Tag: resources

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African American Genealogy: Searching Online Records in SC? Don't Forget These Valuable Resources!

FamilySearch South Carolina Collections (current to Feb 2013):

FamilySearch Collections: Title	Records	Last Updated
South Carolina, Births and Christenings, 1846-1935	14,805	9 Mar 2012
South Carolina, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, 1861-1865	1,195,302	21 Apr 2012
South Carolina, Deaths, 1915-1943	636,445	31 Dec 2011
South Carolina, Deaths, 1944-1955	231,138	27 Mar 2010
South Carolina, Probate Records, Bound Volumes, 1671-1977	Browse Images	9 May 2011
South Carolina, Probate Records, Files and Loose Papers, 1732-1964	Browse Images	14 Oct 2012
South Carolina, Marriages, 1709-1913	4,154	9 Mar 2012

Lowcountry Africana

Right here of course! We are a free website dedicated to African American genealogy and history in SC, GA and FL

Low Country Africana ~ Freedmen's Bureau Microfilm Reading Room

Entire Freedmen’s Bureau microfilms for Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton and Georgetown, each film has more than 1,000 pages of original historical documents.

Lowcountry Africana: South Carolina Slave Records on Fold3

South Carolina Estate Inventories and Bills of Sale, 1732-1872 contain thousands of images of estate inventories which list assets of property owners in Charleston, South Carolina. The records include the names of hundreds of plantations and thousands of enslaved ancestors. The collection also includes estate inventories for free African American ancestors. The bills of sale in this collection represent every surviving bill of sale for Charleston District from 1732 to 1872 and contain the names of thousands of enslaved and free ancestors.

South Carolina Department of Archives and History Online Index

The SCDAH On-line Records Index is an item-level index to selected colonial, state, and county record series held at the archives.

Lowcountry Digital Library

The Lowcountry Digital Library contains a variety of materials from public and private archives, libraries, archives, and museums. Here you will find a wide variety of media – manuscripts (including many plantation records), books, pamphlets, images and sound recordings. A treasure trove awaits your exploration.

African Americans in the South Carolina Room

A rich collection of documents shared by E.E. Vaughn, one notable collection is abstracts of SC death index.

Digital Library on American Slavery

The Digital Library on American Slavery offers a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color. There are many Lowcountry records here.

Documenting the American South

Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes fifteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.

Chronicling America: Historic Newspapers from the Library of Congress

Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.

African American Cemeteries Online

Includes extensive cemetery transcriptions for the Lowcountry Southeast.

IntermentNet ~ South Carolina Cemeteries

Removal of Graves by the Santee Cooper Project, Moncks Corners, South Carolina

Graves and Cemeteries removed from the Santee Cooper project Area affected by the flooding of the lakes areas. A total of more than 7,000 graves were determined to be in the Project Area. Of this number more than 6,000 were removed from the affected area and relocated in areas above the high water marks of Lake Marion and Moultrie; principally Lake Moultrie.

The Large Slaveholder Project

Essential starting point for identifying slaveholders by state

SankofaGen Wiki

Resources for plantations and the slave trade, historical documents and a database (wiki format)

South Carolina Plantations

From SCIWAY, South Carolina’s Information Highway, data on known SC plantations ~ location, owners, number of slaves

Lowcountry Plantations by Johnnie Rivers

Johnie Rivers, the original creator of South Carolina Plantations, carries on her work to document plantations in SC

USF Africana Heritage Project

Rediscovering the names and lives of slaves, freedpersons and their descendants. Although the site is national in focus, there are many SC records there, among them Freedmen’s labor contracts for Berkeley and Georgetown districts.

Christine's Genealogy Website | Who are your people?

Directories of searchable databases, extensive transcriptions relevant to the Lowcountry, new historical documents coming online here daily.

The Freedmen's Bureau Online

Transcriptions of Freedmen's Bureau records for several states, from Christine's Genealogy Website. Extensive transcriptions for Lowcountry FL, GA and SC. A must for your Lowcountry research toolkit.

Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, by Paul Heinegg

Two books you can read on-line containing about 2,000 pages of family histories based on all colonial court order and minute books on microfilm at the state archives of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and Delaware (over 1000 volumes), 1790-1810 census records, tax lists, wills, deeds, free Negro registers, marriage bonds, parish registers, Revolutionary War pension files, etc.

"Other Free" Heads of Household in the 1790 South Carolina Census, by County, from Paul Heinegg

Research Guides ~ SC African American Ancestors

Most Overlooked Record-Types in South Carolina by Robin Foster

Video tutorial and PowerPoint presentation from Robin Foster to help you locate new records to search for SC ancestors.

South Carolina African Americans

From FamilySearch, a comprehensive research guide for researching SC ancestors.

Online County-Level SC Records ~ Directories and Search Engines

South Carolina Genealogy Research Guide

From DiscoverSouthCarolina.com, a county by county list of libraries, archives, museums and family history centers.

SCIWAY.com

SCIWAY is your essential starting point for state and county-level links for South Carolina. The definitive list of South Carolina genealogy links.

Linkpendium ~ South Carolina

Astoundingly exhaustive county and state-level links

Cyndi’s List

The definitive collection of Internet genealogy links

The Records Project: Your Encyclopedia for State and County Public Records

The Records Project is an online community dedicated to building the largest, free public records encyclopedia.

GenealogyInTime Genealogy Search Engine

Search over 1.2 billion historic records across hundreds of genealogy websites. Fast, convenient and free.

Mocavo

Mocavo is the world's first and largest genealogy search engine. Their search index indexes over four billion names and is the fastest search in the industry by more than ten times. You must register for a free account to view search results.

Beaufort County ~ Online Resources

Beaufort County Message Board ~ Ancestry.com

Heritage Library Foundation

The Heritage Library is a private reference library and research center which is open to the public at a modest daily fee of ten dollars. The Library houses the records of The Hilton Head Island Historical Society containing a wealth of historical information, old photographs, and maps of Hilton Head Island and the Low Country. The library is an affiliated library of the Family History Library operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here you can view microfilm and microfiche maintained by the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Beaufort County Library ~ Beaufort District Collection

The Beaufort District Collection was created in 1992 to record the rich historical, cultural, and environmental heritage of the former Beaufort District. The BDC Research Room houses the research collection which researchers can visit. The reading room will accommodate 7 visitors, group visits must be scheduled in advance. The BDC has two online collections of interest to family historians:

• "Phosphate, Farms, and Family: The Donner Collection," a digital archive of 548 photographs about rural life in Beaufort County, 1889-1916

This collection of 548 photographs comes from two albums of family photographs created by Conrad Munro Donner (1844 - 1916). Within the collection are photographs of many African Americans in Beaufort County in the early 1900s.

• Newspaper Obituary Index for Old Beaufort District, SC (Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton Counties) 1862-1984; 2007 to actively updated

The Newspaper Obituary Index does not include the actual texts of the obituary notices. The actual texts of the obituary notices are on file in the Beaufort District Collection and may be ordered. Some obituaries are available on microfilm at other local libraries.

Beaufort County Cemetery Records ~ IntermentNet

Slave Manifests, RG 36 ~ National Archives Atlanta

On March 2, 1807, Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States beginning January 1, 1808. This Act required that all vessels of 40 tons or more carrying slaves in the coastwise trade file duplicate manifests at the ports of origin and destination, pledging that the slave had not been imported into the U.S. after 1807.

Beaufort, S.C. Slave Manifests (Outbound)

By Slave Owner's Name By Slave's Name

Charleston County ~ Online Resources

Charleston County Message Board ~ Ancestry.com

South Carolina TriCounty Genealogy

Extensive collection of online records for Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties ~ marriages, baptisms, court records, maps, cemetery records and more

1794 Charleston City Directory ~ From South Carolina TriCounty Genealogy

Lowcountry Africana Full-Text Reading Room:

• Census of the City of Charleston, 1861

• Charleston City Directory, 1852

• Charleston City Directory, 1888

Charleston South Carolina Probate Court Online Search

Here you can search for abstracts of:

• Marriage Records

Document images can be printed from microfilm at the Marriage License Division: Marriage License Division Judicial Center 100 Broad Street, Suite 469 Charleston, SC 29401 (843) 958-5183 (843) 958-5191 (Fax)

