Articles with American Records

• Posted on August 3, 2015July 24, 2015
• by Angela Breidenbach
• 1 Comment on Planning a Cemetery Trip

  by Tami K. Pelling, PLCGS. Staff, The National Institute for Genealogical Studies Just  as  many  of  our  ancestors  frequently  visited  cemeteries  on  Sunday  afternoon  to  enjoy  a picnic, tend to the care of a gravesite, or pay respect to their loved ones—we follow in their footsteps. A picnic in the cemetery as a child with my great aunt, Lucille, is a memory that I will always treasure.  Another  childhood  memory  that  I  hold  just  as  dear  is  traveling  from cemetery to cemetery with my mother and Lucille to place flowers on  graves of family members—every holiday, birthday, and anniversary—of course, during the warmer months. So now that it’s summer, you might be ready to plan your own cemetery trips. But first, a bit of caution. Safety first!  It doesn’t matter whether you are visiting a big city cemetery or a pioneer cemetery surrounded  by  cornfields and  woods. Safety cannot be emphasized enough–take someone with you and bring a fully charged cell phone! In planning a cemetery trip, the first item on the agenda is to learn the location of the cemetery or cemeteries you wish to visit and determine if they are located on private property, governed by a trustee, association, organization, or corporation. If you are unfamiliar with the area, you may wish  to  contact  one  of  the  local  funeral  homes,  genealogical  or  historical  society,  library,  or government office to determine ownership. At the same time, inquire whether the cemetery has an office along with contact information. It…

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• Posted on July 30, 2015July 24, 2015
• by Angela Breidenbach
• Leave a comment on Course Tip: Chronicling America

Earlier, we spotlighted the US: Newspaper Records  course as part of the My Favorite Course blog series. Are newspapers your favorite genealogy source? Here’s a tip from the course. The website Chronicling  America  is  a  repository of  select digitized  newspapers covering the years 1836-1922. But Chronicling America offers more than digitized newspapers. Chronicling  America is  an  online  resource  that  can  be  used  to  identify newspapers  in  a  particular  area  and  time  period. Each  listing  provides details  about  the  newspaper,  such  as  dates  of  publication,  frequency,  and  language,  as  well  as  what  repositories  hold  either original  or  microform versions  of  the  newspaper. Chronicling  America is  based  on  records  created  during  the  US  Newspaper Program that ran from 1982 to 2009. To  use  this  resource,  visit Chronicling  America and  click  on  the  button that  says  “US  Newspaper  Directory,  1690-Present.”  You  can  browse  by newspaper title using the letters at the top (e.g., clicking on the letter “C” will  list  all  the  newspapers  that  begin  with  the  letter  “c”).  Alternatively,  you  can search for newspapers in  a particular state, county, or  city, using the corresponding drop-down menus, and further limit the time period by selecting a year range. There are other search options such as keyword and language. You can also search by ethnicity or occupation to find specialty newspapers.  When you find a newspaper of interest, you can view the record for more details,   such   as   frequency   of   publication,   dates   of publication,   and  alternate titles. To see a list of repositories that have the…

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• Posted on July 28, 2015July 24, 2015
• by Angela Breidenbach
• Leave a comment on My Favorite Course: US Newspaper Records

By Emma Whaley Compton, PLCGS While studying for the American Records Certificate with the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, one of my favorite courses included in the program was US: Newspaper Records. If I had to choose a favorite record group for research, it would be newspapers, so it’s perhaps no surprise that I greatly enjoyed this course! When you think about newspaper research, the most obvious thing that comes to mind is obituaries, which are a wonderful source of genealogical information, particularly if vital records are hard to get or may not even exist for that time period but newspapers offer much more to the researcher than just obituaries. You can frequently find birth, engagement, marriage and anniversary announcements and sometimes court cases, divorces, bankruptcies and real estate transactions will also be included.Then there are the regular newspaper stories or perhaps even photographs that may feature ancestors. Small town newspapers have society pages that give great detail about their inhabitant’s lives, such as who was in the hospital, had visitors from out of town, or may have been out of town visiting relatives, hosting a party or taking part in various club activities. Our ancestors didn’t have Facebook or smart phones, so they got all of their news (or gossip!) through the newspapers and we’re fortunate that many of these day to day records have been preserved and are even becoming accessible over the Internet due to digitization projects. So newspapers can perhaps help us find out information about our…

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• Posted on March 24, 2015March 24, 2015
• by Shannon Bennett
• Leave a comment on Finishing Up US Land Records

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student Believe it or not I was surprised by what I learned in the US Land Records course.  Yes, I knew it was a record set that I was not extremely familiar with, but the amount I didn’t know was surprising to me.  It seems just looking at maps and going to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) website is not enough to learn this information! Through my posts I just touched on the information taught in  the course.  It was really just the tip of the iceberg.  The ideas for further research on my own family using these land records are swirling around my head.  Now, I just need to find the time. I am very curious to see if I can find homesteaders anywhere in my family tree simply for the potentially large genealogical payout.  Yes, I am still hoping, with fingers and toes crossed, for those mysterious origins for some of my family members.  You know, the ones who just seemed to spring off the page fully formed with no origin.

• Posted on March 17, 2015September 28, 2019
• by Shannon Bennett
• 1 Comment on Maps and Deeds: The Perfect Combination

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student I like maps.  No, I love maps.  It really is a bit of an odd thing, but through my research I discovered that maps can tell you a lot.  Then when you combine one with a record like a deed the results are beyond amazing.  Module 5 of the US Land Records course covers deeds and maps, and just how important alternative sources are to your research. Deeds are found in a wide range of places.  Estate records, mortgages, sales and leases are a few place you might find a deed.  But what is it?  Well primarily (because there are near a dozen different types of deeds) it is a document that shows who owns a piece of property.  This can be done through a bill of sale which records the transfer of ownership of property to a person.  Or a quitclaim where someone relinquishes their property to another but doesn’t guarantee that someone else doesn’t own a portion of it.  Or perhaps you could find a warranty deed which assures the purchaser that they are the sole owners. Okay, so deeds are cool right?  Bet you are now asking what they have to do with maps.  Well, deeds contain information on the land.  Its description, size, anything unique about it, even geological information.  Put the two together and you now have a whole new perspective on your family.