Recent Delvings

Image by Angelo Giordano from Pixabay

In the last short while, I've come across some great online resources to help me with my genealogical research. They may be well-known to you already, but I'm just discovering them! If they're new to you, too, I hope you find them as useful and interesting as I do.

Maritime History Archive

The Maritime History Archive, created by Memorial University, holds approximately 75 percent of the surviving crew lists (also called crew agreements) and official log books of British registered vessels for the periods 1857-1942 (predominantly 1863-1938) and 1951-1976.  I found out about this great resource when a kind friend used it to identify the means by which a relative of mine arrived in the United States. Thanks, Ardis!

Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland 

This provides the origins of Scottish locations whose names originate in the Gaelic language. Many other place names derive from Brythonic Celtic, Scots, Norse or English, though. I can highly recommend the excellent book “Glasgow’s Gaelic Place-names” for explanations of the different sources for some of the city's place names. 

Birlinn also publish “The Celtic Place-names of Scotland”, in e-book format. This is an older title that covers British, Pictish, and Gaelic place names, and some chapters from it are available on the website of the Scottish Place-Name Society under “Resources”. This site covers the subject in great detail, and it's fascinating to learn about the name origins of the places where our ancestors lived.

Registry of Deeds Index Project Ireland

The Registry is described as “a repository of records of wills, land transactions in Ireland and other deeds from 1709”. This website hosts an index and a guide to using the free-to-view FamilySearch digital collection of these records.

Ulster Historical Foundation

This organisation hosts many records, including a freely searchable index of migrant Ulster Scots, and smaller, more area-specific databases. This is a society well worth joining for the member-only records it provides!

Hebrides People (formerly Cò Leis Thu?) 

A long-time favourite website of mine has had a makeover. For genealogies of the Western Isles, you can’t get better than this site which draws on oral histories as well as land, church, and state records. Its Croft History series of books is excellent; if your ancestors hailed from any of the Outer Hebrides, these are invaluable for finding detailed information about those who lived and worked there, and those who left for other parts of the world.

Maintenance Alert

Next week, ScotlandsPeople will be offline as the website is "refreshed". The scheduled work will take place from 0001 on Sunday 1st September until 1200 on Tuesday 3rd September (BST). Hopefully it will mean improvements to the usability of the site!

Free Family History Mini-Class 2024: Lesson 10

 

Image by Deactivated from Pixabay

For the final lesson in this series of mini-classes, I’m sharing some online tools that you may find helpful as you continue with your research, whether that’s just beginning, or is a long-term project.  These ideas can build your skills as well as your family tree – and like everything else in this course, they are completely free.

☙  Try a spot of descendant research, using the intriguing Puzzilla app that connects to your FamilySearch Tree.  If you don't have a FamilySearch account yet, check out the (free) benefits here.

☙  Have FT Analyzer check out your GEDCOM file for potential lines of research or problems. Family historian and author Rachel Bellerby gave it a test drive and you can read her review here.

☙  Mind mapping for genealogy – use this study idea to organise your research, and perhaps download the free software it suggests. 

  

☙  Choose some of these PDF family tree charts to organise and display your genealogy. Scroll down to find the freebies! There are charts specially designed for photographs, children, and even racehorses...

☙  And finally, sign in to RootsTech Connect to access all the conference's archived classes and resources. You can do this with your FamilySearch account.

Thanks for taking my mini-classes! You can review them 

here on the Frugal Family History blog, or share them with your genealogy buddies – and come back soon to check out 

what else is new.

Free Family History Mini-Class 2024: Lesson 9

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

In this lesson I recommend some helpful websites that I've bookmarked on my virtual “reference shelf”.  Genealogists are constantly having to look things up, whether it's dates for historical context, or the meaning of obsolete words and phrases.  Below are some sources that could come in handy next time you’re stuck for an answer.

