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Getting started and organizing your material are often a frustrating or haphazard task for the beginner, as well as the more experienced family tracer. This page is designed to YOU in organizing and doing your research. This page, like Topsy "just grewed." To help organize it in some manner that might prove more helpful, the existing files have been regrouped from a purely aphabetical order into a "group" order. |
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How to begin
Tips On Searching AltaVista.com
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Are you using AltaVista.com to its fullest ability when searching for genealogical information? Probably not. Like most search engines, searches may be performed using a variety of methods, depending on how they are worded and how aptly you use all the bells and whistles. |
is
highly recommended as the charts that you can print out are of very high
quality, and you can print out as many as you need, when you need them.
You can download Acrobatic Reader by clicking on the logo. By clicking
on the above link you will be taken to a list of the files available at
our website.are commonly used in genealogy. Don't be stumped by them!
Just what is it? And, an example is given.
Calendar
Changes
The Julian
calendar? theGregorian calendar? the Old Style (OS) calendar?
the New Style (NS) calendar? the Revolutionary calendar? Our calendar
has not always been the same. Some of these changes have been important
to genealogists. Learn why you sometimes see two years given as birth
years.
When you encounter a term you don't understand in old records, you may find it here.
Many government records of genealogical value are kept by county governments, so knowing which county an ancestor lived in, and also which counties are nearby, is an important tool of genealogical research in the United States.
As every experienced genealogical researcher knows (and the beginner soon finds out) there are many errors in . . . census records, vital records, land records, cemetery records, even probate records. Published histories and published genealogical records are often incorrect. . . There are also many fantasies and fairy tales in published accounts about some of the early Hunt pioneers of America . . .
In case you ever wondered why a large number of your family disappeared during a certain period in history, this might help.
If you are going to be successful in finding your ancestors, you better look at those treasured family legends with the cold eye of an investigative reporter. Legends can lead you astray, and yet, we family historians cling to them, like favorite toys.
This file may help you interpret the meaning of drawings on an old tombstone mean.
If you are looking for a woman in the U.S. who died before the 1850 federal census enumeration, the only information you'll find under her own name might be on her tombstone or in a cemetery card file. Tombstone inscriptions, cemetery records, or undertaker records might be the only tangible evidence of these lives.
A breakdown by country of the number of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island from January 1892 to June 1897, and from 1901 to 1931.
Do you think you understand you relationship to your kin? Well, look at this example: Brother - in addition to obvious meaning may also include (1) the husband of one's sister (2) the brother of one's wife (3) the husband of one's sister-in-law, (3) half-brother (4) step-brother. Genealogists must also be aware "brother" may refer to a member of one's church.
The stories of some of America's wars that your ancestors may have been involved in.
More than one-half of Americans claim to have German ancestors, which accounts for the great interest in this ethnic group. Additionally, many more of us probably have German ancestry but are not aware of it because so many of the German surnames were mutilated beyond recognition or simply were Americanized along the way.
How to type umlauts and accent marks into your documents.
What's the one thing that genealogists need besides records to search through? They need other genealogists. We need other genealogists partly because they understand our obsession and don't look at us as though we have gone totally nuts. But we also need those other genealogists for their knowledge. Whether it be their knowledge of a particular family line or their knowledge of a locality, they can help to save you time and frustration. Of course you know where to find them. And one of the best places is on mailing lists.
There are many different kinds of military records that were kept. It helps to know exactly what to ask for, or you may not get all that is available on your fighting ancestor.
Our ancestors often used a set naming procedure when picking out a name for a new child. This explains why certain names are VERY common in a given family line. Watching for these patterns can help in your research.
Most of us really don't have a lot of time to devote to our hobby until after the kids are grown, out of school and we've retired. Then it is no longer a hobby, it becomes an obsession. At some point in our continuous search for dead people, our ancestors, we recognize our own mortality and start to think about a permanent home for our research. If our children or grandchildren appear to be interested, we have it made, but frequently that's not the case. Then what happens to our "stuff"?
by W. Robert Chapman
"Each of us is 10 generations removed from 256 pairs of seventh great-grandparents. By the time we are 15 generations removed, we are descended from 16,384 couples. Twenty generations back each of us theoretically can trace our ancestries to 524,288 sets of seventeenth great-grandparents (that's 1,048,576 lines)."
Why is a mile 5,280 feet and not some other measure, and exactly how large was the ancestral property anyhow? If the land measure in an old document was in terms of perch, chain, and such, it all goes back to Gunter chain, invented in 1620 by an English mathematician.
In 1841, the population of Ireland was over 8 million people. Over two thirds of these people were dependent on agriculture for a livelihood., but the condition of the other third of the population wasn't anything to be envious of! The survival of the vast impoverished population was dependent on the reoccurring fruitfulness of the potato and on that alone! The potato, unlike grain, is extremely perishable and can't be stored.
