Genealogy Online

by Elizabeth Crowe

  FIGURE 11-2. The Library of Congress has a guide to using the resources there.

  An important link from this page is to the search hints. As you can imagine, in a catalog of over 100 million items, finding your particular needle is possible, but tricky. Happily, the LOC catalog uses Boolean terms. Search syntax for keyword searching in the Library of Congress online catalog is similar to that of some Internet search engines—use double quotes for phrase searches and type Boolean operators in uppercase. For example, to get an exact phrase in the subject field, you can enter “Spencer family” or “Madison County Alabama.” Do note, however, that the subject field may have county both spelled out and abbreviated as “co.” so search on both. You can search for specific states’ military pensions (military pensions Ohio), specific countries (Heraldry Ireland) and specific record types (Wills Madison County Alabama). You can search for specific books, too, by putting the title in quotation marks and the author after the connector AND.

  Many items do not circulate; however, an interlibrary loan may be possible. For libraries in the United States, the Library of Congress serves as a source for material not available through local, state, or regional libraries. A book circulated this way must be used on the premises of the borrowing library; it becomes a temporary reference for that library’s collection for up to 60 days. Requests are accepted from academic, public, and special libraries that make their own material available through participation in an interlibrary loan system. Participation is usually indicated by membership in one of the major U.S. bibliographic networks (for example the Online Computer Library Center or OCLC) or by a listing in the American Library Directory (Bowker) or the Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers (Gale). So if you find an item that you feel may help your genealogy search, check with your local public library to see if they can participate. You will need the LOC call number (the LOC does not use the Dewey Decimal System), author, title, and date of publication.

  American Memory

  This section contains documents, photographs, movies, and sound recordings that tell some of America’s story. The direct link is www.memory.loc.gov.

  On the American Memory home page, you can click Collection Finder to explore other primary source material. The collections are grouped by subject, then time, then place, and then library division. You can also browse by format if you want a sound file or picture. Each collection has its own distinct character and subject matter, as well as narrative information to describe the content of the collection. Whereas searching all the collections at once could leave items of interest to you “buried” in a long list, visiting a collection’s home page and reading the descriptive information about the collection can give you more direction in finding what you want.

  American Treasures

  This section of the site is of interest more for the wonderful historical artifacts found there than for any specific genealogy information. The direct link is www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures.

  Note

  If you’re researching African-American roots, you’ll want to look at the African-American Odyssey page at www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/aohome.html. This exhibition examines the African-American quest for full citizenship and contains primary source material, as well as links to other African-American materials at the LOC.

  Using the Library of Congress

  Click Using The Library of Congress on the home page, and you can click your way through an excellent tutorial on the ins and outs of researching the library in person. If you need to make a trip to the LOC, reading this section first can save you some time and frustration.

  The Library Today

  This link from the home page tells you about new exhibits, collections, and events at the LOC and its website. Visit it at least once a week because anything new posted to the website will be announced here. The direct link is www.loc.gov/today/.

  Research Tools

  The Research Tools page at www.lcweb.loc.gov/rr/tools.html takes you to a large set of useful links of interest for researchers, both on the LOC site and on other websites. These include desk references you can use on the Web, the LOC card catalog of all materials (including those not online), and special databases.

  The Vietnam Era Prisoner of War/Missing in Action and Task Force Russia Databases at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pow/powhome.html are examples of databases. This URL takes you to a page that gives you access to a massive database of over 137,000 records pertaining to U.S. military personnel.

  National Archives and Records Administration

  The Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration together are a treasure trove for the family historian. However, using these resources can also be like a snipe hunt! Unlike a library, where you walk up to the card catalog computer, type a subject, find the Dewey Decimal System number, walk to the shelf, and get the book, the archive is organized by government agency. Furthermore, what you find in that catalog at the archives may be a book, a manuscript, or a government whitepaper. This complexity means that first-time archive users often need help.

  At the NARA, whether online or in person, you can get that help. At many national archives, that is not the case. For example, Britain’s Public Record Office has rows of volumes listing the contents of files for the Admiralty, the Foreign Office, and Scotland Yard, but the polite archivist there will simply point you to the right shelf. France’s Archives Nationales and Germany’s Bundesarchiv operate the same way. Though the NARA has a long tradition of helping researchers one on one, that may not be the case for long if funding woes continue.

  Freedman’s Bureau

  Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein announced in early 2007 that the National Archives completed the five-year project to preserve and microfilm the field office records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau). Now the LOC has 1,000 rolls of microfilm reproducing over 1 million Bureau field office records from the former Confederate states, the border states, and the District of Columbia. All of the microfilm series of the field office records are available for research free of charge at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., and at the National Archives’ 13 regional archives nationwide.

