenger manifest identification number. That lets you see all passenger records from that ship—handy for finding traveling companions.

In the Manifest Header Data File, you can search for all ships with a particular manifest identification number, ship name, departure port or arrival date. For example, say you know your German ancestor arrived March 16, 1846. Click the Search button next to the German Manifest Header Data file and enter 03/16/1846 in the Arrival field. You'll get all the ships included in this database that arrived that day. Then you can go back to the Passenger Data File and search for the passengers on each ship.

I highly, highly recommend reading the FAQ document—each database has its own, linked at the top of the search screen. It’ll help you search the databases and understand your ancestor’s record.

Some places of origin or other data are difficult to interpret. You’ll want to see your ancestor’s orginal passenger list, which you can do on microfilm at major genealogy libraries, NARA facilities and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library. You can view records online through the subscription Web site Ancestry.com.

Genealogy Web Sites | immigration records | International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, March 04, 2008 3:21:37 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Search Site for Shelby County, Tenn., Family
Posted by Diane

Derrick Minck, register of deeds over in Shelby County, Tenn. (home of Memphis), e-mailed me about the plethora of genealogical records available on the Register’s Web site—somewhat unusual for a county government site. (Heads up, fellow Mac users: The site came up in Firefox but not in Safari.)

If you’ve got Tennessee ancestors, stop by and look for

Property records: “We have indexes and images dating back to 1812,” Minck writes.

GIS: You can search by name or address and see an aerial property photo linked to property data.

Archives: Search Shelby County birth (1874-1906) marriage (1820-1910) and death (1848-1956), records—and yes, folks, most matches are linked to record images.

You also can search indexes for Tennessee marriages (1980-2005), divorces (1980-2005) and deaths (1949-2005), with links for ordering copies. Circuit (1893-2000) and chancery (1945-1997) court, naturalization (1856-1906) and Memphis 1865 census indexes are there, too.

Search each record set from the home page. Now staff is scanning Memphis city directories from 1859 to 1924, and Minck says they’re almost ready to post 1859 through 1881.

Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Public Records

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 8:01:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

More Resources for Cincinnati Researchers
Posted by Diane

We got a note from our hometown Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, which already has one of the best public library genealogy collections in the country, about its recently expanded Genealogy and Local History Department and its new online goodies.

The new department consolidates materials previously spread throughout the library, making room in public areas for 7,000 more books and 8,000 reels of high-demand microfilm. Its Cincinnati Room lets patrons access historical materials such as local newspapers and manuscript collections.

Librarians also will schedule one-on-one consultations to help direct patrons’ research. Visit the department’s Web site to take a video tour and link to research databases. Check out the librarians’ list of favorite online resources for Cincinnati-area research, too.

Digitized historical materials also have made it onto PLCHC’s Virtual Library. Those include several 19th-cenury Cincinnati city directories and volumes such as the 1868 The Black Brigade of Cincinnati: Being a Report of its Labors and a Muster-Roll of its Members, the 1838 Report of the First Anniversary of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, and the 1852 Annual Announcement of Lectures of the Miami Medical College of Cincinnati. Click on a book cover to download the file as a PDF.

One of the John Seegers listed in this 1866 city directory may or may not be my ancestor; I'll have to go home and check.

We’re interested in hearing what's new at your favorite genealogy library—click Comment and let us know.

African-American roots | Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, February 06, 2008 7:19:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Reconstructing East German Records
Posted by Grace

East German citizens were aware the Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security) could know everything about their lives. At its peak, the Stasi, as it was familiarly known, employed 91,000 agents in the country of 16.4 million and had hundreds of thousands of informants. But it was not until the GDR began to crumble in 1989 that the concept became palpable, Andrew Curry reports in Wired magazine.

It was discovered that the Stasi had generated enough paper to fill 100 miles of shelves, and it indexed and cross-referenced 5.6 million names in its central card catalog. In the Stasi's final days, officials destroyed about 5 percent of its records before citizens stopped them. Truckloads of paper were taken to industrial shredders, and as the end neared, agents began ripping files by hand. They stored the scraps in paper bags in the archive.

In the mid '90s, a team started piecing the 45 million torn pages together manually, at a rate that would have led to completion in about 700 years. But a new scanning project looks like it will lead to the files being recreated—and shared with the public—much sooner.

