When searching old newspapers and census records, we are often faced with unusual names of occupations, and we have no clue as to their meaning because the terms are not in use today. I have collected a list of about 360 old occupations and their meanings from a variety of sources. Dan Burrows and Jan […]
Category: QuickSheets
Funeral home records often pick up where obituaries and death certificates stop. They can provide personal details, informant names, addresses, burial locations, and clues about religion and finances. Why Funeral Records Are Valuable What You Might Find in These Records How to Locate Funeral Home Records Tips for Contacting Funeral Homes Other Records to Use […]
When doing our genealogy research, whether looking at death certificates, newspaper articles, or other sources, we are often faced with different terminology for things. Nowhere is that more evident than in medical terminology. Whether the term is written in an old letter, a newspaper article, or an official document, we are often faced with the […]
For generations, women were documented everywhere in records — but often not under their own names. They might appear as “Mrs. John Smith,” “the widow,” or “the daughter of….” Learning how to spot these patterns opens new doors in your research. Tips for Locating Women in Records Naming Conventions That Obscure Identity Quick Searches That […]
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are one of the most valuable yet underused tools in genealogy. Created between the 1860s and the 1960s, these highly detailed maps were designed to assess fire risk—but for genealogists, they offer something even more important: a visual reconstruction of the neighborhoods, streets, buildings, and communities where our ancestors lived. They […]
Access Genealogy is one of the Internet’s oldest and broadest genealogy websites — a massive compilation of free transcriptions, local histories, surname books, cemetery indexes, Native American rolls, military lists, and town/county sketches. Its design is simple and the navigation can feel scattered, so most genealogists underestimate what’s actually inside. But beneath its surface lies […]
Death Indexes is one of several very useful websites provided by Joe Beine, and probably the most visited. From the Website: “This website is a directory of links to websites with online death indexes, listed by state and county. Included are death records, death certificate indexes, death notices, and registers, obituaries, wills and probate records, […]
Stephen P. Morse’s One-Step Webpages are some of the most quietly powerful tools in the entire genealogy world. They look simple—plain text pages, long lists of links, a retro design—but beneath the surface is a sophisticated suite of search utilities that outperform the original databases they interface with. Morse’s tools were originally created to solve […]
AncientFaces is a community-driven collection of photos. You can search by name but also browse by themes, people categories, date ranges, and places. And the collaborative biography section is an exciting idea. From the website: “AncientFaces.com was officially launched in 2000 by Founder & Creator Daniel J. Pinna, and his mother, Founder & Community and Content Director Kathy […]
New Horizons Genealogy is one of the Internet’s long-standing, under-the-radar genealogy websites. It doesn’t look modern, and the navigation feels retro, but behind the simple interface is a large and useful collection of transcribed historical material. Unlike record sites that rely on indexing and search bars, New Horizons organizes thousands of transcription projects by county […]