10 Awesome Genealogy Finds at the Internet Archive

Elevenses with Lisa Episode 43 Show Notes

Do you like finding new stuff about your family history? Well, then you’re in the right place because today that’s exactly what we’re going to do in this episode of Elevenses with Lisa

If you’re looking for new information about your family history, an important website to add to your research list is the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is a free website that attempts to archive the web, and that includes online genealogy!

One of the best ways to approach your search at the Internet Archive is by focusing on a particular type of record. Here are 10 genealogy records that every genealogist needs that can be found at this free website.

Watch the Internet Archive episode:

Getting Started with the Internet Archive

You are free to search for and access records without an account, but there’s so much  more you can do with a free account. Here are just a few advantages of having an Internet Archive account:

  • Borrowing ebooks
  • Saving Favorites
  • Uploading content
  • Recommending websites to be archived.

Getting a free account is easy. Simply click on the Sign Up link in the upper right corner of the home page.

Types of Content at the Internet Archive

There’s a surprisingly wide variety of content available on the website including:

  • Video
  • Audio
  • Text
  • Images
  • Books
  • Software

10 Awesome Finds at the Internet Archive

A great way to discover all that the Internet Archive has to offer is to think in terms of categories of records. I’m going to share with you ten genealogy record categories that include several specific types of records.

Start your search for each category using just a few keywords such as:

  • a location (town, county, etc.)
  • the type of record,
  • a family surname, etc.

Next try applying some of the filters found in the column on the left side of the screen. I try several combinations of searches to ensure that I’ve found all that the Internet Archive has to offer. Let’s get started:

Genealogy Records Category #1: Church Records

In Elevenses with Lisa episode 41 we discussed how to find and use church records for your family history. Here are just a few of the specific types of church records you can find at the Internet Archive:

  • Meeting Minutes
  • Church Histories
  • Quaker Records

Genealogy Records Category #2: Family Records

Including:

  • Compiled Family Histories
  • Family History (general)
  • Family Bibles

Learn more about finding and using family bibles for genealogy in Elevenses with Lisa episode 29.

Genealogy Records Category #3: Location-Based Records

Including:

  • Location History (Example: Randolph County Indiana History)
  • City and Rural Directories
  • Almanacs
  • International
  • Newspapers
  • Gazetteers
  • Plat Maps

Genealogy Records Category #4: School Records

Including:

  • Yearbooks
  • Student Newspapers
  • High School, College, etc.

Genealogy Records Type #5: Work Records

Including:

  • Trade journals
  • Corporate histories
  • Works Progress Administration (WPA)
  • Civilian Conversation Corps (CCC)

Genealogy Records Category #6: Military Records

Including:

  • Military Radio Shows
  • Newsreels
  • Military histories
  • Photographic reports
  • Veterans Administration Payment Records
  • WWI County Honor Books

Elevenses with Lisa episode 31 features the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library which hosts much of their content on the Internet Archive. Tip: If you find a collection difficult to navigate, visit the website of the sponsoring organization (such as the Allen County Public Library) which may have a better user interface for searching the records.

Genealogy Records Category #7: Patent Records

From the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Keep in mind that your ancestor may be mentioned in a patent even though they did not file it.

Genealogy Records Category #8: Probate Records

Although there doesn’t currently appear to be a large number of probate records, the Internet Archive does have some. Try searching by location to see if it includes a probate record for others from the same community. For example, a prominent shopkeeper might list many in the town who owed them money.  

Genealogy Records Category #9: Audio and Video Records

Audio records include:

  • Oral interviews
  • Old radio shows
  • Music from days gone by (78s, cylinders, etc.)

Genealogy Gems Premium Members: Listen to episode 176 of the Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast for more on the Great 78 Project at the Internet Archive. (Learn more about joining us as a Premium Member.)

Video records can include:

  • Old home movies
  • Local shows and news
  • Newsreels shown in movie theaters
  • History Documentaries

I searched for the small town where my husband’s ancestors lived for several generations and found a great video from 1954. It featured a parade float sponsored by his great grandfather’s business and several faces I recognized! Watch Winthrop Days.

Genealogy Records Category #10: Collections!

A collection is a group of records submitted by a user. Often times these will be organizations, libraries and archives.

You’ll find the most popular collections listed on the Internet Archive home page. You can also search collections from the Advanced Search.

Here are just a few examples of collections that may be of interest to you as a genealogist:

Borrowing Books from the Internet Archive

Visit the Books to Borrow collection. You will need to be logged into your free Internet Archive account in order to borrow books. You can borrow the book in 1 hour increments. In some cases, you can choose a 14-day loan. If there is only one copy of the book available, the 1 hour load will be the only option. If there are no copies available you can join a waitlist. No waitlist is necessary for one hour loan ebooks.