  Following the Civil War, the Freedmen’s Bureau helped former slaves make the transition from slavery to freedom by issuing food and clothing, operating hospitals and refugee camps, establishing schools, helping legalize marriages, supervising labor agreements, and working with African-American soldiers and sailors and their heirs to secure back pay, bounty payments, and pensions. The records created during the course of these activities are a rich source of documentation of the African-American experience in late-nineteenth-century America, and are essential for the study of African-American genealogy and Southern social history.

  Note

  Included in these extraordinary records are registers that give the names, ages, and former occupations of freedmen, as well as names and residences of former owners. For some states, there are marriage registers that provide the names, addresses, and ages of husbands and wives and their children. There are also census lists, detailed labor and apprenticeship agreements, complaint registers, rosters with personal data about Black veterans (including company and regiment), and a host of documentation concerning the social and economic conditions of the Black family. These are available for $65 per roll for domestic orders and $68 per roll for foreign orders—details on how to order are on the website.

  Also, don’t miss the section of American Memory that is devoted to African-American research. It has several pages describing how to research African-American and Native American genealogy in the NARA site (see Figure 11-3) that may help you. It’s at www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/index.html.

  FIGURE 11-3. The African-American Research page on the NARA site may help you.

  Other NARA Areas to Explore

  You can click the Research Room link in the navigation bar to the left of the ho
me page and go to Genealogy from there, or you can go straight to www.archives.gov/research/genealogy. Here you’ll find information for beginners, such as the About Genealogy Research page and a list of research topics in genealogy with links to NARA resources that deal with them. Also, the website has pages to help with Chinese, Hispanic, Japanese-American, Native American, and Other Ethnic Groups/Nationalities, as well as African-American genealogy.

  More advanced genealogists will want to read about the census catalogs, the online catalogs, Soundex indexing, and the latest additions to the collection. All genealogists should read the frequently asked questions (FAQs) file and the latest list of genealogy workshops. After touring this general help area, you’re ready to tackle the specific resources on the NARA site.

  Access to Archival Databases

  You can search various subsets of the NARA holdings from their web databases, starting at http://aad.archives.gov/aad. The Access to Archival Databases (AAD) is a searchable set of records preserved permanently in the NARA. These records identify specific persons, geographic areas, organizations, and dates over a wide variety of civilian and military data, and have many genealogical, social, political, and economic research uses. Among the most popular of these databases are:

  • World War II Army Enlistment Records

  • Records of Prime Contracts Awarded by the Military Services and Agencies

  • Records on Trading of Securities by Corporate Insiders

  • World War II Army Enlistment Records

  • Records About the Proposed Sale of Unregistered Securities by Individuals

  • Data Files Relating to the Immigration of Germans to the United States

  • Central Foreign Policy Files

  OPA

  The Online Public Access (OPA) portal replaced the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) in 2013. Online Public Access searches all webpages on Archives.gov and returns the websites’ pages, plus catalog records, biographies, and histories from the ARC. Among the results will be electronic records that are available in OPA for viewing and/or downloading. The results will have a line that reads something like, “Includes 18 file(s) described in the catalog.” Any of the hits with electronic records available online will appear in the “Online Holdings” grouping of search results.

  Part of what is so wonderful about this updated catalog is the quick access to specific collections, such as the Guion-Miller Roll Index and the Index to the Final Rolls (Dawes)—two censuses of Native American populations from the 1800s and early 1900s—the World War II Army and Army Air Force Casualty List, and the World War II Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard Casualty List.

  ALIC

  The Archives Library Information Center (ALIC) is for professionals such as NARA staff and librarians nationwide. Its website is www.archives.gov/research/alic.

  ALIC provides access to information on American history and government, archival administration, information management, and government documents to NARA staff, archives- and records-management professionals, and the general public.

  On the ALIC page, you’ll see links to quick searches of the book catalog, NARA publications on research, and special collections. Under Reference At Your Desk, you’ll see a list of topics, including Genealogy and History. The former has general links to NARA pages already covered in this chapter, as well as links to other websites that can help with genealogy. The latter does the same for general history sites.

  Microfilms

  From the NARA Genealogy page, you can click Search Microfilm Catalogs. The catalogs list the various microfilms you can purchase, rent, or view onsite from NARA. These 3,400 microfilms can be searched by keyword, microfilm ID, record group number, and/or NARA location. Most of NARA’s microfilm lists and descriptive pamphlets are not online. By searching for microfilm publications in the Microfilm Publications Catalog, however, you will be able to find out if a roll list or descriptive pamphlet is available. You will need to contact one of the NARA locations listed in the Viewing Location field(s) of the microfilm publication description to find out how to get a copy of the descriptive pamphlet or roll list.