• Estate/Will and Conservatorship/Guardianship records

Document images can be printed from microfilm at the Charleston Probate Court: Estate Division Historic Courthouse 84 Broad Street, Third Floor Charleston, SC 29401 (843) 958-5030 (843) 958-5044 (Fax)

Charleston County Public Library ~ The South Carolina Room and The Charleston Archive

• Charleston County Public Library ~ South Carolina Room ~ Research Guides

  Online research guides to help you identify which records to search when you visit the South Carolina Room. Save research time onsite by reading the research guides before you visit!

• Charleston County Public Library ~ South Carolina Room ~ Finding Aids

  Once you have read the research guides and identified records of interest, go here to see if the staff of the SC Room have prepared an online finding aid for collections you want to view when you visit.

• Charleston County Public Library ~ Charleston Archive

The staff of the Charleston Archive has created several pathfinders to assist the public in understanding and accessing the materials within the collection. Click on the titles to view the pathfinders in PDF format (Adobe Reader is required for viewing).

• Charleston County Public Library ~ Charleston Archive Finding Aids

The staff of the Charleston Archive has created finding aids for many of its collections. These finding aids include physical descriptions, historical notes, and collection outlines. To view the entire finding aid, click on the title of the chosen collection. All finding aids are in PDF format, so Adobe Reader is required.

• Charleston County Public Library ~ Charleston Archive ~ Records of the Commissioners of Elections for the City of Charleston, 1877–1879

  )(finding aid to full collection is available)

(A compiled alphabetical index of the 1877 precinct ledgers, which contains 7,189 names, is available here:)

• Charleston County Public Library ~ Charleston Archive ~ Records of the Commissioners of the House of Correction, 1868–1885

This collection contains a single register of the inmates of the House of Corrections, a Post-Civil War institution for the confinement of vagrants and violators of city ordinances. The register provides information on all inmates of the institution (men, women, and children) including: date of admission, name, age, birthplace, last residence, length of time in Charleston, occupation, discharge date, and remarks. The volume lacks entries for the years 1876-1880. A transcription of these records is now available in a searchable PDF format (in three parts):

• Records of the Charleston House of Correction, 1868–1885: Front Matter

• Records of the Charleston House of Correction, 1868–1885, sorted by DATE

• Records of the Charleston House of Correction, 1868-1885, sorted by NAME

Slave Manifests, RG 36 ~ National Archives Atlanta

On March 2, 1807, Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States beginning January 1, 1808. This Act required that all vessels of 40 tons or more carrying slaves in the coastwise trade file duplicate manifests at the ports of origin and destination, pledging that the slave had not been imported into the U.S. after 1807. Charleston, S.C. Slave Manifests (Inbound) By Slave Owner's Name By Slave's Name

Georgetown County ~ Online Resources

Georgetown County Message Board ~ Ancestry.com

Georgetown County Digital Library

Provides free access to an extensive collection of digitized plantation journals, rare photographs, historical newspapers, real estate indentures, personal journals and letters.

USGenWeb, Georgetown County

Yauhannah Descendants

Records of the Lower Pee Dee River area of Georgetown County. Extensive collection of wills, Bible records, cemetery and tax records and more.

Freedmen's Bureau Labor Contracts, Georgetown County, SC ~ USF Africana Heritage Project

The Georgetown Gazette Jan 3, 1801 - Feb 17, 1810 ~ Google News Archive

What Are YOUR Favorite SC Resources?

Which SC resources do YOU recommend? Please leave a comment to add your favorites!

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Searching Online Records for Florida? Don’t Forget These Valuable Resources!

