Free Genealogy Resources

Showing posts with label births. Show all posts

Freebie for Newfoundland Genealogy

Yesterday I was poking around on the internet and came across a great site for those tracing ancestors from Newfoundland. According to the Newfoundland's Grand Banks website, it offers "genealogical and historical data for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador." I'm still exploring to learn the true depth of the site, but from what I've found so far, it could be an invaluable free resource for those tracing their genealogy.

The site offers a message board for genealogists researching families from the area, a wide array of transcriptions and historical information on the area. Specific genealogical data you can expect to find includes

Cemetery Transcriptions
Census (Newfoundland, US, Canada and British
Directories
Family Bibles
Legal Documents
Newspapers
Photographs
Passenger Lists
Parish Records
Voter's Lists
Vital Statistics
Wills

On the historical side, the site offers

Colonial Office Records
House of Assembly Records
Historical information on some communities
Disasters
Military Records
Stories

If your family has a connection to Newfoundland and you haven't yet checked out this free genealogy resource, make sure to add it to your to-do list. You may be surprised what you can find.

Resource for Adair County, Iowa Newspapers

Newspapers can hold a variety of information on our ancestors lives. In addition to announcements of births, marriages and deaths, they can allow you a peek into your ancestor's life at a specific time period.

Today's resource is the Adair County Anquestors Genealogy Society's Significant Life Events Index. The society has gone through microfilmed papers and created an index of birth, marriage, divorce, anniversary, obituary and reunion announcements. They are organized by topic. Just click on the links near the top of the page.

The birth announcements give the name of the parent (including some maiden names for mothers), sex of child, child's name (if available), newspaper name and date published. The final column, location is left blank when the child was born in Adair County, but will list the location if the child was born elsewhere.

The marriage announcements give the name of the bride and groom, newspaper name, publishing date and location. The divorce announcements page gives the couple's names, the name of the newspaper and the date the announcement appeared. The anniversaries page lists the couple, which anniversary they were celebrating, the newspaper and date published.

The obituaries announcement page is a little different because you need to know the year. After clicking on the year, you get an alphabetized list of the surname, first and middle name, maiden name for women, newspaper and date. Some years have a comments column which may offer additional information.

The reunion page is for announcements of family reunions. These are organized by name and give the family name, newspaper and date published.

It doesn't note on the page whether you can get copies of the actual newspaper announcement, but the society's main page does say that they accept research requests so you probably can get a copy for a fee.

Free Genealogy Resource for California

Recently I was doing some research into California records in an effort to trace my husband's great grandmother who passed away there. Along the way, I came across a transcription of Early California Wills, which was published by the DAR in 1952.

The transcription is broken up into six volumes. Volume 1 covers Los Angeles County wills from 1850 to 1885. Volume 2 picks up where the first left off and covers 1885 to 1890. Volume 3 covers wills in San Diego County from 1848-1899.

Volumes 4 and 5 offers bonuses. Volume 4 offers wills from Placer, Shasta and Yuba Counties. It also has Shasta County births, marriages, deaths and divorces from 1927 and Placer County marriage licenses from 1852 to 1856. Volume 5 has Kern County wills 1876-1899 and marriage licenses 1850-1900.

Volume 6 has wills from Santa Clara and Solano Counties. It doesn't say what years are covered.

Clicking on the volume will take you further down the page where there is information on the volume, transcribers, and an overview of the book. It appears that each page is transcribed separately. Clicking on the page takes you to the information on that page.

This is a great free genealogy resource for those researching California ancestors. Information varies between entries, but from scrolling through, it looks like some have the names of parents, spouses, children and even in-laws. I'm not sure if this is common, but I did notice one entry that had a note about the spouse's later marriage as well. Makes sure to check who the executor and witnesses are as well. These may be family members or close acquaintances.

Delaware Resource

The state of Delaware has two free genealogy resources available online in the public finding aids section. The first is the Bastardy Bonds Database. The second is the Probate Records Database.

When children were born out of wedlock in Delaware, the father was required to file a bastardy bond. This was to ensure the child's welfare was provided for so they would not become a burden on the county. The bonds were administered by trustees. These bonds can yield a wealth of information including parents' names, date of birth and sex of the child, names of sureties and witnesses, amount and conditions of the bond and residence information for the mother. In most cases, the child's name is not given.

