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Ohio Genealogy Research and the Virtual Courthouse

by Lisa Cooke | May 13, 2017 | 01 What's New, FamilySearch, Research Skills | 1 comment

I have thoroughly enjoyed having Amie Tennant as a blogger for the past year. In her final blog post for Genealogy Gems she takes us on a tour of her home state’s digital records. Then she will be turning all of her attentions to her own genealogical certification. Thank you Amie for all of your helpful and thoroughly enjoyable posts! – Lisa Louise Cooke

Ohio genealogy research goes digital. You can now virtually walk into any courthouse in Ohio with the click of the mouse. Check out the amazing browse-only databases at FamilySearch for Ohio and other states, and take your family history research to the next level.

I use FamilySearch.org to search courthouse record books all the time. In particular, the Ohio Probate Records, 1789-1996 now have nearly 7 million digital images of county record books such as wills, estate files, guardianship records, naturalization records, minutes, bonds, and settlements. In fact, many other states have their court record books online at FamilySearch, too. So, why haven’t you noticed before?

Browse-only Databases vs. Indexed Databases

You may have read our previous post on step-by-step instructions to using browse-only databases at FamilySearch. If you didn’t, you should know that when you are searching for records at FamilySearch using the traditional search fields, you are only searching for records that have been indexed. In other words, there may be thousands of records you need on the site, but you won’t find them. They have not been indexed by a searchable name, place, or date. Instead, you need to go in the virtual “back door.”

Step 1: First, go to FamilySearch and sign in. Next, click Search at the top right. Now you will see a map of the world. Click on the desired location. I have chosen the U.S., but you can choose any country you are interested in.

Step 2: Once you choose your desired country or continent, a pop-up list will be available and allow you to choose the state (or country) you wish to search in. In this case, a list of the U.S. states appears and I clicked on Ohio.

Step 3: The system will direct you to a new page. You will first see the Ohio Indexed Historical Records. These are the records and collections that have been indexed and are searchable by name, date, and place. Though these are great, they are not the record collections I want to share with you today.

Instead, scroll down until you see the heading Ohio Image Only Historical Records. You will notice several databases such as cemetery records, church records, naturalization records, etc. All of these are browseable. That means you will use them like you would microfilm.

Step 4: I want to bring your attention to a specific record collection, so scroll down even further until you see Ohio Probate Records, 1789-1996. Click it.

At the next screen, you will see you can browse the 6,997,828 Ohio probate records and you are probably thinking, “What!? I can’t possibly browse through nearly 7 million records!” But, you can, so go ahead and click it!

Step 5: At the new screen, you will see everything is broken up into counties. Click on the county you are interested in researching. You will next see a list of possible record books available for that county. Each county will vary, so where you may find guardianship records available in one county, you might not find them in another.

Ohio Genealogy Research at the Courthouse

As a refresher, courthouse research is often imperative to thorough genealogy research. Here is a helpful chart of the type of information you may find in these types of court records. Be sure to remember: records and the amount of information they contain change over time.

More on Courthouse Research Techniques

Are you looking to understand the value of courthouse research and how to use those records to overcome brick walls in your family tree? Read 4 Ways to Power Up Your Courthouse Research Skills from our own Sunny Morton.

Destination Yorkshire, England with a Stop in New Jersey

by Lisa Cooke | Aug 12, 2016 | 01 What's New, Records & databases

This week’s round-up of new and updated genealogical records will begin in the United States with records from Minnesota and New Jersey. Our final destination is Yorkshire, England with the incredible new and updated collections at Findmypast. Baptisms, marriages, banns, and more!

United States – New Jersey – Church Records

Ancestry has a new record collection entitled “New Jersey, Episcopal Diocese of Newark Church Records, 1809-1816, 1825-1970.” In this group of records, you will find parish registers from Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Newark. Each register provides a record of the baptisms, marriages, and burials performed at that church. The records are indexed and are easily searchable. Sometimes, these registers include a list of families, persons confirmed, communicants, and details on offerings received by the church. However, these lists of families, communicants, et cetera are not yet indexed.

