From the Genealogy Blog of the Newberry Library, the outdated code for the ChicagoAncestors.org website is the issue that has resulted in the suspension of the website. Ouch. I guess I will put off some of my Michael and Laura (Dow) O'Brien research for a while.
A new site will be up in a few months and they do promise that the content has been preserved. Please hurry!
The library's post is from Saturday, September 27: http://www.newberry.org/genealogy-blog
Showing posts with label Websites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Websites. Show all posts
29 September 2014
04 April 2012
Figuring out what's in a record and what to do next
It's really not that tough a task. I recently wrote an article about this for findmypast.com titled Analyzing Records for Family History. It's full of practical tips. The website also has other helpful articles.
Click here to read what I wrote on the findmypast.com website.
Watch the website for some great resources that will be on there soon!
03 May 2010
Some websites and blogs you might want to check
- Ohio Historical Society Blog http://ohiohistory.wordpress.com/ [If you encounter a problem with this live link, please type the URL directly rather than using the live link.]
- ResearchBuzz http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/ Be sure to click on the older entries link at the bottom of the page.
- Blog of the Archivist of the United States http://blogs.archives.gov/aotus/
- California Genealogical Society Blog http://blog.californiaancestors.org
- Tennessee Methodist History Blog http://historytnumc.wordpress.com/
- Utah State Archives Blog http://archivesresearch.wordpress.com/
04 March 2010
Cyndi's List of family history websites is 14 years old today!
Right at your fingertips -- more than 270,000 live and quick links to websites related to family history. How long would it take to you compile such a list? And sort each link into the proper category. And check the link to make sure it is what it should be. And update the link when the webmaster or site owner changes their URL. And change the description of the website when that needs to change. And. And. And. Well, breathe easy. You don't have to do this work -- it has been done for us at Cyndi's List.
Today is the 14th anniversary of this list. Cindy Ingle Howells began this list of helpful websites for herself and for fellow members of the Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society in Washington State. Lucky for the rest of us she began to share the list with other genealogists.
The links are categorized. Among the 180+ categories are: adoption, Africa, Beginners, Canada (and by province), Census, City Directories, Ellis Island, Genetics, Lutheran, Military, Newspapers, Organizing Research, Passports, Poorhouses, Schools, Scotland, Ships and Passenger Lists, nd divisions for many other countries and for each of the states in the United States. Bookmark this list now and use it as the great tool it is for finding helpful websites.
Today is the 14th anniversary of this list. Cindy Ingle Howells began this list of helpful websites for herself and for fellow members of the Tacoma-Pierce County Genealogical Society in Washington State. Lucky for the rest of us she began to share the list with other genealogists.
The links are categorized. Among the 180+ categories are: adoption, Africa, Beginners, Canada (and by province), Census, City Directories, Ellis Island, Genetics, Lutheran, Military, Newspapers, Organizing Research, Passports, Poorhouses, Schools, Scotland, Ships and Passenger Lists, nd divisions for many other countries and for each of the states in the United States. Bookmark this list now and use it as the great tool it is for finding helpful websites.
18 November 2009
Great electronic news from the DAR
Eric Grundset, Director of the DAR Library in Washington, DC has just released some great news about the DAR and its website:
"After nearly a decade of scanning, indexing, and other behind-the-scenes work by DAR members and employees, the Daughters of the American Revolution is pleased to announce the availability of the DAR Genealogical Research System on our public website. Here are the direct links:
http://www.dar.org/library/online_research.cfm or www.dar.org (and click on the Library button at the top, then the second tab in the left-hand column).
The GRS is a growing collection of databases that provide access to many materials collected by the DAR over the past 119 years. Included in this collection of databases is the GRC National Index which has been available to researchers for the past few years. There are still some kinks we're working out here and there.
When you go to the link above, you will find several tabs that will enable searching in the various databases:
Ancestor - established DAR Revolutionary War Ancestors and basic information about them with listings of the applications submitted by descendants who joined the DAR [updated daily]
Member - limited access to information on deceased/former DAR members - not current members.
Descendants - index of generations in applications between the DAR member and the Revolutionary War ancestor. There is much eighteenth and nineteenth-century information here. [ongoing indexing project]
GRC - everyname index to 20,000 typescript volumes (some still being indexed) of genealogical records such as cemeteries, Bibles, etc. This index is not limited to the period of the American Revolution at all.
Resources - [In particular, the digitized DAR Library Revolutionary Pension Extract Card Index and the Analytical Index Cards. Other information sources will be coming in the near future, mostly relating to Revolutionary War service, bibliographies, Forgotten Patriots (updates), etc. Read the introductions to these to learn why these are both important genealogical indexes. For example, the Rev. War pension index includes the names of people mentioned in those pensions that were abstracted (not just the pensioner or widow)!!!]
