Arizona Vital Records

Rede was asked how he found death certificated for just one town in Arizona. In this video I show you how to use "FamilySearch" https://www.familysearch.org/ , and "Arizona Genealogy Birth and Death Certificate" http://genealogy.az.gov/ websites to research one town. Even though he only used Arizona in video it might help you search other places.

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Rede has licensed this work under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Plotting Land With Google Earth

For me land records are fun & useful when researching your ancestors.

In this video Rede shows you how to use Google Earth, Earth Point, and FS Capture to find and plot land with Google Earth.

Links used in this video:

• Google Earth http://earth.google.com/
• Earth Point http://www.earthpoint.us/Townships.aspx
• Portable FS Capture http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=775

Reference links:

• Federal Land Patents http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/
• (Video) Searching Land Patents Part 1 http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/506725/
• (Video) Searching Land Patents Part 3 http://genealogyscrounge.blip.tv/file/506740/

Finding Hard To Find Locations

Bouse Genies Meeting Schedule

The Bouse genealogy club is in full swing. We are welcoming back our winter visitors as well as all others that are interested in learning about or continuing in the pursuit of your ancestors. Our meetings are open to all who wish to attend. We have modified our regular meeting schedule to meet the needs of those who work. We meet in the Bouse Community Building which is right next to the Bouse Public Library on Plomosa Road, Bouse, AZ.

Our program schedule for December and January is:

• December 5, 2008 - 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon - Program - a Training CD on "Beginning Legacy Family Tree" software.
• December 19, 2008 - 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Program - "Beginning Genealogy Research" by Carolyn H. Brown
• January 2, 2009 - 10:00 AM - 12:00 noon - Program - a Training CD on "Using AniMap" software
• January 16, 2009 - 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Program - "Using the Federal Census" by Carolyn H. Brown
• January 30, 2009 - 10:00 AM - 12:00 noon - Open meeting for discussion

Portability Of AniMap

Playing around with AniMap http://www.goldbug.com/AniMap.html I have discovered I can run it off my USB stick. Now I don’t have to be limited to just my computer, I can run it when I’m away from home.

I have not upgraded to their newest version 2.6, I am still running 2.51. But the only thing I have to do is copy the AniMap folder onto the root directory of my USB stick & make sure the assigned drive for the stick is between C-F. I have only had problems on 1 computer, but I’m sure the problem was the hard drive had been partitioned. So between the partitions & 2 CD drives, that put my stick higher than F.

More on AniMap:
http://quartzsitegen.blogspot.com/2006/05/county-boundaries.html

Census Maps

I have run into times when researching someone’s birth I find out the state didn’t excite on that date. It turns out it was a territory or owned by Spain, Britain or Mexico. These maps would have really saved me some time http://www.us-census.org/states/map.htm

Arizona Obituary Index

Mesa Regional Family History Center has a very nice obituary index on their website http://www.mesarfhc.org/. On this index you get names, age at death, newspaper, section, page, and date. Most of the hits I got were in the 1990s & 2000s, some are in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the oldest I found was the Arizona Miner 1864.

There was no list of what papers they have or time period, but here is what I was able to find:
Apache County Reporter
Arizona Daily Star
Arizona Daily Sun
Arizona Miner
Arizona Republic
Au-Authm Action News
Casa Grande Dispatch
Cottonwood Journal Extra
Daily Courier
Daily News-Sun
East Valley Tribune
Eastern Arizona Courier
Gazette
Mesa Tribune
Navajo County Pioneer
Navajo Times
Payson Roundup
Phoenix Gazette
Prescott Daily Courier
Prospector
Republican
Scottsdale Tribune
The Spectrum
The Sun (Yuma)
Tucson Citizen
Verde Valley News
White Mtn Independent
Yuma Daily Sun

County Boundaries

If you need to find a county boundary for a state & can’t justify spending the money for a book or a program, HeritageQuest has made it easier. They have put maps online from “Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses”, 1790-1920, By Wiliam Thorndale and William Dollarhide.

On HeritageQuest, click browse in the census area. Pick a year & a state, and then click “View State Map”. You will be able to view that year’s county boundaries (black lines) & currant boundaries (white lines). Just plot the current location & compare it to the one for that year.

To find out if HeritageQuest is offered from your local library website or one in your state please visit http://www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline .

The Utah Geographic Place Names

I discovered this site looking for a place in Utah. It had a locations on it none of my other programs had http://history.utah.gov/FindAids/B01018/b1018.html .

The Utah Geographic Place Names Committee Records, ca. 1970s A Register of the Collection at the Utah State Historical Society

County Boundaries

I’ve hit a brick wall on my line. A very common error people make when doing genealogy is putting in the current county but that county didn’t exists on that date or that location was in a different county. Another thing you may want to think about, “My records shows my ancestors have moved 3 times”. It could actually be, they didn’t move, but the county boundaries changed 3 times. I will put the original county in the location field, but put the current county in the notes so if someone wants to travel there they will need to where to look, ie “Williamsville, Niagara, New York is now Williamsville, Erie Co., New York.”

AniMap http://www.goldbug.com/ is a wonderful program for plotting locations in a certain time period, but it can be a little pricy. So you need to figure out which is more valuable, time or money. My genealogy program is a little finicky about entering a county that didn’t exist on a certain date so it was worth the money to me.

