Genealogy Tech Talk
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Basic Research Strategy
START WITH YOURSELF & MOVE BACKWARDS.
• Get Organized (fill out a pedigree chart)
• Talk to Ancestors
• Research in the U.S. Census
• Research in Vital Records
Basic Research Strategy
Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com
The Home Edition of Ancestry.com
also has user-contributed data such
as family trees.
HeritageQuest
WorldCat
Exercise 1
What can we learn by reading a census page?
Census Basics
Each decade, enumerators
have used different modes of
travel to take them from
interview to interview.
(Source: U.S. Census
Bureau, Public Information
Office.)
A word of caution…
Census research is not always straightforward
1.The census misrecords a name, or there is name variation.
2.The census indexer misreads a name
3.The family story is wrong
Examples:
Mason Edgar McCarty (actual name) -> Nathan E. McCarty (census misrecords) -> Wattan E.
McCarty (indexer misreads)
A word of caution cont’d…
Vincenzia Carbone immigrated in 1915 from Corleone, Sicily --> after living
in the U.S. she changed her name to the English version: Virginia Carbone
A word of caution cont’d…
Great-Grandfather Jake McCarty -> is actually Great-Great-Grandfather Jacob
McCarty
Vital Records
Birth, marriage and death records.
Free internet sites to look for Vital Records include:
USGen Web: http://usgenweb.org/
Cindy’s List: http://www.cyndislist.com/usvital.htm
Death Indexes & Records: http://www.deathindexes.com/
Centers for Disease Control: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/w2w.htm
Genealogy Roots Blog: http://genrootsblog.blogspot.com
Family History Library Catalog:
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp
Exercise 2
How can we request a copy of an original Social Security application using
Ancestry.com?
Social Security Record
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Full name
Full name at birth (including maiden name)
Present mailing address
Age at last birthday
Date of birth
Place of birth (city, county, state)
Father’s full name “regardless of whether living or dead”
Mother’s full name, including maiden name, “regardless of whether living or
dead”
Sex and race
Ever applied for SS number/Railroad Retirement before? Yes/No
Current employer’s name and address
Date signed
Applicant’s signature
Newspapers and Obituaries
Newspapers and Obituaries
Local Public Libraries (small community newspapers on microfilm)
Statewide Repositories (Sutro Library - Branch of the California State Library with a
large genealogy and family history resource collection.)
Major Commercial Digitization Projects – ProQuest has digitized The New York
Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Constitution, etc.
ProQuest has a product called ProQuest Obituaries that extracts just the obituary
from these papers.
Genealogy Bank - Newsbank offers access to the San Jose Mercury News.
Ancestry’s home subscription also offers a number of digitized newspapers.
Free Digitized Newspapers - The Library of Congress has started a major
newspaper digitization project called Chronicling America.
City Directories
City Directories are the predecessor to today’s phone books. The bulk of them were
published in the period 1860-1930. They listed city residents (Name, Home
address, Job title, Place of employment) and city institutions. City directories are
great tools for genealogists for two reasons:
•
They track individuals in the years between censuses.
•
They provide an annual snapshot of a city: its churches, schools, street
addresses and other basic information that researches find useful.
There are a number of places that tend to hold city directories in print format e.g.
your local public library. Digitized city directories are available from a number of
websites. Ancestry offers some digitized directories. USGenWeb might also
have some. Increasingly, book digitization projects such as Google Books at
http://books.google.com/ and the Open Content Alliance/Internet Archive at
http://www.archive.org/ include digitized copies of city directories.
Local Histories & Family Histories
Local histories were a popular genre for subscription-based
publishers. Canvassers would gather historical
information about the county while simultaneously selling
the publication. As a result, these books are packed with
detail about local residents.
County histories typically record the history of each town and
township in a county, describe the founding of institutions
such as churches and schools, and contain biographical
sketches of county residents.