Learn more about creating your own collection at the Internet Archive.

Tips for Using the Internet Archive

Tip: Find More at the Internet Archive

Scroll down below the individual item for:

  • Download options
  • “In Collections” (which can lead you to more content from the same collection)
  • Similar items

Also, when you find an Item of interest, click the Contributor link to see all of the items uploaded by the user. It’s very likely they will have additional similar items.

Tip: Use the Internet Archive Advanced Search and Search Help

One advantage to using the Advanced Search is when you are searching for items from a specific timeframe. It’s much more efficient than clicking the box for very year in the range in the filter.

Tip: Downloading from the Internet Archive

Download the full cover version of the PDF when available. Images will likely be clearer and more accurate.

More Interesting Content at the Internet Archive:

  • Video Game Oregon Trail
  • Old Radio Programs
  • bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872
  • Veteran’s Administration Pension Payment Collection
  • Oaths of Allegiance and Naturalization Index
  • Genealogical publications

Answers to Live Chat Questions

One of the advantages of tuning into the live broadcast of each Elevenses with Lisa show is participating in the Live Chat and asking your questions.

Question from Sue: What does metadata mean?
Lisa’s Answer: Metadata is data that describes other data. For example, the date of upload is metadata for a digital file that you find online. Metadata is often added by the person or institution doing the uploading to the Internet Archive. I like to search both “Metadata” and “text contents”.

Question from CA: ​Date filter really applies to date posted not date of item u r looking for….correct?
Lisa’s Answer: In the case of genealogical documents, the date typically refers to the date of original publication rather than the date posted. You will find dates back into the 19th century in the filters.

Question from Mary: ​is there a print icon? I don’t see it.
Lisa’s Answer: Instead of printing, look for the download options. Once downloaded to your computer, then you can print. 

Downloading at Internet Archive

Click the options icon (3 dots in the round circle just below the Search icon) on the left side of the viewer to find the Downloadable Adobe files, or look for Download options below the item.

Question from Susie: ​Would this site have membership of Rotary clubs and such type groups?
Lisa’s Answer: Absolutely! Search for “rotary club” and perhaps the name of the town or locality.

Rotary Club records at Internet Archive

An example of a Rotary Club record from 1951 at the Internet Archive.

Question from Sally: Is broadest search METADATA? Does it catch everything?
Lisa’s Answer: No. Metadata is the default. I would strongly advise running both Metadata and text context searches for your search terms.

Question from Amy: ​Lisa, do you know of a way to correct records that are incorrectly or in sufficiently tagged?
Lisa’s Answer: To the best of my knowledge, you can only do that if you were the one who uploaded the item. If anyone else reading this has found a way to edit or tag other user’s items, please leave a comment below.

Question from John: You may have mentioned this but what is the difference between searching metadata or searching text?
Lisa’s Answer: Searching metadata is only searching the data (like tags) that were added to provide more information about the item. A text context search will search all the text that was typed including the title and description. I recommend searching both ways. Keep in mind that not all user’s include detailed descriptions, which is why metadata is very important.

Question from K M: ​Why does Allen County Library have this archive?
Lisa’s Answer: I think it may be because the Internet Archive provides affordable cloud storage which can be a big expense when offering online records.

Question from Karen: Lisa will you explain the download options?
Lisa’s Answer: Options are based on the type of item. For print publications you will often find you can download the item as an EPUB, PDF, Full Text, etc. Download options can be found by scrolling down just below the item near the description and Views. You can also found download options for Adobe files while viewing the item in the viewer. Click the three dots in a circle icon just below the search icon.

Question from Barbara: Would audio include old local radio programs?
Lisa’s Answer: Absolutely!

Question from Rita: Can you share info about how to upload something?
Lisa’s Answer: Learn more about creating your own collection at the Internet Archive.

Question from Margaret: What about information on the Mayflower?
Lisa’s Answer: Yes. Search Mayflower and then use the filters to narrow your results by Topic & Subject and by Year.

Question from Jeremy: Any pointers on Swiss Mennonites, Lisa?
Lisa’s Answer: A search of Swiss Mennonites brings up 21 items, some of which look rather interesting. Otherwise, like with all genealogy research, formulating a more specific question can help you craft a better search query at the Internet Archive.

Subscribing to the Genealogy Gems YouTube Channel:

 

Resources

Episode 145 – Blast From the Past Episodes 5 and 6

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In this episode I’ve got another blast from the past for you.  We have reached deep into the podcast archive and retrieved episodes 5 and 6.