Alternatives I use. http://www.mapquest.com/ will give you the current county on the map, and then you can go to http://www.usgenweb.org/ & go into the county section. USGenWeb will usually give you a date when the county was formed & what was the parent county. It can be a little confusing when it was formed from more than 1 county, message boards might be able to help or just study the map & see which is the closest parent county.

Gold Bug has just offered their location search from their program for free online www.goldbug.com/map/sitefinder.html . It doesn’t give you the county on a certain date, but if you have the town & state, but no county, it can help there. Plus you can chose between “List results in table” or “Plot on Google Maps” (hope you have broadband if you use Google Maps it can be VERY slow on dialup). There is one problem on “List results in table”, no spaces between words, maybe they can fix it soon. It will make finding places easy, plus it gives you longitude & latitude.

Using The BLM Land Patent Search

One great way to find out about our ancestors is land purchases & sales. I have had some very wonderful surprises pop up.

The BLM has a wonderful website that allows you to search & sometimes view original land patents www.glorecords.blm.gov/ . One drawback it is kind of hard to figure out where the lived with the land description unless you know how to read a topo map. This page will help you figure out how to read the land descriptions http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/Visitors/PLSS.asp .

My biggest complaint now would be “I don’t want to go out & buy a bunch of maps”, well http://www.esg.montana.edu/gl/trs-data.html will help with converting township & range into longitude & latitude, and link you over to terrasever so you can view a topo map & aerial photo of the land. The tough part is figuring out what meridian the land is in. The states this does cover is the 17 western state (AR, AZ, CA, CO, ID, KS, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, UT, WA and WY). I had one problem with an oil & gas lease, but it could have been me, a mistake on the document or the program, but it did get me in the ballpark.

Feel free to comment if you have any questions & I will expand on what I have here.

Dennis

Free Maps On The Library Of Congress Website

I thought you might find this interesting, old maps on the Library of Congress website http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/ListSome.php?format=Map

I'm not sure if this is the main page or not http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html , probably best to try both links.

Looks like they are using the new JPG format, JPG2000. More info here http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/help/compression.html .

Dennis

A fun little fact about some towns in La Paz Co. in 1905

ArizonaBusiness Directory
INCLUDING
El Paso, Texas, with Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver, Classification
...INCLUDING...
Live Stock DepartmentWool Growers' DepartmentClassified Department
1905=1906

DENVER, COLORADOTHE GAZETTEER PUBLISHING COJames R. Ives, MANAGER.1905.


Page 143
CIBOLA.
Postoffice in Yuma county, 85 miles north of Yuma. Farming and stockraising the industries. Population 33.

BISHOP L W, justice peace, notary public and postmastr
Frankenberg Leo, constable.
Hart Mrs Thresa, mines.
Swain R M, bees.

Page 181
EHRENBERG.
Postoffice and mining district in Yuma county, on the Colorado river, 40 miles north of Yuma. Population 25.

Arizona Prince Mining Co, Tom Pearson agent.
Colonial Mining Co. Gleason Z S, saloon.
Hagely Anton, stage. Pearson Tom, mines.
WILSON S M, general merchandise, notary public, saloon, hotel, meat market, postmaster.
Wilson & Pearson, mines.

Page 250
HARRISBURG.
Postoffice in Yuma county, 45 miles southwest of Wickenburg. Mining the principal industry. Population 100.

Enos & McDonald, mining.
Harqua Hala M Co, John B Martin pres.
MARTIN JOHN B, general merchandise.
Quinn B J, justice peace.
Socorro Mining Co, F C Smith supt.
Victor & Belle Crown Mining Co, W C Patterson pres.

Page 302
PALOMAS.
Postoffice and farming settlement in Yuma county, 65 miles northeast of Yuma. Population 20.

Bloomer O B, justice peace.
Hanley H H, constable.
Notbusch J F, general merchandise, postmaster, prop Palomas Canal.
Palomas Canal, J F Notbusch prop.

Page 303
PARKER.
Postoffice in Yuma county, 75 miles south of Mellen, on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Indian agency. Population 29.

Atkinson Enos B, supt Indian school.
CODDINGTON FRANK, postmaster.


Page 332
PLANET.
Postoffice in Yuma county. Bill Williams Fork mining district. Population 40.

Anderson A W, notary public.
Keohan & Miller, general merchandise.
Planet Copper Miring Co, H L McCarn supt.
WHITNEY & PLATT, general merchandise.

Page 350
QUARTZSITE.
Postoffice and mining town in Yuma county, 90 miles southwest of Martinez. Population about 300.

Amalgamated Gold Mines Co.
Belle of Arizona Mining Co, Richard Darling pres.
Bumgardner J W, justice peace.
Cox Jim, saloon.
Dopple Hans, saloon.
Engel Charles, saloon.
Genung Chas, saloon.
Gleason Mrs J, saloon.
INGERSOLL G U, postmaster.
Morris J E, saloon, hay and grain and corral.
Scott W E, general merchandise.
Smith S P, saloon.
Valensuella Copper Co.
Will Smelting Co, general merchandise and hotel.
Wilson A V, general merchandise.

Page 363
SALOME.
Postoffice in Yuma county and station on the Arizona California R. R., 55 miles west of Wickenburg. Lead­ing industry mining.

Grand Valley Development Co.
HALL D W, real estate and mining.

Page 415
WENDEN.(No postoffice.)

Station on Arizona & California railroad, 50 miles west of Wickenburg.
Hanna & Young, general merchandise and mining, P O Harrisburg.