A young reader of my blog, Jake, recently shared with me a website worthy of your attention.

As you may know, ship passenger lists are among the “holy grails” of genealogy research.  They can be the link to your ancestor’s home country, the prior generation, and the means and method of immigration to America.  Finding those often elusive passenger lists can be quite a challenge.

Jake found a compilation of source links on an unlikely website.  Cruisedirect.com is for most people a place where you find and book cruise ships for your travel pleasure.  Surprisingly, they have a page – Finding Your Family from Passenger Ship Lists that aggregates links to other sources and other directories, such as the Ellis Island database.

Additionally, it has a long list of research tips for genealogists just getting started and other research opportunities when looking for passenger lists.

Thanks for the tip, Jake.

Happy Researching!

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Passenger Manifest – Jane Foulk

One of the long sought-after pieces of information in genealogy research is the migration trail. How did my family get here?

I found a novel source for my in-laws in a ship passenger manifest. My father-in-law was a career Navy doctor and stationed in Japan in the mid-1950s.  I found a passenger manifest documenting the journey of the rest of the family to join him.  A fabulous find in and of itself; however, it offered the added bonus of listing the birth locations of each of the children.  And there in lies a migration path.  As a military family, they moved fairly frequently from base to base at the same time the family was growing.  Plot the birth locations and dates on a map, and voila! you have a migration trail.

Incidentally, my husband, Robert, was born in Japan.  His was the last child’s birth to be plotted in this migration trail.

Happy researching!

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I had a great time last Wednesday evening presenting my class on The Battle for Bountly Land – War of 1812 to the Mexican American War.  It’s a fabulous slice of American history and genealogy treasures well worth investigating.

Legacy Family Tree makes the webinars available, free to the public for a week after the event. So, you can listen to it at your convenience through next Tuesday.  Follow the link here.

Here are a few of the very kind comments from those who attended:

Another AWESOME webinar – very meaningful – and will be very useful!!! Really enjoy the live immediate usage of presentation concepts and tools!!! THANKS TO ALL!!!

Beth really laid it out in an understandable and concise manner! I’m ready to research:-)

Beth was great! Gave new information I hadn’t heard previously. Thank you, Beth and Geoff!

Beth was terrific. She clearly explained the types of records, where to find them, and how to use them in conjunction with other records. Thanks so much.

Excellent presentation! This was the first webinar by Beth that I have attended. I will be looking at her other webinars in the Legacy library. Thanks again for a pleasurable and informative webinar.

The post The Battle for Bounty Land – Webinar Recording appeared first on Genealogy Decoded.

This is a little-known story of how our ancestors literally had to fight to get benefits in the form of bounty land for their military service.  There were winners and losers in the story, but the clear winner are the genealogists of today, who have a bounty of records because of this chapter in our history.  Find military records, land records, migration stories, legal documents, and more.

I hope you’ll join me for this presentation and Q&A on this most fascinating, truly American story.

And did I mention it’s FREE?

All the details and registration form can be found here: http://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=376.  While you’re there, please check out my other classes in the Legacy Family Tree Webinar Archives.

See you online!

The post Upcoming Webinar – The Battle for Bounty Land appeared first on Genealogy Decoded.

I have the honor of presenting the opening day Free Beginner Classes – Introduction to Genealogy, Secrets of Ten Record Groups, and “If I’d Only Known – Beginner Mistakes.”  These three classes are packed full of tips, tricks, techniques, and the all important resources to get you off to a running start in your genealogy research – or a great refresher if you have been at this awhile.

Additionally, I’ll be presenting two of my most popular classes – Problem Solving with Timelines and Problem Solving with FANs.  Here you’ll find excellent tools to climb over even the most daunting of brick walls.

But to be sure, the conference isn’t about me.  Headlining are three of the best genealogy speakers in the business – Claudia Breland, Lisa Louise Cooke, and Blaine Bettinger.

The Conference is August 17th to August 20th, hosted by the Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society at the Byrnes Performing Arts Center in Arlington, Washington.  All of the details and registration forms can be found at www.NwGC.org.

Hope to see you there!

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And the census, while helpful and interesting, offered information like you might expect.

Pierre Derocher (family)

The post The 1797 New Madrid MO Census – with family specific notes appeared first on Genealogy Decoded.

That’s why I’m tickled to see that they have introduced Research Guides. Tucked in their free section (no membership required) is a portfolio of subject-specific research guides for anyone and everyone to use.  The guides help you navigate the 10 billion records and tens of thousands of databases on Ancestry.com, which is great in and of itself.  But they also give you subject-specific helpful insight such as history, key terms, abbreviations, and other information far and away beyond a simple description of a database.

Quaker Research

Guide to Finding Quaker Records by Ancestry

One of their research guides is the Research Guide to Finding Your Quaker Ancestors.  It’s an eight-page, well written and designed cheat sheet to understanding the nature and complexity of Quaker research.  Naturally, they explain who the Quakers are with a little blurb on Quakers and Slavery.  Then they break down the nature of Quaker Records – the meeting hierarchy, they explain the birth and death registers and the marriage records.  Then they explain the uniquely Quaker certificates of removal, disownments and apologies.  Finally, there is a discussion of uniquely Quaker terms to help you unpack this world.  I’m surprised that they don’t list the Quaker databases on Ancestry.com.  Maybe there are just too many to list.  (You can go to the SEARCH drop-down list and search the card catalog for the keyword “Quaker,” and probably get the vast majority of the databases.) Nonetheless, it is a very helpful guide.