Library Catalog - our book, periodical, and manuscript holdings
Each of these has interrelated content, and a description of each is given more fully on the website. You will notice restricted information in many search results. This is the result of a concerted effort to protect the identity of our members while providing historical genealogical information to researchers.
The national numbers of members (without the names of living members) given in the search results are needed to order copies of applications and supplemental applications. They do not lead online researchers to any other information about the member."
DAR Library
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution
1776 D Street, N. W.
Washington, DC 20006-5303
www.dar.org
"After nearly a decade of scanning, indexing, and other behind-the-scenes work by DAR members and employees, the Daughters of the American Revolution is pleased to announce the availability of the DAR Genealogical Research System on our public website. Here are the direct links:
http://www.dar.org/library/online_research.cfm or www.dar.org (and click on the Library button at the top, then the second tab in the left-hand column).
The GRS is a growing collection of databases that provide access to many materials collected by the DAR over the past 119 years. Included in this collection of databases is the GRC National Index which has been available to researchers for the past few years. There are still some kinks we're working out here and there.
When you go to the link above, you will find several tabs that will enable searching in the various databases:
Ancestor - established DAR Revolutionary War Ancestors and basic information about them with listings of the applications submitted by descendants who joined the DAR [updated daily]
Member - limited access to information on deceased/former DAR members - not current members.
Descendants - index of generations in applications between the DAR member and the Revolutionary War ancestor. There is much eighteenth and nineteenth-century information here. [ongoing indexing project]
GRC - everyname index to 20,000 typescript volumes (some still being indexed) of genealogical records such as cemeteries, Bibles, etc. This index is not limited to the period of the American Revolution at all.
Resources - [In particular, the digitized DAR Library Revolutionary Pension Extract Card Index and the Analytical Index Cards. Other information sources will be coming in the near future, mostly relating to Revolutionary War service, bibliographies, Forgotten Patriots (updates), etc. Read the introductions to these to learn why these are both important genealogical indexes. For example, the Rev. War pension index includes the names of people mentioned in those pensions that were abstracted (not just the pensioner or widow)!!!]
Library Catalog - our book, periodical, and manuscript holdings
Each of these has interrelated content, and a description of each is given more fully on the website. You will notice restricted information in many search results. This is the result of a concerted effort to protect the identity of our members while providing historical genealogical information to researchers.
The national numbers of members (without the names of living members) given in the search results are needed to order copies of applications and supplemental applications. They do not lead online researchers to any other information about the member."
DAR Library
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution
1776 D Street, N. W.
Washington, DC 20006-5303
www.dar.org
29 May 2009
"Small towns need to dust off websites"
Today's [Minneapolis] StarTribune.com carried an interesting column "Small Towns Need to Dust off Websites" by James Lileks. His comments about towns and websites hit home with me. I am sure that it will have great meaning for vacationers, genealogists, and others looking for information on a specific place. When I travel, I often look for a website of a place I am planning to work in or just stay the night in a motel. So often the info online is meager to say the least.
James is a unique writer -- I can just see him standing in his backyard or sitting at the dinner table when a column idea and the associated humor and commentary pop into his mind. His idea made me remember trying to find info online about the small towns where two of my adult children and their families were living.
A research trip to a new place always gets me planning. Is there a restaurant, park, any shopping, parking, and what does the place look like? Whether it is an outlying town or the county seat, I love to "see" what it looks like before my visit. James' emphasis on the history of the towns is right up my alley. Many libraries in these places in Minnesota and elsewhere have local history rooms that could provide much of the historical detail for such a website. A county history might have some neat details on the early history of the town.
James wrote "That's where the Minnesota Hamlet Website Project would come in. Sending unemployed Web designers around the state would be the modern equivalent of those WPA Guides the government used to sop up all the loose writing talent sitting around in the '30s. If they were put to good use, the idea went, they wouldn't sit around hungry and angry, writing rabble-rousing plays about woebegone Bolshevists. Send them around the country, the government decided, and have them do something nice and useful."
WPA [Work Projects Adminstation/Works Progress Administration] -- was he writing for me? Many of my readers know my passion for the records, abstracts, indexes, clippings, inventories, guides and other material created under the auspices of the WPA. The Historic Records Survey part created much that continues to assist family and town historians today. My lectures and articles on the WPA era are high on the list of requests.
I still believe that some sort of WPA system could help out-of-work Americans put food on the table for their family or pay the rent. Libraries and historical societies everywhere have less budget and staff to work with. Just think of all the tasks a WPA type worker could accomplish. Small town, county, and city websites would be wonderful projects also.
Anyone listening? Yes, the WPA and other parts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal system was not perfect but it did produce a lot of good.
