Friday, June 23, 2006

Colorado Historical Societies

Colorado Historical Societies has some very interesting links on this page
http://www.history.state.co.us/chs_Library/research_collections.htm .

I really enjoyed the Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection http://www.cdpheritage.org/ . You are given an option for dialup or broadband speed, kind of slow at dialup but worth it. You can search by County map, browse or search by newspaper & date. If you use the map it will tell you what papers are available in that county, then you have “Browse All” lets you chose a specific newspaper & date, and finally “Search All” you can use a keywords & you can limits your search to dates & newspapers.

http://photoswest.org has a collection of old photos, might be worth taking a look at. A lot of photos maybe you will find a little gem.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Google Alerts

How would you like Google to tell you about new websites that have topics that you are interested in? I had signed up for Google alerts http://www.google.com/alerts . I entered quartzsite genealogy & got a bunch of hits that nothing to do with what I was looking for. But when I change my search to something that would limit my hits, +quartzsite +genealogy, I was surprised what I got, someone had linked my Blog. Just think, what if you are looking for John Doe in Elk City, Oklahoma, you could enter +Doe +“Elk City” +Oklahoma. Now when Google finds a site that mentions Doe, Elk City & Oklahoma they will email you a link to the site. See http://quartzsitegen.blogspot.com/2006/03/using-search-engines-to-look-for.html for tips on limiting search engine results.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Alaska's Digital Archives

Alaska has a nice easy to use digital archive http://vilda.alaska.edu/ . I cheated & used a name that would pop up, I was quite surprised to see some new pictures & documents I have never seen before. One nice thing is the documents can be viewed as actual images or html text. I was able use the "CTRL F" hot key in the html text to find the name I wanted, then go to the images & pages I wanted.

Alabama Department of Archives & History

Alabama has some very interesting info. In the "For Genealogists & Historians" area. I really enjoyed the "Databases of newspapers, maps, photos" http://www.archives.state.al.us/dataindex.html it has Civil War Service Database, 1867 Voter Registration Database, World War I Gold Star Database & Photo Database. The 1867 Voter Registration Database & the World War I Gold Star Database has actual images available. The Photo Database only has thumbnails, but you can order prints or the images on CDs.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Quartzsite Genealogy Interest Group Class

The Quartzsite Genealogy Interest Group “QGIG” is having their 1st class on June 15 on digitizing photos & documents. See http://quartzsitegen.blogspot.com/2006/03/digitizing-your-old-photo-documents-on_20.html for what we will be covering.

Hopefully we can come to a decision when we can meet once a month probably at the Quartzsite Library. I talked to the Librarian and they are talking wireless broadband in the meeting room so that would be a great place to meet but it is open only till 7:00 PM on weekdays, if evenings work better for others maybe we can find another place to meet. Everyone welcome no matter his or her knowledge or software.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Censuses

People miss the big picture on the censuses when all they look at are ages & birthplaces. Prior to 1850 basically you only get the name of the head of household & ages and number of people in the household (there is more even to them).

This isn’t everything in the censuses, but some of the little jewels:
  • 1850: value of estate, occupation, if they can read or write, married within year, school within year, cannot read or write, remarks (whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict).
  • 1860: value of estate, value personal property, occupation, if they can read or write, married within year, school within year, cannot read or write, remarks (whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict).
  • 1870: occupation, birthplace, value real estate, value personal property, father foreign born, mother foreign born, month born in census year, month married in census year, school in census year, can't read or write, remarks (deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic), eligible to vote.
  • 1880: month of birth in census year, married in census year, single, married, widowed, divorced, occupation, health (deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, other), can't read or write.
  • 1900: starts some very interesting entries; month & years of birth, number of years married, how many children did the mother have & how many living, how many years married, immigration year, years in the US & naturalization, and if the owned a house or farm & if it was mortgaged.
  • 1910: watch for an m2 it means they are in their 2nd marriage, number of years married is sometimes the number of years of the 1st marriage, how many children did the mother have & how many living, occupation & type of work, and if the owned a house or farm & if it was mortgaged.
  • 1920: home owned or rented, if owned or mortgaged, immigration year, naturalized or alien, year of naturalization, occupation & type of work.
  • 1930: home owned or rented, value of home, age at 1st marriage (don’t mix it up number of years married), immigration year, naturalized, if they can speak english, occupation & type of work, if veteran & what war or expedition.
HeritageQuest Online has a good book to help explain in more detail about censuses. "The Census Book" by William Dollarhide, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to read it http://www.heritagequestonline.com/prod/genealogy/html/help/census_book.html