Baptismal records typically include, the name of the child, parents’ names, baptism date, and the officiator. In many cases the birth date and place are noted as well.

Marriage records include the marriage date, the couple’s names, residences, and the name of the officiator.

Lastly, burial records list the name of the deceased, date of death, date and place of the funeral, and officiating minister. Some funeral records may even include the cause of death and date and place of burial.

United States – New Jersey – State Census

Genealogists are usually well acquainted with the federal censuses taken each decade. Here in the United States, the first was taken in 1790. Many researchers may not know, however, that some states were taking state censuses every ten years on the five’s. For example, New Jersey has a census from 1855.

FamilySearch.org offers free access to all their database collections, including the New Jersey State Census of 1855. Most towns included in the census will only include the names of head-of-households, but the returns for Pequanac Township in Morris County also list the names of the wife and children in each household.

Missing areas in this census include, Burlington, Cape May, Mercer, Middlesex, Ocean, and Salem counties and unfortunately, other areas may be incomplete.

United States – Minnesota – School Records

FamilySearch has also made the Minnesota, Clay County, School Census Records, 1909-1962 available online. School records are a great resource for finding missing children in your family tree.

These records include digital images, but be aware! Some of the records contain many errors with some years incorrectly identified, particularly the 1960’s. Records will typically include the name of the student, the age of the student, and their parents’ or legal guardians’ names.

United States – Military

Page from Roll 1 1798 Aug-1806 Dec

U.S. Muster Rolls of the Marine Corps, 1798-1937 can now be searched from FamilySearch. These digital images were taken from microfilm rolls at the National Archives. The records are arranged chronologically by month, then by post, station or ship, and are part of Record Group 127 Records of the U.S. Marine Corps. Not all of these muster rolls are complete and some have not yet been indexed. Be sure to check back regularly as more of the records are indexed.

In the meantime, if you do find your targeted ancestor, the following information may be listed:

Name of officer or enlisted man
Rank and unit in which served
Date of enlistment
Date of re-enlistment
Name of ship
Notes regarding promotions, transfers, physical description, etc.

In some cases, muster rolls also contain the following:

Injuries or illness and type of treatment
Date of death or discharge
Date of desertion
Date of apprehension
Date of court martial
Sentence of court-martial

England: Yorkshire Genealogy Records – Baptisms

Findmypast has just added four new collections for Yorkshire England. The Yorkshire Baptism records collection has over 79,000 new records. These new additions cover Church of England parishes across Rotherham, the Roman Catholic parishes of Doncaster, St Peter in Chains, Knaresborough, St Mary, Rotherham, St Bede, Sheffield, St Marie Cathedral, Sheffield, St Vincent and Staveley, and St Joseph. Each record includes a transcript and an image of the original document.

By using the parish location and the parents names, you may be able to continue your search in the next collection.

England: Yorkshire Genealogy Records – Marriages

With over 28,000 new records added to this Findmypast collection, you may finally be able to locate great-grandpa’s marriage record in the Yorkshire Marriages. The record collection actually has over 2.4 million records spanning near 400 years. Because of the time span covering several centuries, information contained on the records may vary. You may find any of the following pieces of information:

Name
Birth year
Marriage date and place
Residence
Occupation
Marital Status
Spouse’s name, residence, and occupation
Father’s name and Spouse’s father’s name
Name of witnesses

England: Yorkshire Genealogy Records – Banns

Findmypast’s collection of Yorkshire Banns has some new additions. Each of the nearly 600,000 records contain both a transcript and an image of the original document. Some information will vary, but may include a name, place of banns, date of banns, marriage year, residence, and the name of their spouse.

These banns cover a very lengthy time span with records as early as the 1600’s through the 1930’s. In this case, a bann of marriage is the public announcement in a Christian parish church of an upcoming marriage. Banns were read on three consecutive Sundays in the church of both the bride and the groom.