Funded by the German government, the Fraunhofer Institute has created a method for double-sided scanning of the scraps and sorting the images by color of paper, type of paper and method of writing. If the pilot project for 400 bags of scraps is successful, it will get the go ahead for tackling the remaining 16,000 bags of paper. It's estimated to cost about $300 million, but the archivists say it's worth it. Wired reports:

Günter Bormann, the BStU's senior legal expert, says there's an overwhelming public demand for the catharsis people find in their files. "When we started in 1992, I thought we'd need five years and then close the office," Bormann says. Instead, the Records Office was flooded with half a million requests in the first year alone. Even in cases where files hadn't been destroyed, waiting times stretched to three years. In the past 15 years, 1.7 million people have asked to see what the Stasi knew about them.

To read the entire fascinating article, click here.

Libraries and Archives | Social History

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 6:13:14 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, January 14, 2008

Family Tree Firsts—Part Four
Posted by Grace

This weekend I made my first excursion to a Family History Center. Practically every article we publish in Family Tree Magazine recommends going to your local FHC, not only because you have access to the Family History Library’s massive collection of microfilm but also because the volunteers are so helpful!

I gathered my ever-growing file folder of notes and photocopies and headed to the FHC in Norwood, Ohio, to see what I could find. The center is only open for a few hours a day, and since it was a Saturday, there were researchers at nearly every microfilm and computer station.

I struck up a conversation with the volunteers and learned quite a bit about their holdings. The Norwood FHC has many rolls of microfilm on permanent hold from the FHL, and quite an impressive selection of Cincinnati-specific records. They've got most of their rolls of film indexed in the card catalog you see above. (The volunteers recommend asking before you request any roll of microfilm to double-check if it is available locally. You could save $5.50!)

Most of my family is in Northeastern Ohio, but I did find a roll of Cuyahoga County birth records in the local holdings. One of the volunteers retrieved it for me and helped me get set up at a microfilm reader, and I began poking around the index and the recorded births. My great-grandmother's birth record didn't appear to be on the roll, but the index for her year did not seem to be complete. An FHC volunteer told me that births in the early 1900s were often recorded months or even years after the fact, so there's no telling where my great-grandmother would show up.

I did make one big discovery while I was at the FHC—I found out that I get very queasy looking at microfilm. Will this be the end of my genealogy quest?

Earlier in Family Tree Firsts:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Family Tree Firsts | FamilySearch | Libraries and Archives

Monday, January 14, 2008 6:12:02 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Friday, January 04, 2008

Find Northern NY Ancestors in Free News Database
Posted by Diane

Did your ancestors live in New York’s Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis, Oswego or St. Lawrence counties?

Yes? You’ll want to search the Northern New York Library Network’s free Northern New York Historical Newspapers database.

There, access 910,000 digitized pages from 27 newspapers printed mostly during the 1800s and 1900s. The Plattsburgh Republican is the earliest paper featured, with the coverage starting in 1811; Clarkston Integrator issues range from 1920 all the way up to last year.

You can’t search all the papers at once, so click a title from the list, then type your search terms into the box on the left. Narrow your search by putting phrases in quotation marks ("harold smith") and use Boolean tools (such as a minus sign to exclude a word, as in lake –placid).

See the How to Search page for more tips, and Frequently Asked Questions for a trick to limiting searches by issue date.

Matches show sentence fragments containing your search term, so it can be a bit hard to tell whether a result is relevant.

Just click on a match to download a PDF of that newspaper page. You can zoom in, but your search term isn’t highlighted, so get ready for some reading.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Friday, January 04, 2008 2:29:49 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

FHL and 13 FHCs Get Ancestry.com Back
Posted by Diane

After losing their free Ancestry.com access last spring, researchers at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library (FHL) and 13 largest Family History Centers (FHCs) will once again be able to search the subscription site's genealogy databases for free.

FamilySearch and The Generations Network (parent company of Ancestry.com) have reached an agreement that provides free on-site Ancestry.com access at the FHL in Salt Lake City and its regional FHCs in

•   Mesa, Ariz.
•   Los Angeles
•   Oakland, Calif.
•   Orange, Calif.
•   Sacramento, Calif.
•   San Diego
•   Idaho Falls, Idaho
•   Pocatello, Idaho
•   Las Vegas
•   Logan, Utah
•   Ogden, Utah
•   St. George, Utah
•   Hyde Park, London, England

The agreement takes effect immediately.

Providing access at these centers was a financial decision, says FamilySearch spokesperson Paul Nauta. "The money would be best spent right now focusing on those 13 centers that accommodate a significant amount of patron traffic. We do desire to provide expanded access to all of our centers in the future."

If your FHC isn't on the list, see if a public library near you offers Ancestry Library Edition, a version of Ancestry.com databases library patrons can use free at subscribing institutions.