Loyalist Research

Loyalist Resources on Ancestry

Another interesting guide is the one on Loyalists.  It’s my understanding that one-third of the Colonists were actively supporting the Revolution, one-third were Loyalists (supportive of England), and the last third weren’t interested and had better things to do such as tend to their farms.  No doubt there are plenty of Loyalist descendants looking for information and records.  This guide offers a brief history to understand the Loyalists, then it gives an extended list of hyperlinked databases for your researching pleasure.  Just click on the database of your choice and start searching.  Just follow this link (Loyalist Resources on Ancestry) to get started.

These are just two of the guides you will find.  There are about two dozen at the moment and it looks like they are adding more regularly.  Here are a couple more.

• Search Strategies on Ancestry
• Using Religious Records
• African American Research on Ancestry
• Finding your Immigrant Ancestors on Ancestry
• Find them in WWII
• Black Sheep: 10 Things to Know

Again, this is just a sampling.  Go to the main page for Research Guides in the Learning Center – you can access it here – for the full and updated list.  And check back often, as I mentioned they seem to be adding more and more.  Indeed, you can even submit a suggestion for a new guide.

I’m glad to see Ancestry offering help navigating their vast collection to genealogists.  I hope you’ll find these research guides helpful as I have.

Happy Researching!

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Beth Foulk presenting at Missouri State Genealogy Assn Conference

I had the pleasure of returning to speak for the third consecutive year at the Missouri State Genealogical Association Annual Conference in Columbia, Mo. last weekend.  For the first time, I had the opportunity to give a workshop, which is a 2-hour presentation where the subject matter can be explored in more depth than a standard 1-hour presentation.  My workshop was on problem solving using timelines and FANs (friends/family, associates and neighbors).  Then on Day 2, I was first up on the docket with my presentation on The Battle for Bounty Land: War of 1812 & Mexican/American War.  It is a fascinating and little-told piece of American History that offers a huge wealth of records to the genealogist.  The Conference was held at the lovely Stoney Creek Inn, which offers ample room and very nice accommodations for the attendees.

The featured speaker was Josh (D. Joshua) Taylor, who was absolutely exceptional.  I’ve seen a fair number of “national speakers,” and I would easily put him at the top of my list.  He had excellent content, visuals and delivery.  And his subject matter was broad and deep.  I could have sat through another several presentations by him.  One of the neatest things at the conference was the “after dinner entertainment” he provided.  After dinner on Friday evening (the first of the two days of the event), he did a 30-minute presentation with Q&A afterwards on life behind the scenes of the genealogy shows of which he has been a part.  You may know him from Who Do You Think You Are? formerly on NBC and now on TLC, and currently on PBS’s Genealogy Roadshow, soon to start filming its next season in St. Louis, Mo!  Nonetheless, if you get a chance to see him at a conference, put him high on your selection list.  The class will be well worth your time.

Well, it was a great experience both speaking and participating in the annual MoSGA (Missouri State Genealogical Assn.) Conference.  I know they’ve already made plans to return to Stoney Creek Inn in Columbia, MO next year, and the featured speaker will be Judy Russell – the Legal Genealogist.  Mark your calendars now for next August!

Happy researching!

The post Missouri State Genealogical Association Conference | A Look Back appeared first on Genealogy Decoded.

I’ve listed and linked with their brief descriptions to the Civil War soldier records indexes they have available for free online.

• Index to Kansas Adjutant General’s Report – The Kansas Adjutant General’s Report, 1861-1865, lists the names of troops who served in the Kansas volunteer regiments during the Civil War. This index includes the name, regiment and company, and place of residence for each soldier. 
• Kansas Civil War Militia Index – During the Civil War, the Kansas State Militia were mainly called upon to help repel Price’s Raid on the Kansas-Missouri border in October 1864.   This index points the user to the ACTUAL muster roll pages, which have been digitized and saved online.  Here’s my ancestor, Jonas (JC) Greenwood, on the muster roll (partial view only).  It gives his unit, where he mustered (Topeka), when he joined and was discharged and his rank.

Jonas Greenwood – Kansas Civil War Muster Roll

• Civil War Veterans in Kansas – This database currently contains over 28,000 names of Union veterans of the Civil War who lived in Kansas after 1865. The names are from rosters or reunion proceedings at the KSHS Library. Many of the rosters were based on the 1889 census of veterans that was authorized by the state legislature. The list of the sources included in this database is listed below. This information was input by KSHS staff and volunteers and includes the name of the veteran, the state in which he served, place of residence when the list was compiled and the source of information.
• Kansas Members of the Grand Army of the Republic – The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a volunteer organization, with membership limited to Union veterans of the Civil War, that supported and advocated for veterans’ rights and pensions. This index to members of the GAR, Department of Kansas, is based on the membership lists from northeast Kansas GAR posts published in the 1894 state roster and the 1917 state roster, with additional names added from the annual reports and records of individual posts dating from circa 1880 to 1943. The index was created by donor Robert Wandel.  The index currently includes about 100 of the more than 500 Kansas posts, mostly those in northern and northeastern Kansas.

If your ancestors lived in Civil War Era Kansas – or were on route elsewhere from 1861 to 1865, it’s worth your time to check out these databases.  Who knows what you may find.

Happy Researching!

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