FamilySearch Florida Collections (current to Feb 2013)

Title	Records	Last Updated
Florida, Births and Christenings, 1880-1935	20,227	10 Mar 2012
Florida, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, 1861-1865	285,975	21 Apr 2012
Florida, Civil War Service Records of Union Soldiers, 1861-1865	25,416	21 Apr 2012
Florida, Confederate Veterans and Widows Pension Applications, 1885-1955	Browse Images	26 Sep 2011
Florida, Death Index, 1877-1998	5,187,074	10 Feb 2012
Florida, Deaths and Burials, 1900-1921	24,800	27 Apr 2010
Florida, Deaths, 1877-1939	471,800	29 Mar 2010
Florida, Divorce Index, 1927-2001	3,012,178	29 Feb 2012
Florida, Key West Passenger Lists, 1898-1920	Browse Images	*16 Jan 2013
Florida, Marriage Index, 1822-1875 and 1927-2001	11,718,373	14 Jan 2012
Florida, Marriages, 1830-1993	571,766	9 May 2012
Florida, Marriages, 1837-1974	859,969	26 Mar 2012
Florida, Probate Records, 1784-1990	Browse Images	27 Sep 2012
Florida, State Census, 1885	110,864	27 Mar 2010
Florida, State Census, 1935	1,599,085	27 Mar 2010
Florida, State Census, 1945	2,249,138	27 Mar 2010
Florida, Tampa, Passenger Lists, 1898-1945	50,103	21 Dec 2012

Florida Message Boards ~ Ancestry.com

Message boards or forums are a great place to engage with others researching in our area of interest.

AfriGeneas States Research Forum

You can post your FL-specific queries here!

AfriGeneas Slave Research Forum

This board is reserved for discussion of the Enslavement Period, slave genealogy, documents pertaining to slavery, and techniques for finding the last slaveowner and the first slave ancestor.

Free Persons of Color (FPOC) Forum

This is the hosted message board of the Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware website. This is the place to discuss issues pertaining to ancestors who were either born free or emancipated prior to the Civil War.

Florida GenWeb

The purpose of FLGenWeb is to preserve and educate the public about Florida's rich heritage and to help families discover their ancestors.

Florida Digital Newspaper Library

The Florida Digital Newspaper Library exists to provide access to the news and history of Florida. All of the over 1,376,000 pages of historic through current Florida newspapers in the Florida Digital Newspaper Library are openly and freely available with zoomable page images and full text.

Florida History Online

From  Daniel L. Schafer, Professor Emeritus of History, University of North Florida, Florida History Online is an educational website intended as a resource for teachers and scholars, students at all grade levels, and the general public. It offers free online access to transcribed Florida history documents.

Floridiana on the Web ~ USF Libraries Digital Collections

An astoundingly rich collection of digitized manuscripts, oral histories, historical photographs and full text articles on Florida history. All back editions of the journal Florida Historical Quarterly are available as searchable full text.

State Archives of Florida ~ Florida Memory Project

The Florida Memory Project website presents a selection of digitized historical records that illustrate significant moments in Florida history, education resources for students of all ages and archival collections for historical research. Notable online collections:

• Call and Brevard Family Papers
• Florida Confederate Pension Application Files
• Florida's Early Constitutions
• Florida Folklife Collection
• Florida Photographic Collection
• Spanish Land Grants
• World War I Service Cards

Resource Guide ~ P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History

Excellent guide to online resources for Florida history and genealogy

Florida Cemetery Index

There were 12,071 names from 83 cemeteries in the database as of 1 August 2000.

City of Tallahassee ~ City-Owned Cemeteries Burial Records

Looking for someone who you think might be buried in a City of Tallahassee-owned cemetery? Here's where to start. Also included is a wonderful comprehensive guide to researching ancestors buried in private cemeteries, not in the five owned cemeteries and operated by the City government. Here you will find links to the largest funeral homes in Tallahassee, area churches, and other helpful resources for researching ancestors buried in Tallahassee. See also their page of links to information about cemeteries in general.

The Obituary Daily Times

The Obituary Daily Times is a daily index of published obituaries. It is distributed Freely, often twice a day by email, and usually has over 2500 entries a day. You can search the database anytime with their online search engine.

WPA Life Histories from Florida

First-person accounts of life in Florida collected during the Great Depression.

Alachua County Ancient Records

493,813 Page Images of early Florida records. 14,890 Pages have been transcribed. As Alachua County was an early seat of government in Florida, this collection has records from across Florida, not just Alachua County. You can volunteer to index records, too!