Until April 1, the FHL and almost all FHCs had enjoyed free, unlicensed Ancestry.com access since 2000. When it was unable to negotiate a formal arrangement with the LDS Church, The Generations Network discontinued the service (except a few databases for which contracts did exist and which are still available at all FHCs). See the March 29 E-mail Update newsletter for more details.

FamilySearch | Genealogy Industry | Libraries and Archives

Thursday, December 20, 2007 1:43:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Attention, Genealogical Librarians
Posted by Diane

…and friends of genealogical librarians. Family Tree Magazine editors are working on an article that will honor libraries across the United States with outstanding genealogical collections—and we need your help!

To learn more about libraries' resources and collections, we want to survey as many genealogical libraries as we can. Any type of genealogical library is eligible to participate: public or private, large or small, etc.—as long as it has a genealogical collection the public can use (for free or by paying an admission fee).

Librarians can get more details and download our questionnaire (as a Word document) from www.familytreemagazine.com/librarysurvey. Questions cover the types of materials, collection scope and size, online information, that type of thing.

We’ll need completed surveys e-mailed to us by Jan. 14, 2008. If you have questions about the survey, please post a comment here or e-mail our editorial staff.

Family Tree Magazine articles | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 9:54:50 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [2]

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Looking for one's own Peeps
Posted by Grace

The Birmingham Public Library posted this too-cute video about a little guy's genealogy quest:

Genealogy fun | Libraries and Archives | Videos

Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:37:39 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Comments [3]

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Research Your Tree in Just-Updated PERSI
Posted by Diane

The Allen County (Ind.) Public Library genealogy staff has beefed up its Periodical Source Index (PERSI) with references to another 132,000 history and genealogy articles published in journals and magazines during 2006 and 2007.

HeritageQuest Online, the genealogy database you can search free in many public libraries, has included the updates in its searchable version of PERSI.

That brings PERSI's total article citations to more than 2 million. They reference 6,600-plus periodicals published in the United States, Canada and abroad since 1800. It’s the most extensive periodical index available for local history and genealogy research.

You can search the updated PERSI at libraries offering HeritageQuest Online and at Allen County, Ind., public libraries. The subscription site Ancestry.com offers an older version of PERSI, dating from 1985.

Search PERSI on a name, place or subject, and you’ll get citations for journal and magazine articles that mention your term. Then, request the full article from your library, borrow it through interlibrary loan or order copies from the Allen County library ($7.50 for up to six articles, plus the cost of photocopies).

Read more about the formation of PERSI and about the Allen County library on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

Libraries and Archives | Research Tips

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 2:17:06 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Map Chicago Ancestors on Interactive Site
Posted by Diane

Chicago's Newberry Library has created a Web site to help you with place-based research of your Windy City ancestors.

ChicagoAncestors.org is a searchable interactive mapping site. Type in an address, and you’ll get a map showing the location, along with nearby churches, sites of crimes and more. Roll over the map markers for each place to see data such as addresses, date and type of crime, associated library resources or links to online images. (The data come from sites such as Homicide in Chicago and Jazz Age Chicago.)

There's also a keyword search box, Type in St. Thomas, and you’ll see locations of churches with that name.

You’ll want to read the search tips. You need to use address conversion tools for addresses before 1909, and leave off street descriptors such as Ave. or Rd. For example, I entered 137 DeKoven St., which is where Mrs. O’Leary (whose cow did not start the Chicago Fire) lived in 1871, and got nothing. But after downloading the 1909 street number conversion book (under Tools) as a large PDF, I looked up the address, searched on 558 Dekoven, and got my map.

Wondering if Mrs. O’Leary might’ve attended nearby St. Wenceslaus church, I clicked on its name and got its years in organization and a list of its available records at the Family History Library.

Registered ChicagoAncestors.org users can click to add their own comments to map points or map their own genealogical information and save it to their profile.

Click Tools to get street guides, more maps and other useful links; and click What’s New for updates from the Webmasters.

Here, Mrs. O'Leary's address is the blue star, and the yellow dot is the site of nearby criminal activity.

Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 10:33:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Just-Discovered Slave Records Go To Pennsylvania Museum
Posted by Diane

A county recorder of deeds discovered historical slavery-era papers in old Allegheny County, Pa., deed books. (Allegheny County is home to Pittsburgh.)

Read in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette how a county employee found the papers.

The office transferred handwritten documents recording the legal status of 56 African-American slaves to the Senator John Heinz History Center. The oldest papers date to 1792, the year Peter Cosco purchased his freedom from John McKee for 100 pounds.

The history center will make the papers available to researchers in its library and online.

You can find tips and resources for researching African-American ancestors in FamilyTreeMagazine.com's online toolkit.