James is a unique writer -- I can just see him standing in his backyard or sitting at the dinner table when a column idea and the associated humor and commentary pop into his mind. His idea made me remember trying to find info online about the small towns where two of my adult children and their families were living.
A research trip to a new place always gets me planning. Is there a restaurant, park, any shopping, parking, and what does the place look like? Whether it is an outlying town or the county seat, I love to "see" what it looks like before my visit. James' emphasis on the history of the towns is right up my alley. Many libraries in these places in Minnesota and elsewhere have local history rooms that could provide much of the historical detail for such a website. A county history might have some neat details on the early history of the town.
James wrote "That's where the Minnesota Hamlet Website Project would come in. Sending unemployed Web designers around the state would be the modern equivalent of those WPA Guides the government used to sop up all the loose writing talent sitting around in the '30s. If they were put to good use, the idea went, they wouldn't sit around hungry and angry, writing rabble-rousing plays about woebegone Bolshevists. Send them around the country, the government decided, and have them do something nice and useful."
WPA [Work Projects Adminstation/Works Progress Administration] -- was he writing for me? Many of my readers know my passion for the records, abstracts, indexes, clippings, inventories, guides and other material created under the auspices of the WPA. The Historic Records Survey part created much that continues to assist family and town historians today. My lectures and articles on the WPA era are high on the list of requests.
I still believe that some sort of WPA system could help out-of-work Americans put food on the table for their family or pay the rent. Libraries and historical societies everywhere have less budget and staff to work with. Just think of all the tasks a WPA type worker could accomplish. Small town, county, and city websites would be wonderful projects also.
Anyone listening? Yes, the WPA and other parts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal system was not perfect but it did produce a lot of good.
29 January 2009
Columbia University Alumni and the Military
I noted this on a list I read almost every day:
Archives & Special Collections at the Columbia University Health Sciences Library is pleased to announce the addition to its web site of the "College of Physicians & Surgeons Civil War Veterans List."
The list contains the names, ranks, military units, and dates of service of 406 Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons alumni who served in the Civil War (398 Union, 8 Confederate). It is an Excel document and I opened it easily. The website explains the resources from which the info was compiled.
The Archivist, Jennifer McGillan, also compiled a list of other Columbia alumni who died in the service of their country in various wars. This searchable list is titled the Columbia University War Memorial.
Archives & Special Collections at the Columbia University Health Sciences Library is pleased to announce the addition to its web site of the "College of Physicians & Surgeons Civil War Veterans List."
The list contains the names, ranks, military units, and dates of service of 406 Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons alumni who served in the Civil War (398 Union, 8 Confederate). It is an Excel document and I opened it easily. The website explains the resources from which the info was compiled.
The Archivist, Jennifer McGillan, also compiled a list of other Columbia alumni who died in the service of their country in various wars. This searchable list is titled the Columbia University War Memorial.
02 October 2008
Black Americans in Congress
The first African Americans to serve in Congress did so in 1870. An extensive website tells more about Black Americans in Congress. Based on a book, Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007, it tells the story of the painful and also successful road over time as these elected officials moved in and out of Congress. The site includes historical essays about black Congressional members, educational tools, historical data, member profiles, and digitized images of political ephemera and artifacts.
The member profiles give the name of each person, whether serving currently or a former member of Congress, Senator or Representative, state served from, and which political party. Clicking on each name leads to a long and interesting biographical essay about the person, citations to articles and books, and a citation to the papers of the member, if they exist.
The member profiles give the name of each person, whether serving currently or a former member of Congress, Senator or Representative, state served from, and which political party. Clicking on each name leads to a long and interesting biographical essay about the person, citations to articles and books, and a citation to the papers of the member, if they exist.
16 September 2007
Footnote.com
I have many things I love to do when researching both family history and history in general. One is going to an archive, library, or courthouse and working with the original records. Being there in person means I can get that special emotion from touching that original record. Being there onsite also means I can move on to other records when the first ones lead me in a new research direction. I also love to sit in my robe, looking out the windows at the deer, chipmunks, and squirrels while doing online research. To do a great job today, we really need to do both of these.
The Salt Lake Tribune recently carried an article on one of the newer entries into the world of online document images and indexing. Footnote.com and its history and aims was discussed. At the recent Federation of Genealogical Societies conference I won a year's subscription and am having fun with the site. On the Footnote main page scroll down a bit and on the left side you will see a link to "see all titles." Material is constantly being added.
The Salt Lake Tribune recently carried an article on one of the newer entries into the world of online document images and indexing. Footnote.com and its history and aims was discussed. At the recent Federation of Genealogical Societies conference I won a year's subscription and am having fun with the site. On the Footnote main page scroll down a bit and on the left side you will see a link to "see all titles." Material is constantly being added.
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