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(Excerpted from “Online Local Histories: Family History at
Your Finger Tips,” by Rick Crume. Internet Genealogy, September 2007,
pgs 48-52)
How exciting it is to find
information about our ancestors; however, at times we hit a brick wall in
locating any more information. To make your family history more interesting it
becomes helpful to find information about the places your ancestors lived. This
is where local, county and state histories can provide many tidbits to expand
your knowledge of what life was like for your ancestors. Your ancestor may even
be mentioned in one of these histories!
Listed
below are some websites that will help you find local
histories.
Linkpenium
www.linkpenium.com
This is a huge directory of genealogy websites, including
more than 600,000 locality sites and five million surname sites. Check the History category under both the
states and counties you’re looking for as well as the links to town histories
included in the county listings.
Online
County
Histories
, Biographies & Indexes –
USA
: A Genealogy Guide
www.genealogybranches.com/county
histories.html
This site focuses on biographies; however, there is other
information. Not all states have
information.
Ray’s
Place
http://history.rays-place.com
Contains
town histories for nine states (
New England
)
and many biographies.
USGENWEB
Project
www.usgenweb.org
One of the best free genealogy sites. It is a network of state sites linked to
pages for every county in the country. You are encouraged to participate in giving information on your family,
town, county etc (not obligated, though).
Google
www.google.com
This is the wild card search. Enter the county + state “history.” Example: placer +
California
history.
American Local History Collections – lets
you search through the full text of thousands of books at once. Some site are free;
others require a subscription.
Accessible Archives
www.accessible.com
For
Mid-Atlantic
States
research. Has
access to newspapers, magazines, 92 county histories published between 1870 and 1900. Includes 47
Pennsylvania
histories
and other from
Delaware
,
Maryland
,
New Jersey
and
New York
. Subscription: $9.95 for 30 days; $49.95 for a year or $14.95 for a year’s access to
just the county histories.
Mid-Atlantic
Archives
www.midatlanicarchives.com
This is another site that has compiled local history
collections. No fee
Ancestry.com
www.ancestry.com
Remember to check out Ancestry.com in the computer room for
its large collection of local and family histories. To search them, click on the Stories &
Publications tab and fill in the form. Subscription but free to Sun City
Roseville
residents in the Computer Room.
BYU Family History Archives
www.lib.byu.edu/fhc
BYU’s free Family History Archives
has digital images of more than 5000 family and local histories. When the Family History Archives has a
digital version of a book at the Family History Library in
Salt Lake City
, the Family History Library
Catalog, www.familysearch.org, has a
link to the digital version. Eventually
you’ll be able to contribute your family history to the Family History
Archives. No fee
HeritageQuest Online
www.heritagequest online.com
Contains all US census records, Revolutionary War pension
files and 20,000 family and local history books are just part of this major
record collection.
This is a subscription
site but can be access through the
Roseville
Public library using your card number and password.
Making of
America
(
University
of
Michigan
)
http://moa.umdl.umich.edu
Contains about 9500 books and 50,000
journal articles. Focuses on 19th century American social history. No fee
NEXT
MONTH: Statewide Local History
Collections and Canadian Local History Collections
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Next
meeting of the Sun City Roseville Genealogy Group:
Wednesday October 3 at 1:00 pm in the Cedar Room. Topic “The Wonders of What You Can Find
Searching Google” presented by Sid Salinger. Sid will focus on genealogy research on Google.
Please return to this site soon as we will be adding new information soon. We will also be adding other websites discussed and used by the SCR Genealogy Group.
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