England: Yorkshire Genealogy Records – Burials

Lastly, Findmypast has been adding to their over 4 million Yorkshire Burials. The records found in this collection record the details of Roman Catholics buried across five parishes in Doncaster, Knaresborough, Rotherham, Sheffield and Staveley. Information found in this collection may include name, age at death, birth year, burial date, and burial place. Each record will contain at least a transcript and some offer a digital image as well.

Thank you for sharing these new genealogy records online with fellow genies and society members! We appreciate you helping us spread the good news.

Didn’t find the records you’ve been pining for? Click here for a Google-based strategy on searching online for genealogy records.

Illuminating Time-Lapse Videos Show Our Changing World

by Lisa Cooke | Jul 18, 2016 | 01 What's New, Immigration, Maps | 1 comment

Time-lapse videos first intrigued me as a child when I watched a little seed grow into a beautiful flower in a matter of seconds. Now, illuminating time-lapse videos and tools are helping genealogists visualize our changing world.

Last month, animator Max Galka published a time-lapse map of the history of urbanization over nearly 6,000 years in just three minutes.

Mr. Galka mentions on his blog that tracking urbanization occuring before the mid-20th century was a difficult task – until recently. A team of Yale researchers published a collection of urban population data dating back to ancient times which helped Galka create his video. Their collection was quoted to be a “clean, accessible dataset of cities, their locations, and their populations over time.”

I was surprised how quickly things changed and found it amazing still how many places in the world are yet to be “urbanized.”

Time-lapse Video Covering Immigration to the U.S. Since 1820

Again, Max Galka presented an amazing animation of immigration to the United States. This creation shows the countries that sent the most people to the U.S. since 1820.

The U.S. is a nation of immigrants, says Galka. As each dot flies across the page, it represents 10,000 people who immigrated to the U.S. In the bottom left corner, Mr. Galka lists the three top countries where immigrants are coming from at any given time. I was stunned as the map lit up in Russia and Africa only fairly recently. It is clearly shown that the U.S. is indeed a nation of immigrants in this colorful time-lapse video.

Time-lapse Tools for Genealogy

As a genealogist, I am constantly in search of county records. So many times, county lines or boundaries changed. I even have one family that lived on the same farm, but technically resided in three different counties over a period of about 50 years. We can’t possibly know when each county of any given state was formed or created, until now that is.

One of my favorite tools for discovering county changes over time is the Map of US.org website. You can find a map of each of the 50 states and run the interactive formation sequence. For example, I can find the Ohio map.

The Ohio map begins in 1788. It indicates the one county in the Northwest Territory (today’s Ohio) at that time. Washington County was formed as the original county of the Northwest Territory and was created from part of Illinois County, Virginia. That’s another reason I love these interactive maps. With the creation of each county, the map indicates from which parent county or counties it was formed. This is a great help for genealogy research. When I can’t find my targeted ancestor in the county I thought they should be in, I can determine when the county was formed and from what parent county or counties it was formed from. Then, I can quickly determine the other locations that may have records I need.

In addition to the interactive time-lapse maps, each state has a list of other helpful maps that may be of interest to you. For example, the map links for Oregon include the Historical Maps of Oregon, a set of beautiful old maps that can be viewed or downloaded.

Maps can give us a bigger picture of our county, our state, our country, and even the world. These tools help us picture our ever-changing world. What impacted you the most while watching these videos? We would love to hear from you in the comments below!

If you feel inspired to learn more about map visualization, you will enjoy Lisa’s Google Earth video. Lisa was an early pioneer of genealogical data visualization and has been teaching genealogists how to use the free software for the last several years. You can watch the free Google Earth for Genealogy video here or check out her revised and updated e-book, The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox 2nd Edition to learn even more tips and tricks for Google genealogy research.

Using the US Public Records Index for Genealogy

by Lisa Cooke | Jun 15, 2016 | 01 What's New, Records & databases, Research Skills | 7 comments

The US Public Records Index can be useful for genealogy–if you understand what it is and how to use it properly. Here’s an example and some tips.

