by Lisa Cooke | Feb 27, 2015 | 01 What's New, images, Maps
Do you have ancestors who lived in the “Windy City” of Chicago, Illinois (USA)? You should check out Chicago in Maps, a web portal to historic, current and thematic maps.
As the News-Gazette reports, “There are direct links to over three dozen historic maps of Chicago, from 1834 to 1921. The thematic maps include Chicago railroad maps, transit maps and geological maps.”
Of course, there are current maps, too, including a Chicago street guide for 2014. There’s a fascinating set of maps showing the effects of landfill projects. The Sources and Links page directs users to helpful guides to street name changes and house numbers. You’ll find links to surveyors’ maps, too.
From the home page, you can also click to a sister site on Chicago streetcars that includes a 1937 map of streetcar lines. (There’s a second sister site on Chicago bridges.)
Genealogy Gems Premium members can learn more about using maps for family history research in my online video class, 5 Ways to Enhance Your Genealogy Research with Old Maps. To learn more about the benefits of Premium membership (including a year’s full access to over 2 dozen full-length video classes), click here.
by Lisa Cooke | Mar 3, 2014 | 01 What's New, FamilySearch
Did you know that the CEO of FamilySearch International doesn’t have a background in genealogy?
Dennis Brimhall is an experienced CEO–that’s why he was hired. But he admits that some folks even within his own organization weren’t sure about having him at the helm if family history wasn’t his personal passion.
Since then–only two years ago–FamilySearch has grown under Brimhall’s leadership. Dennis’ interest in family history has grown, too! Check out the interview in my Premium Podcast Episode 107, just published. You’ll hear how FamilySearch is reaching out to the 95%+ of the public who is not actively doing genealogy by focusing on the same things that caught Dennis’ interest: stories and photos.
In this episode we also explore a wonderful resource for Missouri genealogical research, and then we make tracks on some railroad history.
Not a Premium member yet? You’re missing out! My website is packed with hours’ worth of Premium podcast episodes like this one as well as a full (and growing!) series of Premium videos. The videos are recordings of some of my most popular presentations, and they’re available to Premium members 24/7 from the comfort of their own computers at the fraction of the cost of attending any major conference! They cover many of my most-requested topics: Google searching, Google Earth, Evernote, using the iPad for genealogy, hard drive organization and more! Check out the full list of membership benefits here.
by Diahan Southard | May 11, 2016 | 01 What's New, House History
A “house history” can tell you more about the house you live in–or your ancestor’s home. Here’s how.
Are you curious about the history of the house you live in, or would you like to trace the history of a family property? The online article “How to Research Your Home’s Past” by Charity Vogel has some great ideas. It’s not written for family historians, but I like some of the ideas it suggests:
1. Pull a full history of home ownership off your deed. (Historical deeds may not have these. But each deed does represent a link in the chain of property ownership: you should be able to move forward and backward in time in deed records until you’ve listed all owners.)
2. Use census records to learn more about other folks who lived in your home. Remember you’ll be able to see how many people lived there, and, for some census years, whether they owned or rented.
3. Watch for unusual patterns of ownership. For example, a deed showed sisters co-owning a home in the 1930s. Additional research showed that the sisters were nurses and ran the house as a community hospital. How cool is that to know about a house?
4. If it was a grand or unusual home, see whether the newspapers covered its construction. The author of the article found an 1898 article that detailed the entire five-month building process of her house!
Last year I shared an applicable research strategy in my blog post A Shocking Family Secret, and 3 Powerful Newspaper Research Tips about researching our ancestors and where they lived. By searching on their home address, and not including their name, you can uncover “a kind of house history set of search results, revealing who lived there before, descriptions of the home and its contents and who moved in after your ancestors left. In my case, I located an article about the Cooke home (by the address) being up for sale several years before they owned it. That article included a fairly detailed description of the property. The final article found in the British newspapers was also found only by address (as the Cooke name wasn’t mentioned) and it detailed the contents of their household up for sale. The auction was held in preparation for their move to Canada.” (Click here to learn more about finding your family history in newspapers.)
While looking for more on this topic, I came across a great newspaper article about three researchers who specialize in house histories. They said that in addition to the personal satisfaction of knowing about a family home, “A bit of history and story makes it much easier to sell: it attracts a certain buyer.”
Here are a few more helpful resources, if you’d like to research your house history:
More House History Gems: Researching a Family Residence
Ancestral Landmark Discovery with Google Earth
How to Find a Family Address: 4 Steps to Using Google Earth for Genealogy
Was This My Ancestor’s Neighborhood?
by Lisa Cooke | Feb 26, 2016 | 01 What's New, Records & databases
New genealogy records online this week include a new index of WWII POWs from the US; British and Welsh newspapers, New York passenger and crew lists and more. Take a look!
BRITISH 1939 REGISTER BROWSER. A new browsing tool is available to help Findmypast subscribers access the 1939 Register (which is online in indexed format but requires separate premium access). “A handy partner to the name-searchable 1939 Register, Browse offers you the ability to explore England and Wales by county, borough/district, piece number and ED letter code.”
BRITISH AND WELSH NEWSPAPERS. Over 6.4 million articles have recently been added to Findmypast’s collection of historic British Newspapers. They comprise 26 new titles, including 19 from Wales dating back to 1829. According to the collection description, “19 of our newest titles come from Wales, allowing you an insight into local life during the 19th and early 20th centuries.”
ENGLAND (LANCASHIRE) CEMETERY. Nearly a half million indexed records have been added to a free collection at FamilySearch of England Lancashire Oldham Cemetery Registers 1797-2004. According to the collection description, “This collection contains cemetery registers from Hollinwood, Failsworth, Royton, Crompton, Chadderton, Lees, and Greenacres cemeteries in Oldham. Most registers contain, name, address, date of death, date of burial and burial location.”
NEW JERSEY CHURCH. Ancestry.com has posted a new collection of New Jersey, United Methodist Church Records, 1800-1970
, 1800-1970
spanning nearly two centuries (1800-1970). According to the description, “This collection includes baptism, marriage, burial, and membership records from churches in the Greater New Jersey United Methodist Church Commission on Archives and History. Most records are from churches that have been closed.”
NEW YORK IMMIGRATION/CREW. FamilySearch has a new browse-only collection of more than 3.2 million records of New York passenger arrivals at Ellis Island (1891-1924). It links to images of arrival lists at the Ellis Island website. In addition, nearly 1.3 million indexed records have been added to FamilySearch’s collection of New York New York Index to Alien Crewmen Who Were Discharged or Who Deserted (1917-1957).
US WWII PRISONERS OF WAR. A new database of over 143,000 United States prisoners of war records (1941-1945, prisoners of the Japanese) is now searchable on FamilySearch.org.
Keep up-to-date with this weekly digest of new genealogy records online, which notes some of the biggest, most interesting and exciting collections we’ve noticed. Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter so you won’t miss any, and you’ll receive a free e-book of Lisa Louise Cooke’s Google search tips from her popular book, The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox.
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by Betsy Green 
by Sally Light