Elmer’s Genealogy Corner

Madison County, FL marriage, divorce, cemetery, voter and obituary records

What Are Your Favorite Florida Resources?

Which FL resources do YOU recommend? Please add a comment with your favorites!

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Searching Online Records for Georgia? Don’t Forget These Valuable Resources!

FamilySearch Georgia Collections (current to Feb 2013)

Title	Records	Last Updated
Georgia, Andersonville Prison Records, 1862-1865	Browse Images	8 Nov 2012
Georgia, Births and Christenings, 1754-1960	9,885	9 Mar 2012
Georgia, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, 1861-1865	1,776,643	21 Apr 2012
Georgia, Civil War Service Records of Union Soldiers, 1861-1865	1,613	21 Apr 2012
Georgia, Death Index, 1933-1998	2,701,430	28 Sep 2011
Georgia, Deaths, 1914-1927	305,880	28 Mar 2010
Georgia, Deaths, 1928-1930	123,419	5 Nov 2010
Georgia, Headright and Bounty Land Records, 1783-1909	Browse Images	7 Sep 2012
Georgia, Marriages, 1808-1967	1,157,102	26 Mar 2012
Georgia, Probate Records, 1742-1975	Browse Images	8 Nov 2012
Georgia, World War II Draft Registration Cards,1940-1942	173,989	5 Mar 2012

Georgia Message Boards ~ Ancestry.com

Message boards or forums are a great place to engage with others researching in our area of interest.

AfriGeneas States Research Forum

You can post your GA-specific queries here!

AfriGeneas Slave Research Forum

This board is reserved for discussion of the Enslavement Period, slave genealogy, documents pertaining to slavery, and techniques for finding the last slaveowner and the first slave ancestor.

Free Persons of Color (FPOC) Forum

This is the hosted message board of the Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware website. This is the place to discuss issues pertaining to ancestors who were either born free or emancipated prior to the Civil War.

Digital Library of Georgia

The Digital Library of Georgia connects users to a million digital objects in more than 200 collections from 60 institutions and 100 government agencies. Notable Collections:

• Vanishing Georgia Historically significant photographs of people, places, and structures from Georgia's past from the Vanishing Georgia Collection at the Georgia Archives
• African American Funeral Programs from the East Central Georgia Regional Library System Over 1000 funeral programs of African Americans dating from 1933 to 2008 (with the bulk of the collection beginning in the 1960s), the majority of which are from services held in the Augusta, Georgia area
• Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842 Over 2,000 documents and images on the history of Native Americans in the Southeastern U.S., letters, legal proceedings, military orders, and more from the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Museum of the Cherokee, Tennessee State Library & Archives, the Tennessee State Museum, Hoskins Special Collections Library, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the Frank H. McClung Museum, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Georgia Historic Newspapers Searchable issues of three important historic Georgia newspapers, the Cherokee Phoenix, the Dublin Post, and the Colored Tribune from the microfilm holdings of the Georgia Newspaper Project
• South Georgia Historic Newspapers The South Georgia Historic Newspapers Archive spans the years 1845-1922 and includes newspapers printed in Albany, Americus, Bainbridge, Brunswick, Cuthbert, Sumter, Thomasville, Tifton, Valdosta and Waycross.
• Georgia Historic Books
• Maps ~ Historical Maps, Sanborn Maps, Topographic Maps, City Maps

Georgia’s Virtual Vault: Digital Treasures from the Georgia Archives

This is your portal to some of Georgia's most important historical documents, from 1733 to the present. The Virtual Vault provides virtual access to historic Georgia manuscripts, photographs, maps, and government records housed in the state archives. Notable collections:

• Chatham County Deed Books
• Colonial Will Books
• Colonial Wills
• Georgia Death Certificates
• Georgia Non-Indexed Death Certificates, 1928-1930
• Headright and Bounty Plats
• Historic Maps
• Marriage Records from Microfilm
• Militia Enrollment Lists, 1864

The Georgia GenWeb Project

A group of volunteers working together to provide Internet websites for genealogical research in every county in the State of Georgia. This Project is non-commercial and fully committed to free access for everyone.

