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October 2009 Blog Posts (128)

Parade of States -- online digital genealogy resources -- Arkansas

Arkansas is not known for its online digital collections but the number of records in increasing regularly. Across the U.S. there is a substantial difference between the collections being digitized by the various states. There are considerably more resources online than those shown in the lists below, but most are not digitized and are indexes or transcribed lists.
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Added by James Tanner on October 11, 2009 at 7:41pm — No Comments

Jabez Treadwell's Will

In Memory

of

Mr Jabez Treadwell

who departed this Life

22d Day of Decr

1781

In the 67th year of his age.

"Bleƒƒed are the dead which die in

the Lord that they may reƒt

from their Labours; and their

works do follow them."

When I first applied for membership in the Mayflower Society, I had eleven different… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on October 11, 2009 at 7:00pm — No Comments

Where have all the libraries (and newspapers, telephone directories and etc.) gone?

The other day we had occasion to go to a large university apartment house. In the lobby there was a huge pile of telephone books all in plastic bags. Evidently, the local telephone company had delivered this huge pile, one for each apartment, for the use of the residents. There was just one catch, hardly an of the University students had bothered to pick up their directory. I commented on this to the person we were visiting and she said, "Oh, we don't need one, we just look everything up online… Continue

Added by James Tanner on October 11, 2009 at 1:39pm — No Comments

Why you shouldn't do genealogy !

Every time I discover something new about family it's exciting as it should be,but some things are down right spooky. It's that instance that sends your mind wondering,you start to question your own existance or wonder how the family line survived for 200 years without imploding.

What am I talking about ? I'm talking about cousins marrying cousins !! And not distant cousins as in 5th cousin 10 times removed. I'm talking first and second cousins. In todays world we can avoid… Continue

Added by Ken Jones on October 11, 2009 at 1:30pm — 7 Comments

Sorting and Storing Digital Photos

In previous posts I have talked about sorting and archiving old photos and how important it is to do that. But, I have actually been been daunted by the task of organizing my own digital images. Right now they sit on my hard drive, backed up daily to a second hard drive and dumped into individual folders which are labeled by the date and perhaps the event. Re: Thanksgiving 2007.

While I have really expensive editing and organizing software, it has sometimes taken me awhile to find a… Continue

Added by Stefani Twyford on October 11, 2009 at 1:08pm — No Comments

This will be the last post for my wife dawn stringer

To all the people in this web site, I have some distressing news. Dawn had a heart attack this morning and passed on. She loved this site and she will be missed. Love you guys

Added by Dawn Evans Stringer on October 11, 2009 at 9:23am — 27 Comments

Family Tree Connection - Update (11/Oct/2009)

Family Tree Connection has added the following genealogy items to its database:

Bradford Academy 1839 Catalogue - Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Bradford Academy, for the year ending November 1839. Bradford, Mass.

Topsfield Academy 1830 Catalogue - Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Topsfield…

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Added by Illya Daddezio on October 11, 2009 at 8:42am — No Comments

GeneJ found the following info from a phone interview to Sacred Heart Cemetery (Monongahela, Penn.)

Debbie (_____), Sacred Heart Cemetery (Monongahela, Penn.) office, 9 Oct 2009, interview (telephonic) by GJ; for death of George Shriner; file memorandum

This date TT Debbie at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Monongahela, Washington Co., Penn. Cemetery office address is 97 Sacred Heart Rd, Monongahela, Penn. 15063-3505. According to her records, George Shriner, of Ellsworth, died 23 Nov 1964; was buried 27 November 1964.

Cemetery records have his birth as 8 May 1895 (humm... conflicts much… Continue

Added by Julie Carr on October 11, 2009 at 7:34am — No Comments

Digitized British Newspapers 1800 to 1900

The British Library sponsors a number of huge online resources including digitized copies of the British Newspapers from 1800 to 1900. This mostly subscription Website contains, to quote the site:

* Millions of articles from 49 London, national and regional newspaper (1800 - 1900) titles.

* Over two million pages - all fully text searchable with keywords in context visible in the results list.

* 1000's of illustrations, maps, tables and photographs.…

Continue

Added by James Tanner on October 10, 2009 at 7:03am — No Comments

Great-uncle's death record from Mexico found!

