I have been researching online historical newspaper sites for several years, both the free ones as well as the subscription-based sites. Their software capabilities, independent of the size and quality of their scanned collections, break down into two parts: 1. How do you search the site and find “stuff” 2. How do you download and save the […]
Category: QuickSheets
OK – you won’t get rich when you find an obituary, but your genealogy research will benefit, and your family history research will get richer. We have a tendency as researchers to underappreciate the value of the documents or articles that we already have acquired, and spend our time looking for new “stuff.” There are […]
Finding information and articles in newspapers about your ancestors is incredibly rewarding. And the amount of information about your ancestors in old newspapers is likely more than we can find. If you follow this site, you know that I am “big” on using old newspapers as resources to find out about your family and their […]
Maybe it’s just me, but I have never heard anyone write or talk about using Alumni Records in their genealogy research. I use them personally and have discovered mountains of information in these gems. I contend that alumni records are part directories, part newspapers and magazines, part biographies, part obituaries, part yearbooks, part vital records, […]
Institutional records are another class of collections that should be part of one’s genealogy research repertoire. Although most of your ancestors may not have spent time in an institution, I’ll bet that almost every family tree has several that have. So they are worth your effort to research. This Quicksheet discusses the many types of […]
Especially when trying to search the content-rich documents, such as World War I and World War II draft cards, it is often puzzling why a specific person cannot be found. Beyond tricky names and such, it is often difficult because the rules for who needed to register changed several times during each of those wartime […]
Chronicling America is a very popular website that provides free online digitized newspapers from the United States. It currently has almost 20 million digitized pages. It helps to understand the background of this website as well as some features that are not widely known. This QuickSheet tells you about how Chronicling America gets its database […]
Do you like to search for genealogy records for your ancestors for Free? Duh. I have about 40 websites that I frequently use. Some have digitized records in their collections. Some have links to collections that can be searched or browsed. Some include transcribed records. And some have useful genealogical educational information. All of the […]
What’s a mortality schedule you ask? Well, the U.S. Census Bureau, starting in 1850, began preparing special Non-population Schedules. Population schedules are the ones that we are always using and we tend to call them just “Census Records”. There have been several Non-population schedules, including Agricultural Schedules, Manufacturing Schedules, Social Statistic Schedules, Business Schedules, and […]
Essentially, there are two methods to search Chronicling America for historical newspapers. Basic Search, available from the Home Page as well as the “Search Pages” tab, allows you to enter your search criteria, and restrict results to a single state and to a range of years. The Advanced Search, which I highly recommend that you […]