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Queencece
To start this forum off, I wanted to know what types of websites are out there to get someone started in tracing their roots AND what kind of information is needed.
You want to check out Genealogy.com and Rootsweb.
First you want to survey the oldest members of your family. Get names of the oldest relatives they can remember, variations on spelling of names, where they were born, when and the names of their children and occupations.
You also want to examine census records. That should give you good starting point. You can whip out the interview you completed and start verifying names, places and dates. When you get a place, check out the county court records in the form of wills and estate information. Slaves were listed as property and passed on as such.
Expect to spend to many hours and don't forget your reading glasses. The folks on the forums above can be a big help.
Thanks for the information! I will get on that and the best place to start is my G-pa and my cousin who did start to do this once before (I think). We will have a nice long chat.
deecoily
I use Ancestry.com. It costs money to join, but maybe people could pool resources and share userids?
erinm
A lot of libraries subscribe to Ancestry.com so that their patrons have free in-house access.
Thulani
for those of you with Caribbean origins check out the BBC website , family history section ,there is also general info about how to go about your search. Also recently slave records from Barbados have gone online. Hope that helps
jaimuziq
Here's what I posted previously, links are included.
Here's something that may help. A friend of mine sent this to me yesterday; she knows my mother's side of the family is from Barbados. Hope this Barbados Slave Register (http://landing.ancestry.co.uk/intl/uk/barbados.aspx?o_iid=31428&o_lid=31428) helps some of you. :) Try the Black History Month UK (http://www.black-history-month.co.uk/) site as well.
Below is the email she sent as well.
The following is the April 24, 2007 Associated Press article in its
> entirety. A slightly abbreviated version was printed in the Sunday,
> April 29, 2007 issue of The Journal News.
> Apr 27, 4:43 PM EDT
> Web Site to Post British Slave Records
> By RAPHAEL G. SATTER
> Associated Press Writer
> LONDON (AP) -- A genealogy Web site said Friday that it will post 3
> million names of slaves held across the British Empire in the early 19th
> century, putting hundreds of thousands of pages of searchable
> information online to help slaves' descendants research their past.
> The project will use registers that the British government created
> between 1813 and 1834 in an effort to stamp out the slave trade by
> ensuring plantation owners did not buy new slaves. Britain abolished the
> trade in 1807. Slavery itself was outlawed in the colonies 17 years
> later.
> Information from about 700 registers from 23 British territories and
> dependencies will be made available online, free of charge, within the
> next 12 months, said Simon Ziviani, a spokesman for Ancestry.co.uk. The
> database will be searchable by first and last name, island, plantation,
> age and sex, he said.
> One of the most exhaustive documents, the 1834 Barbados Slave Register,
> was posted online by the site Friday. Slaves generally left few written
> records, making it difficult for their descendants to reconstruct their lives, Ziviani said.
> "Hopefully (the database) will provide a missing piece of the puzzle,"
> he said. The site could help those outside Britain carry out research that might
> not have been possible otherwise, said Mia Morris, the founder of black
> historical and cultural Web site Blackhistory-month.co.uk.
> Colonies were required to conduct censuses of slaves and their owners
> every three years. Records were kept on site and copies submitted to the
> Office for the Registry of Colonial Slaves. After the office was
> disbanded, some 200,000 pages of names were placed in the National
> Archives in Kew, in west London.
> "Everyone I've talked to expressed frustration with going to the
> Caribbean and finding the records incomplete or missing," Morris said.
> She said delving through the archive's 19th century paperwork was more
> daunting than simply browsing the Web.
> Although estimates vary, researchers say tens of millions of African
> men, women and children were enslaved and shipped to the Caribbean and
> the Americas. Many of these were sent to British-controlled islands such
> as Barbados, Jamaica and the Bahamas, where they were forced to work in
> plantations.
> Ancestry.co.uk is part of a global network of genealogy sites providing
> over 5 billion records to the public. While some of its services are
> provided for free, members usually have to pay for access to census
> records and the site's message boards and photo service.
napturallyme
I got started last week on ancestry.com. I was able to gather a lot of info during my 3 day trial. I'm not sure if I want to subscribe yet. I need to have a talk with my grandmother (my family historian) firs to see if I can pull some more last names out of her. I was able to search more on the male members. I got stomped on the female members because I didn't know many of the maiden names.
