by George G. Morgan  

You would think that after all these years of researching my great-grandfather, Green Berry Holder, that there would be few resources I had not checked. However, I will be the first to tell you that there is always something new to find–and to learn.

U.S. federal census records are a common starting point for most American researchers after they have gathered information from home sources. The population schedules were used for censuses from 1790 to 2000, including the 1885 census for Colorado, the Dakota Territory, Florida, Nebraska, and the New Mexico Territory. The cost for the 1885 enumeration was split between the federal and state/territorial governments. Continue reading →

Exercise in the Cemetery
I’ve started walking my dog every day to get some exercise. One of our routes takes us past one of the largest cemeteries in the county. I’ve decided to start transcribing the cemetery and send it to the GENWEB coordinator for our county when I’m done. It gives me an extra incentive to take those walks and will hopefully someday help a few genealogists!!

Jolynn Winland Continue reading →

 

Contributed by Michael Timmons
Michael’s great-grandfather, Francis J. McCarton (1854-1907), a Lieutenant in the New York Police Department

 

 Click on the photographs to enlarge them.

 

Contributed by Gloria Hawkins Draper, Emmett, Idaho
Gloria’s grandmother, Emma (Alander) Koskinen Randa, 1910, Brooklyn, New York. Emma immigrated from Finland in 1906 and married Nicholas Randa in 1911.

The National Coalition for History (NCH) website has posted an update on the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) budget cuts in its latest Action Alert. This issue outlines possible cuts and provides helpful information for communicating your concerns to your local senators. You can read the entire text on the NCH website.

While hanging out along the Nile River with Cleopatra, Julius Caesar may have picked up the idea of using the sun to calculate the length of the calendar year from Egyptian astronomers. The roughly 355 day Roman calendar was an irksome mess that needed regular tinkering to align it with the seasons.  Days or months were inserted or taken away every now and then.  This was understandably annoying to the populace.

When Caesar returned triumphantly to Rome in 47 B.C., he decided to launch a new calendar similar to the Egyptian model.  The new solar calendar had a 365 day and 6 hour year with an extra day thrown in every four years to account for the extra hours. After a vexing year of calendar adjustments making 46 B.C last 455 days, the new calendar, known as the Julian calendar, commenced on January 1, 45 B.C.  The Julian calendar would reign for centuries to come. Continue reading →

Ancestry.com is already home to the first and only fully indexed 1911 Census of Canada. And now you can trace your Canadian ancestors one step further back in time, thanks to the 6 million new names in the 1901 Census of Canada and the 1906 Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The combined databases encompass approximately 5,931,267 names/records on 154,280 images.

“Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.”
~ General George Washington

Posted This Week

• Social Security Death Index (SSDI), updated through May 2006
• View all of the recently-added and updated databases 
   

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• Improved Message Boards 
• 1901 and 1906 Canadian Census