Wednesday, October 17, 2007

CVGS Computer Group meeting today

We had our monthly Chula Vista Genealogical Society Computer Group today in the Computer Lab at the Library. Unfortunately, the library Online Databases were unavailable, so Shirley led us through a plethora of interesting genealogy resources, including:

* Black Sheep Ancestors -- www.blacksheepancestors.com/index.shtml Don’t overlook your ancestors that were not the best. They can be fun to find and add some zing to your family tree.

* Cemetery Records -- These sites contain mostly unique data:
** Find a Grave -- www.Findagrave.com
** Interment -- www.interment.net

* Irish Research -- These websites may help you to discover more about your Irish ancestry.
** Boston Pilot -- http://infowanted.bc.edu
** Griffiths Valuation 1848-1864 -- http://failteromhat.com/griffiths.php
** Fianna -- Http://rootsweb.com/~fianna/

* Free Public Records Online -- http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com A stop where you can learn what is available for wherever you are researching.

* Linkpendium USA -- http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA . A straight forward list of available resources, organized by topic, all linked to the original source data.

* WorldCat/OCLC -- www.worldcat.org. You can search for books, CDs and videos

* Native American Research -- These two resources contain many key records.
** Access Genealogy -- www.accessgenealogy.com/native/
** National Archives (NARA) Archival Resource Catalog -- www.archives.gov/research/arc/topics/native-americans.html

* Passenger Lists -- It is important to remember that not everyone came through Ellis Island. There are surviving records from other ports also.
** Castle Gardens -- www.castlegardens.org
** Ancestors on Board $ -- www.ancestorsonboard.com

* Canadian Genealogy Centre -- www.collectionscanada.ca/genealogy/index-e.html An excellent starting place for researching your Canadian ancestors.

* Irish Immigrants -- These two collections may prove useful if you think you have Irish famine emigrants.
** New York Irish Famine Passenger Records -- http://aad.archives.gov/aas/fieldedsearch.jsp?dt=180&cat=all&bc=sl
** New Brunswick Irish Famine Migration 1845-1852 -- http://archives.gnb.ca/APPS/PrivRecs/irishfamine/?L=EN

* Old Newspapers -- These are just a sample of the archives available.
** London Times & Newspaper Archive $ -- www.godfrey.org
** Paper of Record -- www.paperofrecord.com/Default.asp
** Brooklyn Daily Eagle -- www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/

* War Graves
** Commonwealth War Graves -- www.cwgc.org/debt_of_honour.asp? menuid=14
** U S Department of Veterans Affairs Gravesite Locator -- http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1
The first site lists the 1.7 million from the UK who died during the two world wars. The second site includes veterans and their families in Virginia National Cemeteries, state veteran cemeteries and those buried in other cemeteries.

* VitalRec.com -- www.vitalrec.com. This website explains how and where to find the record you searching for.

* Quakers -- These two resources will aid you in your search of a Quaker heritage.** Quaker Corner -- www.rootsweb.com/~quakers** Quaker Meetings -- www.quakermeetings.com

* African-American Ancestry -- These sites provide access to data unique to African-Americans.
** Afrigeneas -- www.afrigeneas.com
** Freedman’s Bureau -- www.freedmensbureau.com
** Research Guide -- www.familysearch.org/Eng/default.asp?page=home/welcome/site_resources.asp
** African-American Cemeteries -- http://africaamericancemeteries.com Has links all over the internet, regardless of where the source material is stored.

* Mexican Research -- These are resource sites for research in Mexico:
** http://members.tripod.com/~GaryFelix/index1.htm
** http://genealogy.about.com/od/mexico/

We had 12 attendees today to go through most of these sites, and several people found new information about their ancestors or relatives during the two hours.

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