African-American roots | Libraries and Archives

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 2:10:40 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Thursday, October 25, 2007

Find WWII Ancestors in Just-Opened Records
Posted by Diane

It just got easier to find information on your ancestor who served in World War II. This week, the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) opened Official Military Personnel Files (OMPFs) of Army, Army Air Corps, Army Air Forces, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard personnel who were discharged, retired or died in the service prior to 1946.

That’s more than six million records documenting assignments, evaluations, awards and decorations, training, demographics, medical information and disciplinary actions. Some files also contain photos of the individual and official correspondence.

You can access your relative’s records by visiting or writing the NPRC in St. Louis, submitting Standard Form 180, or (if you're next of kin) using eVetRecs online ordering. See the NPRC announcement for more details.

The NPRC, a National Archives facility, holds service records of military personnel discharged after 1917. It plans to eventually open its entire collection 57 million OMPFs, with more available to the public each year through 2067.

Libraries and Archives | Military records

Thursday, October 25, 2007 1:43:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [5]

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Utah Brand Books and Software Try-outs
Posted by Diane

Things just haven’t felt the same lately without a new announcement from FamilySearch, so I was glad to hear these updates:

• As part of its records digitization program, FamilySearch has digitized Utah’s historic brand books. You can access the images free at the state archives’ Web site.

City slickers may or may not know brand books show the identifying symbols more than 42,000 Utah ranchers branded onto their livestock (ouch!). Ranchers had to register their brands and ear marks with the state agriculture department.

Books from about 1849 to 1930 are digitized, with images linked to a full text search and name index. Each entry in the brand book can include an illustration of the brand, the name and county of the person registering it, registration date, and the location on the animal’s body.

• At your next Family History Center (FHC) visit, you can log your finds on its computers using the same commercial software or utility you have at home. Or, you can try out a new program—free. Here are the programs newly available on FHC computers:

Genealogy software

Ancestral Quest
RootsMagic
Legacy Family Tree

Genealogy utilities

Personal Historian (helps you write about your family)
Family Atlas (creates maps based on your family data)
Map My Family Tree (creates maps based on your family data)
Genelines (helps you create ancestral timelines)
Pedigree Analysis (submit your family file for research advice)
PAFWiz 2.0 (add-on tools for for Personal Ancestral File)
PAF Insight (performs advanced functions for LDS church members using Personal Ancestral File)
PAF Companion 5.2 (generates reports for Personal Ancestral File)

Check out the January 2008 Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands Nov. 13, for our software panel test results of four popular programs.

Genealogy Software | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Tuesday, October 09, 2007 2:17:28 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, August 20, 2007

NARA Record Request Fees Go Up Oct. 1
Posted by Diane

We’ve known it was coming since the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) proposed last February to raise its reproduction fees for records you order.

The good news is, it could’ve been worse.

Effective Oct. 1, NARA will charge $75 for a Civil War pension file of up to 100 pages, plus $.65 per additional page (for longer files, staff will contact the requestor with a price quote before filling the order). NARA will charge $50 for pre-Civil War pension files regardless of page count, and $.75 per page to copy other records.

While still a steep increase from the current $37 for a Civil War pension file, these fees are less than the $125 and $60 NARA originally proposed for Civil War and pre-Civil War pensions, respectively. (Still, save some cash by sending your request before October. The July 2007 Family Tree Magazine has instructions for ordering Civil War pensions.)

In the Aug. 17 Federal Register, national archivist Allen Weinstein attributes the change to public comment-inspired alterations in formulas for calculating document reproduction costs. Though its average pension file order was for 106 pages, 65 percent of orders were for files less than 100 pages.

NARA received 1,281 comments during the 60-day comment period. About half the commenters identified themselves as genealogists.

Looks like some comments hit a nerve by saying NARA’s proposal exaggerated actual copying costs. Weinstein wrote, “We firmly reject allegations that the fees are being raised capriciously for the purpose of supplementing funding for the agency or reducing the number of reproduction orders received.”

He added it’s not practical to compare NARA’s photocopying costs with those of other entities because of archival document considerations including file retrieval and replacement, paper fragility, separating papers from fasteners, placing non-standard-size documents on copiers' glass platens and ensuring image legibility.

Weinstein said NARA lacks funding for digitizing all the Civil War pension files. The agency considers them prime candidates for a digitization partnership, but “there is no near-term alternative to the current process for fulfilling fixed-fee order requests for reproductions of Civil War pension files.”