Not long Russ sent in this tip recommending the US Public Records Index for genealogy:

“I was listening to Genealogy Gems Podcast 181 [in which] you were talking about where do we search while we are waiting for the 1950 Census….I recently discovered a wonderful resource, on Ancestry.com, that I have used along with city directories. The name of the record group doesn’t sound interesting but it can be a Gem for you: the US Public Record Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1 and 2. Volume 1 is far more interesting with more data. A search will return a name AND birth date, along with more than one address, zip code and sometimes phone numbers.”

Here’s a sample search result:

Russ kindly sent me Ancestry’s description of its online database for Volume 1, which says that original data comes from public records spanning all 50 states, such as voter registration lists, public record filings, historical residential records and other household database listings.

Collection Profile

What: U.S. Public Records Index

Where: Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage

Years Spanned: 1950-2009

Source Type: Lacking original source citations. “Hints to go on and follow up with further research into verifiable sources.”

Then he shared the following example of using the US Public Records Index to find recent relatives that he can’t look up yet in the 1950 census:

“I had a hint for a cousin in a yearbook. I know that she recently lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I didn’t know where she went to college and I know her birthday. The name is not unique, not also not common. At the same time, I had the hint for the Public Record Index. You know those things we can’t use in a proof argument, but there [she] was in Philadelphia. The yearbook had her picture and only her name, not spelled the way I know it, but the Public Record Index puts her in Philadelphia at the right time and place.

I have seen 2 or 3 addresses for folks in the 1980s and 1990s in these indexes. Not all addresses have dates, but some do. I have one cousin with 5 addresses since 1983 and he won’t be in a census until the 1960 Census Records are released.”

Russ blogs about his family history at worthy2be.wordpress.com/. Thanks for the tip!

The U.S. Public Records Index pops up in my search results sometimes, too. Both volume 1 and volume 2 are searchable on Ancestry.com, as Russ says, in separate databases. Each has over 400,000 records in it. There’s also a free partial version of this database for 1970-2009 at FamilySearch.org and yet a third version at MyHeritage, with 816 million records, with nearly the same time frame. The FamilySearch database says its data comes from “telephone directories, property tax assessments, credit applications, and other records available to the public.”

More on the US Public Records Index

Here are a few tips worth mentioning about the US Public Records Index. Some of these points come from the FamilySearch wiki:

Not everyone who lived in the U.S. appears in the index, and you’re more likely to find birth information for those born between 1900 and 1990. What you’ll find is primarily where someone lived, and often when they lived there.
It’s rarely possible to positively identify a relative in this index since there’s limited information and it spans the entire country for up to a half-century, and you can’t follow up on the record it comes from because the index doesn’t say where individual records come from. So as Russ says, this is a great resource to use in combination with other records. It’s a similar concept to the way you might consult family trees that lack sources: hints to go on and follow up with further research into verifiable sources.
When you find more recent listings, you can sometimes find telephone numbers for living distant relatives. If the thought of cold-calling distant relatives seems a little intimidating, listen to my Family History: Genealogy Made Easy podcast, episodes 14-15, for tips–and to get your courage up!

More Gems on Researching Recent Relatives

Follow Your Commuter Ancestors in NYC Subway Maps

by Lisa Cooke | Sep 24, 2013 | 01 What's New, History, Inspiration, Maps

If your ancestors lived or worked in New York City, did you know you can follow them home from work? At least virtually.

New York City Subway History

David Pirmann runs a website dedicated to the history of the New York City subway system. NYCSubway.org includes great historical background, photos, maps and other documents.

Start by reading about elevated rail service that began in the 1860s and the development of the transit system since then. Then consult route maps for several time periods, either in the Historical Maps section or the Line by Line Guide (both under the Maps and Stations tab).

The fun part is browsing the rest of the site: learn how “The Great White Hurricane” snowstorm of 1888 paralyzed the city, or how things have worked behind the scenes (fares, power, signals, etc). You can even check out images of abandoned stations and old cars.

Thanks to Gizmodo.com for an article that pointed me to this fun resource.