A while ago, I stumbled upon a very interesting genealogy database that I want to share with you. The author of the site, Ray Gurganus, has created several databases, with an Occupational Records database being the most interesting to me. There are almost 2 million records in this database, and it is searchable. It is free.
Check it out at https://www.ourfamtree.org/records/
I recently interviewed Ray, and he shared with me the history of this database, plus several other databases that he has created.
1. What prompted you to create an Occupational Records database?
This started when I found a list of ministers in my home Methodist church in North Carolina, and when researching their lives, I wanted to know what other towns and churches they had served, so that their locations could be documented in each person’s individual history. As I began collecting these lists of ministers and their churches, I put them together in a searchable list for others to use as well.
2. When did you start creating this database, and how has it changed over the years?
When searching around online to find ministers and where they served, this expanded to other church denominations, and then to other occupations wherever I have found documented information that could be added. Some church ministers also served as teachers, professors, and other occupations. It is currently up to over 1.84 million records altogether, but still growing regularly. All are searchable by name, by location, by occupation, and where applicable by church denomination or subject taught in schools.
3. What sources do you use to collect these important records?
Many come from online college, university, and seminary alumni directories, listing alumni and chronologies of the places they have worked. Also, many directories of professional occupations, listing doctors, teachers, professors, librarians, railroad officials, etc.; state, county, and town histories, listing people in their offices or institutions; city directories; school yearbooks; US government publications listing army and navy deployments; individual church websites, and many more. The sources are summarized on a “sources” page, listed on the menu at the top of the page.
4. On your site I noticed you have other databases, such as Postcards. Please tell me about these other databases.
In the same spirit of documenting history and trying to help it be more easily searchable, I have compiled a collection of digitized postcards, searchable by locations pictured on the front and names and locations written on the back. This started with a collection of about 1,000 postcards my family had collected, and rather than letting them just sit in the closet, I photographed and indexed them online. Adding to these are thousands more postcards from stores and online, now over 29,000 and growing.
5. Any changes for the future?
Current plans are just to keep adding more to both.
Thank you Ray for providing all of this information, and especially the painstaking work you have put in to create these free databases for genealogists to access.
Access the databases at https://www.ourfamtree.org/records/