English Genealogy

Today I'm flying from the USA to England. I'm hoping to visit some local libraries and cemeteries. My focus will be on English research for a few weeks. If you have an ancestor in England but didn't know where to start, here are some ideas:

Obviously, you wouldn't want to forget about Ancestry and FamilySearch which both have extensive links to English records.

BBC - Family History: This is a free educational website to help navigate you in the right direction as you begin your search in England. 


FindMyPast: is a pay website that focuses on England & Wales online genealogy and digital images. This site fills in many gaps of information that Ancestry does not provide.


The UK National Archives: is a huge repository that is growing daily. A few documents, such as wills, are available for download but mostly, it will provide information on available documents and where you can find them.

British Origins: a Pay per View website, this is particularly useful for its  National Wills Index. It boasts 80 million records.


London Criminal Court: the Old Bailey is a free online site that may provide you some little or dramatic details about your ancestor if he or she lived in London between 1674 and 1913. I have found several ancestors here simply mentioned as a character witness or witness to a crime.

African American & Slaving Genealogy Links

From the New York Public Library's Digital Library

African American genealogy is really growing in interest as people begin to realize much can be discovered from an African-American ancestral heritage. Slavery was a ruthless termination of identity. Yet from that historic struggle, there are stories of people who resisted, survived and created extraordinary lives.

For those who descend from slave holders, there is quite a lot of information in the links below to support the connection between the slave and the holder. It may be difficult for some of us to face, but learning about the African Americans in your ancestors' lives is quite a relevant and important part of the slave holder's story too.

Here are a few good links to support African American searches:

Afrigeneas - This site is devoted entirely to African-American genealogy. Socializing online is a critical component of good research and this site includes a research community with message boards and mail lists.

Slave Trade Database - This is a database of nearly 35,000 slaving voyages that embarked more than 10,000,000 Africans for transport.  This site includes information about the enslaved people, but also about the traders, owners and trading routes.

Digital Library on American Slavery - From the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, this is a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders and free people of color, drawn from governmental records filed between 1775 and 1867 in the 15 slave holding states in the US and Washington DC.

Louisiana & Creole Database - This is a database of nearly 100,000 people of color from Louisiana between 1699-1820

Afriquest - This site is devoted solely to African-American genealogy. It is a free online database of information and is a place for individuals to share the information they have. 

Google Search Strategies for Genealogy #4

1. The tilde or swung dash: will return results for the word immediately following this symbol or words related to it. So, [John Jones] brings so many hits of living people named John Jones, that I can't wade through them effectively. But, [John Jones ~genealogy] will bring hits of John Jones that are on pages related to genealogy. You could also try combinations like [John Jones ~Alabama] for John Jones on pages related to Alabama or [John Jones ~history].




2. Related tool: Let's say you found the Sturgis Library in the village of Barnstable on Cape Cod. You loved this library and you wanted to know what other small local libraries can be found on Cape Cod. You would look for similar websites to the Sturgis Library like this [Related:www.sturgislibrary.org]







3. Use Your Tool Belt: Your tool belt is to the left of Google's results. If you click on the word More, you can see all the options. Let's say I was looking for information on a Burned Records county, [New Kent county, Virginia genealogy]. I could use my toolbar and a single click would pull results on Books, or Blogs, for example.

Another way to use the tool belt is to use the Date Tools. Say you are looking for an obituary and you have narrowed the death date to about 1961. You could type in the person's name [John Jones obituary] and narrow the date to 1960-1962.

Watch Your Dates in Family History Research

In my early days of genealogy research, I would transcribe the first date I saw on a document. Only later did I realize that I had to look carefully, and thoughtfully read the document. A date of marriage banns is quite different from a date of the marriage ceremony. A date of a will recording is quite different from the date it was written, or the date it was executed. Pay attention to the dates on your documents and transcribe them onto your tree or into your records accurately.

Note the record to the left was recorded on the 30th of June 1931. However, the license was issued on the 27th of June, the same day this particular couple were wed.

Genealogy Research in Burned Counties

photo from Colorado GenWeb

I've heard, as you probably have, No records exist there, they were all burned in a Courthouse fire. I recently came upon this again as I was researching early records in New Kent County, Virginia.

Most burned counties can be categorized as Hopeless, Almost Hopeless and Difficult. New Kent is categorized as Hopeless, after several early random fires, and then, the burning of the government buildings in several wars -- including the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. As New Kent had been categorized as hopeless, I figured it really meant, well, hopeless. I was shocked to find as much information as I did. The key is not to focus on what's not there, but try to figure out what is available.

When you hit a burned county, just know that you must really learn the history, connect to sources you may not be used to working with and work a little harder.

1.  Look for information on your surname in adjacent counties.
2.  Go to FamilySearch and check all the existing films available for the county you're searching and review the state-wide information that's available.
3.  Look for records and indexes that may have been recorded and published. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.
4.  Check the local state library or archive to see if there are unusual state collections available. Virginia, for example, has nearly 150 years worth of patents.
5. Be sure to check GenWeb to see if there is a strong page of information for your county.
6. Join the local genealogical society or at least check it out. The society is likely to know what kind of information is available.
7. Finally, it's worth checking the Chronicling America website or other early newspaper pay-databases to check for random newspaper information.

Genealogy Links for Florida

Florida Land Survey map - 1853

One of the more interesting contradictions in State growth lies with Florida. Once Florida was considered to be a hellish place to settle with mosquitoes, disease, alligators, swamps, hurricanes, extreme heat in the summers, and land that was hard to cultivate. Florida now proudly hails as the fourth most populated state in the U.S.

