America
-
Familypedia
Oct 29
Just like having an encyclopedia on family ancestors, the online site of Familypedia, is a web site with 167,770 online articles about deceased individuals plus another 277,546 genealogy-related pages and growing! People are encouraged to create a new web page for any individual at any time. The best is that any user can also edit each existing ...
-
Madison Co., Ill – Immigration & Naturalization Documents, 1850-1959
Oct 27
This database is searchable by names of individuals, alias names, spouse or child names, specific years and type of documents for Madison County, Illinois. All together there are 122 volumes. This is an important collection because the full documents cover over the general St. Louis area, right at the Missouri/Illinois state line. The details in...
-
Land Records on Ancestry.com
Oct 25
There might be one of your ancestors that appears in the U.S. General Land Office Records, 1796–1907 database on Ancestry.com. One this fee-based site, there are about 2.2 million land patents (applications for land - homesteading). Most do cover the 19th century (1800s) when the majority of land paid with cash or homesteaded property was acquire...
-
Soldiers – Civil War Graves
Oct 21
The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW) now has created its National Grave Registration Database Project. It is a searchable database available online and is free for everyone to use. Individuals can also submit information on Civil War ancestors. They didn't need to die during the war, so long as a veteran of the Civil War - Union or C...
-
California Court Records
Oct 19
You may not have thought of checking about your ancestors using county court record, but it could prove to be a good resource. Court records can deal with criminal and civil cases and including probate court. A good deal could be learned on relatives and properties of an ancestor this way. A good place to start is the online site 'California Cou...
-
Family Home Movies Day
Oct 18
Oh yes - family home movies - whether they are 8 mm, Super 8, 16 mm film, or the old VHS tapes, they can be the most cherished family memories and can not be replaced. It can show a time, event and people that can not be repeated. Some family movies can even date to the early 1920s. However, those memories can be played, relived and shared with gen...
-
Pacific Coast Newspapers
Oct 17
An assortment of newspapers is still one of the best methods to uncover new information on ancestors. Just about everyone had their name in the local newspaper sometime in their life. Birth, marriage and death announcements are the most frequent, but also just everyday happenings. The purchase of property, a new business opened up, the illness...
-
The Sinister Side
Oct 15
Sometimes people are worried they may find a 'black sheep', 'a skeleton in the closet' or some other shocking or upsetting information about an ancestor. This is sometimes referred to as finding the 'dark side' or 'sinister side' of the family tree. A few of such shocking news can be that your ancestors owned slaves, killed a person, was married...
-
Oct. 18th – Find-A-Grave
Oct 11
Locating that ancestor's headstone can be quite rewarding, with information you might not have known before, along with nearby graves of other relatives. You can't always go directly to a family hometown to visit the cemeteries. The next best thing is to use the 'Find-A-Grave' site online. Here people have take the time to photograph headstones in...
-
Great Chicago Fire
Oct 8
If you had ancestors living in the city of Chicago, Illinois in 1871, they were surely affected by the events of Sunday, October 8 through the 10th in that year. That rather hot day for October, was when a fire started on the O'Leary property on DeKoven Street about 9 p.m. There have been many theories as to what started the fire including the O'Le...