This week I will be presenting a class on Family Tree photos, stories and sources at the Monterey County Genealogy Society monthly meeting. Family Tree is your very own pedigree chart and family record at www.familysearch.org. I have posted about this feature previously, and every week discover new enhancements to it.
How come I didn’t know about the Historical Map Archive sooner? It is a collection of online maps from various Alabama repositories which is simple to use, and has a wide variety of historical maps for the whole world. It is found at the University of Alabama website at http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/.
Maybe word got around about the awesome University of Texas map site and a rivalry was born. You know there is more to these Southern rivalries than football.
This is third in a series of posts about digitized records available on FamilySearch.org for the Western States. I previously introduced collections for Arizona and California and today would like to show you what is available for Colorado. Some collections are more plentiful than others, and as of today there are only 5 Colorado databases available. Two of them are valuable collections of marriage records, and the 1885 state census is also a good resource. Continue reading “Wild West Digitized: Colorado Records”→
On July 24th Pioneer Day is celebrated as a state holiday in Utah. In 1847 the first LDS (Mormon) pioneers entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake. The Pioneer Overland Travel database at LDS.org has an introduction which reads: “Between 1847 and 1868, Mormon emigrants traveling in more than 300 companies departed from various places and headed for the Salt Lake Valley. More than 60,000 LDS Church members traveled in these companies — some traveling by foot, some in wagons, and some pulling handcarts.”
Check out this database if you have Mormon pioneer ancestors, and you will find them listed with other family members and rosters of entire pioneer “companies” (the group they traveled with); you might find journal excerpts from individuals they traveled with, letters, and other valuable source material connected to their trek. Here is what an entry looks like – note the wonderful source references:
Pioneer Overland Travel Database at LDS.org, entry for Jacob Foutz
Notice the blue link to “Trail Excerpt”. Click it and you will see a letter written to Brigham Young from Edward Hunter and Jacob Foutz, leaders of a particular pioneer company:
Edward Hunter and Jacob Foutz letter to Brigham Young, 17 Aug 1847
Of course there are a zillion sources I could direct you to for early LDS research, but I will just direct you to the Research Wiki link for Tracing LDS Ancestors and you can take it from there.
I created a fan chart and color-coded it to show my children how many Mormon Pioneer ancestors they have. Red=crossed the plains with a Mormon pioneer company, Blue=Mormon, but not part of a pioneer company:
Pioneer ancestors of the children of Reed and Dayna Gooch Jacobs
My Gooch line is full of pioneers as well, but their records will not be found in the Pioneer Overland Travel database above, since they were not Mormon.
I owe everything to my pioneer ancestors, and I have loved learning about them as I have researched their lives, and I love them even though I have not yet met them. I hope my children can get a sense of who they are from looking at this chart, and cherish their roles as the “keepers of the flame.” I think we can all discover something about ourselves that qualifies us as a pioneer – taking a path that nobody has trod before – whether it is with a covered wagon or with our lives. Happy Pioneer Day to you all!
This is second in a series of posts about the digitized records available at Familysearch. I hope you’ve had a chance to explore the California records I listed, and that you made some new discoveries. So far, there are only 7 collections of Arizona records, but they include some essential ones:
Arizona digital collections at Familysearch as of 18 Jul 2013
Arizona Deaths, 1870-1951 is not as current as the database online at genealogy.az.gov because the Familysearch source is microfilm, and the genealogy.az.gov source is the government records which are added to each year (50 years back due to privacy). However, if you are looking for someone in that range, you will get an image of their death certificate in Arizona Death, 1870-1951:
Sarah Matilda Colborn (Pomeroy) death certificate, 1926
Here is the death certificate of my ancestor, Sarah Matilda Colborn who was married to Francis Martin Pomeroy. It’s nice to have a vital record for someone born in 1834. If you found a death certificate for someone who died in the 1870s you could conceivably have direct evidence of a birth date in the 1700s. (Of course it would be secondary vs. primary direct evidence, but still – not bad!) And who wouldn’t want to discover or verify an individual’s parents’ names—especially the mother’s maiden name? There’s nothing like a good death certificate to thrill a genealogist, and to get you back another couple of generations on your pedigree chart!
While this is an abstract rather than an image, it does give a film number for further reference. Also, the record collection pre-dates Arizona statehood (1912) by 3 years, which is notable.
So all you folks with Arizona roots, have at it! I know I’ve already found a bunch of records I need to connect to folks in my Family Tree.
On Granny's Trail 