Follow Friday: Usenet/Google Groups

Usenet began in the 1980s as a collection of discussion groups, mostly for college students and staff on any topic the users decided they wanted to talk about. Anything without limitations. Whenever a quorum decided a new topic was needed, it was added.

A company called DejaNews began organizing the Usenet archives in the late 1990s, and Google bought them in 2001 and formed Google Groups. Google Groups serves as both an archive going back to 1981 and a continuation of all the discussion groups. (This has frightened many former college students who began to ask, "Everything I posted there is now available for potential employers - or my kids! - to read? Forever?" Google used to provide a method of claiming old posts and deleting them, but that help page is no longer there, and they only explain how to delete more recent posts to Google Groups.)

A few of the groups that might be of of obvious interest to genealogists and family historians: Alt.Obituaries, and two dozen groups or so under the heading Soc.Genealogy.

Of course you can search all groups at once on the main page, including newer ones created under the auspices of Google Groups. Just be forewarned. In the search results, before clicking on something, take a look at what the title of the discussion-group is. This will likely give you a clue as to what posts you are likely to find in that group. This could change your mind on whether or not to read the post.

This post was adapted from a post back in August of 2007.

Follow Friday: Online Searchable Death Indexes and Records

This week, for Follow Friday, I'd like to recommend another indexing project similar to the two I mentioned last week, though this one was started in 2003.

Online Searchable Death Indexes and Records

Webmaster, Joe Beine, has catalogued online resources for death certificates, registers, funeral notices, obituaries, probate indexes, and burial records.  The website is limited to the United States, but there are listings for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  He has also created separate pages for seven cities (Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, and St. Louis.)

You can follow when the site is updated by subscribing to the RSS feeds at Joe Beine's Genealogy Roots Blog, or his Twitter account.

Follow Friday: Online Historical Directories and Newspapers

Last Friday I was unable to post a Follow Friday, so I thought I would suggest two sites today.  Both sites are maintained by the same person, and have similar missions, so it seems appropriate to mention them together.

For obvious reasons, Newspapers and City Directories are two extremely useful resources for genealogists.  Many are being digitized and put online, but if the researcher doesn't know they're there, they may spend the time to research them manually via microfilm, if the microfilm is available nearby, or not utilize the resource at all.

Miriam Robbins Midkiff of Ancestories decided there needed to be an online index for both resources, and has taken it upon herself to create them.  Online Historical Directories and Online Historical Newspapers.  They are both, by their vary nature, a work-in-progress.  Alone, either one of these would be worthy of commendation.

Currently, the Online Historical Directories index has listings in the US for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as listings for Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Thailand.

Online Historical Newspapers, which is a newer project, has listings in the US for 20 states and the District of Columbia. 

Both sites have blogs which can be followed for updates on new additions:  Online Historical Newspapers and Online Historical Directories.

***

The work done on these two sites impresses me, as I am familiar with the work a project of this nature involves. Back in 2000, I decided to create Victor Hugo Central - an index of online translations of material written by and about the French author (along with some public domain translations I've hand-entered.)  It became a time consuming project - one I enjoyed.  Then three years ago my time started being consumed by genealogy, which I also enjoy, but updates have dropped significantly.  Unfortunately, unlike my computer, it seems I have difficulty opening more than one Obsession Window at a time.

Follow Friday: Sanborn Maps

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company, established in 1867, compiled and published maps of U.S. cities and towns for the fire insurance industry to assess the risk of insuring a particular property. The maps are large scale plans of a city or town drawn at a scale of 50 feet to an inch, offering detailed information on the use made of commercial and industrial buildings, their size, shape and construction material. Some residential areas are also mapped. The maps show location of water mains, fire alarms and fire hydrants. They are color-coded to identify the structure (adobe, frame, brick, stone, iron) of each building. [source]

Being able to look at the buildings and area that surrounded an ancestor's homes can be very helpful.  Below is an image from a St. Louis City 1909 Sanborn map showing the 1100 block of North 8th Street.  My great grandfather, Herman Feinstein, was a teenager at 1122 N. 8th from 1896-1906.  The 1909 map places a "Jewish School" immediately behind that address.  I hypothesized that he may have gone to school there.




Where can you find Sanborn Maps?  The Library of Congress has uploaded some of them [for AK, AL, AZ, DC, GA, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, NC, NE, NV, PA, TX, VA, and Mexico (Coahuila)].  And they have an index by state, county and year for their holdings in their Geography and Map Room, and they offer duplication services.

You may be able to access some through your local library.  Proquest has over 600,000 of the maps, covering 1867-1970, and makes them available to libraries.  (The St. Louis County Library, for example, has purchased access to the Missouri and Illinois maps, and any resident with a library card can access them from home.)

Wikipedia has a list of online archives.

Follow Friday: RAOGK

Our volunteers have agreed to do a free genealogy research task at least once per month in their local area as an act of kindness. While the volunteers of Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) have agreed to donate their time for free, you MUST PAY the volunteer for his/her expenses in fulfilling your request (copies, printing fees, postage, film or video tape, parking fees, etc.).

RAOGK is a global volunteer organization. With over 4000 volunteers in every U.S. state and many international locations, we have helped thousands of researchers. Our volunteers take time to do everything from looking up courthouse records to taking pictures of tombstones. All they ask in return is reimbursement for their expenses (never their time) and a thank you.

RAOGK would almost certainly be on my list of Top Ten Genealogy Resources.  I suspect I am not alone in this feeling.  Not everything is online - sometimes, like the celebrities on Who Do You Think You Are, we have to go to the local cemeteries, courthouses, and archives.  But we don't have their wealth, nor is our research being bankrolled by a major network.  So finding fellow researchers willing to do the local research is priceless.