Libraries and Archives | Public Records

Monday, August 20, 2007 3:25:08 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [5]

Saturday, August 18, 2007

FamilySearch starts new records-access project
Posted by Diane

In the next two years, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' FamilySearch will release free online indexes for a long list of genealogical records—150 million images total. Thousands of volunteers are already working fast and furiously on FamilySearch projects to index digitized records, so the church is turning to another source for help with this one: businesses such as The Generations Network, Footnote and others.

For what’s known as the Genesis Project, FamilySearch—the church’s records-scanning arm—has put out a “request for information” seeking interested commercial service providers and records repositories.

FamilySearch will digitize the records, which spokesperson Paul Nauta says is the most expensive part of putting records online, and service providers would index them. Indexes would be free on FamilySearch and on the service provider’s and/or record repository’s Web site.

Targeted record groups include US and British censuses, US county naturalizations, Spanish parish registers, German SS records from the National Archives and Ukraine L’viv church records.

Those entities could choose to charge for access to digitized record images; the images would be free at the LDS church’s Family History Centers.

In other FamilySearch news:

FamilySearch’s Family History Library, Allen County Public Library and the Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library are joining to digitize and index 100,000 books in the libraries’ holdings of local and family histories from all across the country. It’ll be the largest collection of its kind on the Web with free access at the BYU library's site. Read more on FamilySearch.

Next up for the FamilySearch Indexing Project is the 1930 Mexico Census, Revolutionary War Pensions and Land Warrants, Irish Civil Registration and 1900 US census records for more states.

For more information on FamilySearch records access initiatives, look for the November 2007 Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands and FamilyTreeMagazine.com Sept. 11.

FamilySearch | Genealogy Software | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Saturday, August 18, 2007 3:39:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Genealogy Heaven at Allen County Library
Posted by Diane

Yesterday, the first day of the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Fort Wayne, Ind., the staff at the nearby Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center shelved 11,460 books and other materials.

That's just a fraction of the largest public library genealogy collection in the country, and conference attendees are eager for the chance to search for ancestors between lectures.

Astounding is a good word for the center. Yesterday we toured some of the giant collection of 350,000+ books (including 55,000 family histories; an impressive array of county histories, school yearbooks and records indexes) and 513,000 “microtexts” (microfilm and microfiche). Those include censuses, passenger lists and more.

Hoosiers and non-Hoosiers come here for the resources covering counties across America, plus countries overseas. The library’s staff are the folks behind the Periodical Source Index, too, which references genealogical and historical periodicals dating back to 1800.

Soon you can see more details in a video of the tour in an online video—we’ll let you know when you can see this truly quality visual experience.

Genealogy Events | Libraries and Archives

Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:30:27 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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Monday, August 13, 2007

Holocaust records on the way
Posted by Grace

Next week, the first batch of digital copies of a major trove of Holocaust-era documents will be transferred to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

Allied forces discovered the files at the end of World War II, and they spent the next 60 years stashed away at the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany.

The museum says on its Web site the first installment includes 13.5 million pages, including records of camps, transportation, ghettos and arrest records. Later in the fall, the nearly 40 million index cards containing 17.5 million names will arrive.

Unfortunately, the archive won't be searchable online, but the museum plans to create a database that will let its own archivists quickly respond to your requests for information. When that database is up (watch the museum Web site for an announcement), queries from Holocaust survivors or on behalf of survivors will have priority.

Looking to explore your Jewish roots? Read more in the August 2006 issue of Family Tree Magazine, which you can order here. And check out Tracing the Tribe, a blog all about Jewish genealogy.

Libraries and Archives | Public Records

Monday, August 13, 2007 10:14:03 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Comments [0]

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Allen County Library Records To Be Digitized
Posted by Diane

The subscription and pay-per-view records service Footnote.com announced it will digitize records in the Allen County Public Library's genealogy collection. That library, located in Fort Wayne, Ind., has the largest public genealogy collection in the United States.

The digitized records will be available free at the library and for a fee on Footnote. (We’ll let you know when we learn which records are up first, and when you’ll be able to access them online.)

Footnote has been around since 1997 (it was called iArchives), but made its splash on the genealogy scene early this year, when it announced a partnership to digitize records at the National Archives and Records Administration. It also has agreements with the Pennsylvania state archives, FamilySearch and other repositories.

Update: I spoke yesterday with Footnote's Justin Schroepfer, who said the Allen County Library staff is deciding which records to start digitizing—so of course, he doesn't yet know when you'll see the first images online. Stay tuned.

A Footnote subscription costs $7.95 per month or $59.95 per year, or you can pay to view an individual record image for $1.95. The site offers a few free databases, including UFO reports.

Genealogy Industry | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives

Thursday, August 02, 2007 9:55:29 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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