That's great info. Maybe I will start there. I have more diggin to do before I start searching the web, but thanks!
Myfamily.com is a wonderful site. It's free for a while then after the trial period it costs like $29.95 for a year. They also have free links to ancestry.com that hosts lots and lots of valuable records for researching family trees.
Bejewelle
Useful websites :
The National Archives www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Online documents www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline
Online catalogue www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue
Black Presence: Asian & Black History in Britain, 1500-1850 www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/
National Register of Archives www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra
Archives Hub http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/
Archives and Museum of Black Heritage www.aambh.org.uk/
BBC family history: www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/
BBC multicultural pages: www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/multicultural/
BBC: Born Abroad: An immigration map of Britain
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/0...ml/overview.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/html/overview.stm)
Caribbean and Black & Asian History www.casbah.ac.uk
Channel 4 multicultural pages www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/O/origination/
Cyndi's List: www.cyndislist.com/hispanic.htm
Family Search (Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints) www.familysearch.org
Genes Connected www.genesconnected.co.uk
Moving Here www.movinghere.org.uk
Real Lives: Black and Asian Londoners 1536 - 184 http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/media_centre/files/214_02.htm
Society of Genealogists www.sog.org.uk
Roots Web is one of the oldest and largest FREE genealogy site, it contains extensive interactive guides and numerous research tools for tracing family histories.
http://www.everygeneration.co.uk/familytre...aica_search.htm (http://www.everygeneration.co.uk/familytree/jamaica_search.htm) - Manumission records
http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/
Guy Grannum [u]Tracing Your West Indian Ancestors (PRO, 2002)
Stephen D Porter Jamaican Records: A Research Manual (Stephen D Porter, 1999)
onyxspirals
http://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/
This is the link to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
luv2luvu
I'm actually taking a genealogy class and here are the websites I have....
http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/animated...familytree.html (http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/tiggermovie/familytree.html)
Would you like to get your children involved, too? Disney has three fun family-tree charts, which you can print and the young folks can fill them out.
First Steps: Get Organized
http://www.lineages.com/mm/PDF/Toolkit.pdf
Lineages.com offers twelve forms in a free so-called toolkit. Go to their Web site, and click Toolkit. They automatically e-mail the forms back to you. The free Adobe Acrobat Reader is required in order to view and print these forms.
LDS Glossary
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng
LDS Master Glossary Online�the most complete glossary available but not the easiest to find. Visit the web site and click on "Site Map" on the toolbar. You will find the Glossary link at the very bottom of the page.
Family Tree Magazine
http://www.familytreemagazine.com/forms/download.html
Family Tree Magazine has just about any type of form you might ever need. They are compatible with Microsoft Word v97 and 2000 and WordPerfect.
Ancestralfinding.com
http://www.ancestralfindings.com/narchives.htm
Free official forms from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Glossary Index
/crs/pix/gen/glossary_index.html
Genealogy glossaries: Terms, definitions, acronyms, abbreviations, diseases, old medical terms, occupations, and trades.
FamilyTreeMaker.com
http://www.genealogy.com/allsearch.html
Search the World Family Tree at FamilyTreeMaker.com. Free registration for searching family trees submitted by others.
Rootsweb.com
http://searches.rootsweb.com
Search RootsWeb.com
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp
There are more than 3,400 LDS Family History Centers worldwide. Use this page to find one near you.
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FH...ry_fhc_find.asp (http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp?PAGE=library_fhc_find.asp)
There are more than 3,400 LDS Family History Centers worldwide. To find one near you, click Find a Family History Center.
Ancestors: Charts and Records
http://www.byubroadcasting.org/ancestors/charts/
Additional charts and forms in other formats.
Ancestors: Family and Home Information Sources Checklist
http://www.byubroadcasting.org/ancestors/c...f/checklist.pdf (http://www.byubroadcasting.org/ancestors/charts/oldpdf/checklist.pdf)
This document is a comprehensive list of household items that might be useful.
Have you ever wondered what the first three numbers of a social security number represent?
https://www.ed2go.com/crs/pix/gen/ssdi_script.htm
Enter the first three digits of a U.S. Social Security number
Click on the Search button
Find the state where the original application as filed
Enter the first three digits of a Social Security number:
This card was issued in: This might also be the state in which the person was born.