I just found out that ancestry.com has the database Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1963-1974. Ancestry.com's October Monthly Update e-mail newsletter mentioned the database. I was thrilled to find this out, because my great-uncle died in Mexico in 1974. I had been planning to contact the National Archives to get a copy of his death record, but since ancestry.com has the database I was able to get the record immediately and not have to spend extra money for it. And it… Continue

Added by Beth Gatlin on October 10, 2009 at 12:23am — No Comments

Friday Fun Stuff from way back WHEN

Added by Susi (Susan C Jones) Pentico on October 9, 2009 at 6:27pm — 1 Comment

Sharing documentation & genealogiesq

Over the past 40 years I have been copying/uploading to RootsWeb family genealogies compiled by myself and other family genealogists who are now deceased and whose work was not found in central Ohio & Ft. Wayne, IN repositories & libraries. In that way I hoped to preserve their work and make it available to new researchers.

I have also compiled several data bases on the surnames Schleich/Sly/Slyh/Slye and Gray/Grey. These are extensive alpha lists of families from the early… Continue

Added by John Gray on October 9, 2009 at 9:39am — 1 Comment

Which is it? Genealogical Proof Standard or Legal Proof?

In a comment to my recent blog on the Genealogical Proof Standard, the Ancestry Insider raised the issue that the professional genealogical community has rejected the legal standard of a preponderance of the evidence and appears to have moved in the direction of a standard of clear and convincing evidence. Although I heartily approve of the Genealogical Proof Standard, I question whether or not, in the absence of a judge and an adversarial system, it is really possible to personally adhere to a… Continue

Added by James Tanner on October 9, 2009 at 8:15am — No Comments

Speech by the MacLaren of MacLaren to the Clan Convention on 24th July 2009

Just published on the Panalba website, is the speech made at the time of the Clan Gathering in Edinburgh on the role of the clan chief in modern times.

Donald MacLaren of MacLaren tells this story:

In his bid to unite Dalriada and Pictland, Kenneth MacAlpine invited all the Pictish princes and nobles with rival claims to the throne to a great meeting and banquet. Disarmed at the door, rather like us, they entered all… Continue

Added by William Douglas on October 9, 2009 at 3:32am — No Comments

Another Treasure Chest

Added by Susi (Susan C Jones) Pentico on October 8, 2009 at 12:43pm — No Comments

Treasure Chest Thursday

Added by Susi (Susan C Jones) Pentico on October 8, 2009 at 12:39pm — No Comments

How to use Windows System Restore to undo changes to your computer

Most of the time when your computer does not do what you want it to do, it is usually because you have not given it correct instructions.

For example, if you try to maximize a program's window, but instead the program closes, it's likely that you clicked the tiny close button (the small X in the upper right of the program's window) instead of the tiny maximize button (the button immediately to the X's left). Has this ever happened to you? This is known as "operator error". In other… Continue

Added by Geoff Rasmussen on October 8, 2009 at 11:30am — No Comments

Family Ancestors That Were Institutionalized

In the most recent GenWise newsletter, Gena Philibert Ortega wrote a column about the challenges confronting researchers whose subjects were institutionalized in asylums. This is more common than many people think, particularly the further back in time one goes. My gr. gr. gr. great grandfather, John Winterbourne (1776-1843), for example, was institutionalized and died at the Lainston House Asylum, Sparsholt, Hampshire, England.

From 1825 until 1846, the large estate and grounds of… Continue

Added by William S Dean on October 8, 2009 at 10:55am — 3 Comments

Ocean Born Mary, A Londonderry Character

Ocean Born Mary

The Myth:

A Ship of Ulster protestant passengers was on its way to Boston, Massachusetts when, on 28 July 1720, Elizabeth Wilson gave birth to a daughter. About this time a pirate ship attacked, and the captain intended to rob and murder the passengers. Just in the nick of time, the captain heard the newborn child’s cries. He said he would spare all the passengers if the child was named Mary in honor of his mother, and… Continue

Added by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on October 8, 2009 at 8:41am — No Comments

The Digital Librarian: a librarian's choice of the best of the Web

The Digital Librarian is maintained by Margaret Vail Anderson, a librarian in Cortland, New York and is a very interesting selection of Websites useful to genealogy. This is an alphabetical listing but it is a good list to browse through to make sure you are aware of a number of helpful sites. Libraries and librarians are becoming more aware all of the time of the impact of the Internet on the viability of libraries in the future. In an undated article from the National Library of Australia, by… Continue

Added by James Tanner on October 8, 2009 at 5:17am — No Comments