The following information is from the Genealogical Society of Hispanic America-Southern California. They sent out an e-mail to their membership informing them about online databases that can be found on various websites. The entire text of the e-mail is below:E-News You Can Use
Getting to the library or genealogy resource center is not easy for many of us, so it’s a great help when we learn about new databases we can access right from our own homes. Take some time to browse through these two that have been so generously shared with us.
Jeanette Fisher, Editor
Genealogical Society of Hispanic America-Southern California
PO Box 2472
Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670-0472
http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/GSHA.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------
Genealogy Databases
Fort Wayne Genealogy Center
If, like me, you have ancestors from the eastern states, the databases listed on the Fort Wayne Genealogy Center website may be a great resource for you. You can search the database catalog at www.genealogycenter.info/otherdb.php
to see if the area you are researching is included.
This comes to you from issue No. 66 of Genealogy Gems: News from the Fort Wayne Library, August 31, 2009
Amazing numbers of new records have been added to our Genealogy Center database site. Have you looked for your late 19th and early 20th century OH, IN, MI, IL and NY ancestors in the more than forty-four thousand entry ³Evangelical Messenger² obituary index? Have you visited Roots Television online recently? A lot of new programming and shows are there, and you don¹t even have to worry about your digital signal coming in clearly.
Kansas Historical Society Online Collection
Do you know that between 1854 and 1861, eastern Colorado was part of the Kansas Territory? Here is what Wikipedia has to say:
The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30 , 1854 , until January 29 , 1861 , when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Kansas .
The territory extended from the Missouri border west to the summit of the Rocky Mountains and from the 37th parallel north , north to the 40th parallel north . Much of the eastern region of what is now the State of Colorado was part of Kansas Territory. The Territory of Colorado was created to govern this western region of the former Kansas Territory on February 28 , 1861 .
WAGS member, Sherry Britton, shares this announcement with us from the Kansas Historical Society:
Former Kansas Governor John Carlin, who served as Archivist of the United States from 1995 to 2005, will return to Topeka Oct.16 for the launch of Kansas Memory, the Kansas Historical Society's newest online offering. Kansas Memory will feature the largest collection of photographs and manuscripts from Kansas history on the Internet, and can be accessed at .
Kansas Memory offers unprecedented online access to Kansas history and includes thousands of items from the Kansas Historical Society's collections of photographs, letters, diaries and other historic items. Users can browse, search, or share images, and will eventually be able to purchase high-resolution versions online. The "My Memory" section allows users to customize a personal space, save searches, and create scrapbooks of items.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the article below from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, August 26, 2007, Dick Eastman gives us several good examples of why we shouldn’t believe everything we find on the internet.
Can You Trust Online Genealogy Data?
"I found it online, so it must be true!"
Of course not. If you have been involved in researching your family tree for more than a few months, you already know the truth about online genealogy data. Or do you?
You can go to almost any of today's online genealogy sites and find information that appears to be false. I'll pick on FamilySearch.org as it is a free and open database, making it a good example that everyone can see. However, similar examples exist on most of the commercial genealogy databases as well.
The first example is that of Mrs. John Allen. According to the International Genealogical Index online at http://www.FamilySearch.org, Mrs. John Allen was born about 1580 in Hartford, Connecticut. She married Mr. John Allen about 1602, also in Hartford. John Allen's birth is listed as about 1575, also in Hartford.
As I remember from my history classes in school, Hartford didn't exist in those days. The only people found there from 1575 through 1602 would have been American Indians, and the name "John Allen" sure doesn't sound like an Indian name to me! In fact, Dutch explorer Adriaen Block first visited the area in 1614. The first settlement from the New Netherland colony was a trading post not far from present-day Hartford, and the first English settlers arrived in 1635. It would therefore seem silly to claim births in the area in the 1500s.
In a similar vein, you can find a birth record in the Ancestral File for John Smith in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1618. That is obviously two years before the Pilgrims arrived and settled the place. Another person named John Smith reportedly was born about 1615 in Eastham, Massachusetts, despite the fact that the history books all claim that the first settlers arrived there in 1644.
A third example uses my surname: Roger Eastman, born 13 April 1598 in Romsey, Vermont." Not only is the date obviously incorrect, I also checked and found there is no place in Vermont named Romsey. There is, however, a Romsey in England, and several Eastman families appear in the church records there in the 1500s. This is an excellent example of the sloppy records you can find on the Internet.
These are but a few of the obvious errors; there are many thousands more. In fact, most of the errors are not so obvious. I picked a few examples of births before each area was settled, but most errors sound much more plausible. A birth in Massachusetts in the 1700s or in Texas in the late 1800s might be equally inaccurate but much less obvious since those areas were well populated at the time.
So take Dick’s advice. Don't believe everything you find on the internet. Get those original records and document your information. Check out Dick’s daily blog at http://www.eogn.com.
You can go to almost any of today's online genealogy sites and find information that appears to be false. I'll pick on FamilySearch.org as it is a free and open database, making it a good example that everyone can see. However, similar examples exist on most of the commercial genealogy databases as well.
The first example is that of Mrs. John Allen. According to the International Genealogical Index online at http://www.FamilySearch.org, Mrs. John Allen was born about 1580 in Hartford, Connecticut. She married Mr. John Allen about 1602, also in Hartford. John Allen's birth is listed as about 1575, also in Hartford.
As I remember from my history classes in school, Hartford didn't exist in those days. The only people found there from 1575 through 1602 would have been American Indians, and the name "John Allen" sure doesn't sound like an Indian name to me! In fact, Dutch explorer Adriaen Block first visited the area in 1614. The first settlement from the New Netherland colony was a trading post not far from present-day Hartford, and the first English settlers arrived in 1635. It would therefore seem silly to claim births in the area in the 1500s.
In a similar vein, you can find a birth record in the Ancestral File for John Smith in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1618. That is obviously two years before the Pilgrims arrived and settled the place. Another person named John Smith reportedly was born about 1615 in Eastham, Massachusetts, despite the fact that the history books all claim that the first settlers arrived there in 1644.
A third example uses my surname: Roger Eastman, born 13 April 1598 in Romsey, Vermont." Not only is the date obviously incorrect, I also checked and found there is no place in Vermont named Romsey. There is, however, a Romsey in England, and several Eastman families appear in the church records there in the 1500s. This is an excellent example of the sloppy records you can find on the Internet.
These are but a few of the obvious errors; there are many thousands more. In fact, most of the errors are not so obvious. I picked a few examples of births before each area was settled, but most errors sound much more plausible. A birth in Massachusetts in the 1700s or in Texas in the late 1800s might be equally inaccurate but much less obvious since those areas were well populated at the time.
So take Dick’s advice. Don't believe everything you find on the internet. Get those original records and document your information. Check out Dick’s daily blog at http://www.eogn.com.