  Of particular interest is the Genealogical and Biographical Research catalog. This edited list of NARA microfilm publications is at www.archives.gov/publications/microfilm-catalogs/biographical/index.html. It lists the land records, tax records, court records (including naturalization!), and war records available on microfilm.

  Federal Register Publications

  The Federal Register (www.archives.gov/federal-register) is a legal newspaper published every business day by NARA. It contains federal agency regulations; proposed rules and notices; and executive orders, proclamations, and other presidential documents. NARA’s Office of the Federal Register prepares the Federal Register for publication in partnership with the Government Printing Office (GPO), which distributes it in paper form, on microfiche, and on the World Wide Web.

  Prologue

  The quarterly NARA magazine Prologue has a webpage you can link to from the NARA home page, or you can go directly to www.archives.gov/publications/prologue. Special issues, such as the 1997 “Federal Records in African-American Research,” may be posted almost in their entirety, but usually, a regular issue has one or two features on the website, plus the regular column “Genealogy Notes.” A list of previous columns can be found in the navigation bar from the Prologue page. This site is worth bookmarking.

  Note

  Much of what is available on the LOC and NARA sites would be most helpful for intermediate to advanced genealogists. The best way to use these sites is to have a specific research goal in mind, such as a person’s military record or a name in a Work Projects Administration (WPA) oral history from the 1930s. The beginner will find the schedules of workshops on the NARA site and the how-to articles on the LOC site helpful, as well as the schedule of NARA workshops and seminars around the country.

  Government Land Office

  I just “glowed” when I found this resource, the Government Land Office (GLO) site. You can search for and view online original land grants and patents between 1820 and 1928, and order copies from the site.

  Land Patent Searches

  Go to www.glorecords.blm.gov, and click Search Land Patents in the navigation bar. Type the state and name you are looking for, and you’ll get a list of matching records. For individual records, you can see a summary, the legal land description, and the document image. Not all states are available now, but the BLO is working hard to include them.

  Note

  Land patents document the transfer of land ownership from the federal government to individuals. These land patent records include the information recorded when ownership was transferred.

  You can also obtain a certified copy of a record you find. In addition, you will find a link to a glossary page with details on what the search fields mean. This site does not cover the 13 colonies, their territories, and a few other states, although the site does have resource links for most states. This is because in the early years of the United States, the Congress of the Confederation declared it would sell or grant the unclaimed lands in “the West” (that is, what is now Alabama, Michigan, parts of Minnesota, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin). The United States could then sell this unclaimed land to raise money for the Treasury. In turn, the United States gave up its claims to any land within the boundaries of the original colonies.

  When you are researching these records, please remember that things were hardly organized in the first 50 years of our nation. Click the FAQ link for some good tips on what to look for. Here’s a good example of the kind of help you’ll find in the GLO FAQ:

  Q. What is the Mississippi/Alabama and Florida/Alabama “Crossover?” A. The St. Stephens Meridian and Huntsville Meridian surveys cross into both Mississippi and Alabama, creating situations where the land offices in St. Stephens and Huntsville, Alabama, and in Columbus, Mississippi, sold lands in both states. We suggest that anyone researching that area take a look at
the databases for both states. The original state line between Alabama and Florida did not close against the Tallahassee Meridian survey (which covered all of Florida), but rather against the earlier St. Stephens Meridian survey in south Alabama. The state line was later resurveyed, creating a situation where some Tallahassee Meridian lands fell across the border into Alabama. We suggest that anyone researching that area take a look at the databases for both states.

  One of the best resources on this site is the database of survey plats, searchable maps of the original townships. This means that if you have a land grant that gives the boundaries, you will be able to get a small map showing the land. The drawings were created to represent survey lines, boundaries, descriptions, parcels, and subdivisions mentioned in every federal land patent.

  With the online shopping cart, you may request certified copies of land patents, either electronically or through the mail. Hard copy will be on a letter-sized sheet of paper (8.5 × 11 inches) of your preference (plain bond or parchment paper).

  Census Records

  Census records are available in a variety of forms, both online and offline. Census Links is a site with many different country censuses. As you can see in Figure 11-4, www.censuslinks.com has transcriptions of censuses, such as “Roll of Emigrants That Have Been Sent to the Colony of Liberia, Western Africa, by the American Colonization Society and Its Auxiliaries, to September, 1843” and “Ecclesiastical Census of Revilla (Mexico) 1780.”