Saturday, July 24, 2010

Website updates

I have been busy updating several of the websites I maintain for genealogists researching in the midwest.  You may want to take a look at some of them.  I have added some photos to my Fillmore County, Nebraska website.  I also added an updated version to Sharon Lawrence's an excellent guide to researching in military records.  I have also made some updates to the Buchanan County, Missouri site.

I also maintain websites for the Association of Professional Genealogists:  Heartland Chapter and Northwest Missouri Genealogical Society.

I also plan to update the Livingston County, Missouri website soon.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

MoSGA Awards 21st Century Fund Grant

The Missouri State Genealogical Association [MoSGA] recently awarded a grant of $996.95 to the Morgan County Historical Society in Versailles, Missouri. The Historical Society will use the funds to purchase archival supplies to preserve, organize and display their county’s school records dating from 1846 to 1961. The records were recently donated to the society by the Morgan County RII School District.

MoSGA’s 21st Century Fund was established in 2005 during the Association’s 25th Anniversary. The fund provides grants of up to $1,000 to Missouri societies, libraries and/or archives to promote preservation and publication of Missouri genealogical data. 

January 1, 2011 begins a new grant cycle. Grant applications and guidelines are available on MoSGA’s Web site www.mosga.org  Application deadline is April 30, 2011 with grants awarded prior to July 1, 2011.

The 21st Century Fund is supported by generous donations from the genealogical community.  If you wish to make a tax deductible contribution, please send it to MoSGA, 21st Century Fund, PO Box 833, Columbia MO 65205-0833. Thank you for your continuing support.

Martha L. Henderson, Chair
21st Century Fund Committee
Missouri State Genealogical Association

Saturday, July 17, 2010

More Genealogy Websites

Not all websites are equal:


I thought I would take a bit of time here to jot down some of my favorite genealogy websites, but before I do, I want to remind you that not all information on websites is of equal quality.  There are websites which offer free information.  These are often databases with information transcribed from the source record and are often very helpful as finding aids, but you should always try to view the original source data or a copy such as a scanned image or photocopy yourself.  There are beginning to me more websites that do publish images of the original source material.

Don't overlook Wiki Articles too.  They often have helpful information about a geographic location, biographical information about a person.  You can find almost any kind of information in Wikipedia.  Again you will need to double-check the source of the information.  Anyone can contribute to a Wiki so some are better than others.

The social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are also offering another way for family members to connect and share information.  You might want to investigate if you prefer this way to connect to your family and genealogy friends.  This is a good way to connect with relatives to share documents that might not be available from any other source.

There are also several subscription websites that generally do offer images of the source documentation and they provide search tools to help you search their extensive databases which connect you to the image link.

Free Websites:

  • Missouri Digital Archives - death certificates, land patents, coroner's inquests, etc.  New information added frequently.
  • FamilySearch - now starting to offer links to some documents; keep checking this site as it just keeps improving.
  • FindAGrave - this website is also under constant revision; volunteers contribute cemetery listings and often include photos of the cemetery marker and biographical information.
  • Newspaper Abstracts - new information from newspapers contributed daily.
  • U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service - information about ordering U.S. Immigration service records.
  • Rootsweb - an old standby; this website has been around many years; consists of volunteer contributed information; databases; photos; historical and biographical information, much, much more.
  • GenealogyToday - This site has both free and subscription areas.  In the free area it contains reference articles, how-to information, good collection of funeral cards and other unique databases as well as links to less common genealogy websites and search engine that links to other well known genealogy sites.
Foreign Record Sites

Subscription Websites


Watch for updates to this post!!