A Good Day for Doing Genealogy

Well, winter finally really arrived in Central New York yesterday–with a vengeance! We got 16.8 inches of snow where I live and most everything was shut down. My employer closed at 12:30, giving me an afternoon of some precious “free” time. I decided to catch up on some family history research and thought I would explore some fairly new online databases.

Here are three that I spent some time with:

1. Footnote – where you can access millions of original documents—most never seen on the web before. Some content is free and some you need to pay to view ($9.99 monthly; $99.99 yearly). I spent time combing through the Naturalization Petitions of the U.S. District Court, 1820-1930, and Circuit Court, 1820-1911, for the Western District of Pennsylvania. I think this site holds a lot of promise. You can read more reviews about Footnote by clicking the following links:

National Archives and Footnote Launch Project to Digitize Historic Documents Online
Footnote.com for Historians, Genealogists and Many Others
Taking Note of Footnote

2. World Vital Records – this new subscription site (memberships as low as $29.95 6 months; $49.95 per year) is building its content regularly. Yesterday I looked at their new International Pages – The following country specific search engines are phase one of WVR’s international community. These custom search engines use the power of google to search the top genealogy and family history websites for each country. Additional features being planned using experts in genealogy, family history, and specialists in historical documents for every country in the world. These international sections will also include podcasts, blogs, discussion boards and user-generated content. Of course, I couldn’t resist looking at Slovakia. I found some interesting links for cemeteries and vital records that I want to explore.

3. Hamburg Passenger Lists 1850-1934 on Ancestry.com – These records used to be on LinktoYourRoots or available on microfilm. Of course you need a subscription to Ancestry, or access through a library with a subscription, but I think it is a good addition to their extensive collection. Many of my ancestors emigrated through Hamburg during the years available so I will be spending a great deal of time exploring this database!

Now, all I need is a few more “snow days” and maybe I can make some more progress finding those elusive ancestors!