Genealogy Sites I use A LOT and other things.

I remember my senior year of high school I worked for Old Bridge Schools in the administration building. There was a tiny room in the back of the building where a lone woman sat all day scanning records to microfilm. I was fascinated with how it was done. I always wanted to learn the process but being a meager co-op student wasn't allowed to see "private" records of other students. I guess they didn't know who I was a new girl to public school who new NO ONE and didn't care about other peoples grades, etc.

I then started my Senior project on Family history and that is when I really fell in love with microfilm. I would spend hours in the East Brunswick library (they had census records - Old Bridge didn't) in front of a microfilm projector. I could honestly say that was my "best friend" that year. Move over Matt I have a date with a projector. Yeah, years later and he still doesn't get the obsession. His loss I guess.

Well with the age of internet we have come a long way. It know seems many towns are making it possible to search records online. Middlesex county, NJ is one of them. They have 1950 - present of land records available on the internet. This is where I find a lot of information on my hubbys family. His family is full of secrets - well they have been exposed. I know everything now :-)... just joking. I did find out a lot that Matt as well as his cousins and aunts did not know. Land records could be a treasure chest of information if you look hard enough. I have only recently discovered this not really giving much thought about them.

You can find maiden names. Names of parents if you did not have them before - when land is left in a will. Names of Uncles and Aunts, brothers and sisters, etc. I found death dates and marriage dates in some records. All have been a wonderful help in filling in the blanks I had on my in-laws.

Some towns have birth indexes and death indexes which are also a wonderful thing to be able to scan through. In both I have found children I never knew existed because they only lived a few months and were then listed on both indexes. In the death index if a certificate can not be found on a person a lot of times it lists cause of death which is always a nice thing to know. When some people die so young it is nice to know why. Influenza, drowning, etc. These are things that aren't in our genes so it helps settle the fear you may have (or I may have) of dying young.


Some wonderful sites that I am a member of (yes you do have to pay) that have many records available are:

http://www.ancestry.com/

http://www.footnote.com/

http://www.newspaperarchives.com/

http://www.genealogybank.com/

http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/

Other wonderful sites that are free for all and have been very helpful to me are:

http://www.familysearch.org/ LDS site (starting to have some census records)

http://www.colonialct.uconn.edu/ Connecticut site

http://www.state.nj.us/state/darm/links/archives.html NJ State Archives-have records back to early 1700s

http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/ PA state Archives

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/ Wisconsin Historical Archives

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsp.html American State Papers - great for VERY early settlements

Another site that is great to help as a springboard as where to look is http://www.cyndislist.com/ not all links are up to date but there is a bunch of great stuff to find here.

That is all I have to add at the moment, have to bake bread for school bake sale, talk to you soon.

Genealogy Gems

I have been a listener of Genealogy Gems podcasts for quite a while. I have recently become a premium member of the site. Listening to podcasts on starting a blog I felt encouraged enough to give it a try. So here it is after about 15 years of research I am ready to spread my wings a bit more.


My history.


I became very interested in family history at a young age. In 1994, my senior year of high school, I spent many hours sitting at the local library in front of Microfilm projectors. I was always the only one searching through the local history and biography section of the library. My friends and classsmates at that time just didn't understand my obsession with family history.


I bought my first computer in 1995 when I was 19 years old. The first program I remember buying was a family tree program I got for $5 at Kmart. This opened me up to a world of charts and databases.


Then along came the internet. It was a slow moving hard to manage "monster" in those days. The only information I could find was on message boards posted by other family history researchers. It could take hours sometimes just to "dial-up" those boards and have the pages load.


WOW, what wonderful stories and connections I made in those good old Internet dinosaur days. Today, I am amazed at all the new and wonderful information that is loaded on the Internet everyday. Towns, Counties and States are loading old records, google is scanning and posting more books than I could ever imagine, and millions of people are uploading pictures and stories of their lives every hour.


I hope to use this blog to share my past research along with my new research. Perhaps, together we can break down those brick walls. We could fill in those large holes. Rake up all the leaves that were lost in the wind and find order in the pile we create.


I hope you enjoy sharing my joys, pitfalls, and accomplishments in this wonderful world of genealogy. I look forward to meeting many great new cousins and friends.


Thank you for reading.