"Making of America"

Thousands of books and journals have been digitized, indexed and put online through the work of the "Making of America" project of the University of Michigan and Cornell University. Family Chronicle reopts in the February 2006 issue that the pages may contain over 10 million names, focusing on the 1850-1877 time period. The topics range from agricultural publications to educational monographs, lists of deserters from Wisconsin regiments during the Civil War and religion. There are three separate databases to search: books, journals, and the Cornell University site.

Be sure to make family history goals for 2006, being realistic and adding some new skills and resources to your search strategies! Success in the search!!!!!

More Online Resources

Another great site which allows you to check state resources is: www.ancestorhunt.com/genealogy_news_state_resources.html

Once at the site, choose your state from the map and then check the lists of resources such as birth, marriage, death, public records, queries, research guides, obituaries, various databases, surname sites concentrating on that state, military records and other recommended sites.

Again, always verify the pedigrees that you find online. I treat them as signposts, leading the way, but I always want documentation, as a good researcher should. Oftentimes these pedigrees aren't complete, lack geographic locations and family members, so you should contact the researcher, network with other researchers, and check ancestry.com and others for census documentation. Filling in the branches and leaves on your family tree has never been EASIER!!!

More Surname Databases to Check

The latest edition of Family Tree Magazine suggests a few more online databases for you to check, besides the two best known, familysearch.org and ancestry.com. Of course, I immediately checked on my difficult and ongoing research lines and had no new leads, but I still recommend that you check for your own lines regularly. They are:

GenCircles Global Tree at www.gencircles.com/globaltree

Ancestry Archive at www.kindredkonnections.com/ancestry.html

Success in the search!!!!

Native American Genealogy

I want to share another genealogy website- this time on Native American sources, with the boast of a "URL to every page on native American genealogy" at http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/completeindex.htm

The site is well-organized and easy to navigate. Topics include: books, census and rolls, Dawes packet, tribes by state, Indian genealogy, Indian treaties, research help and tribes in an alphabetical listing. I believe that this would be an excellent start for anyone with a few basic pieces, looking to get their research started and on the right track.

Check the Siblings' Obituaries

Once again, trying to break through one of the "brick walls" on one of my German immigrant lines into Wisconsin, I followed the trail of death certificates and records to no answer on the village in Germany nor the surname descendants. So I started on the trail of the siblings and went to the Grant County, Wisconsin websites to track down the obituaries and any other pertinent information of Elizabeth's siblings.

Yesterday I received her younger brother's obituary and gained information on his volunteer association involvement, his only son's name and that his brother had moved to Washington D.C., a fact that I suspected but couldn't make a clear connection to, up to this point in time, as a woman with the Bushhausen surname dies there in 1974, but no Social Security listing for the brother shows up. Now I have a few more possibilities and new hope that I can crack this thing before too long.

So the advice of going around the mountain if you can't go through it probably will pay off here in this case.

Success in the search!!!!!!

"Great Chicago Refugee Rescue"

Another book's title caught my eye as I prepared the annual buying wish list for the Family History Center that I volunteer time at- the "Great Chicago Refugee Rescue" by Raymond Lohne. Ethnic Germans settled in Hungary in 1783 and were subsequently expelled after WWII, when the Germans lost the war. Their fellow Schwabos worked to help them relocate by the thousands to Chicago. The book has 80 photographs and the review compares the group to a modern day "Mayflower Pilgrim" story. Wouldn't this be a fascinating gift for your family historian, who has "everything" already?!

"How to do Everything with Your Genealogy"

I just finished George Morgan's comprehensive "How to do Everything with your Genealogy". In thirteen chapters, he covers the basics of beginning genealogy and getting the data on to the correct forms, research methods, advanced record types, Internet resources, alternative paths to finding the data you still need, planning successful research trips, and goes into great detail on the aspects of computerizng your data that are so essential in this day and age.

While the basics of sound research will always remain the same, reading new research books as they are published and available through your local libraries helps you sharpen your own skills, understand research methods and strategies and demonstrates the level of interest in our hobby/obsession to the library systems. (Hopefully, this influences them as they make purchase decisions.)

My favorite parts of the book gave me some new bookmarks for my computer for maps, thinking to check for local jury rolls, Gary Sharp's site with a chronological representation of natural diasters at: http://sharpgary.org/Jan1_2001_Present.html, some new international emigration sites, and worldwide library catalogs online.