The Bastardy Bonds Database can be searched by father, mother or child's name. It doesn't appear that you need the full name. I was able to search by surname only. The initial results screen will give you the father's name, mother's name, child's name (if available), child's date of birth and county. The county is abbreviated with SC indicating Sussex County and KC indicating Kent County.

To the right of the result is a details hyperlink. Clicking on it will take you to another screen which lists what folder, container and series the bond is stored in. It also gives the parents' names, information on the child, and comments/notes.

The Probate Records Database covers all three Delaware counties from around 1680 to circa 1925. This free genealogy resource searches the index of deceased individuals for whom the file was originally created. You can search by last name, first name, date, race and county, or any combination of these. The race option is only available for Kent and Sussex Counties.

You can use a partial first name, as short as a single letter, if you have input a full last name. If you are not sure of the spelling of the last name, you can put the first letter of it and leave the first name box blank to search all surnames beginning with that letter. In the year box, you can search a year or year range. Keep in mind that the database does require the full four digit year.

The results screen will give you an alternate spelling for the surname to check and then list all the records that match your search inputs. It will list the name, date, race (if available) and county.

If you find your ancestor in either of these databases, you can request the records from the archives. Information on requesting records can be found here. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to download a request form. It doesn't appear that there is a search fee for requests. However, there is a copy fee.

Free Genealogy Resource for Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

I recently came across a free genealogy resource for those researching ancestors in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds has a website offering information on births, deaths, marriages, real estate and historical real estate.

The birth records cover 1913 to present. You can search by name, range of date of birth or certificate number. The results screen will give you the child's name, date of birth and certificate number.

Death records are available from 1913 to 1980 and 1991 to present. Records from 1981 to 1991 are added to the database as they are requested so they are hit and miss. As with births, you can search by name, date range or certificate number. The results screen gives you the name, death date, certificate number, and, in some cases, the address (which is usually town only).

No specific date range was given for the marriage database so I played around to see if I could find anything. After a few trials, I got an error message that stated that "Dates for the inquiry system must be after Jan 1, 1753" so it may be possible to get records that far back. You can search by bride or groom's name, date range or license number. The results screen gives you the marriage date, name of bride and groom, and license number.

Real estate records appear to date back to 1913. This database can be searched by document type, grantor/seller, their role, grantee/buyer, their role, date range of filing, range of instrument number, book and page. The results screen will give you the date of filing, instrument number, book and page, description (if available), first grantor, document type and first grantee.

Clicking on the details button will take you to a screen which gives additional grantor or grantee names (only one name appears on the results screen) and related documents. From that screen, you can click on the document icon to view the actual document. The document can also be retrieved by clicking on the images button on the original results screen.

The historical real estate can be searched by name or browsed. It appears to date back to 1763 and go through 1840.

If you find one of your ancestors in these free genealogy resources and want more information, you can request a copy of the actual certificate, license or real estate document. There is a fee for this however.

Three Free Genealogy Resources from the Minnesota Historical Society.

If you have ancestors from Minnesota, you may want to check out some of the free genealogy resources offered by the Minnesota Historical Society. Volunteers have compiled both a death certificate index and a birth certificate index.

The Death Certificate Index covers the years 1904 to 2001 and is searchable by name. You can narrow your search by mother's maiden name, death year and county of death.

The results screen gives the name of the individual, date and place of birth, mother's maiden name, date and county of death and death certificate number. Some entries may not have as much information as others.

The Birth Certificate Index covers the years 1900 through 1934. There are approximately 2700 records from before 1900. It is also searchable by name and can be narrowed down with additional information.

The results screen gives you the name of the individual, date and county of birth, mother's maiden name and certificate number. As with the death index, some entries have more information than others. I did notice that some of the mother's maiden name entries had the first name rather than the surname so be on the lookout for that.

Last, but not least is a third free genealogy resource, the Minnesota State Census. Census records are available for the years 1849, 1850, 1853, 1855, 1857, 1865, 1875, 1885, 1895 and 1905. Since there are limited 1890 federal census records, the 1885 and 1895 state census records can be a boon to genealogists with Minnesota roots.

The census records are searchable by name and can be narrowed by census year and county. The results screen gives the individual's name, age, ethnicity, birthplace, county, city or township, sex and census year. You will also notice a census id number with each entry.

If you decide that you want a copy of a birth certificate, death certificate or census record, they can be ordered through the same website. Just click on the "add to order" button on the left side of the entry to add it to your shopping cart. There is a fee for copies.