Family History Reference

FamilySearch Wiki  A real miscellany of useful genealogical resources. You can learn about different types of records, find out what’s available for a specific country and where, or download forms and worksheets, to name just a few of its features.

GENUKI  This is the must-have in your toolkit for British research.  It breaks the UK up into its constituent parts (not forgetting the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands), then counties, with location and contact information for archives, libraries, family history societies and parish churches.

Maps & Gazetteers

National Library of Scotland Maps  With extra-wide coverage (not just the UK) and the capacity to compare areas in different time periods, this is a perennial favourite with family historians.

Gazetteer of British Place Names  Search by postcode or place name with this superb reference tool.

Hometown Locator is my go-to gazetteer when working with United States records.  You can search or browse states, counties, and cities.

Dictionaries  

Dictionary of the Scots Language  Whether you've been stumped by an old Scottish will, or are just baffled by Burns, this is the perfect solution.

Genealogy Latin Dictionary  This resource is ideal for when you come across a random phrase in a parish register and have forgotten all your schoolgirl Latin. 

Obsolete Things

The National Archives’ Old Currency Converter  Ever wondered where those TV documentaries get their “in today’s money” equivalents?  Wonder no longer.

Old Medical Terminology  Great for understanding more about what killed off your ancestors in days gone by. 

History, Geography, & General Knowledge

Encyclopaedia Britannica  The world’s longest running encyclopaedia moved online many years ago, but it’s still more trustworthy than popular alternatives, and is excellent for putting your ancestors’ lives in a social or historical context.

Next time, in thefinal mini-class,

I’ll share some great free research tools.

 

Free Family History Mini-Class 2024: Lesson 8

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

In our digital age, many otherwise inaccessible historical sources and information are readily online, not just to read, but to search using keywords and names.  You’ll find that they are often provided in formats (such as PDF files) which can be downloaded to a mobile device for use on the go - ideal for reading on your journey to ancestral areas.

Digital resources are an indispensable element of the genealogist’s toolkit, and even more so when access to physical archives and libraries is limited.  Check out the following links, and hopefully you’ll identify sources that you can use in your research.  All of these are free to access. 

Books

HathiTrust hosts millions of digitised books from libraries the world over, while Project Gutenberg has free e-books of many classics and out-of-copyright titles. Internet Archive boasts not only digitised books, but software, films, and music as well.

Newspapers

Read my previous blog posts here and here for details of some of the essential free newspaper archives online.  Don't overlook these invaluable records of your ancestors' everyday lives.

Historical City & Trade Directories

Scottish Post Office directories list names, addresses, and trades or occupations of people in urban areas from the 18th century onwards. 

For England & Wales, there are similar Trade & Local Directories from the 1700s to the 1910s.

United States city directories from about 1749 to circa 1990 can be searched by name as a complete collection at FamilySearch.

Area histories

To learn more about the local history of specific counties or parishes, there are the Victoria County Histories covering England, and for Scotland, the 18th- and 19th-century editions of the Statistical Accounts.  

Digital Collections

Such resources include many images that can bring your family’s history to life.  These are just a few suggestions.

SCRAN offers still, sound and moving images from hundreds of museums, including the Victoria & Albert and National Galleries of Scotland.  View buildings where your ancestors lived, worked, or went to school, objects they might have used, and views they would have looked out on. You can log into this website using your public library membership details.

United Kingdom

The national libraries of Scotland and Wales have excellent digital collections, many of which can be accessed at home free of charge. See my previous blogpost about them here. Unfortunately the British Library's online offering was affected by a cyber attack in 2023 and is not available at the time of writing.

Ireland

Fordham University in New York City provides an extensive list of links to free digital content from Irish libraries, archives and museums, including many sources of use to family historians.

United States

The US Library of Congress’s vast range of subject matter, from music to maps, includes local, social, and business history collections in different formats.  The collection "America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894-1915" is just one highlight of a fascinating online repository. 

The next class will introduce you
to some essential reference tools
for family history research.