Most family histories were self-published in small runs and
are fairly rare. The bulk of family histories published in the
United States describes early Anglo-American families,
because these families were the most popular subject for
genealogical publishing before the 1970s. In the 1970s,
the genealogical field broadened, and a more diverse
group of Americans published their family history.
Local Histories & Family Histories
WorldCat
To locate a print history of…
A county:
(name) county, (state) – history
(name) county, (state) – biography
Example: Santa Clara County, California – History or Santa Clara County,
California - Biography
A family:
(Surname) family
Example: McCarty family
Local Histories & Family Histories
Family History Library catalog at
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp
Use the “surname search” option.
Exercise 3
Locate a family history for the McCarty family who lived in
Pocahontas County, West Virginia in
HeritageQuest & Ancestry.com
Cemetery Records
WorldCat
To locate a print index…
County, state - genealogy or perform a keyword
search
Example: Santa Clara County, California –
Genealogy
Or
Jewish Cemeteries Istanbul
FindAGrave.com
Immigration Research
• Passenger records
• Naturalization records
Colonial era to 1820: In these early period of immigration, passenger lists
were fairly spare- they did not record a great deal of information about the
immigrants.
1820-1880: More manifests exist from this time period, and many were
preserved and microfilmed by the National Archives.
1880-1957: For this period, detailed manifests exist for most U.S. ports. Many
of the records are available digitally through commercial and free websites.
For the post-1820 era, researchers can see the original passenger lists on
microfilm. The National Archives’ website at
http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/immigration/passenger-arrival.html lists
what records are available on microfilm.
Immigration Research
Castle Garden and Ellis Island were arrival stations for international passengers
traveling to New York City. Castle Garden was active from 1855 to 1890, and
Ellis Island served from 1892 to 1954.
Ellis Island Database: http://www.ellisisland.org/
Castle Garden Database: http://www.castlegarden.org/
Passenger Records on Ancestry.com
Ancestry has been aggressively digitizing the microfilmed passenger lists from the
National Archives, covering the period of 1820-1957. These records are similar to
those included in the Ellis Island database, but also cover other ports such as New
Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.
Exercise 4
What can we learn by reading a passenger record?
Naturalization Records
Naturalization is the legal process whereby immigrants become citizens. The
naturalization process changed over time in the U.S.
Colonial Period: Naturalization was uncommon in this period. British subjects did
not need to naturalize when coming to the American colonies. Some non-British
immigrants did take an oath of allegiance to the British crown, and scattered
records of those oaths exist.
1790-1906: During this period, naturalization records were filed at a local court.
Women automatically assumed their husband’s naturalization status during this
period, so few women are well documented in the naturalization records of this
era.
Naturalization Records
1906-1922: In 1906, the Federal government standardized the naturalization
process under a new administrative body, the Bureau of Immigration and
Naturalization. Naturalization records from this period contain a great deal of
information, including place of birth, date of birth, port and date of entry, name of
ship, and names of spouses and children.
1922-2002: In 1922, Congress passed a law ending the automatic naturalization of
women married to naturalized citizens. This motivated more immigrant women to
naturalize than in previous years. Otherwise, the naturalization process remained
largely the same until 2002, when immigration and naturalization was placed
under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security.
Naturalization Records
Christina Schaefer’s Guide to Naturalization Records of the United States is an
essential reference work for locating where the records of a particular county
or state are held.
Naturalization Records
Another option for researchers is to search for ancestors in foreign records
prior to immigration. For example, if an ancestor immigrated from England in
1885, researchers can search for them in the 1881 British Census.
International
Research
Ancestry.com (Offers some foreign Census records, Address Books,
Discussion Boards etc.)
Family History Library (Do a Place Name search to see what’s available
on microfilm)
JewishGen (Great place for Jewish ancestry research worldwide)
The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names – Yad Vashem (Find
Holocaust records)
WorldCat (Search for print material such as census, burials, etc. for ILL)
ShtetlSeeker database from JewishGen (A geographic tool to search
current and historical places in Europe, North Africa, Central Asia and the
Middle East.)
The Internet (Perform a keyword search using your favorite search
engine)