Full disclosure: I love the FamilySearch Catalog! For those collections that are available online, and the books that have been digitized, there are tens of thousands to choose from. For the online collections and books, I can use my PC at home to scroll through digitized page after digitized page, just as if I had […]
Category: QuickSheets
Just the word “Probate” causes people to freak out, primarily because it is a legal process, different in every state; it is combined with the loss of a loved one and requires cooperation between family members, many of whom do not wish to cooperate. But for genealogy purposes, they are incredibly valuable sources of terrific […]
If you are looking for birth records, including certificates, you need to know the timing of each state’s requirements. Each state in the U.S. started requiring birth registrations in different years. Generally, some types of records were created before the official state laws, either at the county, city, or town levels. But state records weren’t […]
If you are looking for death certificates, you need to know the timing of each state’s requirements. Each state in the U.S. started requiring death registrations in different years. Usually, some types of records were created prior to the official state laws, either at the county, city, or town levels. But state records weren’t required […]
When I first started my ancestor research, after I had gotten over the initial excitement of reviewing census records and interviewing my living relatives, I almost immediately began trying to find my immigrant ancestors and how they got to America. Through free repositories such as Ellis Island and Castle Garden and other sites, as well […]
Another type of genealogy record that provides tremendous value is criminal records. Some of our ancestors, unfortunately, got in trouble with the law. And records were kept from arrests through court cases to prison documents. Now, more and more of these records are being digitized or transcribed and are being made available online. Types of […]
Voter registration records are available online and offline from all over the world and are what I consider a hidden gem of information that can assist you in advancing your family history and genealogy research. Before I get to the 9 reasons why voter records are such a wonderful tool for researching (and finding) ancestors, […]
Another type of genealogy record that provides tremendous value is tax records. Like city directories and voting registers, for example, they provide information for us between federal censuses. They also can go back to colonial times.Below is a list that contains the different types of taxes since colonial times in the U.S., and the type […]
Some great places to start researching genealogy records are in genealogical and historical societies. There are many ethnicity and nationality-based societies. Each society has collections and records available that will aid in your research. Some are accessible for non-members and even more are accessible for those who have purchased a membership. These societies have an […]
Primarily a North American phenomenon historically, the first yearbook published was the Yale Banner in the early 1800s.I encourage you to research old yearbooks, and not just for yourself and close relatives. What about your ancestors? They went to school too (at least some of them in the last 200 years). And yearbooks have significant […]