For the paranoid: No information you enter here is recorded or monitored.
The first three digits of a SSN are a geographical code. Before 1972, the first three digits in a Social Security number identified the state in which the applicant's original Social Security card was issued. Since 1972, all Social Security numbers have been assigned and issued from one office (Baltimore, MD), and the number identifies the zip code mailing address of the applicant.
Historical Information about Social Security numbers:
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/ssncards.html
More details about who is included in the SSDI Index can be found at:
http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/vital/ssdi/faq.htm
www.ssa.gov/employer/stateweb.htm
http://ssdi.rootsweb.com
Alternate SSDI Search sites:
Search the SSDI at LDS
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/fra...clear_form=true (http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=ssdi/search_ssdi.asp&clear_form=true)
Search the SSDI at Family Tree Legends
http://www.familytreelegends.com/ssdi
If you're not successful in finding someone you know who has died and drawn social security, it is probably because the original application was filed under a slightly different name. Perhaps it was a variation of the given first name, such as Dave for David or vice versa. It's also possible that a nickname, maiden name or middle name was used.
Use the SSDI as a starting point but don't expect to find everyone listed. While most people got their own social security numbers for tax purposes, the SSDI only shows people who were actually receiving Social Security benefits when they died. Self employed, teachers, government workers and others were not covered by social security until the Social Security Act was amended in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, so they may not have earned enough credits to get benefit payments when they retired. If your relative was not a normal wage earner, this is frequently the reason he or she cannot be found on the SSDI index.
Search tips for this database can be found at:
Hint: You can also create and print an automatic letter requesting a copy of that person's social security application by clicking SS-5 Letter. Have some fun! Search for John Doe and you will be amazed, as I was, that at least 32 people with that name have drawn social security.
An ongoing project of the Illinois State Archives and the Illinois State Genealogical Society is the Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763-1900:
http://www.ilsos.gov/GenealogyMWeb/marrsrch.html
Do a statewide search for Mattern under Groom. This should result in sixteen marriages, most of which occurred in Cook County. I would think most of these individuals are related in some way. Before you leave this Web site, click the word Databases on the title bar at the top. Did you notice they also have a Death Index and many veteran databases you can search? By scrolling the page down you will also find many types County records are also searchable. What we often miss is the information contained at the bottom of Web sites. We just forget to scroll down, probably because we are too wrapped up in what we have already found. I have made a habit of re-visiting useful Web pages and thoroughly exploring all of the links.
Visit the Ohio Historical Society's, Death Certificate Index 1913-1935:
http://www.ohiohistory.org/dindex/search.cfm
Search for Barrow as a last name. Specify index years 1913-1935, and select All Counties. You should find approximately 160 individuals. You will find all the names Barrow, Barrowcliff, Barrowdale, and Barrows. With the knowledge of the county, date of death, and certificate number, you could then write for a copy of the original death certificate. It will certainly give more valuable information.
Visit the LDS Family Search Web Site
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
Begin by entering only a last name from your family tree. The more unusual the name, the better your chance of finding information. Narrow your search by adding a first name. If there are still too many results to justify further investigation, click the box labeled Use Exact Spelling. Doing this eliminates the Soundex results. Clicking a name on the resulting page will also bring up additional information – parents names – dates – locations, etc. This is the information you need.
If you get an error that reads HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy, you should understand that there is a traffic jam; too many people are trying to use the site. Try again later. This Web site has more visitors than any other genealogy Web site, so please be patient.
Many other states have online searches for death records. A list of what is available can be viewed at:
http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/deathrecords.html
Other databases, including International ones, can be viewed at:
http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/databases.html
EmunaMoriah
You guys are awesome. If the members of Nappturality were a corporation, Oprah would be working for us!
Thanks for the great postings I have found some very helpful information.
frazertif
you can also check the dawes roll application list
Shawndolyn
Some other good sites are:
http://www.heritagequestonline.com/
http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/genealogy/index.html
http://www.afrigeneas.com/
http://www.myslaveancestors.com/
http://www.progenealogists.com/genealogysleuthb.htm
http://www.dearmyrtle.com/lessons.htm