Genwed.com ~ Marriage Records Online

Extensive transcriptions of marriage and Bible records

The Tombstone Transcription Project ~ Georgia

The purpose of this project is to organize volunteers who will work together to create a lasting tribute to Georgia ancestors. Coordinators transcribe tombstone inscriptions and archive that work for the future in a form easily accessible to all. Their goal is to record tombstone inscriptions now---before they are lost forever to the winds and the rains. You can volunteer to help with this important effort.

What Are Your Favorite Georgia Resources?

Which GA resources do YOU recommend? Please add a comment with your favorites!

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South Carolina Historical Society Placing Finding Aids Online

The South Carolina Historical Society, one of the richest archives for Lowcountry genealogy research, has embarked on a project to place their finding aids online.

Planning a research trip to Charleston? Be sure to bookmark the South Carolina Historical Society's Finding Aids page and check back often to see their new additions.

What Are Finding Aids? How Can They Help Your Research?

Finding aids are detailed inventories of documentary collections, prepared by archivists. While an archive's catalog will give you an overview of a particular collection, finding aids take you much deeper into the collection and help you identify which portions of a collection may be most useful for your research.

Online Finding Aids Can Help You Prepare for Your Research Trip and Save You Valuable Time on the Ground

If you know in advance which boxes and folders you want to view from a given collection, you can make the most of your research time when you arrive.

Let's look at an example from the first batch of online finding aids for the South Carolina Historical Society. The Ball Family Papers are one of the richest collections of plantation records among the South Carolina Historical Society's holdings. If we look at the description of the Ball Family Papers in SCHS's online catalog, we see the following summary:

Now let's look at a portion of the finding aid for the Ball Family Papers. Here we see much more detail:

Make the Most of Your Research Time in Charleston

Research hint ~ When the South Carolina Historical Society closes in the late afternoon, you can head over to the South Carolina Room and the Charleston Archive at the Charleston Public Library, less than 5 minutes away, and extend your research time into the evening. The South Carolina Room and the Charleston Archive have finding aids online as well, so you can really plan ahead!

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Join Lowcountry Africana at Magnolia Plantation Feb 9 for a Seminar on Tracing Reconstruction-Era Ancestors

Learn About the Records That Will Help You Trace African American Ancestors Back Beyond 1870

~And~ Receive Personal Genealogy Advice from a Panel of Experienced Lowcountry Researchers!

Please join us at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens on Saturday, February 9 for the seminar "Breaking Through the 1870 Brick Wall - Tracing Reconstruction-Era Ancestors."

After the seminar, a panel of experienced Lowcountry researchers will be on hand to provide one-on-one genealogy advice. Whether you are just beginning your research or need advice to overcome brick walls, bring your research questions and join us!

Seminar Schedule

10:00 am - 11:00 am: Ramona La Roche "Finding Ancestors in Radical Republican Times"

11:00 am - 12:00 pm: Toni Carrier "Finding Your Ancestors in Freedmen's Bureau Records"

12:30 pm - 3:00 pm: Receive One-On-One Genealogy Advice from a Panel of Experienced Lowcountry Researchers!

Meet the Panelists

Ramona La Roche

Fallon Green

Toni Carrier

Grab and Share the Event Flyer!

Shares on social media and in print are most welcome and much appreciated! Please share with friends and we hope to see you there on February 9!

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Teachers: How Your Students Can Celebrate the National Day of Listening

What is the National Day of Listening?

Friday, November 23, 2012 is the fifth annual National Day of Listening.

Each year, Story Corps asks all Americans to set aside an hour on the day after Thanksgiving to interview a friend, loved one or community member about their lives, and to record the interview using recording equipment that is readily available in most homes, such as computers, smartphones, tape recorders or pen and paper, along with StoryCorps’ free Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide.

Ideas for Bringing the National Day of Listening Into Your Classroom

The National Day of Listening is a great time for students to learn more about their family history. Here are a few ideas for activities:

Use StoryCorps' Do It Yourself Guide for a class discussion of great interview questions. Students can then interview a family member and share what they learned in class.

Kids can draw a picture of who they will interview and send it to us. We'll share it right here in the Kids' Corner and on our Lowcountry Wall of Listening on Facebook!

