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Digitization at the National Archives (NARA)

The National Archives (NARA) in Washington, D.C. as well as its many branch repositories, contains only about 1% to 3% of the documents and materials "created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government." (Fortunately, I might add). See About the National Archives. Only those documents of historical or legal importance (as judged by the government itself, of course) are kept in the vast storage areas. There is no practical way to describe the variety and complexit
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Organizing

I'm beginning to organize the data that I've collected over the last four years. Papers, papers, papers, and binders full of information. Beginning to to feel overwhelmed and running across the same information two or three times. Going to spend some time making sense of everything I have and find a proper home for them. I was working with too many family members at one time and will concentrate on ONE family unit at a time. That is my pledge/promise for today.
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Arkansas is not known for its online digital collections but the number of records in increasing regularly. Across the U.S. there is a substantial difference between the collections being digitized by the various states. There are considerably more resources online than those shown in the lists below, but most are not digitized and are indexes or transcribed lists.Read more...
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Jabez Treadwell's Will

In MemoryofMr Jabez Treadwellwho departed this Life22d Day of Decr1781In the 67th year of his age."Bleƒƒed are the dead which die inthe Lord that they may reƒtfrom their Labours; and theirworks do follow them."When I first applied for membership in the Mayflower Society, I had eleven different passengers to choose from for my lineage papers. The easiest route to membership was to choose Isaac Allerton, because he settled in Salem and Marblehead, and I was born in Beverly, Massachusetts. To fill
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The other day we had occasion to go to a large university apartment house. In the lobby there was a huge pile of telephone books all in plastic bags. Evidently, the local telephone company had delivered this huge pile, one for each apartment, for the use of the residents. There was just one catch, hardly an of the University students had bothered to pick up their directory. I commented on this to the person we were visiting and she said, "Oh, we don't need one, we just look everything up online
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Why you shouldn't do genealogy !

Every time I discover something new about family it's exciting as it should be,but some things are down right spooky. It's that instance that sends your mind wondering,you start to question your own existance or wonder how the family line survived for 200 years without imploding.What am I talking about ? I'm talking about cousins marrying cousins !! And not distant cousins as in 5th cousin 10 times removed. I'm talking first and second cousins. In todays world we can avoid inter-family marriage,
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Sorting and Storing Digital Photos

In previous posts I have talked about sorting and archiving old photos and how important it is to do that. But, I have actually been been daunted by the task of organizing my own digital images. Right now they sit on my hard drive, backed up daily to a second hard drive and dumped into individual folders which are labeled by the date and perhaps the event. Re: Thanksgiving 2007.While I have really expensive editing and organizing software, it has sometimes taken me awhile to find a specific phot
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Family Tree Connection - Update (11/Oct/2009)

Family Tree Connection

Family Tree Connection has added the following genealogy items to its database:

Bradford Academy 1839 Catalogue - Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Bradford Academy, for the year ending November 1839. Bradford, Mass.

Topsfield Academy 1830 Catalogue - Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Topsfield Academy, Year Ending August 1830. Topsfield, Mass.

Pembroke Academy 1837 Catalogue - Catalogue of the Officers, Insructors and Students of Pembroke Academy, for the Summer and Fall Terms, 183

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Debbie (_____), Sacred Heart Cemetery (Monongahela, Penn.) office, 9 Oct 2009, interview (telephonic) by GJ; for death of George Shriner; file memorandumThis date TT Debbie at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Monongahela, Washington Co., Penn. Cemetery office address is 97 Sacred Heart Rd, Monongahela, Penn. 15063-3505. According to her records, George Shriner, of Ellsworth, died 23 Nov 1964; was buried 27 November 1964.Cemetery records have his birth as 8 May 1895 (humm... conflicts much with other inf
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Digitized British Newspapers 1800 to 1900

The British Library sponsors a number of huge online resources including digitized copies of the British Newspapers from 1800 to 1900. This mostly subscription Website contains, to quote the site:* Millions of articles from 49 London, national and regional newspaper (1800 - 1900) titles.* Over two million pages - all fully text searchable with keywords in context visible in the results list.* 1000's of illustrations, maps, tables and photographs.Read more...
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Great-uncle's death record from Mexico found!

I just found out that ancestry.com has the database Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1963-1974. Ancestry.com's October Monthly Update e-mail newsletter mentioned the database. I was thrilled to find this out, because my great-uncle died in Mexico in 1974. I had been planning to contact the National Archives to get a copy of his death record, but since ancestry.com has the database I was able to get the record immediately and not have to spend extra money for it. And it turns out th
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Sharing documentation & genealogiesq

Over the past 40 years I have been copying/uploading to RootsWeb family genealogies compiled by myself and other family genealogists who are now deceased and whose work was not found in central Ohio & Ft. Wayne, IN repositories & libraries. In that way I hoped to preserve their work and make it available to new researchers.I have also compiled several data bases on the surnames Schleich/Sly/Slyh/Slye and Gray/Grey. These are extensive alpha lists of families from the early 1700's to 1900. I have
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In a comment to my recent blog on the Genealogical Proof Standard, the Ancestry Insider raised the issue that the professional genealogical community has rejected the legal standard of a preponderance of the evidence and appears to have moved in the direction of a standard of clear and convincing evidence. Although I heartily approve of the Genealogical Proof Standard, I question whether or not, in the absence of a judge and an adversarial system, it is really possible to personally adhere to a
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Just published on the Panalba website, is the speech made at the time of the Clan Gathering in Edinburgh on the role of the clan chief in modern times.Donald MacLaren of MacLaren tells this story:In his bid to unite Dalriada and Pictland, Kenneth MacAlpine invited all the Pictish princes and nobles with rival claims to the throne to a great meeting and banquet. Disarmed at the door, rather like us, they entered all unsuspecting. But pits had been dug beneath the benches on which they were seated
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Most of the time when your computer does not do what you want it to do, it is usually because you have not given it correct instructions.For example, if you try to maximize a program's window, but instead the program closes, it's likely that you clicked the tiny close button (the small X in the upper right of the program's window) instead of the tiny maximize button (the button immediately to the X's left). Has this ever happened to you? This is known as "operator error". In other words, your co
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