United States

  • Wills on Ancestry

    Sep 4

      Available on Ancestry.comĀ is the massive collection of Wills across the nation now made digital. It is a scanned digital copy of the actual (mostly handwritten) Wills of original people. These documents cover well over 100 million people, including the deceased (names, dates) as well as their family, friends and others involved in the prob...

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  • Ancestors – Most Were Farmers

    Aug 5

      When looking about ancestors 2 to 3 generations back (pre-1930s) and further, more than likely they would have been farmers, somewhere in the country. There are many journals and newspapers produced over the decades for farmers and ranchers. On the site titled 'The Ancestor Hunter' is a section about the many farmer related newspapers that...

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  • Map of Places Visited – Lived

    Jul 3

    Want to add an interesting map to your family documents or do something a bit different at the next family reunion- well try mapping all the states and / or countries you have either lived in or visited. There are a couple different ways you can do this very simple online map titledĀ Maploco. Have a map of just places a specific branch of the f...

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  • Free Indexes on Ancestry.com

    Jun 29

    The Ancestry.com site (a subscription fee source) is a super collection of databases and records which can really benefit all family history researchers. However, many of their online databases through Ancestry.com are FREE and available for anyone to use even if you have no paid subscription. The list (scroll down) of available databases is tr...

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  • United States Newspapers

    Jun 3

    The United States Listing of free or fee based available online newspapers are listed by states. Select one of the states your ancestors may have lived in at any time frame and see what is available. You will see cities and / or county names, so know both. The dates of newspaper coverage for that location is to the right. Keep in mind many counti...

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  • Federation of Genealogical Societies

    May 27

      Often overlooked by family history researchers are the hundreds of genealogical societies across the United States. They are members of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, who work together to provide the best information and resources for researchers. They also work on many preservation programs such as saving and making digital the ...

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  • Digital Public Library of America

    May 11

      This online site, Digital Public Library of America, has a massive collection of many photos, letters, documents, maps, records, etc from across the United States - all in digital format. Using the broad search page you see many topics / subjects in which to search. You can also use the search box in the upper right side to look for a spec...

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  • 1938 Lady-like Behavior

    Apr 27

    Take a step back to see how and what was expected as far a social behavior of our parents or grandparents -- you might be quite amazed and amused. On the 'Mashable' site are scanned pages from a 'guide' to the proper behavior of young ladies in 1938. It was done in photos (acted out scenes) and what a proper young lady should and should not behave...

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  • 1950 Census

    Apr 21

    The last census release to the public was of the US Federal 1940 Census in April 2012. Now everyone waits ten years before the next decade census - 1950 is released on April 1, 2022. By law, for privacy reasons, census records are not released to the public until 72 years after that census was taken. However, for your own personal family research ...

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  • Donating Family Archives

    Feb 11

      Yes, you may have tons of family photos, documents, letters, journals, etc saved by the family over the decades. The family keeper of such items tends to be one or two individuals each generation and you might be that person. By all means hold onto family heirlooms and treasures, even if not worth a great deal in cold hard cash -- to your f...

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