[If you do end up using RAOGK volunteers repetitively, consider signing up yourself to be a volunteer.]

RAOGK wasn't listed in ProGenealogist's Top 50 Genealogy Sites.  Why not?  

Their list isn't subjective, but is based on the website rankings of four separate companies.  The July/Aug 2008 issue of the Digital Genealogist explained their methodology.  In this description, they note that of the four companies: "Typically their rankings are based on some combination of the number of visitors, number of pages visited, and the time spent on a Web site."  RAOGK's absence simply means that less people are visiting the site than the fifty sites on the list.  Does this mean most genealogists don't agree with me that this would be in their list of top sites?

No, it doesn't mean this.  I actually wasn't surprised by RAOGK's absence once I thought about it.  While I am indebted to the volunteers for what they have found for me, and I would definitely rank the website's value to me as a researcher higher than several other websites on the list, RAOGK isn't 'sticky.'

(Stickiness is the measurement of the amount of time spent on a website over a period of time.)  

Most people who frequent the website aren't returning every day.  We only visit the site when we need it.  And it doesn't take too long to find the location of our research, and whether or not there is a volunteer there.  Rankings that are based on how frequently a website is visited, or how long one remains on the website, are unable to measure the value received during those visits in any other way.

Follow Friday: Texas State Library and Archives Commission

If your research takes you through Texas, you may want to visit the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, particularly their County Records Available on Microfilm.

The records are extensive, including vital statistics, probate records, naturalization records, and more. The microfilm can be borrowed through any public or private library that offers inter-library loan services.

Follow Friday: Footnote's Newspaper Archive

I am focusing on free resources for my Follow Friday series, and Footnote isn't free.  However, for the month of May, they are providing free access to their newspaper archive.

It's an opportunity you may not want to miss.

Follow Friday: Calendar Converter

There isn't only one place online to go for this, however, Calendarhome is my calendar converter of choice. Genealogists are most likely to come across the need for one if they are converting between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, or between the Gregorian and a specialized calendar, such as the Hebrew, Islamic, or Bahá'í

(click on image to enlarge)

I like this converter as it is compact. You enter one date, and all the other dates change with it. It also allows you to enter the time of day, which is important for converting between calendars where the day starts at different times.

For example, the image above shows that April 30, 2010 at 8 pm is equivalent to Iyyar 17 5770 on the Hebrew calendar. However, if I entered 4 pm, it would say Iyyar 16, since the Hebrew calendar advances at sunset.

Follow Friday: Jackson County (KC) Missouri Marriages

This week the resource I'd like to highlight is Jackson County Missouri's Marriage Database.  Jackson is the second largest county in the state, and home to Kansas City and Independence.

 You can retrieve the marriage record as a PDF or Tiff document.

Everything is up-to-date in Kansas City.



Sorry, I couldn't resist.  But it's accurate. The records cover the years 1826 to current date.  There are a few entries listed for April 20th, though only a few of the documents are available to download yet for the records after April 15th.

Still, for these records that are less than a week old, you have the following information available free online:

And if you are willing to wait a week or so, you should be able to download the marriage license and application.  There is a box on the application for social security number, but naturally, it has been whitened out.  It appears to be the only information that has been censored.

I wish every county did this.

I'm sure there are some who would rather the information on their marriage license wasn't publicly accessible.  And these individuals shouldn't file for a marriage license in Jackson County, Missouri.

There's also an Official Public Record database that goes back to 1963. 

There are lots of different types of records here, including Birth Certificates and Death Certificates.  However, there are only 41 matches for Death Certificates in the year 1963, and only 30 matches so far in 2010. There are a total of 48 birth certificates in the database, with January 1963 being the earliest, and September 2009 being the most recent.  Still, if your research takes you to the area, it may be worth checking out.

Follow Friday: St. Louis Religious Cemetery Databases

I'm going to start participating in the Genealogy Follow Friday meme

For recommending genealogy bloggers, specific blog posts, genealogy websites, or genealogy resources.

I am already creating lists of specific blog posts for my Weekly Genealogy Picks every Sunday.  However, I will focus here on genealogy resources.

The two resources I'm starting with will only be useful for those whose research takes them through St. Louis, Missouri.  However,  these two databases contain burial records from over twenty cemeteries in the region.

• Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of St. Louis

Here you can search a database for fifteen Catholic cemeteries in the St. Louis archdiocese.  The website implies that the database was completed for those fifteen cemeteries in 2003, and has since been updated in 'real time.'

• Resurrection
• Sts. Peter & Paul
• Mt. Olive
• Calvary
• Sacred Heart
• St. Charles Borromeo
• St. Peter
• St. Ferdinand
• St. Monica
• Our Lady
• Holy Cross
• St. Vincent
• Ste. Philippine
• St. Mary's
• Ascension

For some of the cemeteries, the results provide a lot# with a link, which allows you to easily find everyone else in the same lot.

There is also historical information and photo galleries for each cemetery.

• Jewish Cemetery Index

Though some burials are missing, this database, on the St. Louis Genealogical Society website, contains records from seven Jewish cemeteries.

• Chesed Shel Emeth (1816-2003)
• United Hebrew (1849-2002)
• New Mount Sinai (1853-2002)
• Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol (1920-2002)
• B'Nai Amoona (1901-2003)
• B'Nai Amoona (Old Section) (1872-1895)
• Chevra Kadisha Adas B'Nai Israel (1924-2003)

	It's hard for me to overestimate how much I owe in my personal research to this one database. All four families of my father's grandparents arrived in St. Louis between 1885-1910.  Almost all of the immigrants, and many of the following generations are buried in these cemeteries.