THE WILDERNESS ROAD and THE GREAT WAGON ROAD including THE GREAT VALLEY ROAD were the main roads for settlers arriving in our area.
EARLY TRAVEL
In 1860 travel in all this region (of Western North Carolina) was rarely
undertaken except on urgent and necessary missions.
What did your medieval ancestors do? Or where did they live? Surnames -- our last names -- tell a story that has been handed down for hundreds of years, and yet many people don't know what the story means. Most last names have a unique history that tells us about the medieval ancestors who gave us our surnames. What is the meaning of your name? If you don't know, take heart -- most queries are easily answered.
Since early colonial days, the county has been the basic unit of local government in Virginia. 1n 1634. the General Assembly in Jamestown established eight shires, similar to those in England. These were Accomack, Charles City, Charles River (now York}, Elizabeth City, Henrico, James City, Warrosquyoake (now Isle of Wight), and Warwick River .... since that tine there have been many many changes -- some went to West Virginia, others were formed, etc.
OBCGS
Members' Aids
to Genealogical Research
Who are the
___?, Sources, Hints, Where to find,
and much more from members of OBCGS's research team.
and
What to do when you do hit a dead end...
The primary concern of the North Carolina State Archives is to preserve and protect the public records of the state of North Carolina and its counties, and to make these records available to researchers in the Search Room of the Archives. Discover the Archive's policies and use the link to the NC Archives website.
Local genealogical societies are an invaluable aid in researching your family tree, especially if you do not live in the immediate area. Most publish books on the counties with histories of people and families. They usually publish journals or newsletters filled with helpful information such as birth, death and cemetery records. Here are the Socities and some information we have on NC Counties.
This is a link to a chart by Marty Grant (who also has a South Carolina chart available.) Remember to us your BACK button to return here.
"North Carolina was first explored in early 1524 by Giovanni de Verrazano..." So begins the story of North Carolina
Kenneth D. Israel
by Ted Carter The Depression years brought some strange characters to Asheville, including William Dudley Pelley and the Silver Shirts.
The Eleven Most Western Counties of North Carolina were formed over a period of time. This file will tell you the formation date of each of the eleven counties and the parent county that they sprang from.
-- An article prepared from a presentation to OBCGS by Dan Slagle. Many of the Western Carolinians and Eastern Tennessians served their terms of service and many went AWOL, and some even served on both sides.
This large, slow loading file is a complete copy of the 1800 Buncombe County Census. Those families that were in Buncombe County before or on that Census are considered FIRST FAMILIES OF OLD BUNCOMBE . A SURNAME lIST of FFOB's may be found here.
in the area which became BuncombeCo., NC in 1792, by Kenneth D. Israel, PH.D.
A map showing the Townships in present day Buncombe County.
A transcript of the Record of Wills transcribed by Clarence Tillery
How to get research work done by OBCGS -- schedule of rates, etc. To have a Query posted on-line, free, check out our Query Page. Members may have queries posted in our journal, "A Lot of Buncombe" Non-member fee for the journal queries is $2.00 per query -- limited to approx. 50 words. See the Index Page for our snail mail address.
The Society has published "The Heritage of Old Buncombe County" Volumes I and II. These encyclopedia size books cover over 500 sketches each of ancestoral background on persons now living, or who have lived, in the WNC area known as "Old Buncombe".
We, as OBCGS, belong to the Irish Heritage Association to help you find your Irish ancestors at a nominal cost.
in Asheville, NC. They were the stone cutters who built Biltmore House; the writers, who wrote about the mountains and its people; the doctors, whose contributions allow us to live longer lives today. When they died, many of them were laid to rest in Riverside Cemetery.
" . . . The reformers were joined in their efforts to promote allotment by groups that wanted each Indian to have title to a piece of land so that the Indians could be persuaded or swindled into renting or selling it . . . Congress eventually was persuaded by the combined forces of good intentions and basic greed to pass the General Allotment Act, which was signed into law on February 8, 1887."
This is a listing of LDS Family History Centers generated from data sent by the Family History Center address submission form. The listing is nowhere near complete and readers are invited to submit information about any FHC's with which they are familiar.
The Library is a research center for local and family history. It specializes in Wake County. However, its holdings are not limited to Wake County. One of the items I found useful was the Soundex for North Carolina.
Relationship Terms and Abbreviations
Blazon is an heraldic language adopted by early heralds to regulate and control the use of colors, charges, and so on. This language was originally in French and Latin and still uses words from these languages. Blazon totally and precisely describes a coat of arms in such a way that there is no room for doubt or confusion.
Pocahantas
Are you one of her descendants?
A chronology of events of the American Revolution.
A Chronology of the Events, Dates and Causes and Effects of the War of 1812