Find-a-Grave

I wanted to add a note about the Find-a-Grave site. I've noticed I get better results if I know what cemetery the person was buried in. If I do a search on Aunt Alice, I get nothing. If I go to Jefferson Barracks cemetery, and then search Aunt Alice, there she is!

I was looking in Alexander County, Ohio for the surname Nichols. When I found someone with that name, regardless that this person was no relation, I clicked on their name. It gave me a menu on the left that let me search for Nichols in that town, or in that county, or in that state. I chose the state, since I'm not having much luck finding people where they're supposed to be. It'll take a while to finish, but I think it's worth it.

I'm sure the more I use this site, the more I will find little tricks that will aid in my search. Like anything, the more you do it, the more you learn.

New Family Search

From now on, every post is going to start with "I haven't blogged in the last five weeks because..."

So I haven't blogged this time because I've been over at the New Family Search. (Not to be confused with Family Search.) No one told me how totally addictive this is. Many nights at 2 am I have to tell myself to get off the computer. The time flies and I don't even feel sleepy.

New Family Search is the site where you enter your own family history in the form of a pedigree chart. I've been going over my own information to double check details first. Which partly explains why I'm up so late. When you add a family member, you can see if their name is already entered on someone else's pedigree. I have found quite of few links. At first I thought, "Yay! A cousin! I think I'll write them a note and introduce myself and see if they want to share info." Then I decided not to. I'd probably never hear back from them. And then I'd be sad. But I may change my mind again. You'll be the first to know. After Don, and my sister Barb. And maybe my mom. And Nori.

What I'm doing now is running back and forth between New Family Search and some of the other sites where I've been finding information on my ancestors.

• Find-a-grave. They have millions of online grave records. You just enter the information such as name, year of birth, year of death, and state. Sometimes I was rewarded with a picture of the gravestone. (Yeah, I know, some people would not consider that much of a reward.) Other times, I got information of other family members who were at that same cemetery. On one relative, they had a nice little biography of him.

• Family Search. The great thing about Family Search is that it's all free. And of course, it's a wonderful resource. This is where I actually got started. It is so easy to enter the name of an ancestor and a few details such as birth year, and see what you can get. I've learned to keep a spiral notebook with all the info I find and where I found it. When doing a pedigree chart on New Family Search, you'll be asked what was your source. If I had done this from the beginning, I wouldn't have to double check all my facts.

• Missouri Digital Heritage. On this site, you can look up birth and death records for certain years. I found at least ten death certificates for my family. You can enter just the last name, and get a list of all the certificates they have under that name. The good thing about death certificates is they have a lot of information on them. Much of my research is in Missouri and Illinois. Illinois has a similar web site as, I'm sure, do many other states. Search Secretary of State Birth and Death Records.

• Ancestry. This is the only site I will mention that is not free. But it is a very nice resource. Lots of people scan their old photos and documents and put them there for the rest of us to see. This is where I found a marriage record for Nellie Spriggs and E P Laney, that no one else had. That was a big deal for me. I've also found many of my ancestors on family trees on this website.