In Episode 5 we touch on using the video website YouTube for genealogy, and then I walk you through how to Bring Sites Back From the Dead with Google. Then we wrap things up with a cool little way to Spice Up Your Genealogy Database.

In episode 6 I have a gem for you called Cast a Shadow on Your Ancestors, and we cover the free genealogy website US GenWeb

Episode: # 05
Original Publish Date:  March 25, 2007

MAILBOX

Email this week from   Mike O’Laughlin of the Irish Roots Cafe: “Congratulations on your podcast!  I am sure it will help many folks out there. I was glad to see the fine Irish families of Scully and Lynch on your latest show notes!”

GEM:  You Tube Follow Up
Note: The Genealogy Tech Podcast is no longer published or available.

  • YouTube in the news – the concern was raised by Viacom this month about YouTube benefiting from their programming without compensating them, which could mean copyright infringement.  While the course of YouTube could change depending on the outcome of this suit, the attraction for family historians remains strong because of the nature of the content.
  • Software mentioned:
    Pinnacle.  Final Cut for MAC.  Limits with Movie Maker
  • I posted 2 videos – A Nurse In Training Part 1 & 2

Genealogy Gems YouTube Channel  Click the Subscribe button to receive notification of new videos

 

GEM:  Bring Sites Back From the Dead with Google                                                    

When you get a “File Not Found” error when clicking on a link, it doesn’t mean the information is always gone forever.  You may be able to find it in the Cache version.

Google takes a snapshot of each page it examines and caches (stores) that version as a back-up. It’s what Google uses to judge if a page is a good match for your query.  In the case of a website that no longer exists, the cache copy us a snapshot of the website when it was still active hidden away or cached. 

Practically every search result includes a Cached link. Clicking on that link takes you to the Google cached version of that web page, instead of the current version of the page. This is useful if the original page is unavailable because of:

1.      Internet congestion

2.      A down, overloaded, or just slow website – Since Google’s servers are typically faster than many web servers, you can often access a page’s cached version faster than the page itself.

3.      The owner’s recently removing the page from the Web

 

Sometimes you can even access the cached version from a site that otherwise require registration or a subscription. 

 

If Google returns a link to a page that appears to have little to do with your query, or if you can’t find the information you’re seeking on the current version of the page, take a look at the cached version.

 

Hit the Back button and look for a link to a “cached” copy at the end of the URL at the end of the search result. Clicking on the “cached” link should bring up a copy of the page as it appeared at the time that Google indexed that page, with your search terms highlighted in yellow.

 

If you don’t see a cached link, it may have been omitted because the owners of the site have requested that Google remove the cached version or not cache their content.  Also, any sites Google hasn’t indexed won’t have a cache version.

 

Limit:  If the original page contains more than 101 kilobytes of text, the cached version of the page will consist of the first 101 Kbytes (120 Kbytes for pdf files).

 

Really looking for an oldie but a goody?  Try the Wayback Machine

It allows you to browse through 85 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago.

To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of a site or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Then select from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point to other archived pages at as close a date as possible. Keyword searching is not currently supported.

GEM:  Spice up your database

  • Search Google Images, then Right click and save to your hard drive.
  • Use Silhouettes
  • Find something that represents what you do know about that person.  It really does help you see them more as a person and less as an entry in your database – their occupation, a reader, a sport, etc.

Episode: # 06
Original Publish Date: April 1, 2007

You can learn more about Jewish roots at the 350 Years of American Jewish History website JewishGen, The Home of Jewish Genealogy

GEM:  Cast a Shadow on Your Ancestors

In the episode #5 I shared a little gem that would spice up your genealogical database – adding silhouettes and artistic images to the file of an ancestor when you don’t have a photograph.

Probably the most famous silhouette these days are the silhouettes used by Apple for advertising the iPod digital music and audio player.  It may surprise your teenager or grandchild to learn that the first silhouettes were done hundreds of years ago.

Back then silhouettes (or shades as they were called), they paintings or drawings of a person’s shadow. They were popular amongst English royalty and the art form quickly spread to Europe.  A silhouette can also be cut from black paper, and was a simple alternative for people who could not afford other forms of portraiture, which, in the eighteenth century, was still an expensive proposition.

The word took its name from Étienne de Silhouette, but it’s uncertain as to whether his name was attributed because he enjoyed this art form, or as the story goes because the victims of his taxes complained that they were reduced to mere shadows.

Either way, the popularity of Silhouettes hit new heights in the United States where they were seen in magazines, brochures and other printed material. But they faded from popularity as Photographs took over in the 1900s.

As a follow up, I want to share with you a simple technique for creating your own silhouettes. You can use ordinary snapshots to create a visual family record.