Its European history begins with the Spanish in the early 1500s. Not until the end of the Seven Years War in 1763 did Spain exchange Florida to England for the city of Havana, Cuba. Florida acquired its statehood in 1845, after the removal of nearly 3,800 Native Americans, free African-Americans and runaway salves to Indian Territory (what we now know as Oklahoma). Researchers should be aware that Florida county boundaries have changed frequently since 1821, so stay on guard.

Bookmark these Genealogy Links for Florida:

Florida Census Information:  In addition to the U.S. Censuses, Florida has several State Census records. A real bonus is the 1885 census which helps cover the 20 year gap of Federal Censuses 1880-1900.
Florida County Lines - Historical Interactive Map:  One of my favorite genealogy tools ever. Type in the date and learn where the county boundaries are to make sure you're looking in the right place.
African-American Research in Florida: For many free African-Americans and runaway slaves, Florida was a safer place to live than many in the South. This is an excellent spot to find links specific to African-American research in the state of Florida.
Official Records: MyFloridaCounty is a government site that allows you to search official records the State Government may hold and order copies if you like.
Florida GenWeb: As always, checking GenWeb for more localized sources and county information is an important research step.

Five Genealogy Blogs to Consider

There is never enough time in the day but I'm starting to build a collection of genealogy blogs in GoogleReader. The idea is that while I'm waking up with my cuppa, I can spend ten minutes catching up on the latest genealogy writings.

The National Archives has a brand new blog that started yesterday. Such a powerhouse of records will surely be worth the daily check.

http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

Although I find it more newsy than a good learning experience, the Ancestry blog is also a must for my list.

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak (yes, I understand she married someone with the same last name) is a genealogy queen. Speaks, tweets, authors books and is a background guru for the series Who Do You Think You Are?  She blogs at the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/megan-smolenyak-smolenyak

Footnote Maven is a personal blog I like to follow. She's well-connected in the genealogy community, is active online and has interesting, sometimes funny, intelligent postings.

http://www.footnotemaven.com/

The Genealogist Daily is a great tool to keep up with what's happening. It's a genealogy newspaper built from articles and blog posts across the web. Not technically a blog, but worth a daily check.

http://paper.li/tag/genealogy

Finding Women in Genealogy: Maiden Name or Married Name?

One of my most common brick walls, and yours too I would guess, is clearly identifying the women on my tree. It has happened in a couple of places on my tree that a woman has married or remarried and then her new spouse died within the first couple of years of married life. The woman seems to discount that marriage by reverting to her maiden name or formerly married name. There are many good reasons for a woman to do so:

1. If she is close to her children, she may find it easier and more comfortable to maintain the surname they carry. 
2. It may have been a marriage of necessity or one that was uncomfortable, even one that ended in divorce. In this case, there may not be a strong emotional attachment to the surname of the short-lived husband.
3. Or, her social network may be more closely aligned with her former family - her sister-in-laws, for example, and so the former married name just fits better.

Genealogy Links for Immigration

 

Ellis Island Arrivals 1902

So you traced your American family history to an immigrant. How do you begin to make the bridge to the mother country? Well, it's not always straight forward, but first you need to gather details about the crossing. Here are some great free sites to get you started:

Ellis Island - is synonymous with American immigration. Between 1892 & 1954, 12 million immigrants were processed here. Free search by name for anyone who may have come through Ellis Island.

Castle Garden - was the home of New York's immigration before Ellis Island. Search 11 million records of immigration between 1820-1892.

Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild - if you can't find your ancestors at the Ellis Island or Castle Garden site, the next go-to spot is this volunteer database of 12,000+ transcriptions. If you've just been taking records off the Internet, this is a great place to give back. They are always looking for volunteer help.

The Ships List - this site drives me a little crazy with its layout but if you can get past that, there is a wealth of information on ships lists not found elsewhere. Persevere.

National Archives - if you pay U.S. federal taxes, then technically, this isn't free. But, make the best of it, as this is an amazing government-sponsored resource available to you and the rest of the world. Our U.S. collection of national treasures includes specialized immigration records such as Russian, Chinese, Famine, or Italian immigration. There are lots of links here for you to review.

Happy digging!

Colonial Forms of Money before 1755

Old Tenor issued by New York

Today I was transcribing a couple of old probate records from the 1700s in New England. I got stuck several times and had to learn some things about Money in our historic New England. I thought I'd share money before 1750.

Really early on, England didn't want to send their coins overseas. They figured the silver should be coming the other way. That created frustration and a need for trading without the use of scarce and inflated English money. So people bartered goods. In Virginia, for example, you might buy land for 200 lbs. of tobacco.

Like England, money was in pounds, shillings and pence so you'll see money written as   £300:24:06  [300 pounds, 24 shillings and 06 pence]. If investments were made in English money, it was referred to as Sterling.

However, New England wanted to print their own local money independently from England. In 1709, this first money was similar to English money but it was worth less and this was referred to Old Tenor issues.

In 1742, after Old Tenor had depreciated badly, a new issue began and was referred to as New Tenor, sometimes seen in accounts as New Money, worth 4x the amount of the Old Tenor.

In 1755, this was all getting way too confusing. Accounts separated out the three different forms of money so, in an attempt to have just one money value, there was another issue called Lawful Money.  At that time,  £1 Lawful Money = £1 English Sterling, £1 Lawful Money = 3.5 New Tenor or 13.5 Old Tenor issues.

Caveat: I've made this sound easy but in fact it got even more complicated. The different states started creating their own forms of money, the Spanish dollar started being traded and there was Colonial Money that came in. So, there is much more to learn after 1750!