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Genealogy Fair at Odenton Regional Library
This is breaking news! The Odenton Regional Branch of the Anne Arundel County Public Library will be hosting a Genealogy Fair on Saturday, October 28, 2017 from 10am-3pm. They hope to have three parts to this event: speakers throughout the day, resource tables available for the whole event, and an open workshop in our computer lab for participants to get some hands-on experience with our resources. Put this on your calendar!
read more6 Great Websites for Autosomal Tools and Techniques
Are you excited about your autosomal DNA results? Have you been wondering what to do next? The half dozen websites in this blog post will keep you busy with these tools and techniques to make the most of your autosomal DNA test results. A great list of third party tools and apps from Blaine Bettinger, the Genetic Genealogist If you have tested your autosomal DNA at FamilyTreeDNA, or transferred your results there, you will want Nine Autosomal Tools at Family Tree DNA Downloads of tools and presentations from Kitty Cooper’s Blog In...
read moreGet Your Irish Civil Records Online!
If you have Irish ancestors, you need to be using the Civil Records at IrishGenealogy.ie This website will be a major boon to your research. Using this website, I was able to look up and download records that would have cost quite a bit to order from overseas. The Civil Records that are online are: Births: 1864 to 1915 Marriages: 1882 to 1940 Deaths: 1891 to 1965 A good place to start is the page about the Civil Records: https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/civil-records/help/what-are-the-civil-records To search, go to...
read moreFinding Melville S. Bulmer in the 51st Pioneer Infantry and Beyond
Recently, I won auctions on ebay for a letter and some postcards written by a member of the 51st Pioneer Infantry. The letter was a pleasant, newsy conversation with the folks back home. The author mentioned the loss of his own Brother, his enjoyment of a pass to visit Coblenz on his birthday, and his goal of pastoral studies. At night he taught soldiers how to read and write. He mentioned his thoughts turning to his home “in the thick of the fight”. I decided to do some investigation into the author of the letter....
read moreThe Family History Guide: A Review
You have heard that there are websites on the Internet that can help you with your research. You have probably found some of them. Wouldn’t it be great if there was someone who could show you, step-by-step, where to find help when you need it? Could you benefit from a guide who would point you to good websites where you learn about a specific family history topic, or even about computer basics? You can find such a guide for the web, in The Family History Guide. The Family History Guide was launched in July 2015 as an...
read moreUSAHEC Visit – Day 2
We came back to photograph more of the contents of the folders. That went quickly. There was some extra time, so one of my research assistants decided to research his Civil War veterans. There were no images of his ancestors, but he did find ones from the same regiment and the same home town. We even had time for some made-to-order lunch at the Café Cumberland. There was time to visit the exhibits in the Soldier Experience Gallery. Exhibit in the Soldier Experience Gallery, USAHEC Exhibit...
read moreUSAHEC Visit – Day 1
We entered USAHEC, and asked the Information Desk to direct us to the Archives. We reported to the Reference Desk. We were issued a key for a locker, and our Research Cards were created. The Specialist had to take my list and translate it into the locations of the material. Then we took the list to the Circulation Desk. The materials were brought out to us after a very short wait. This box held SGT Mansfield’s diary. I scanned it for the events and dates that were included, and to see if Joseph McMahon was mentioned by...
read moreUSAHEC Visit – Homework
The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC) holds a tremendous amount of information that may assist you in your research about U.S. Army ancestors. They may not have an image of your ancestor, or papers with you ancestor’s name, but there may be material from contemporaries that will shed light on your ancestor’s experience. The Staff is extremely knowledgeable and is available to help you. There are books about military history, and Army publications. There are extensive collection of unit histories and photo archives. There are...
read moreNARA II, College Park Visit – Day 3
We returned to NARA several days later to view the boxes in RG120 that held records from the 51st Pioneer Infantry. In this part of the record set, the documents were arranged by company. There were twelve boxes in all. (Company B was on the desk.) One of the interesting things was the correspondence books. Before computer indexing, people had to know how to locate items in their records. I have used index books for land and probate records. (See the tutorials.) There was my Grandfather’s name as...
read moreNARA II, College Park Visit – Day 2
Day 2 I went directly to the Research Consultation room, and got help to order the RG120 boxes to find the ones for the 51st Pioneer Infantry. Since there are limits on the number of boxes, from a number of areas, I went back to the RG120 boxes to copy the interesting documents. This required a stop at the copying desk for them to approve the copies. Those documents required declassification markings when copying and photographing. The records will be held for three days, unless you sign to return them. I returned those five...
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