Younger children can work with parents to build a photo family tree, then share their tree in class

More Resources

Here is a helpful lesson plan unit called "Listening to History," from our friends at EDSITEment. Students will learn about oral history and listen to selected interviews from the site History Matters.

Here is another great oral history unit from Rochester Oral History Archive.

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Today's Video: Getting Started on Your Oral History Project

Today we feature part 2 of a great series on oral history, produced by the Minnesota Historical Society.

"Getting Started on Your Oral History Project" will help you learn about the oral history process, determine the purpose of your project, establish who you will interview, do general research and become familiar with your equipment.

Hope you enjoy and find the video helpful!

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Free Research Assistance for Finding Georgia Ancestors

 

We are continuing to point out free resources that will help you in your quest to learn more about your Georgia ancestors.  FamilySearch Wiki and FamilySearch Forums were first released in 2008, and are great places to find resources and assistance.

The FamilySearch Wiki article for Georgia links to African American resources for Georgia:

There are a few resources linked here. Several are already linked on Lowcountry Africana.  Be sure to watch for new resources. The following FamilySearch Wiki article on African American Research has many more useful resources linked, and is constantly updated by members of the genealogy community:

You can also search topics on the Wiki. For example, “Georgia in the Civil War” is an article about the local history during the Civil War, military units, pension records, cemetery records, and links to access records which are available:

Now let's suppose you do not find the answer to your question on the Wiki.  I suggest you review what you know about your ancestor and post your question at FamilySearch Forums where you can receive free research assistance. Be sure to register for a FamilySearch Account if do not have one.  Then, be sure to validate that account in an email that will be sent after you register.  This will ensure that you will receive a reply by email to the questions you post at FamilySearch Forums.

You will then be able to post your research questions about your Georgia ancestors in the Southern States section.  Click “New Thread” to post your question. Be sure you are logged in. Ask only one question at a time and be sure to provide any of the details that you have such as:

ñ  Name of ancestor

ñ  Name of spouse

ñ  Place of birth

ñ  Birth date

ñ  Parent's names

ñ  Place of death

ñ  Places lived

ñ  Death date

 

Since 2008, every person except one that I referred to the Forums has been able to receive an answer to the research question they posted as far as I can tell. In the next article we will discuss documenting deaths in Georgia and online resources available.

Happy Hunting!

Robin

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Introducing You to Georgia and the FamilySearch Wiki

Whenever I run out of historical resources to document ancestors, I turn to the FamilySearch Wiki for fresh ideas.  The FamilySearch Wiki is an encyclopedia of genealogical resources shared by people like you and me.  Genealogists and family historians are sharing what they know about history and resources making it a wonderful place to look first for information. I wanted to be sure to introduce you to the articles for the state of Georgia on the Wiki:

You will need to be certain about the county where your ancestor lived and time period he or she lived there.  Creating a timeline of your ancestor's life will be very helpful.

As you can see, there is a list of topics on the left which link to resources, and each each county is listed.  I suggest you check the resources for the county where your ancestor lived to determine which historical documentation exists that was generated during the lifetime of your ancestor.

Let's take a look at DeKalb County:

Notice the sections: History, Parent County, Boundary Changes, and Record Loss.  Comparing your ancestor's timeline to the information in this section will help you save a lot of wasted time. Have you ever searched for an ancestor in a particular county and never found him or her?  Well perhaps there was a boundary change and the county during a certain time period did not exist yet or perhaps it became part of another county.  Your ancestors never moved, but the county name changed. 

Some reasons for not being able to find documentation could be:

ñ  Record loss

ñ  Boundary changes

ñ  Records are held in parent county

Some Wiki articles are still being developed.  Let's work together to add the information you find to the Wiki.  I invite you to become a contributor, or share your findings with me in the comments section of any Georgia article.  Be sure to check the link for the Family History Library Catalog at the bottom of each Georgia County article.  You may find resources on microfilm which are not available online yet.  Then you can contact your local FamilySearch Center to order and view the film.

 In the next article, we will discuss the topic, African Americans, in the topics section.

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The Beginning Genealogist from Angela Walton-Raji