  • Take a photo of a person in profile against a neutral background. 
  • Blanket the photo background with white acrylic or tempera paint
  • Fill in the image with a heavy black permanent marker, curing the shoulders down for a classical pose. 
  • Add fun details like cowlicks, eyelashes, hats, and jewelry that express the person’s personality with a fine felt-tip pen.
  • Photocopy the doctored photos onto quality art paper.  Since glossy papers work print best, you could also use your computer scanner to scan the image into your hard drive.  From there you can add it to your database, or print it out onto glossy photo paper for mounting.

To represent folks in your family tree, create a silhouette of your father to represent his Great Great Grandfather, and add a farmer’s hat and rake to represent his profession of farming.  Chances are dad has inherited some of his profile anyway.  Have fun with it and be creative.  But of course be very sure to label to silhouette appropriately as a creative interpretation rather than a literal rendering.

You can also do silhouettes of your family including extended family and arrange the portraits together on a wall.  Use black painted frames in a variety of shapes and sizes and hang in a way that represents the family tree / relationships.

Check out the Art Café Network website for a Short History of Silhouettes by Katherine Courtney.

For More detailed how-to information, they have additional pages on cutting visit http://artcafenetwork.net/meet/kat/silhouette/cutting.html

2 Silhouette books to turn to:

Silhouettes%20:%20Rediscovering%20the%20Lost%20Art<img%20src=”http:/www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=genegemspodc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0970115105″%20width=”1″%20height=”1″%20border=”0″%20alt=””%20style=”border:none%20!important;%20margin:0px%20!important;”%20/>%20″ >Silhouettes: Rediscovering the Lost Art

by Kathryn K. Flocken

Old-Fashioned Silhouettes (Dover Electronic Clip Art) (CD-ROM and Book)

 

GEM:  GenWeb Pages

Last year the website celebrated its 10th Anniversary.  The USGenWeb Project consists of a group of volunteers working together to provide Internet websites for genealogical research in every county and every state of the United States. The Project is non-commercial and fully committed to free access for everyone. Organization within the website is by state and county.

You can go to the homepage of the website and click on the state of your choice from the left hand column.  From the state page you can select the county you wish to search in.  However, when I know they name of the county I want to search in,  I’ve found it’s often quicker just to search at google.com and do a search like  “genweb sibley county mn”  The choice is yours. 

Remember to use the Google search gem that I gave you in episode one (see episode #134  http://www.genealogygemspodcast.com/webpage/episode-145-a-blast-from-the-past ) to quickly search within the county website.   Many don’t have search engines of their own, and so that’s when I first really started using that search technique.  These county sites are often very rich though, and after a focused search, it’s rewarding just to wander the site.  It will help you become more familiar with the county!

You’ll likely find databases of Births, Deaths, Marriages, townships histories, plat maps, surnames, and a host of other topics. Because each county has its own volunteer coordinator, the information you will find varies from county to county.  And as always, info is being added regularly, so you need to book mark them and return on a regular basis to see what’s new.

Be sure and share your resources as well.  That’s the power behind the GenWeb project – volunteers.  Volunteering your county resources will enrich other’s experience and will likely lead to connections that will continue to further your own research.

Book Mentioned in this episode:
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Online Genealogy, Second Edition
by Rhonda McClure

Check out this episode

Findmypast Library Edition: Request it At Your Public Library!

findmypast library editionfindmypast now has a Library Edition available within the United States. Patrons of subscribing libraries can now have access to their billions of records from England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

Highlights of what you’ll find on findmypast Library Edition include:

  • Largest online collection of U.K. parish records;
  • Exclusive access to the new PERiodical Source Index (now with images);
  • Most comprehensive Irish family history records in the world.

Findmypast’s version of PERSI, the Periodical Source Index, includes more than 2.5 million indexed entries from thousands of genealogical and local history publications–AND a growing number of digitized articles! Click here to read more about PERSI, which we love.

Here’s How You Can Use FindMyPast for Free
We asked Josh Taylor at FMP how subscribers and non-subscribers can use the Library Edition:

1) “FMP subscribers can login to their own accounts while at the library.”

2) “Also, library users who are not paid subscribers can create a free account that allows them to create a tree, store, and attach records they view while at the library. The free account works like a standard Findmypast account so can be used at home to access their tree (and even get automatic hints).”

We’ve blogged about the Hints feature here at Genealogy Gems.

stick_figure_ride_mouse_400_wht_9283Ready to do some library research? We’ve got more tips for you, like:

Finally, here’s an important tip: let your voice be heard at your public library! They need to know how many people care about genealogy and family history. They need to know what databases you’re most interested in accessing. In an era of struggle for many public libraries, they have to prioritize their energies, so tell them what you want to learn!

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